Seems the alchemy lost control of this giant underground fungus.

Idiots.

And these huge mushrooms popped up and started shooting spores at people

and anyone who inhaled them kinda started lurching around like a zombie.

Actually, that part was pretty funny.

Right up ‘til the moment they tried to burn down the Lustig theatre building.

Yeah, that’s still pretty funny.

And tried to attack anyone who stopped them…

Yeah, that’s still like a—

Okay, you can stop pretending to be all callous and indifferent. They saw you save me.

They saw you save me.

I was just saving myself from the spores.

Sure you were.

Anyway,

those of us who, for whatever reason,

didn’t get a face full of mushroom dust spent the evening hacking apart six foot toadstools

and rolling barrels of fungicide into any building within a half mile of the Lustig, which,

side note: what is it with people trying to burn that place down?

Didn’t they already torch it back in 1904?

Well, nobody likes theatre students.

[Perry and LaFontaine enter]

…some crazy cooking club prank.

My hair still smells like burning portobellos.

Hey, Perry, I don’t think that those were…

Don’t bother.

She’s trying to convince herself Day of the Triffids out there

has something to do with the caf greenhouse getting out of control.

Well, that is not beyond the realm of…

[Sigh]

Giant mushrooms?

Did you see Danny out there?

Good thing she’s on our side ‘cause that was violent.

Yeah. I don’t think she’s taking our…

thing from yesterday very well.

Yeah, I’d steer clear of her for a little while.

Especially if she’s armed.

Um, not to be inhospitable, but why the hell are you two here?

The test results came back for the fluid we found in Sarah Jane and Natalie’s rooms.

And?

But maybe some kind of, um, cyclical, natural thing. Like a-a jellyfish…

So it was cerebral spinal fluid.

Is that what I think it is?

It’s the fluid in your brain sack.

So I stuck my hand in a puddle of Betty’s brain fluid. Ughhh.

Oh, it gets better than that.

Ugh.

And what exactly is your idea of better?

I looked at it through our electron microscope

[Goes to computer]

and I found these.

Holy crapsticks. What are those?

I think it’s some kind of parasite.

[Everyone turns and looks at Carmilla]

Don’t look at me. I don’t know anything about parasites.

Uh, I’m a vampire. Not a guinea worm.

Okay, but this could be what makes Betty and the other girls started acting so crazy! I mean,

parasites do that, right? Like the thing in the amazon that makes ants climb up trees before it kills them.

Exactly. Or that protozoa that makes you like cats.

Is there something you make them drink or something injected or inhaled?

No!

Whatever’s happening to them happens after my mother takes them.

Think carefully. There has to be something.

Yeah, sure. Okay, let’s just dissect my deeply painful past in excruciating details.

[Carmilla leaves]

I don’t wanna make her uncomfortable but… first hand witness, hello?

I know, it’s just…

She kinda lost someone a while ago

and I think talking about it makes her sad or guilty or…

And those are things that a human might feel so she’s probably gonna go scour herself, lie, or eat somebody.

You don’t think she’d eat somebody?

Uh, yeah, crushes-on-vampires.

What I don’t… I just…

I feel sorry for her is all.

The way that her mom treats her it’s no wonder she has baggage.

Well, I wanna figure this out before her baggage crushes us.

So,

minion vamps take girls.

They infect them with the brain parasites, hence pod people. Then they kidnap them again.

Why?

What if they don’t?

What?

Parasites have life cycles, right?

So, what if the girls disappearing a second time isn’t the vampires at all?

What if it’s, like, the next stage of the parasite?

What if it’s something that we’ve never even seen before at all?

No. No. N-n-n-n-n-n-n-no.

Ok.

That is…

These are not things that happen. Vampires and

evil, weird brain parasites, and giant mushrooms? No.

We’re supposed to have a

movie night and a-a formal dance at the end of term.

And you’ll come to with boy problems or…

girl problems or… menstrual problems but not all of this

evil, weird conspiracy.

No. This, mm, this needs to stop happening.

I demand this stops happening. Just… be normal. Just…

BE NORMAL!