Invitation to a Stranger (11 page)

 

Mrs. Campion seemed unsurprised about having an extra guest when at last they reached home after dropping off Hayley, Katie and Mike. She made up a bed on the couch for Drake, and bundled Ronnie to bed.

“It's after one o'clock,” she scolded. “It's straight to bed for you. We aren't talking about what you did tonight, but you could have at least confided in us.”

“You wouldn't have believed us. No one believed us,” Ronnie countered.

“I'm driving to the hospital and staying put with Jamie,” her mother said as she kissed her goodnight. “So be a good girl for your father.”

Ronnie muttered a sleepy agreement. She still wasn't game to use the vampire word with her mother, because even now, tucked up so securely and safely in her own home, with her mother fussing over her, she still wasn't sure if she really believed in vampires.

Despite being so tired, she kept waking up during the night, or maybe she was just having nightmares in her half-awake state. She kept imagining she could hear someone prowling around the house and even the faint rustle of large bat shaped wings.

In the morning, she decided she just had been having nightmares. She stared in disbelief at her clock. It was midday. She had slept for nearly twelve hours. Bright sunlight glowed on her bedroom blind. Everything seemed too normal to even think of nightmares. She got dressed and hurried to the kitchen.

Her father stood over the stove buttering toast. Drake and Jeff tucked into a large plate of bacon and eggs and fried tomatoes. This morning Drake looked better. His face had a tinge of colour in it and he grinned at her through his mouthful of breakfast as she came out.

“You look better this morning,” Ronnie said.

“A few decent feeds and I'll be as right as rain,” Drake assured her. “More than can be said for my two cousins.”

“Thought I heard something last night,” Ronnie admitted.

Her father shot her a sharp glance. “I locked up pretty securely. Your mother is still at the hospital. They can't find that much wrong with Jamie and Herbie except they have been malnourished and they are both sleeping too heavily to be woken.”

Drake lost his happy grin and bent over and concentrated on his breakfast.

“They still haven't found out what's wrong with Jasmine,” Ronnie burst out. “Now they are talking of putting a drip in to make sure she stays fed properly.” She looked at Drake. “If you know of a way to bring all of them back—”

“No,” Drake admitted. “I know that all the captives they finished with ended up back to normal, but I never found out how they did it.”

“Injections?” Jeff asked. “Mr. Purdue was saying how very advanced the laboratory was, and they didn't just concentrate on producing amphetamines, but were doing biological sort of research.”

“Maybe,” Drake admitted as he jabbed at his tomato.

“You don't have to give that family your loyalty,” Mr. Campion said softly. “If you know anything that will help things get back to normal, tell us so.”

“Last night was the night I would have learned everything, but the ceremony didn't go ahead, so I still know nothing,” Drake admitted.

There was a knock on the back door, and Katie and Will came in, with Mike following behind them. There was a noisy exchange of greetings. The others hadn't heard any more about the previous night's drama than Jeff had.

“Anyone want brunch?” Mr. Campion asked.

“Something smells good,” Katie said. “I'd love some bacon and eggs.”

“Guess if you are cooking, we can eat,” Will agreed, sitting up at the table and pushing a chair over for Mike.”

“If it's not too much trouble,” Mike stammered.

After cleaning up the dishes from brunch, they all went outside to the covered in porch and settled down. The sun was warm through the window and they sprawled on the shabby porch furniture. Mr. Campion went outside to his garage.

There was silence for a while. Ronnie was half-asleep in the warmth when Katie's remark woke her up.

“What?” she stammered.

“I said, we've got to find out how to reverse whatever has been done to the captives.”

“And the animals,” Jeff said. He put his hand down to pat Billie. The golden Labrador slept on in his basket, ignoring Jeff's pat.

“You must have noticed something happening when the people were revived?” Katie asked Drake.

Drake shifted his arm back out of the sun. The pink was deepening to red. “They didn't tell us anything.”

“We should get some sun screen on you,” Ronnie said.

She stood up and delved in the cupboard where all their swim stuff was kept, and came back with the tube of sunscreen. She slathered it on Drake's arms and hands.

“Aren't you cold in your tee shirt?” Katie asked.

“Don't feel the cold,” Drake said.

“Why?” Will asked suddenly. “It's not as if you're carrying a lot of weight to keep you warm.”

“I don't know,” Drake said slowly. “None of us ever feel the cold.”

“You came from Munawala,” Katie remembered. “Gets pretty hot up there in the summer. How did you cope with the heat?”

“Always slept down in the basement when the temperature went up. None of us were around during the day anyway. Noticed heat pretty badly as I started to grow up,” Drake said. “Think that was when my father started pushing the weird stuff into me and it stopped worrying me. Anyway that was when we got burned out.”

“Burned out?” Mike repeated.

Ronnie remembered that Mike didn't know about the rest of Drake's weird background. “The locals turned up and burned down their house,” she explained.

“And their laboratories,” Drake remembered. “The basement beams caught on fire and collapsed.”

