Vampire Boys Of Summer (Completed!)

Episode 21: Daddy Dream

Lying in bed, I tried to turn over all the events of the day in my head, but it was too much. Sensory overload. So much had been said from both Haru and Ryo that their voices in my memory began to sound like the other, until I was having trouble remembering who said what. When sleep came, it arrived heavy, but not heavy enough to stop the dreams of the Jigsaw man.

The jigsaw man was working another puzzle, its images constantly moving across the face of the pieces. This time it was not a scene completely alien to me, but was set in a familiar place. The school Auditorium. Like it was during school events, it depicted a crowded room populated by students and faculty alike. But instead of kids lounging around waiting for an assembly, they were lined up in rows heading to the front of the stage. It reminded me of a manufacturing line where parts were sent down a conveyor belt to be assembled further or completely taken apart. Or perhaps bleating lambs awaiting their own slaughter. The slaughter was taking place on the stage where vampires awaited to suck the blood out of everyone. A special line was set aside for the female students, and at the head of it stood two boys I recognized, Haru and Ryo. They appeared to be fighting over who got which girl coming up the line. At the head of the line was Amanda Trump smiling triumphantly, her neck bared for my vampire boys.

The jigsaw man looked at me and tried to speak. The garbled sound wasn’t anything I could recognize. In frustration, he made gestures to try to convey to me the message within the dream, but it was no use. Without a voice, his other methods fell flat. He pointed at something within the puzzle, a man suspended on a cross, bleeding to death right there on the stage. No one paid him any mind, nor did any vampire drink from the blood that poured from this man’s wounds. It was like he was tainted, and that to drink from him would dishonor them all. The man was my father.

When I jolted awake and called out, it wasn’t my dad’s name I called for, but my mom’s. Even my subconscious knew he wasn’t here. Mom may as well have not been there either, because she didn’t come. I lay in bed, bathed in sweat, my oversized Black Butler t-shirt clinging to me as if I’d been left out in the rain. My cell went off and I nearly screamed. Looking at the clock beside my bed, I saw it was two AM. Who would be calling at this hour? I got out of bed and retrieved my cell from its charger. I woke it up and the first message on my screen said I had missed a call. I opened up the call log and saw an unknown number with a voicemail waiting. I listened to the message. It was nothing but silence with a little bit of crackling static. Then a faraway voice asked, “Hello? Nora?” I recognized the caller instantly. It was Haru. I deleted the message.

“You vampire boys need to leave me alone,“ I muttered and returned to bed. Dreams of the jigsaw man left me alone for the rest of the night.

The next morning on my way to school, the dream of the night before returned to my thoughts. What did it all mean? Was I, or indeed the whole school, in danger from the Asian vampire boys? And what did my father have to do with it ? Before I left the house, I left a note for my mom on the refrigerator. “I’m going to go see dad this weekend,” it read. It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. You couldn’t ask mom for things because then she’d argue with you or try to talk you out of it. However, if you just came out and said what you were going to do, then she’d do it. Didn’t make much sense sometimes, but that was mom for you.

Another thing that didn’t make sense about the dream was that within the macabre puzzle I didn’t see myself nor Angela. Other students I had recognized. Amanda Trump had been at the head of the line. But where were we? And what did the Trumps have to do with anything?

And then there was Haru and Ryo. In the puzzle images they appeared to be fighting over something as they stood at the head of the line of female students. Was this something they did in every place they lived? Fight over girls and try to collect the best ones? If so, they shouldn’t fight over me, that’s for sure. I mean, I didn’t consider myself a member of ‘hit by the ugly stick’ club, but I wasn’t the kind of girl that guys fought over either. That’s just great, I had been wishing for a boyfriend all school year long, and suddenly I got two smoking hot Asian guys who may or may not be trying to hit on me.

When I got to school Angela seemed surprised. Not because she didn’t expect to see me, but because it was the first time I’d ridden my own school bus in like four months. “You sick?” she asked, nearly sprinting up to me.

“Nah, I’m okay. Just thought I’d ride this morning. I was up late last night.”

She grinned. “Oh my, what, or should I say who, kept you up?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” I teased.

“Yes, I would.”

“Haru,” I said. “I was talking to Haru.”

She gave me a mock shameful look. “You dirty girl. If it was me I would have been doing more than talking.”

“Who’s the dirty one then?” I laughed.

“Sooooo…what did you talk about?”

“Um, mostly about stars and stuff.”

“Stars? He doesn’t look like a science geek.”

“Oh, he’s not,“ I replied. “But he has some deep thoughts about them.”

“Romantic ones?”

“I suppose so. He didn’t….”

“Well, well, well…” a taunting voice said, sidling up alongside of us as we entered the school. “If it isn’t miss ‘I think I’m hot shit’ herself?”