Donovan redoubled his efforts when Lola swung past him and yelled, “Loser!” He managed to pull himself higher on his rope and got the swinging of his legs synced up with the swing of his rope, so he wasn’t sabotaging his progress. He was going to kill the bitch.
Ollie swung onto the platform. “Fucking peg broke.” Fucking lava. Somebody’s going to get killed. Nah. There’s got to be some safety feature. Maybe an invisible net. Okay, maybe an invisible net is hokey. But no one wants to see us die. That would ruin ratings for sure. Ollie grasped his rope with both hands, leaned back, and leaped.
Behind him, his platform started to spin.
Cassie crested the peg wall, and a graceful bound later was swinging over the pit, hands tight on her rope, legs scissored around it. She dropped lightly onto the middle platform as if she’d been rehearsing it for days and grinned. That was fun.
Cassie had landed just after Stewart, who had finally managed to swing far enough to gain his platform.
Portia scrambled onto her circle and grabbed for her rope. The contestants in the rear had observed that lingering on the platform was not advisable.
On the other side of the rope swing, Brett landed on his second platform. He immediately dropped to his knees. Please don’t spin. Brett was imploring the platform, not God because, as Madeline had learned, soon to be vampires should not ask the Almighty for favors.
“What?” Lola taunted. “Afraid the ground is going to move?”
“Yeah,” Brett said. “But it looks like you’re afraid of falling off the tightrope.” Bitch.
“It’s not a race,” Lola snapped.
Emily gained the platform just behind Celeste. She scraped together every ounce of will she had and kept her focus on the far platform.
Celeste and Emily swung towards the second set of platforms as one, their feet hitting first and scrambling for purchase.
Are we supposed to wait here? Celeste wondered. Everyone had made it through the rope swing; everyone was staring down at the coals and staying put.
Stewart had decided walking the rope was not his best option. Sure, he’d come here to be a hero to his kids, but suddenly he found he was a fan of the live coward school of thought.
Stong core, Portia told herself. And stop looking down.
Cassie thought the tightrope looked far easier than hauling her weight up the wall. She took a deep breath and choked on the smoke rising from below.
“Do they plan to stand there gaping for the rest of the competition?” Delia said.
“They’re afraid,” Chaz said. “And some of them are dizzy.”
“They are meant to overcome their fear,” Edmund said. “That is the challenge.”
“They’ll cross,” Chaz said.
While the other nine contestants were working themselves up to step into nearly nothing, Celeste thought, Finally, and put a foot on her rope.
Everyone else snapped to, realized they were still mid-challenge, and started to follow suit. The contestants extended their feet with precision, some stepping, others sliding. Scores of toes did their best to cling to ropes, and arms extended for balance.
Emily made a good start, placing one foot in front of the other with precision. She held her arms away from her sides without fully extending them. Emily was channeling the tortoise.
Kannon crouched down and grabbed the rope with his hands. He swung down, so he was hanging beneath the rope and started moving across it, hand over hand like a kid on a jungle gym.
“See?” Rose said. “He’s awesome.”
“Those are some nice arms,” Dani admitted. “And he’s pretty fast. Chaz is still hotter.”
“Chaz is a monster,” Rose said. “He would eat you.”
“I’m okay with that,” Dani said.
Lola had also chosen to travel under the rope. She hung by her hands and ankles, contracting and expanding like a caterpillar, progressing foot by foot. She was yards ahead of Celeste, who had crouched down and was moving in a squat along her rope. Celeste had her knees spread wide, and with both her hands and feet on the rope, she looked quite like a frog out of its element. She was traveling headfirst so she could keep an eye on those behind her.
Brett hadn’t moved from his platform. He seemed to be talking to himself.
“What’s the crazy weirdo doing?” Rose said.
“Shut up. Chaz is talking.”
“What the contestants don’t know,” Chaz was saying, “is we have another surprise in store for them.”
Thirty feet above the stage, Emily paused for a brief second then resumed her journey with newfound haste. None of the other contestants seemed to notice the commentary beneath them.
