4. In the Loop.

Maybe the past is best left alone. Maybe there is a good reason I can't remember a year of my life. Jonno sounded shaky and scared and he said his Dad is dead. I know Mr Van Helsing hasn't been in school for a while, but no one said he was…dead.

My thick head is trying hard to make a connection. I've had all these words and names thrown at me lately, names and words that are meaningless, disconnected. Despite this, I feel like they are linked, and it's me who is disconnected.

I take a seat on my usual bench at the far end of school and pretend to think. I don't feel like going to sixth. I feel like freeing myself from all of this, from my family, from school, from these forgotten memories that grip me and pin me down. Maybe the only way I can do it is to stay here on this bench not thinking, remaining alone in smurry silence.

Time passes. Bells ring. No one comes by. I remain alone.

My anticipation doesn't let me down. Someway through seventh a figure emerges from the drizzle and comes over to me. She doesn't say anything, merely stands in front of me and glares.

I close my eyes. "You said you wanted to stay in the loop. So I'm using my lasso and I'm bringing you in." I open my eyes. "Unless you're pulling back that request? Because I can probably operate alone, if I have to."

Her glare does not soften, she just stares. I take it as a green light.

"I am going to say some names and words. Tell me if they connect."

"Mrs Harper pulled me out of class. She wants to know why you've not been to lessons this afternoon."

I give her back her stare. "Ingrid."

Chloe considers me a while. I'm not going anywhere, I have all the time in the world. I've been waiting all through sixth and most of seventh, so I can wait a little longer. I lean back and make myself comfortable.

Chloe folds and sits beside me, working her lip with her braceless teeth. "…Ingrid?" Her voice is tired. She's only doing this because she thinks her little big brother has a screw loose and she thinks that she might be able to tighten it by playing on my court. "Isn't that the name of the girl who used to live in the castle? The daughter of that haughty uppity Lord?"

I straighten up and dart my eyes over to the granite hill and the building growing out of it. "Castle was one of the words." I say it quietly, to myself, and then dial up the volume to include Chloe. "No one lives there though, right?"

"I think they moved out. I'm not certain. Sometimes I see lights or hear music. People come and go from there. But I always thought that place was long abandoned and the local hoodies use it for skins parties."

"I heard that too. So the girl who lived there was called Ingrid?"

"I don't even know if that's her name. What's this all about, Robin?"

I ignore that and try the next name on for size. "How about Vlad?"

"Look, I don't know. If you wanted to play word games why don't we play a round of scrabble when we get home?"

"I prefer boggle myself."

"Boggle then. Sounds good. I expect Dad and the twins will want a round when they get back from work too. There's ten minutes of seventh lesson left, then tutor and the drive home. I'll let you borrow my dictionary and you can swot up in between times." She pulls her bag off her shoulder and onto her lap, delving a hand into it.

I grab her arm and lean in close. My voice cuts like sharpened flint. "Quit messing around, Chloe. This is important. People are in danger."

She drops the dictionary back into her bag. "Danger? What kind of danger?"

"I dunno yet." I let go of her arm and sit back again, slotting hands into pockets. "Something to do with all these disappearances, the large number of people found dead and drained of blood, the missing memories. And some words that I can't find any connection between. Words like Ingrid, Vlad, the castle, slay, stakes. So yeah, I want to play a word game; a word game where the outcome means more than a triple word score. So put your thinking gap on, my boffin of a sister. Find what links these words."

"Stakes? Like in a bet?"

I shrug and repeat the words as I remember them. "'She's playing with the stakes' was what he said." I'm not sure that was exactly it, but it's close and it's all I have.

"Who said? Come on, Robin. If you want my help you're going to have to fill me in a bit." She shoots me an expression borrowed from mam when she's one thread from snapping.

I consider telling Chloe everything, about the weird conversations. I get really close, the words forming on my tongue. But at the last minute I clam up and redraft. "Look, Chloe, I'm not sure yet. It feels like this could get heavy. It's already heavy. And I'm not sure what I'm stepping into, but I'm pretty sure it's nasty. I don't want to pull you down with me. So you're just going to have to ride in the sidecar and trust me to lead the way. I can't give you all the details because if you know them all then maybe it's bad news for you. I can't have my little sister in any sort of danger. I don't want to be the person who puts you into it." I tilt my head back against the back of the bench.

"That's hardly fair! If you want me in the loop you have to tell me what you know."

