Laura woke up nauseous, disoriented, and covered in blood. This last fact was not immediately apparent to her, which is why she focused on Teddy, who was standing across the common room emptying a gasoline can onto the floor.
"Teddy?" she asked. Teddy? That kind of geeky kid who was Steve's roommate? The kid who wanted to study folklore? The one everybody in the dorm called "Shaggy"?
At the sound of his name, Teddy paused from his pouring and looked up. "Oh my God, Laura, are you alive? Are you okay?"
She had that feeling that she had just awoken from a really good dream. It was coming back to her. Camilla. Camilla had kissed her, had licked her lips, and had asked her, "Do you want it?"
Laura had assumed that the "it" Camilla had been referring to was the same "it" that kids in dorms all over campus were getting at exactly that moment. She had been about to say yes when everything went black.
As her mind fought through the fog of disorientation, it occurred to her that everything had actually gone red. She wondered what that meant. And now here she was, still on the red velvet couch in the Omega Alpha house, but with no Camilla and with Ted pouring gas on the floor.
"Uh, I guess I'm okay. What the hell's going on? Where's Camilla?"
Ted shook the last few drops of gas out of the can, stood up and looked at Laura. "She didn't bite you, did she?"
"Uh, I don't think so. I mean, I just wish, but . . . "
"I'm completely fucking serious, Laura. Did she bite you?"
"I don't remember. I don't think so. What happened to her? I think we were going to . . . I mean hey, it's Bitsy!"
Bitsy came through the archway into the Omega house common room looking slightly different than the last time Laura had seen her. For one thing, her eyes were not their usual ice blue. They appeared to be glowing red. Also, she appeared to be covered in blood, and a long string of drool mixed with blood hung from her suddenly sharp, unusually long canine tooth. She was also roaring, a fierce, deep-throated yell that Laura would not have believed could come from someone named Bitsy.
Bitsy lunged across the room at Ted. Well, she actually appeared to be flying across the room, but Laura told herself she must still be drunk or high or whatever she'd been before she blacked out.
Teddy, displaying strength and agility Laura would not have believed an hour earlier, dropped the gas can, fell to the floor, picked up a double-headed fire axe and swung it in a strong, graceful arc above him. Bitsy, Omega Alpha rush chair, senior communications major, and vampire, was cleanly beheaded.
Laura was off the couch immediately, screaming. "Jesus, Teddy, what the fuck? What the, what the, I mean you fucking psycho, what the fuck are you doing? You just killed Bitsy! Oh my God, you've been the Ivy Ripper all the time! "
Ted looked up. "I'm not the Ivy Ripper, Laura. It's them. The Omegas. They're vampires, Laura. Vampires. Did you ever see any of these bitches in the daytime?"
"Well, no, but, Jesus, if you're going to behead everybody who takes night classes . . . "
"I'm telling you, Laura, all the murders come back to this house, to this—" he gestured at Bitsy's beheaded form—"thing."
"Bitsy? Bitsy is the Ivy Ripper?"
"One of them. I mean, look at this and judge for yourself." Teddy picked up Bitsy's head by its long, blonde hair and pointed at the still gaping mouth. "That's a fang. With blood dripping off it. Q. E. fucking D."
Laura took in the grisly spectacle of a wild-eyed, sweat-drenched, filthy Teddy holding a head that did indeed possess a pair of bloody fangs, and her mind completely shut down. She just stared, hoping that the acid or whatever she was obviously on would wear off quickly and she'd be able to laugh about the horror-movie bad trip she'd had. Teddy holding disembodied vampire heads. Yeah, right.
Teddy stared at her for a moment, then tossed Bitsy's head into the corner of the room. "Look," he said, "I need to burn this place to the ground now. I don't have time for the garlic in the mouth and the running water, but I am pretty sure that beheading and fire will work just as well."
Laura decided to ignore the whole vampire thing and focus on reality-based questions. "Where's Camilla?"
"Camilla was about to turn you, from the looks of things. So I, uh, gave her the Bitsy treatment. Well, no. It wasn't as clean with her. She came after me. She's in pieces in the kitchen, if you'd like to go have a look."
Once again, Laura was dumbstruck. She did not know anything except that she had no desire to go into the kitchen and see Camilla's severed head. Teddy picked up the gasoline can and splashed the rest of it onto the floor.
"Okay, I need to commit a pretty serious act of arson here, and this place is going to be a crematorium in about a minute and a half, so you need to come with me now."
Teddy grabbed Laura's hand and pulled her up. She broke free from his grip and ran from the building as Teddy flipped open Steve's Zippo with Elvis on the side (Why did Teddy have it? Where was Steve?), and the common room of the Omega Alpha house burst into flames.
Laura stood on the sidewalk as Teddy came running out, straight at her. She got ready to run, or maybe fight, because she thought she could probably take him (but then, Bitsy had probably thought the same thing), but she saw that he was sobbing.
He threw himself into her arms, tears running down his face, crying hysterically, "So much blood, Laura, there was so much blood, why was it me, why did it have to be me, why was there so much blood, all I wanted to do was study folklore and get laid, why did it have to be me, Laura, why did it have to be me?"