“Members of the audience, your time has come! As I said before, this challenge is about physical prowess, but it is also about being ready for anything.”
“Are those guns?” Rose sat up and thrust her face nearly into the screen.
“No way, that would be crazy,” Dani said. “Move your head. Fuck, you’re right. Those are totally guns.”
Chaz was reiterating key instructions for the audience. “Remember, it’s not your job to kill the contestants. Our only aim is to make the tightrope portion more challenging.”
The audience chortled. Many of them were already sighting along the barrels of their guns.
“Our aim.” Cyri’s dad snickered and poked her in the side. “Get it?”
Cyri sunk in her seat.
“Those that are marksmen or women, please, do not shoot to kill. Your bullets are micro–chipped, so we will know who made any successful shot. You will have bragging rights if you hit a contestant, not to mention a very small prize. Since you only have one bullet each, make your shot count. Once a contestant reaches the platform at the end of their tightrope, they are off limits.”
“They really went above and beyond on those safety precautions,” Cyri said.
Her dad beamed. He wasn’t sure if he was prouder of Cyri or himself for raising her. He gave her a quick pat on the head and then raised his gun and sighted.
“So that’s it,” Chaz announced. “Fire when ready!”
Brett chose that moment to launch himself onto his tightrope. He was taking long, quick strides and made it halfway across by the time someone got a shot off. Some of the audience considered how best to spend their precious bullet while the rest realized they were late to the party and fired indiscriminately. The studio sounded briefly like the Fourth of July. Chaz did his best to keep up with the action, but a lot happened at once.
In the brief seconds of calm following the first shot, Brett had reached the middle of his rope and was closer than anyone else to the far platform. “Brett is past the halfway mark,” Chaz said. “And Emily is right behind. It looks like they’re going to make it folks!”
Some members of the audience sensed subtext and took aim at the leading duo. By now, Brett was moving so fast most of the audience couldn’t hope to hit him, and none of them managed to hit the librarian shaped bull’s—eye either. So it was all the more galling for Emily when a bullet whizzed by her face, and she shrieked and lost her balance.
Cassie had been halfway across her tightrope when the audience opened fire. She was looking confident and wearing a look of concentration touched by a slight smile. So, it was a shock to everybody watching when she toppled off the rope and plummeted. Brett gained the platform in time to see Cassie hit the coals. He threw his arms up in triumph and yelled, “Fuck yeah!” No one heard him over the screams and gunfire.
“Look at that shot!” Chaz shouted. “Cassie is down thanks to a shot in the ankle. She’s done dancing now! And look at the shooter; he’s adorable. Look at those cheeks.” The shooter did indeed have adorable and plump little cheeks, the kind of cheeks that get fondled and pinched by strangers.
Emily had managed to grab her rope as she fell. She was hanging by an elbow trying not to imagine landing in the coals. Cassie was a few feet back and to the right, but Emily could see her trying to fight
her way out of the pit. Cassie’s original scream had morphed into a high keen that was giving Emily chills in spite of the rising heat.
From where she hung, Emily could see the lining of the pit wherever Cassie’s struggles shoved coals aside.
At least they hadn’t lied about it being shallow, Celeste thought. “Just stand up,” she said, but, of course, Cassie didn’t hear her.
Cassie was scrambling. If she had been in prime condition, she could have escaped with a couple quick leaps, but the ankle that had taken the bullet was useless. Realistically, no one would be in prime shape after a thirty-foot drop ending in a good scorching. By the time she realized the coals were quite shallow, she was burned from the knees down and both her hands had sustained damage.
Ollie had abandoned the uncertain footing to follow Kannon’s example and was making good progress, his long-armed swings eating up yards of rope.
Two ropes to Ollie’s right, Portia was trying to recover from a nearly disastrous wobble.
“Look at that!” Chaz shouted. “Kannon is down now. It looks like he could be missing an eye! Yes! Yes! He is missing an eye! What an incredible shot, folks! This is one for the books! He’s in the pit, but he’s still moving. Kannon is crawling out of the coals. Looks like he and Cassie have both made it to the edge of the pit.”