"You were the one who requested to be in 'the loop'. I could do with your help. You have more than half a head on you and I could use you. But I won't give you information that I don't think you need, that I think might lead into danger." I edge my eyes across to hers and wait for some kind of response. She just glares at me. "So what's your status on this? Are you going to help me operate this from the sidelines, or do you want out altogether?"

"I can't say I like it. Don't you think it's safer for me to be clued in? If you're getting yourself into danger it's likely to involve me. I don't like the sound of any of it…"

"It's the way it is. If it gets too hot and I think things are about to blow I'll give you plenty of warning. So are you in or are you out?"

She clenches her teeth and makes a small animal sound. "I asked that you involve me, and now you are so I have to say I'm in."

"Yeah, you do."

She sighs and leans into the bench, face hardening into concentration.

"There is something that springs to mind. I can't believe you've not made the connection between all these words. Slay, stake, castle, people drained of blood, weird Eastern European names."

I'm not following and I think my ruffled forehead says that loud and clear. She rolls her eyes, leans down and snatches my bag. She plunges her hand in, what comes out is a book and it's not a dictionary. "Come on Robin. All you ever watch is that Buffy stuff, that Hellsing anime, Underworld, Twilight." She waves the book like a windscreen wiper.

I speak through my teeth. "I got it out of the library for a laugh, to piss off all the zombies on the reserve list."

She raises a thin eyebrow. My eye twitches and I snatch my bag, pulling out a near-empty bottle of coke and taking a long drink.

She gives me a smile and slips the book into my bag. "So what do all of these things have in common?"

I think about it for a moment, swilling the coke around my mouth, feeling an ulcer tingle into a raw smear. "Vampires. But what have fictional characters got to do with this situation I am finding myself in?"

"That is something I don't know. You refuse to tell me the whole story. You asked me to connect the words. I have done. So that's that." She's got a point there.

I screw the cap back on and throw the empty bottle into my bag. "Alright then. Fine. One more thing: there are other people in this town who lost their memories."

"Who?"

"Jonno, his mum and his dad." I list them on my fingers. "Is it just me; or is that a lot of people in one small town to suffer from lacunar amnesia?"

"It is somewhat strange. But coincidences can happen."

"It doesn't sit right with me. How can two whole families suddenly get gaping holes in their memories? One day we're all as normal as the Branaghs or Van Helsings could ever hope to be, and the next; memories like Swiss cheese."

"When exactly did we lose ours? Can you even pin-point that kind of thing?" she asks.

I run it through my mind. Mostly matter sloshes through the Swiss cheese holes, but one thing is too big and the holes catch it like the mesh of a sieve. "That Scout Cabaret. The one where Dad made us dress up as the 'Five a Day Family'"

"I think that's just your own head trying to forget the fact that you danced around all evening dressed as a pineapple," she laughs.

I thump her in the arm and give her my best sneer.

"Ow!" she pulls a face at me and cradles her arm.

"I'm sure that was when I realised that I had no idea what I had been doing earlier that day, or the day before, or any time before that since the start of year 8. And we gave a lift to that strange guy who kept talking to his wrist. Remember him?"

She thinks back on it and hesitantly nods. "Vaguely."

"He kept asking me where he was and how he got there. We took him to the hospital in the end because he really couldn't remember anything at all, other than his name was Burt, or Kurt or something. Mam was really worried." My brain is working really hard right now, tugging at the loose threads in my memory. Something comes back to me all of a sudden, hitting me like a dropped stone. It's not something from the year I lost, but from a few weeks after I realised my memory was shot. "He showed up dead not very long after that. It was in all the papers and Mam had a terrible time of it."

Chloe's eyes have that sheen in them, same as when her pen is in full flight on an essay. "That's right. She was very upset that we hadn't taken him in. His body disappeared in the morgue and they never found the body or who snatched it. It was really weird."

After that the number of deaths in Stokely took an upwards turn. That was when things started to get dark and scary around here. Bingo. I have a starting point. I press my lips together and take a look at my watch. 3:29pm.

The bell rings right on cue, subdued and a little sombre from this distance. Chloe jumps to her feet like the bench just bit her.

"I've missed half of seventh!"

"Well cheers anyway, Chloe. I've got a lot to chew on now," I say, getting to my feet.

She slings her bag on her shoulder and does the funny little half-walk half-run she does when she's late for something that's not as important as she thinks it is. I give her a tepid thumbs-up that she doesn't see, and then make my own way towards the main block.