Chapter Four #2
“It makes sense if you think it might save you,” said another.
Harper was pleased to see the students absorbing what she was telling them and putting the pieces together.
“Didn’t they also, like, mark the coffins with symbols and stuff?” asked Blanca. “I think I read that somewhere.”
“They did in some areas, yes. The point is, we can’t dismiss such stories out of hand as mere superstitions; they arose from a need to understand the vagaries of our world.
Speaking of which, let’s get back to today’s topic: the history and meaning of Gothic literature in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries.
Did you know Dracula was published more than a hundred years ago? ”
At the end of the hour, the students filed out, still chatting about zombies and vampires.
Pleased but tired, Harper stifled a yawn and shoved her lecture notes into her new leather messenger bag.
Although the expensive Coach briefcase her mother had given her when she finished her PhD was still in good shape—her mother had been so proud of her—Harper had bought the less formal messenger bag because it was more in step with the relaxed culture of coastal California.
Harper’s office was located down a long, nondescript hallway that could easily have doubled for the offices of a high-tech company or the DMV.
Monterey College’s administration, classrooms, and dorm buildings were brand spanking new, built on six hundred of the twenty-eight thousand acres that used to comprise Fort Ord, one of the country’s largest military bases before it was decommissioned in the 1990s.
About half the acreage had been ceded to a national monument full of hiking trails, there was a large military cemetery, and there were a few small housing developments, but the rest of the land remained in the hands of the military, which was tasked with demolishing old buildings and cleaning up contaminated soil and unexploded ordnance.
Harper was of two minds when it came to the college’s architecture: As much as she adored the stately, ivy-covered Gothic towers of the universities back East, she had to admit that working in a clean new building with numerous electrical outlets and reliable internet access had its charms.
“ ’Scuse me, Doctor…I mean, Professor Grae?”
Two students, Blanca and Jenny, fell in step beside her.
Blanca was young, no doubt unable to get into a bar without a fake ID, with long gleaming dark hair and big brown eyes framed by sooty caterpillar-like false lashes.
Like most of the student body, she was dressed in jeans and a red and black Monterey College sweatshirt, and carried a bulky backpack slung over one shoulder.
But her makeup suggested her next stop might well be a dance club.
Jenny was short and plump, and dressed exactly like Blanca but with no apparent makeup.
Not that either young woman needed it. Most of Harper’s students exuded the raw beauty of youth and good health.
Harper wished she had understood that about herself when she was their age.
How much happier she would have been had she not focused incessantly on whatever flaws she could find: Her hair was limp and boring, her face was too broad and square, her body was healthy but not slender enough to be fashionable.
Once Harper started avoiding mirrors altogether, she was much happier.
“Your first name’s Harper, right, Professor?” Jenny said. “That’s a cool name.”
“Thanks. My mother was a fan of To Kill a Mockingbird. My sister’s name is Scout.”
“Scout’s a good name, too,” Blanca said.
Jenny nodded in agreement, though neither young woman appeared to understand Harper’s reference. Did no one read To Kill a Mockingbird in school anymore?
“Okay, um, Professor?” Blanca had a way of ending every sentence as if it were a question. “Can Jenny and I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“We were thinking you might be able to help us?”
“Is this about the midterm? It’ll be a take-home essay—”
“No, it’s not about that.” The young women exchanged another look. Students streamed past them, headed to class or to the cafeteria, the usual hustle and bustle of college corridors.
“Okay. What’s up?”
“It’s about vampires? Here in the school, sort of?”
Just then a laboratory science professor, Dr. Naomi Ruger, clacked by, her fashionable high heels rapping loudly on the Mexican Saltillo tile floor.
She nodded coolly at Harper, her perfectly arched eyebrows raised.
Naomi made it no secret that she was not a fan of Monterey College’s only history professor, still less Harper’s subject matter.
If she had overheard Blanca, no doubt the faculty club would soon be abuzz with tales of Harper Grae teaching the students about vampires. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Harper did her best to ignore Naomi and gave the students her full attention. “Vampires?”
“Maybe? I mean…” said Jenny.
“Probably not,” added Blanca. “But we saw this old box that looks a lot like a vampire-killing kit—”
“It really does,” said Jenny with a vigorous nod. “I mean, that’s the first thing I thought of, too.”
“And there are weird symbols on it. Like you were saying they used to do when they buried vampires.”
“Hold on,” said Harper, frustration washing over her.
Blanca and Jenny were bright, and yet apparently hadn’t grasped the meaning of what she had said five minutes ago: that vampires were not real but were a way people dealt with a fear of the unknown.
“You do realize that while people used to believe in vampires out of ignorance, we now understand that they did not and do not exist, right? Just like ghosts don’t exist. They’re cultural constructions that allowed those in the past to explain the odd or unintelligible… ”
Harper’s mind flashed back to the silhouette in the Perles Mansion window. Clearly it had not been Delilah Mason, but neither Tariq nor the police had found a soul inside the home.
So who—or what—had she seen? Someone, or something, had stood at that window last night.
Jenny and Blanca stared at her, wide-eyed.
This was Harper’s first year at Monterey College, and she was determined to do well.
Being popular with her students might not be as important to the tenure committee as publishing her research, but being an unpopular professor would be.
After the gut punch of being turned down for tenure at her last university, she was determined not to let it happen again.
At the age of forty, this position was likely her last chance for an academic career.
She couldn’t mess this up. She wouldn’t mess this up. Besides, her curiosity was piqued.
“All right, you’ve got my attention. Where is this strange box you’re talking about?”
“In the abandoned barracks,” said Jenny.
“The old military housing?” asked Harper. “I thought that area was off-limits.”
“I mean, it is? Sort of? It’s super easy to get into, though,” said Blanca. “It’s not far.”
“And there aren’t even any ‘No Trespassing’ signs,” added Jenny.
“Seriously, you two, I was told that some of the old military areas are not only contaminated with toxic substances but might have unexploded ordnance. It could be dangerous.”
Blanca waved off her concerns. “Not this area—these are some of the old barracks, where they used to house soldiers. The unexploded bombs or whatever are out in the old testing grounds. That’s, like, miles away. I think. It’s fenced off, probably.”
“People go to the barracks all the time, and no one’s blown up yet,” added Jenny.
“Well, that’s good to hear,” said Harper. “Though ‘not blown up yet’ is a pretty low bar, don’t you think?”
They gave her tentative smiles, as though unsure whether or not she was kidding.
“So, there’s a strange box in the barracks?” Harper asked. “Did you report it?”
“We’re telling you.”
“Why me?”
“Maybe you could, like, tell us what you think? Like, if it’s dangerous or whatever.
I mean, it’s probably just a prop from a frat hazing thing, or Halloween, or something.
But we’d like to look into it—there are stories going around about the spirit of a doctor that roams the streets looking for victims…
” Blanca trailed off. “I mean, it’s like you said, people come up with wild stories to explain the unexplainable, right? ”
“We can show you,” said Jenny, glancing down at Harper’s leather boots, which Harper had bought as much for comfort as for style. “You even have the right shoes on. Aurelio’s brother’s a locksmith, and he’s got tools. The thing’s locked in a storage area.”
“Who’s Aurelio?”
“He’s, like, helping us with our podcast?”
“What podcast?” Was she that out of touch with her students, or were they being unintentionally cryptic? I’m getting old, Harper thought.
“Our Creepy California podcast. It’s like a true-crime thing. You should check it out.”