By now, most members of the audience had taken their shot. Only an occasional bullet sprang from its chamber.
The contestants traveled grimly onward.
“And look, Lola made it. Lola is across. She would only have been third, if not for our sharpshooter audience.” Lola clambered onto the platform and waved to the audience. She then leaned over the platform’s edge to blow kisses at Kannon and Cassie, who were pushing and pulling each other out of the pit.
Ollie swung to the end of his rope, threw a leg onto the platform, and pulled himself up easily. The final platform was large enough to hold all the contestants. Ollie joined Brett near the back edge in case anyone who hadn’t spent their bullet decided to violate the safe zone of the platform.
“Firearms, bah,” Vlad said. “If you have fangs, there is no need for silly toys.”
“Thanks, Vlad!” Chaz checked the crowd for anyone still aiming. “Is everybody out of ammunition?”
“Give us more! Give us more! Give us more!”
Emily had made it to the end of her rope by pulling herself along hooking one elbow then the other over the rope.
“Nope.” Chaz shook his head at them. “And they call us bloodthirsty. To recap, we have Brett, Lola, and Ollie safe on the platform. Okay, Stewart, good job. And he’s been shot as well, ladies and gentlemen. Right in the ass. Way to keep going, Stewart. And here comes Donovan, also doing it monkey style. Emily is hanging from her tightrope. Did someone shoot Emily?”
“She slipped,” Nodin said.
I didn’t fucking slip, Emily thought. There was a painful thud on her back.
“Was that a shoe?” Delia smiled.
“No throwing shoes,” Chaz told the audience. The audience groaned in protest.
Portia stepped onto the platform and dropped gratefully to her knees. Celeste edged up next to her.
Kannon and Cassie were slumped together downstage from the coal pit.
“Emily, you’re last to make it, but you made it. Let’s give these guys a round of applause, shall we?”
The crowd cheered so loud and so long Edmund disappeared in another snit.
“Okay, people. Kannon and Cassie are going to get patched up and then we’ll meet the folks who did the shooting.”
Riley and Kiley appeared to help Kannon and Cassie offstage.
“You forgot a bullet,” Nodin said.
Chaz did a fake smack on his forehead. “Stewart! Take your wounded ass and follow Cassie and Kannon, and we’ll get that looked at too.” Such a waste of blood.
“Do we get to drink that blood?” Vlad said.
If Vlad’s insane commentary didn’t make you reexamine yourself as a vampire, nothing would, Chaz thought. Delia broke the news to Vlad that the bleeding contestants were not to be considered a buffet.
Cyri wished they would just let Vlad eat everybody so she could go home.
“That was way too intense,” Rose said. The pizza they’d ordered had arrived just before the crowd had opened fire and Rose’s half, pepperoni and pineapple, sat untouched. Dani’s half, extra cheese and mushroom, had been demolished.
“Sorry about your boyfriend,” Dani said.
“It’s not that,” Rose said. “It just made me sad for some reason. It’s probably stupid.”
Dani shrugged. It was a little stupid. You couldn’t go around getting upset over some lame TV show. Dani eyed Rose’s half of the pizza. “Are you going to eat that?”
“Is everybody paying attention?” Chaz said. The crowd assured him of their focus. The unlucky gentleman seated in front of Cyri’s father took some projectile saliva to the back of the head. “Okay, time to meet the lucky audience members who managed to land a shot on one of our contestants. We have with us onstage Melvin, Bob, and Jake. Jake’s mom is here, but she didn’t win a prize, did she, Jake?”
Jake shook his head and giggled. The audience aaawed.
“Melvin is the one who shot our favorite dad, Stewart.” Chaz slung a friendly arm around Melvin’s shoulders. Melvin cringed and tried to cover it. “Popped him right in the hiney. So Melvin, do you hunt? Are you a sharpshooter of some kind? Tell us.”
Melvin laughed. “No, Chaz. I haven’t picked up a gun since I was in the Marines. That was twenty years ago. Muscle memory, I guess. Like riding a bike.”