“With some ex-victims of your family?” Mike said slowly.

“So they must have all remembered what happened in the summer,” Jeff said.

“So heat might have something to do with regaining memories,” Katie said.

All eyes turned to Billie, sleeping heavily in his basket.

Will dropped his hand on Billie's body. “His body temperature is still way down. I never noticed that before. He should have warmed up while he was sleeping in the sun.”

“Everyone down in the basement was chilled right through,” Ronnie remembered.

Will stood up and shifted the chairs out of the sun, and dragged the dog bed with Billie asleep on it into the rays of the direct sun. Ronnie shut the one open window and closed the door that led back into the kitchen.

“What if it isn't hot enough?” Ronnie demanded.

Will went over and turned up the central heating.

“Dad'll kill us if we turn it on today,” Ronnie said.

“It's worth a try,” Will said.

They gathered around on their chairs and waited. Billie slept on peacefully in the rays of the hot sun coming through the big windows.

 

“It's not going to work,” Ronnie said as she took her jumper off.

“The room temperature is only up to forty-five degrees,” Jeff said pulling off his heavy windcheater.

“It's only been half an hour,” Katie said. “Maybe it could take days.”

“Maybe,” Ronnie said glumly.

“This room is like a furnace,” Mr. Campion said as he came in throwing open the outside door. “What are you kids up to? Why is the central heating on? You know you're supposed to put on jumpers when you get cold, not turn up the heat and take your jumpers off.”

“We think that heat might be the trigger that brings everyone back,” Katie explained.

“Garbage,” Mr. Campion said with a scowl.

“What've we got to lose?” Mike asked. “Nothing else has worked.”

Mr. Campion opened his mouth to say something, looked at Mike's unhappy face, and shut his mouth again. He kneeled by the dog basket and felt the dog. “His body temperature is rising, but the room's so hot that it is only normal.”

Billie's tail moved. It was only a quiver. Mr. Campion went rigid.

“Shift that chair away from the vent,” he ordered.

He picked up Billie and carried him over to the central heating vent and placed him on top of it. After a while a strong doggie smell pervaded the room.

“You might burn him, Dad,” Ronnie worried.

“Not hot enough,” her father said absently. His hand was resting on Billie's head. Suddenly Billie lifted his head and his tail thumped a greeting.

“It works,” Katie almost shrieked. “Go and get Jasmine's cats. If the heat works with them we can let the hospital know.”

Mike got up and ran out without a word. Billie stood up, slurped at Mr. Campion's hand, yawned and settled down to sleep again.

“Maybe it doesn't work,” Ronnie whispered, looking at the way Billie had shut his eyes and gone back to sleep again.

“Think he's just sleepy because of the heat,” her father said. “We'll see how we go on the cats before we contact the hospital.” He took a pad out of his pocket and started scribbling, muttering to himself. “If it takes an hour at 48 degrees for a body mass of...” he looked up. “What's his weight?”

“Fifteen kilos,” Jeff said instantly, as if he knew what his father was calculating.

“Get the bathroom scales, Ronnie, there's a good girl,” her father ordered.

Will, Jeff and Drake had also found some paper and were scribbling their own calculations.

“What's going on?” Ronnie demanded when she returned with the scales.

“Heavier masses will need longer exposure to the heat,” her father explained. “We'll weigh the cats and allow for their lower body mass to expose them to the heat.”

“Never thought my engineering calculations would come in so useful,” Drake said with a grin as he scribbled figures on a pad.

Mike came in struggling with the cat basket. “The cats are sure overweight,” he complained. “They haven't stopped eating the entire time we've had them home.”

“Do them one at a time,” Mr. Campion said.

“Nine kilos per cat,” Mike reported as he dropped each of the sleeping cats on the scales.

“About half an hour,” Mr. Campion said as he carefully placed one of the Siamese cats over the vent.

Ronnie was sweating as she watched the slow hands of the sunroom clock move around. With the sun shining through all the long windows and the central heating turned up, the room felt like a hot summer's day. Also the room now had a pervading odour of cat.

“Half an hour's up,” Katie said.

Mr. Campion put his hand down on the cat's sleeping head. Suddenly its front paws lashed out and hooked into Mr. Campion's hand and the narrow head came forward and bit.

“Ow!” Mr. Campion said.

“It's Sing. He's awake,” Katie said. “It works!”

“You should have a Tetanus injection, Dad,” Ronnie suggested.

“Quite,” Mr. Campion said drily. “Put Sing back in the basket, and bring over Wing. Ronnie pass the first aid kit from the top cupboard please.”

He and Will left to go into the bathroom. When they arrived back with Mr. Campion's bandaged hand, the next half hour was up.

“Here puss, puss. Wake up Wing, there's a good puss,” Mike crooned, keeping a good distance away from the sleeping cat.

Wing shook his head, yawned, and wobbled to his feet. He brushed his head against Mike, who picked him up and carefully put him in the cat box with Sing.

