No one else had disappeared.
Jack felt a strange sort of satisfaction. Was he the next target? Should he have disappeared, too? Boris claimed there was blood all over the sheets. That whatever had happened was messy, dramatic. That Jack just laid there and bled even after a combination of salt and screaming woke him from whatever trance he’d been in.
If he’d actually died, would he have come back? Or would he be another news report?
At three o’clock, he called Carla.
“I’m not gonna come by today,” he said, voice cracking.
“Why the fuck not?”
“Boris and I, uh, got attacked by that thing last night. The lady he told us about.”
“What thefuck?”
“My head hurts so bad,” he said, nearly sobbing. Even thinking about what had happened last night sent a fresh wave of fear through him, scurrying into his hollows like a horde of rats seeking shelter from some unfathomable horror.
“Are you OK?”
“I think it tried to drink my blood.”
A long pause. “I’m coming over.”
“Hurry?”
“Yeah, baby, I’ll hurry. I’ll see you soon.”
PART 3
CHAPTER
THIRTY-NINE
Carla spentthe night in Jack’s bed. Boris slept on the floor, wrapped in so many blankets that he resembled an overstuffed burrito. Jack woke only periodically to ensure that there weren’t any empty eye sockets staring at him.
But whatever haunted them last night didn’t return.
He missed the moment Carla vanished, blinking awake to find that he was alone. It was four a.m.
By sunup, Jack felt a little less hungover. Had stopped throwing up, even if his head ached and his throat was still sore. After the nine o’clock news, he dragged himself to the lobby, where Boris sat staring listlessly into space. A book lay face down on the desk, its spine cracked. He startled when Jack appeared.
Three additional people disappeared in the night. A young couple and an elderly man. All three left behind massive blood stains and no other traces.
“At least it didn’t come after us,” Boris said, but his expression betrayed his worry. One uneventful night wasn’t exactly reassuring.
“We gotta figure out how to stop this,” Jack said. His voice was scratchy, but there was nothing outwardly wrong with him. No bruises, no cuts or scrapes. No vampire bites.
A part of him was afraid that he’d experience some sort ofterrifying change, like in the movies, but that hadn’t happened. So far, he was fine. Still eating and drinking and using the bathroom like normal. All things Rainey’s vet would have enquired about if he’d brought her in for a mysterious bite.
A doctor probably wouldn’t have been helpful. Besides, Boris had a similar encounter, which meant that he’d probably been bitten, too, and he hadn’t sprouted any fangs or become inexplicably hairy.
Not yet, anyway.
But they didn’t know the effects of physical injury in the time loop. He shouldn’t ache for days afterward. Boris shouldn’t be so sickly (though he was looking far healthier now that he was sleeping and eating more regularly).
And anyone who diedshouldhave revived the next day.
Was the loop deteriorating? Were the rules changing? Why had Brenda, of all people, come back? Was it because she wasn’t killed by the vampire? Or was there something else at play?