“Well, consider us impressed,” Chaz said. “You were promised a prize, so we’re setting you up for three days and two nights, all expenses paid at Villa Del Sol. Have you heard of it?”
“That’s the place where they give you massages on the beach and make you drink things with little umbrellas. Yep, I’ve heard of it. And then I heard again. I heard a couple more times after that, know what I mean? My wife has wanted to go there for I don’t know how long.”
“Luckily for you, the prize is for two,” Chaz said. “Or not luckily, I have no idea.”
“I love my wife,” Melvin said. “Hi, honey.” The vampire twins answered Chaz’s frantic signaling and came to escort Melvin offstage. “Bye, honey.”
“Why must we meet them?” Edmund said. “Just give them their prizes and let us move on.”
“I want to see the little one,” Delia said.
“I want—” Delia slapped a hand over Vlad’s mouth.
“We’re saving him for the last,” Chaz told her. “Let’s meet Bob, the man responsible for relieving Kannon of his left eye. You’re here with your family, aren’t you, Bob?”
“That I am, Chet.”
“Chaz.”
“Chaz,” Bob said. “You can call me Bobby.”
“Fantastic,” Chaz said. “Do you handle a gun often?”
“Often enough, but anything can happen. Every time I make a shot, I like to thank the Big Guy for helping me out.”
“The Hulk?” Chaz wondered.
“The Hulk is not real,” Delia said, “but perhaps that is not a deal breaker.”
“We do not fear your god,” Vlad said.
“Sorry sir, Vlad, Impaler,” Bob said. “Sorry, Chaz and ma’am. No offense meant. It just felt a bit uncomfortable to be talking about, you know…”
“God?” Chaz said.
“Yeah.” Bob nodded. “With you know…”
“Bloodsucking fiends? It’s okay, Bob. We know we’re vampires. You don’t believe all that ‘damned to hell’ nonsense do you, Bob?”
“No. I don’t. No way. My pastor does, is all. But you would probably know better than he does about vampires and their souls, what with you being one and all. Wow. So you can say His name? Wow.”
“Isn’t it technically more of a title?” Delia said.
“Let us stay on point,” Chaz said. “To clarify, you regularly
thank the ‘big guy’ for helping you visit death upon his other creatures?”
“Well, He did make those creatures for us,” Bob said.
“Us?” Chaz raised one eyebrow and regarded Bob until the latter began to squirm.
“I meant humans, no offense,” Bob said. “You know, because we’re His children created in His image.”
“Is our image not indistinguishable from your own?” Vlad said.
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Bob said.
“Indeed,” Vlad said.
“Is that your family?” Chaz considered eating Bob’s family as retaliation for this excruciating interview.
“Yes, that’s my family. My wife Dora and the three boys, little Robert, Joey, and Carson. Their mom likes Carson Daily. Maybe the next one we’ll call Chet.” Bob laughed. His family beamed.
“What is wrong with that one?” Vlad said.
“The same thing that is wrong with them all,” Edmund shot back.
“I can only dream,” Chaz said. “You win a new golf cart. I think it’s a Mercedes. Thanks for being here. Girls.”
The girls obliged and swept Bobby from the stage.
“And last but not least, as long as we refrain from factoring in his size, meet Jake!”
Jake had huge eyes, and fat, pink cheeks. He was wearing a cowboy hat and a cape; clearly, he had dressed himself. The audience showered him with cheers, coos, and blown kisses.
“How old are you, Jake?”
Jake held up a hand with all his fingers splayed open. He then tried to work his little index finger down. He wasn’t having much luck.
“He just turned three,” Jake’s mom said. “He’s not a big talker.”
“I phwee,” Jake agreed, finally managing to display four fingers.
“I could just eat him,” Delia said.
“I thought you said no eating,” Vlad complained.
“He is almost certainly a virgin,” Nodin observed.
Vlad nodded agreement and crooned, “Virgin. Yes.” He smiled dreamily, and his fangs slipped out. Jake’s mother pulled him closer.
Creature of the Night Page 10