“Those cats will have to go on a diet,” Katie said with a giggle. “I've never seen fat Siamese cats before.”

“We don't know if it is permanent,” Mr. Campion warned. “I'll go and ring the hospital to try heat treatment for revival of all the people affected.”

“What if they don't believe you?” Ronnie demanded.

“We can only tell them it worked on the animals,” her father warned.

“So hurry up and make the phone calls,” Ronnie nagged. Her face lit up. “Why Mum might be able to bring Jamie home later this afternoon if everything works.”

“Not so fast, Ronnie,” her father cautioned. “We still don't know if it is going to work on humans.”

“Of course it will,” Ronnie said happily. “Everything is going to be just right from now on.”

 

Jamie and Herbie didn't arrive home that afternoon, or during the next few weeks. Most of the other people were discharged a few days later. The odd cure of extreme heat for a few hours had worked with the other captives and the animals, but Jamie and Herbie slept on.

Jamie's mother spent all her time in at the hospital by his side. Mr. Campion became chief cook, so Ronnie, Jeff and Drake lived off take-away chicken, eggs and bacon and lots of toast.

Life was settled down, sort of, Ronnie thought gloomily. They were all well back at school. Jasmine was one of the people who had responded well to the heat treatment and the doctor had given her permission to return to her studies.

The end of the sunroom had been partitioned off to make a bedroom for Drake, and he seemed a regular member of her family, almost like an extra brother Ronnie thought. He was a nice person, but somehow no longer boyfriend material.

Drake had started his new job three days a week, and school two days a week, but was always home by dark. He spent most nights doing homework. He was changing in looks. He was filling out so he didn't seem so abnormally tall, and there were freckles and a bit of a tan on his face and arms. Even his hair didn't look as black. It had brown and red highlights in it and he had it cut much shorter.

Hayley and her mob were very subdued when they bumped into them at school. “You and Katie actually saved all our lives,” Hayley said.

“Yeah,” Jenny agreed. “Mum said if you hadn't worked out about the heat treatment we all would've been zombies forever.”

Jenny and her grateful gang moved away, and Ronnie, Katie, and Jasmine closed up together again.

“Did your Dad ever find out what happened to the two cousins, Brod and Jeraine?” Ronnie asked.

“Brod was in hospital overnight, and they couldn't hold Jeraine on any charges, so the two boys have gone missing,” Jasmine reported.

“Drake said they had relatives on the other side of the city,” Ronnie reported.

“Hope they don't come back to this area,” Katie said with a shiver.

“Why should they?” Ronnie asked.

“I reckon they'd be vindictive enough to try to get even with us, that's what,” Katie said.

Ronnie and Jasmine stared at her in horror.

“Then again, why should they?” Katie said very fast.

“They're still doing tests on what was happening in that creepy laboratory,” Jasmine said changing the subject.

“It's all very creepy,” Katie agreed. “What is even more creepy is that the two older Dementos were refused bail, and died in the hospital last week, and their visitors split when the police arrived.”

“That was odd,” Ronnie agreed.

What was even odder, was that when Mr. Purdue had arrived to tell Drake of his father and grandfather's death, Drake seemed casual and unmoved.

“So they would have been in prison about eight days before dying?” he asked.

“About that,” Mr. Purdue had said gruffly.

“They would have starved to death, then,” Drake had said.

Mr. Purdue had got very stiff. “We don't starve our prisoners, young man. The hospital even put an intravenous drip in to feed them when they didn't seem to be holding down food.”

“And the food didn't agree with them, and they starved to death,” Drake had explained. “I would be quite happy for their bodies to be cremated. There should be enough money out of the estate to cover that.”

Mr. Purdue had agreed and then left. Drake had shrugged off the sympathy from Mr. and Mrs. Campion. “They were very unpleasant, unscrupulous people and made my life a misery and I'm relieved they are gone,” he had said.

“So am I,” Ronnie whispered. She remembered about her vampire theories. “And I'm glad you are having them cremated.”

Drake had grinned at that and the subject was dropped.

Ronnie thought over what Drake had said. “There's more of your family still around?”

“Nothing to interest them around here. The laboratory has been taken apart by the cops.”

“So they won't turn up in this district again.”

“Definitely not,” Drake said.

“So if only they could discover what's wrong with Jamie and Herbie life would be back to normal properly.” Ronnie looked at Drake, surprising a look of guilt on his face. “Are you holding out on me?” she accused.

“I wish I did know,” Drake said miserably. “I suspect they were meant for another fate, but I have no knowledge of what would bring them back.”

“What sort of fate?” Ronnie demanded.

“To become members of the family.”

“Yuk!” Ronnie said. “So you might not be blood kin. There would be records of missing children somewhere then.”

“The family travels,” Drake explained. “With us three it could have happened in another country and too many years ago.”

“It's not your fault,” Ronnie said with a sigh. “Guess something will turn up sooner or later.”