“Has anybody seen Delia?” I asked. “She promised to come and help with the posters.”
“I think she stopped to pick up Morgan,” Amber answered. She was on a tall ladder against the gym wall, tacking up the Beavis and Butt-Head poster.
I had about twenty helpers now, one day before the party, and the gym was looking like a nineties time warp. The long wall was nearly covered in posters and big color photos of all the shows and stars our nineties’ alumni watched.
We had Saved by the Bell and Fresh Prince and Ren & Stimpy and Full House posters. Caleb Farr, whose father worked at an ad agency in New York City during the nineties, gave us life-sized cutouts of the Power Rangers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
My favorite poster showed a great action scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I love that show. I watch the old episodes all the time on Netflix.
Amber finished tacking up the Beavis and Butt-Head poster. She climbed down the ladder and stepped up beside me to admire the poster gallery. She had beads of sweat glistening on her forehead. We had all been working really hard.
“My parents watched a show called Rugrats,” she said. “I don’t think it was about rats. They said it was huge. Everyone watched it.”
“I couldn’t find a Rugrats poster,” I said. “But I think we did pretty well.”
“Who is working on the music mix?” Amber asked.
“You know. Frankie Gerard. Mr. Tech. He told me he’s doing a two-hour jam. Mostly disco stuff.”
“Cool,” Amber said. “My cousin is seriously into nineties disco. Like the songs they play at basketball games during time-outs? ‘Pump Up the Jam’ . . . ‘Whoomp! (There It Is).’” I love that one.
“We have to test the sound system,” I said. “Make sure we can get it loud enough.” I sighed. “There’s still a lot to do.”
A loud crash made me jump.
I turned to see that the helium tank had fallen over. Some kids were hoisting it back up. We needed the helium to blow up the balloons. Something else that was on my list.
“Can I have everyone’s attention?” a voice boomed.
Calvin Imhoff, the so-called vampire hunter, strode into the gym. The doors closed loudly behind him. He had a bandage around the top of his head, dark glasses over his eyes. Even at a distance, I could see that his face was red and swollen.
He wore a black suit, white shirt open at the neck. He walked steadily to the center of the gym, eyes straight forward, not glancing at our poster-covered walls. He waved both arms, summoning everyone to gather around him.
Kids muttered and questioned each other. A lot of them had never seen Imhoff before and had no idea who he was. Amber and I hesitated, exchanging glances. What is he doing here? Why is he interrupting our work? Should we call the police?
It took Imhoff a while to get everyone quiet. He stood stiffly, facing everyone, hands jammed into his pants pockets. The high ceiling lights reflected off his sunglasses, filling the glass with silver so we couldn’t see his eyes.
“For those of you who haven’t met me, I’m Calvin Imhoff. I hunt vampires,” he started. He held up his badge.
“I saw a badge like that on eBay,” a boy shouted from the back of the crowd of kids. “Did you get a whistle, too?”
A few kids laughed.
Imhoff’s whole body stiffened. He bit his bottom lip. “I don’t think we want to make jokes when there’s a killer on the loose,” he said.
“I don’t think you want to be in here,” I told him. “I’m calling an administrator.”
“All of your lives are at risk!” he shouted.
Silence now. The only sound was the loud hum of the air-conditioning vents at the top of the gym. A poster hadn’t been tacked up right and made a flapping sound on the wall behind us.
“I want you to all be safe for your alumni carnival,” Imhoff continued. He scratched at the bottom of his bandage. “Some of my colleagues will be on duty. I want to assure you that we will take precautions and will be alert to any problem that might arise.”
I narrowed my eyes at Imhoff. Liam still thought he was the killer. But the police let him go. That had to mean they had somehow ruled him out. That it wasn’t him.
My mind whirred with questions. I thought about Winks. It was hard not to think about Winks.
“You mean, you think the killer may come to the carnival?” I asked.
Imhoff scratched at his bandage. “I’m just saying that we will be ready.” He shook his head bitterly. “I’ve failed so far. When I came to Linden, my assignment was to keep everyone safe. I’ve failed.”
He stood silent for a long moment. He pulled off his sunglasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His silvery eyes gazed down the line of kids.
“I knew who it was, and I couldn’t do anything about it,” he said. He twirled the sunglasses tensely in his hand. “I knew who it was. The vampire. That’s the specialty of my fellow workers, you know. We know who they are.”
I saw some kids shift uneasily. I heard some mumbles, and a few kids rolled their eyes.
I didn’t blame them. Imhoff seemed to be talking to himself, not to us. And what he was saying was strange. I couldn’t figure out why he was telling us all this.
“Sure, we try to keep it quiet. Isn’t there enough bad news? Enough problems to panic over?” he continued.
He didn’t notice that people were getting restless, eager to get back to their decorating chores and preparations.
Imhoff’s eyes darted from side to side. He slid the sunglasses back over them. “I knew who it was when I came here,” he repeated. “I tried to warn off that boy Winkleman. I tried to scare him away from her.”
He shook his head. He definitely was talking to himself now. He was looking down, shaking his head, rubbing the bandage over his hair. “I failed. I tried to scare him. I was too late. I knew her. I knew who the vampire was.”
His voice was strained now. His chest was heaving with each breath.
“I knew . . . I knew her . . . I knew . . . But I couldn’t . . .”
His knees appeared to fold. He started to fall. A whistling sound escaped his mouth, like air seeping out of a balloon.
Startled, I rushed forward and grabbed his arm to help him stay on his feet. “Are you okay?” I asked.
He nodded. “Yes. Okay. I’m okay.”
“Who is the vampire?” someone shouted.
“You know who it is? Tell us!”
Imhoff leaned heavily on me. I could see he was falling. He couldn’t support himself.
“Who is it?” Another voice from the crowd.
“I’ll . . . tell . . . you . . . ,” Imhoff said, his voice weak, failing. “It’s . . .”
A hush fell over the gym. Imhoff dropped to his knees. “It’s the girl who calls herself Morgan Marks.”
Then he passed out.
I tried to hold him up, but he toppled forward, hitting his head on the gym floor. He didn’t move.
“Somebody call 911!” I cried.
“Morgan Marks?” Liam appeared from the crowd of kids. Had he been there all along?
“Morgan Marks?” he repeated. “If she’s a vampire, I’m a Hobbit!”
Some kids laughed.
A guy named Kerry Smithson tapped knuckles with Liam. “If she’s a vampire, I’m a Wookiee!”
“Morgan Marks? He’s seriously nuts.”
“If she’s a vampire, I’m the Tooth Fairy!”
“This dude was out of his head,” a boy named Carlos Fuentes said. “Like he was dazed or something. He was totally in la-la land. He didn’t know what he was saying.”
“It’s my bad,” Liam said. “I slammed his head twice with a skillet.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Stop talking, everyone!” Amber cried. “Don’t you see? He’s unconscious. Did anyone call for help?”
“The ambulance is on the way,” Kerry Smithson said, holding up his iPhone.
I heard a banging at the gym doors. “That must be the medics,” I said.
The doors swung open and Delia came walking in, a smile on her face. “Hi, guys. Sorry I’m late,” she called. “But look who I brought with me to help out.”
I couldn’t help myself. I let out a sharp cry as Morgan Marks followed her into the gym.
