Nightshade Cases

Chapter 4

INT. - SILVER CITY COLLEGE - MORNING

Dr. Kinsey DanAllart turned from the towering blackboard, the gritty feel of chalk lingering as she set it aside with a smile for the watching class. Overhead lights caught glare on the surface of her glasses, blonde ponytail swinging as she clapped her hands together to shed the fine, white powder. So many eager pairs of eyes, so many young faces lit by the screens of their laptop computers. The bank of windows at the back of the room showed full morning had broken over campus.

Kinsey couldn't help the grin pulling her mouth into a curve, the slight increase in her pulse at the focus her small class gave her. While fieldwork as an anthropologist was her true passion, there was just something immensely appealing about teaching she simply couldn't resist.

Case in point. Kinsey gestured over her shoulder at the words she'd written on the board for them to consider. It was one of her favorite quotes, from a professor she adored when she was in college. The joy of teaching softened a little at the memory of his recent passing, but Dr. Edward Gant would have hated to know he held her back, even with his own death.

"Follow the fear. Only it will lead you to truth." Kinsey remembered the first time she heard him say those words, in a small class just like this one. She'd already formed a student crush on the tall, older man, still handsome though bending with time, whose deep, expressive voice and love for anthropology fed her own passion for the discipline.

"I didn't know we were in a psych class." The young man in the back row had athletic scholarship written all over him, from his team jacket hanging proudly from the edge of his desk to the giant shoulders under his jersey. Kinsey did her best to hold her temper, to rein in her need to make him understand. Just the reminder of how risky such thoughts could be for her pulled her back, but the tingle across her forehead didn't fade right away. She ignored it, focusing on her irritation with the registrar. This was an advanced class, not for those looking to pad their meager grades with an easy mark. She made note of him as she spoke, crisp, but in control, the pins and needles feeling fading.

"Everything we do-everything we study and interact with and create in our lives-is about psychology." She pointed at his jacket. "Including football." The class chuckled as one. Kinsey stepped forward around her desk and sank to the front of it, jean pockets digging into her thin flesh as she settled in to lecture. "And, as a matter of fact, so is anthropology. The mistake is thinking any discipline is separate. We must, instead, see them first as a whole." She pulled her hands together, fingers weaving to form a ball. "Then dissect them to examine what's underneath." Her grin was back, she just couldn't help it. "You might want to remember that when the Silver City Pythons take on San Diego State next month." More laughter, a grin from the student.

God, she loved her job.

"Let's get back to the quote at hand," she said. "Anyone want to venture a guess as to what it means?"

Kinsey wasn't surprised Mitchell Harris spoke up. Her favorite student and her first pick for assistant this year raised his hand, long, dirty blond hair tucked behind his ears. "That fear is the evolution of truth."

Kinsey felt goosebumps rise on her arms. "Exactly," she said. "Civilizations are built on fear. Fear of being attacked by other people, of threats from nature. Of nature itself. Our entire culture, in fact, is born from a fear-based reaction to protect ourselves from what could happen."

She turned and gestured at the quote again. "On the other side, of course, is love." Some of the boys in the class groaned and Kinsey rolled her eyes when she turned back, expecting this reaction. "Wow, bet you make great boyfriends." That shut them up.

"Come on, Dr. DanAllart. It can't be that simple." Football boy again. From what she could tell, he was just looking to impress the girl next to him. If he didn't stop flexing his pecs at her, Kinsey would make sure he didn't come back.

She shrugged. "Why do we go to war?"

"Because we want to protect our people from our enemies," he said.

"Fear." Mitchell flashed her a grin that shone in his brown eyes.

"Why do we want to protect our people from our enemies?" She loved this debate and played it with the blue-eyed innocence that was her greatest weapon. Kinsey knew she was beautiful, with pale skin and the kind of figure envied by most women. And she was young, young enough some of the faculty still questioned her right to teach despite her awards and degrees and hard work. Jockboy was only a minor distraction in all that.

"Because we care about them." He nodded, finally smiling with her, not at her. She felt his attitude shift, watched him settle in his seat, sit back, head nodding instead of focusing on impressing the pretty next to him. Maybe he could stay after all.

"Exactly. Fear and love, from the days of the first Neanderthal's understanding of those concepts, to our own society, driven by the need to be younger, more attractive, to have more money all for the express purpose of finding true love." She snorted to herself at the ridiculousness of the concept while her class nodded in slow awakening.

"But, I digress." She crossed her arms over her chest, glad she wore a thin sweater over her T-shirt. The prof before her left the AC on all night and, while it was warm here on California's West coast, it wasn't the middle of the sun for God's sake. "Let's go back to fear. And the objects of our fear." She grabbed the remote as Mitchell nodded to her, rising to get the lights, the auto screens dropping to cover the windows and cut off the sun. The room, now plunged in darkness, lit up with the image she cast on the whiteboard she pulled down to hide her writing, a black and white of Max Schreck as Nosferatu, one of the first Hollywood renditions of a vampire. The bald, sharp-clawed and snaggle toothed image hunched over a sleeping woman, a classic image from a classic black and white film. Nervous giggles and a hearty chuckle from the football guy made Kinsey smile, but only because she knew they weren't laughing out of amusement.

