Ghost Town

She left him looking at the TV and the game controllers, and went to pull the last two cans out of the fridge. Somebody was going to have to go shopping. She supposed she’d better do it soon, before she lost her mind, too. Even in an apocalypse like this, surely ru

Shane was sitting on the couch when she came back, and she handed over the can and sat on the other end, leaving plenty of comfort space between them. He nodded and popped the top. “So, I live here?”

“Yeah. Right up there.”

“That’s Michael’s room.”

“No, he’s over there now.”

“Huh, he always liked that room better.” He poked at the controller. “And we have an Xbox.”

“Actually, you’ve got an Xbox 360,” she said. “You bought it last year.”

“Sweet. What’s the difference?”

“Do you really want to talk about games right now?”

He stopped fiddling with the controller and put it down. “I guess not. Those other people out there, the ones acting so weird—they’ve got what I have, right? This memory problem. I didn’t just get kicked in the head or drugged or something.”

“No,” Claire said. “There’s a machine underground; it’s what wipes people’s memories when they leave town. But it’s not working right. It’s wiping memories inside town.”

He stopped to think about that. It said something about his childhood in Morganville that he didn’t, in fact, find that unbelievable at all. “How many people have it?”

“A lot. Maybe all of us, eventually. Michael got it yesterday. So did Eve. So did Amelie.”

Shane looked at her sharply. “Who?”

“You know. The Founder.”

“You know her by name?”

“So do you. But right now, she’s stuck in three years ago, just like you. She doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t remember Oliver or—”

“Who’s Oliver?”

This was going to be harder than she’d expected. “Never mind. The important thing is that before we went to sleep last night, we agreed we were going to find other people who could help us and we were going to try to turn off the machine.”

“We went to sleep together,” he said. “Without clothes.”

“Uh . . . yeah. We had underwear on, though.”

“Right. Why do I think that maybe it’s come off before?” He stared at her for what seemed like an uncomfortably long second, as if he were remembering her almost naked. “Okay, sounds easy enough. Let’s do it, if this is going to fix things.” He watched her expression, and said, “But it isn’t that easy. Is it?”

“The vamps won’t let us anywhere near where we need to go,” she said. “I can’t think of any of them we can count on now. Not even Michael.”

“Wait a second, what? Michael Glass? He is not a vampire. I think you mean his granddad Sam. Are you sure you really live here? Because that’s a pretty gigantic mistake.”

“I’m not talking about Sam,” Claire said. “Michael . . . Michael got bitten. And now he’s a vampire. But he doesn’t remember becoming one, and that’s a big problem. So if you see him, don’t, you know, hug. He bites. He doesn’t mean to, though.”

“You are freaking insane; I was right the first time about you. Michael, a vampire? Never happen.” But even though he said it, Shane didn’t try to get up and leave. “You’re not from Morganville. If you were, I’d remember you, right? So who are you, exactly?”

“I came to the university. That’s how I met you guys.”

He laughed. “Me? In college? Yeah, make up another one. Look, I barely got through last year in high school. I don’t think anybody’s going to be giving me college admission, not even to TPU, the crappiest school in Texas.”

“It’s not that bad,” Claire said, although she had no idea why she was trying to defend the place. It hadn’t done her many favors. “I didn’t meet you in college. I met you because of college. Because of Monica.”

“Morrell.”

“Bitch queen of Morganville,” Claire said. “Well, she’s still all that, and more. I guess she was pretty bad in high school, but trust me, she’s worse now.”

“Nice to know some things haven’t changed.” Shane pulled in a deep breath. “Okay, I didn’t want to ask, but . . . what about my mom and dad? Where are they?”

She just looked at him, and he finally turned his head away. “Okay,” he said. “I get it. They’re dead, too.”

“Your mom . . . your mom is,” Claire said. “I don’t know where she’s buried. Your dad’s . . . well—”

“Still an alcoholic jerk? Big shock.”

“No,” she said. “Your dad’s a vampire.”

Shane froze, eyes wide, and then laughed in a bitter, shocked kind of way. “Like hell he is. He’d kill himself first.”

“Trust me, I think he thought about it after it happened. But I guess he’s decided to hang around after all. Wait. . . . Maybe we can find him. Maybe he’s not affected yet. He might help us.”

“My dad? Even if he wasn’t a vampire—and I’m not buying that he is, by the way—he wasn’t big on doing favors for anybody. Not even his own kids. Maybe we’d better skip the family reunion.”

Claire wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t want to freak Shane out any more than she had to, and Frank Collins as a vampire was enough to freak anybody out. Much less his own son. “Okay,” she said. “But we have to find a way to get to that machine and shut it off. And we need help. Any help.”

“I’m glad you said that,” said a voice from behind them. “Because you’ve got no idea how much help you need.”

Claire and Shane both jumped off the couch, suddenly and completely on the same side; he even got in front of her, the kind of protective instinct Shane had always had, since the first time she’d met him. He might not believe her, or trust her, but he’d still fight for her.

Maybe because somewhere, deep down, he did remember.

Claire realized who was standing there, in the shadows by the stairs, about the same time that Shane did. It was the scar on his face that registered first, and then the rest of it . . . long, tied-back hair, a hard, unforgiving expression, a tough, thin body. He was wearing a leather vest over a Harley T-shirt and old jeans, and combat boots. He had a big, scary knife in a sheath at his waist.

Frank Collins.

Vampire.

“Dad,” Shane whispered.

“Hello, son.”

“How did you get in here?” Claire blurted, because she knew—knew—that the house itself had been on guard for Frank. But she hadn’t felt anything when he’d entered—no warnings, nothing.

Maybe the house thought they needed his help, too. Or, more worrying, maybe the machine had robbed the house of its protective ability, too. It was slowly destroying everything good in Morganville.

Frank shrugged. “I’ve been following the two of you around for a couple of days. Had to know what you were pla

Shane backed up a step and ran into Claire. She steadied him and whispered, “I told you.”

“It can’t be,” he said. “There’s some kind of—”

“Mistake?” Frank said, and jumped over the couch in one smooth, ominous vampire move to land right in front of them. They were up against the wall now, next to the TV. “Only mistake I ever made was coming back to this cursed town in the first place, Shane. And sending you back here to help. If we’d stayed on the road, we’d still be ru

“Ru

“Oh, come on, son. You think they really let us leave, just like that? We had help getting out, but they’d have brought us back, or killed us, if they’d caught us. Just like they killed your mother.”

Shane’s breath went out in a rushing moan, as if his dad had punched him. Claire put her hand on his shoulder and glared at Frank. “Stop it,” she said.