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1-Page Summary of Peeps
Overall Summary
Peeps is a young adult sci-fi novel that follows Cal, a college freshman who contracts an STI. The infection changes behavior and gives people strange abilities. People with the disease are called peeps, short for parasite positives. There’s also an ancient society called the Night Watch who hunts them down because they’re vampires. However, Cal doesn’t get all of the symptoms from his infection and realizes he has powers beyond those of other peeps. He joins up with the Night Watch to stop the outbreak in New York City before it spreads any further than it already has.
The novel begins two days after Thompson, who is 19 years old and has just moved to New York City from Texas, starts college. At one of his first nights in a bar in the city, while he was drunk, Morgan hit on him and asked him back to her place. They had sex for the first time that night. In the following weeks, he realizes they were only hooking up and never saw each other again.
A freshman in college has no idea that he is infected with a disease. He unknowingly spreads the disease to multiple girls, who become hostile and bloodthirsty. The boy doesn’t know why his relationships are failing until it’s too late.
Thompson eventually realizes that he has an STI, which is not normal. The Night Watch takes notice of him and informs him about the symptoms of this disease—dementia, cannibalism, night vision, superhuman strength and speed. They explain to Thompson that this disease is historically known as vampirism in cult fiction and other genres of literature. He gains beneficial superpowers from having the disease, but does not have any destructive symptoms besides a constant sexual hunger. For example, peeps fear sunlight and crave blood instead of sex like Thompson does. Since before America was founded (the 1800s), the Night Watch has been fighting against the scourge of peeps by killing them off with wooden stakes through their hearts or beheading them with axes to prevent more vampires from being created.
After the Night Watch assigns Thompson to find all of the girls he has infected, he rehabilitates each girl. When that is done, he is unsatisfied with his accomplishment and wants to do more. The Night Watch tells him to capture Morgan, who initially infected him. As Thompson tries to find her, assisted by Lacey, he remembers only a drink called the Bahamalama-Dingdong and luckily runs into a handbill advertising it.
After meeting Morgan in a bar, Thompson goes to her apartment. He learns that she has been infecting people with the peep virus on purpose because of something called “anathema.” The new version is more dangerous than the old one and makes people less susceptible to things they love. She’s trying to spread an older form of the disease so as to counteract this newer version.
Morgan demonstrates that the peep virus has been propagated mainly by New York City’s cat population. Cats, which are the true hosts of this disease, prey on humans and pass the parasites through their air passages during seemingly innocent cuddling sessions. Thompson suspects that his own cat, Cornelius, is infected with the disease because of his red eyes. Realizing that Cornelius probably infected Lace when she slept over one time, he tries to warn her about it. She accepts her fate knowing that if she takes medication for symptoms long enough then she can be in a normal relationship with Thompson
At the end of the book, Thompson and Lace go to a train station because they want to test out Lace’s peep abilities. There, they are attacked by a huge earthworm carrying an STI that predates medical science. The STI is vampiric in nature and up to its young protagonists to squelch.