"Tell me what you felt when you saw that image." She pointed to the dark-skinned girl in the front row, curls piled high on top of her head. Her glossed lips parted as she looked around, nervous but smiling.

"I don't know," she said. "It kind of gave me the creeps."

"But you laughed." Kinsey glanced at the image, though she didn't need to. She'd seen it herself, a million times before. "Why?"

"Because everyone else did." The girl shrugged thin shoulders.

"It's a visceral reaction to fear," Kinsey said. "Especially to nervousness, usually displayed by women." She clicked the button, showed, this time, a more modern version of a vampire, handsome, from a popular TV show. While still dangerous looking, he had a come-hither smile that triggered different responses. "What, no laughing?"

The girl squirmed in her seat. "He's hot," she said.

The class did laugh, then, and so did Kinsey. "Exactly," she said. "When we encounter something we fear, as a culture, we want to alter it, to make it less frightening. As we've done with the vampire myth." Another click of the controller and the medieval drawing of a cemetery appeared. "Which brings us to the topic-anthropology and the occult." It had taken two years to convince the Dean back home at Harvard this was a great class choice, but only one meeting to impress the powers that be here in Silver City. Kinsey's dissertation had been met with enough acclaim she got her way, usually. But she was so excited by her reception here in California, it was enough to make her move and take this job.

And now, as she settled into a chair at the side of the room to talk, she knew from the fascination on their faces, all her hard work wasn't in vain and nor was leaving Boston behind.

"What better creatures to start our studies with than vampires? Our present culture certainly adores them. But, what history we are familiar with comes from Eastern Europe." More images, the creepiest and goriest she could find, raising gasps, a few covered eyes. History was rife with artwork that vilified the undead. "But vampire myths exist around the world, from Brazil to China, Greece to Japan. Every culture has their own version of this myth. It's only in our time, through popular culture, that vampires are no longer seen as threatening and horrifying, but as s****l creatures." More giggles. "Anyone willing to guess why?"

Mitchell again, who seemed unable to take his gaze from the screen. "This goes right back to fear," he said. "Before TV and film, before books, even, there was only oral history. Sharing stories like this were warnings. Kind of like telling kids about the bogeyman." The class laughed, but more high-pitched this time, nervous.

Kinsey let them fall silent. "You're right. Every culture also has their version of the bogeyman. So why do you think we universally have these evil, threatening creatures in our mythology?"

This time it was a young woman in heavy black makeup with multiple piercings and tattoos who spoke. Her voice was so girly Kinsey grinned.

"We're taught to be afraid all the time. Fight or flight."

"Not taught," Kinsey said. "Though it might feel that way. It's embedded in us, has been since we were tiny little mammals surviving the dinosaurs." She stood, invigorated by the conversation, knowing it made her a freak, but not caring. "Humans have very powerful instincts when it comes to fear. From the moment we became aware, fear was a constant companion, and still is. But the more complex the development, the greater and more complex the fear."

"Like the bomb scares in the 50's." So Jockboy did have a brain.

"You got it." Kinsey motioned to Mitchell who took a moment before noticing, getting up to turn the lights back on while she went on. "The height of the cold war, everyone was terrified of the bomb. Despite the fact it was only used on foreign soil as a weapon and never used against them, considering very few had actually even seen the truth about nuclear h*******t, the mere existence of such a devastating threat was enough."

The dark-skinned girl in the front row frowned, her deep, brown eyes troubled as the lights came on. "But, Dr. DanAllart, why did people in the past make up monsters? Why not be afraid of the plague or the weather? Those would have been bad enough, right?"

It was a great question. Kinsey loved great questions. "They were. But everyday fears were quantifiable and experienced by everyone. Unseen fears, however, were harder to dispel and spread rapidly through stories and word of mouth. There is a morbid curiosity in us that makes us focus on the very worst outcome from the most unrealistic sources."

Kinsey's phone vibrated on the desktop. A quick look told her it was something she couldn't ignore. And didn't want to.

"Sorry to cut class short," she said. The usual excitement students displayed at being allowed to leave early was missing, and she was glad. Maybe she'd made them think, stirred up their own questions about the fears they carried. God knew she had her share, and a second look at the text she'd received brought hers to immediate attention.

Kinsey waited until most of the students were gone, Mitchell trailing behind, before she checked her message.

weird case Starlet Lg on 5th asap G

Gerri. Kinsey's heart skipped, sped up. But not from fear. And that made her even more of a freak, didn't it?

Battling her unhealthy excitement at the idea of working a case with her detective friend, Kinsey grabbed her laptop bag and ran for the door.

***