An Apple for the Creature

“Yeah.” Louise thought back. “The body was discovered in the victim’s dorm room, just like you said. We got called by the medical examiner’s office because it was an unattended death. In a nearly fetal position, wrapped snugly in her sheet and blanket, with her pillow on her head, and her face turned to the wall. There were no marks of any remarkable sort on the body, except some small creases in her skin where it pressed into the sheets. Her lower side was mottled purple. Postmortem lividity, it was called, and it clearly indicated that she had died in that position.” Her voice had become mechanical, as she remembered. “The kid, Claire, was eighteen, with streaked blue and red hair. Faded blue flannel pajama bottoms covered with SpongeBob SquarePants, athletic socks, and a new Hawkeye sweatshirt.” She paused again, thinking. “Totally normal kid. Toxicology came back negative. Nothing. No blood alcohol, no dope in her or in the room, no prescription drugs other than some sinus medication used by her roommate. According to her driver’s license, she had been five feet six, and weighed 133 pounds. When they weighed the corpse, she came in at 102 pounds. Emaciated. Totally skin and bones. We asked around. Her parents hadn’t seen her for three months, but got phone calls about three times a week. When they were interviewed, provided no history of any eating disorders. Neither did her local doctor. The autopsy revealed no anomalies anywhere. She was a perfectly healthy, dead eighteen-year-old. Best we had to go on was her roommate said that Claire had been listless recently. Said that she had urged Claire to go to Student Health, because it might be mononucleosis. So I checked. No record of her going to Student Health. The pathologist ruled out mono anyway.” She snorted. “Along with anything else specific. Said it was a toss-up between sudden adult death syndrome and total exhaustion. In other words, they hadn’t a clue.”

“Great.”

“Yeah. I admit it, that one bothered me. My niece had the same pajama bottoms.”

“Ah.”

“They told us that most cases of chronic fatigue really don’t have a discoverable root cause. Ranges from depression to overworking to dope to, well, none of it was present in the workups. Not anything specific.” She looked over at him. “How’d you get interested in her?”

“Her case was referred to us,” said George. “Well, not referred, so much as her blood, kind of, got in the hands of one of our forensic pathologists. At the request of the pathologist in Iowa City. Our folks discovered minute traces of that venomlike stuff.”

“Why wasn’t I told about that?” asked Louise, suddenly angry.

“You just were,” said George. “And keep it to yourself, because not even your local pathologist has been told.”

“It was murder, then,” she said.

“Well, sort of.”

“You can’t sort of murder somebody!”

“Well, as it turns out, yes, you sort of can.”

She stared at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Well,” he said, “the attorney general’s office thinks there may be an outside chance that this critter may not actually be doing this intentionally. You know, kisses a girl, she goes all gaga, and whatever it is thinks, gee, I’m a great kisser.”

“Seriously?”

“Not as far as I’m concerned, anyway. But it’s something we have to settle before we can make it a crime. Act and the intent, ya know. Whatever we’re dealing with has to know, or reasonably anticipate the effect, and then do it anyway. Then it’s murder.”

—

They drove on, into a sky darkening with rain clouds. A thunderstorm, coming in from the northwest, was beating them to Iowa City.

—

“You’re gonna keep telling me it was a vampire who did these,” said Louise. “Right?”

“Yeah.” George looked over at her. “Because it was.”

She stared at him. “You are fuckin’ nuts.”

“There are times when that would be a comfort,” he said, seriously. “You’re being told this because we hope you can be instrumental in our investigations. I know it’s not easy to buy in to this, but you pretty much have to, because it’s true.”

“Right.” She pursed her lips. “Okay, so why are we headed to IC?”

“To show you the next victims, we think. The student body has lots of, ah, susceptible people.”

“So you know who is doing this?”

“We have, ah, indications. High degree of probability. We don’t have enough to support a charge against it, or him, or whatever. Not yet. But we will.”

“Give me a minute,” she said.

A light rain began as they were passing the Williamsburg Interchange, and she spoke again. “Okay. Background.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he said. “That whole venomlike diagnosis thing? That got it started. It was referred to CDC in Atlanta. They told us, well, what to look for.”

“It’s nationwide?”

“Not quite. But they’ve found the same evidence in seven states. They described the circumstances of all the victims, including their social activities. Turns out that this venom shit is an STD, more or less.”

“Let me get this. . . . This vampire dude, he has venom instead of semen? He screws them to death, right? Come on. That’s just gross.”