The Biotechnology Board of Canada and Other Bloodsuckers (1.3)

So, nobody got killed.

Yeah, I know, serious anticlimax.

There’s so much blood. It’s all over the floor, all over her shirt, her jeans, everywhere. It’s streaked across the desk, pooling under her arm, spreading across the tile. Antoine took one look at it and started calling 911, but it looks like someone beat him to it because they hang up on him pretty fast. Thirty seconds later, Mr. Tang shows up and closes off the room with Antoine still in it. He insisted on giving first aid.

I look around at the crowd of kids who are just here to watch. They heard something was up, got here and didn’t do anything until Antoine had already run all the way across the field and up the stairs to the second floor. It disgusts me. I disgust me. I’m one of them, right? I watched Antoine be the sweetheart he is and get blood all over his new clothes and I didn’t so much as offer to help.

The door says ‘Linguistics Club’ in big black letters on a piece of taped-on printer paper. Right. The one that barely even qualifies as a club because maybe two people go to it regularly. I don’t recognize her, but that passed-out girl in there must be one of them.

Who stabs another kid in the arm over an argument in linguistics club!? There’s so much blood! What could possibly have happened!?

My brain goes into Sherlock mode. I can’t help it. Moriarty mode, maybe—I always liked him better.

Okay, these two kids—Maddy Jackson, I think, and whoever else she’s always with—are total outcasts who only formed this club so they’d have an excuse to hang out at lunch without interacting with anyone. They want to be part of an extracurricular to impress their parents. Otherwise, they’d just find some spot near the school to hang out and do whatever, like the delinquents do. It had to be a club. They’re stressed as hell because of their expectations, and they want to keep up appearances, and both of them have maybe one friend.

A crush. One of them has a crush on the other. They admit it, and it goes bad. It doesn’t matter why. It could be anything. That happens a couple days ago, and the person who gets rejected lets it build up in their head. Today’s Monday, so they haven’t seen each other since. Our attacker goes off the deep end. They’ve probably known each other for years, like me and Antoine, except I’m not a freak. Spurned lover takes a swiss army knife from home and brings it to the ‘club meeting’. They talk it out. She doesn’t know how crazy this other kid is. She acts normal, doesn’t want to talk about it. That’s not good enough.

Other kid goes full slasher film. And runs away, because only a crazy person could do something like that and not run. They get away because it’s a nice day and everyone is eating lunch outside, so nobody sees them running through the halls. So, we’re looking for a nerdy, dumpy outcast with blood on their clothes. Hey, I don’t have blood on my clothes! I’m not a suspect! Hooray!

You know, I bet they’re in one of the bathrooms on this floor trying to clean up, probably thinking she’s dead and losing their shit. I bet I could go find the person who did this right now.

Nah. I’m not a hero. I’ll tell Jet and Antoine. Jet’s athletic, and apparently immortal too, and Antoine’s… tall, I guess. Whatever. He looks like he can handle himself, and that’s all that really matters. It’d be two on one! Let’s catch an attempted murderer!

I push through the crowd of gawking teens for a couple of minutes before I finally find Antoine. He’s surrounded by swooning first-years who want to look at the blood. Shove off, you little rats, the blood wasn’t even that awesome! I want to talk to my best friend!

The colour’s drained from his face and he’s clutching his head, but by the time it registers how stressed he must be, how wrong something must be, I’m already talking.

“Hey. Hey, let’s go get Jet, I know where the culprit is. C’mon, let’s be detectives.”

“Sylv, shut up.” he says sharply.

My mouth hangs open.

“Hey, what the fuck? Come on. C’mon, I used my detective vision, what’s wrong with you? This is so cool. You’ve always wanted to actually act on the weird shit I figure out.” I say, realizing with every new word just how stupid I’m being, how bad things must be for him to act like this.

“She’s gonna be okay, but—Sylv—you don’t know anything. There’s bite marks on her arm. Mr. Tang thinks it’s a monster attack.”

School’s canceled. Obviously. As soon as the screaming and freaking out stops, that is. Even after that, murmurs and whispers follow me all the way off the grounds.

The detective vision’s got them beat, though. It follows me all the way home. Sure, I was wrong, but that doesn’t mean the case is over. It just means we’re in the first act.

Let’s catch a monster.