by Emily Knight
The two bedrooms in the rented house were located on the second floor. Peter's sat over the kitchen. His room was large, though not the master bedroom, and was as tidy as a trailer park after a tornado. Clothes hung on his desk, his desk chair, over the end of his bed, and even slunk out of his closet like a creature creeping from its smelly abode. Peter himself was buried beneath a mess of covers thick and thin with the tip of his pillow just visible, but nothing of him.
It was ten minutes past nine in the morning when his bedroom door flung open. Rich stood in the doorway with a paper in his hand and a frown on his face. He stalked into the room, grabbed the top cover, and pulled it off. Beneath that was another cover, and he pulled that away to reveal a third cover. Rich rolled his eyes and pulled off that cover to unravel Peter from his cocoon. Peter's head and torso were flung over the side of the bed that was nearest his window.
Rich marched around the foot of the bed and stood over Peter. Peter turned and blinked up at him. "What the hell. . .?" he muttered.
"Yeah, what the hell! Why didn't you tell me you were going to make the news!" his friend yelled at him.
Peter frowned and shook his head. "What? What news?"
Rich shoved the newspaper in Peter's face so the ink smeared on his nose. "The news about the almost-dead guy! It's here in the paper!"
Peter pushed the paper away. "Where'd you get this? We don't get the paper."
Rich shrugged. "Well, no, but I swiped one from the neighbor and you're on the front page."
Peter's eyes snapped open and he snatched the paper from Rich's hand. He sat up and read the bold headline on the front page. 'Vampire Strikes!' Peter frowned and read aloud the lead paragraph. "Last night a local university student stumbled on a grizzly scene when he found a near-dead young man in Akeley Park. Authorities are still baffled by the man's extreme loss of blood. The victim has been unable to recall what happened, but eye-witnesses have confirmed that the man bore two small puncture wounds on his neck." Peter lowered paper and ran hand through his wild hair. "Damn. . ."
Rich threw up his arms. "Damn? This is awesome! You stumbled on a vampire's lunch!"
Peter glanced out window and noticed the sun. He whipped his head to clock and saw it was nearly nine-thirty. "Crap, I gotta go." He tore the front page from the rest of the paper and tossed the paper in Rich's face as he jumped out of bed in a frantic effort to find clothes.
Rich followed him around the room as Peter performed his hide-and-seek with his attire. "Come on, Pete, you gotta spill the beans. Do you think it was a vampire?"
Peter hopped into a pair of jeans and grabbed his coat. "Not now, Rich. I'm late for class." He rushed out of the bedroom with his friend close at his heels.
"You can't leave me hanging like this!" Rich insisted.
Peter snatched his bag off the kitchen counter and ran through the kitchen door. "I'll tell you later!"
"Come on, just five minutes!" Rich pleaded. Peter shoved the gate open without looking back. "At least shut the gate!"
The gate swung to and fro as Peter disappeared around the front of the house. Rich frowned and stalked over to the gate.
He slammed it shut and shook his head. "He's gonna get us into big trouble not shutting that thing."
