A Nighttime of Forever

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Sarah!” shouts Sierra, thrashing at the duct tape cocoon. “Help!”

  “Fuck you, Scott.” Shrieking in rage, I pounce on him, raking and slashing like a spastic wolverine.

  In my fury, I’m vaguely aware of the scrape of my claws on bone. Bits of skin fly from his face, scalp, and chest. A blur of blonde and white, Bree Swanson, gets up from the bed and walks over to the cabinet, humming merrily to herself like she’s about to bake cookies.

  Scott slashes at my side and back; the sting of claws scoring down my skin makes me even angrier, and I grab his head in both hands and start pounding it into the floor until the boards crack under his skull. Bree takes a knife from a drawer and smiles at it.

  “Sarah, what’s happening?” shouts Sierra. “Come on. I’m really scared. Not kidding.”

  “Stop her,” I growl at Scott.

  He laughs. “You can’t kill me. Anything you wanna say to the little snot before she’s a memory, you should say it quick.”

  “Argh! You are such”―I twist and pull at his head―“an”―my knee rammed into his chest, I yank with all the strength I can manage―“asshole!”

  With a wet crack, his head pops off in my hands.

  Scott’s left hand keeps trying to slash at me, though his aim is off. The head growls.

  “Oh, fuck!” Utterly revolted, I hurl the head out the missing wall into the woods.

  “You”―it bounces up, spinning―“bitch!”

  “Sarah!” screams Sierra.

  I whirl toward my sister’s voice. Bree’s taking a knee next to her, with one hand on Sierra’s head, the other drawing a giant kitchen knife back in preparation to stab her in the heart.

  The room blurs as I launch myself forward and tackle Bree into the wall. She doesn’t react at all, no scream, no startled yelp, and keeps trying to get Sierra. Even as I drag her away, she mindlessly continues attempting to follow Scott’s command.

  His body pulls itself upright, then staggers off into the woods, no doubt chasing the head. It blindly crashes into a tree and falls, but gets right back up.

  Screw it. I’ve got bigger problems right now.

  I pluck the knife out of Bree’s grip and throw it into the woods, then grab her face in both hands, forcing eye contact. Her thoughts lurk behind a gauzy mental web of something I’ve never seen before. When I try to force my will over her to stop attempting to hurt Sierra, it feels like I’m walking face first into a super-tough cobweb and bouncing away. Grr. A little spike of anger pushes me past it, and like biting into a liquid-filled chocolate, a back blast of Bree’s thoughts comes flooding into my awareness.

  Her memory of the night she jumped in the pool fills my vision. After driving home, Bree climbed out of her Cooper, crying and complaining about her clothes being ruined. She makes it two steps toward her house before Scott grabs her from behind and drags her off into the woods. Like any normal, rational person, as soon as she saw his mangled face, she screamed.

  He’d somehow taken over her mind. Bree’s been rattling around this cabin since, until he sent her after Sierra. After dating me for so long, he knew my family’s routine and even where my sister’s friend Nicole lives.

  Our mental link drops, and Bree goes limp.

  Crap. I want to hate her so much for kidnapping Sierra, but dammit.

  Out in the forest, Scott moans. I set Bree down on the floor and walk to the opening where the front wall collapsed. My very ex-boyfriend picks his head up, brushes dirt off his blood-slicked cheek, and stumbles off, carrying his severed head like a football under his arm. Snaps and crunches in the underbrush grow distant. I’m eventually going to have to deal with him, but I don’t know what he is or what to do about it. Maybe those MIBs can help?

  “Sarah? Are you still here?” asks Sierra, in a near-whisper.

  “Yeah.” I look down at myself. Bloody, but not too bad.

  “Did you kill him?” asks Sierra.

  “No. But I can’t. He’s already dead.” I head over to the sink and wash my hands.

  “Are you gonna take the tape off me?”

  I smile. “Maybe. Might be easier to carry you home like this.”

  “You are helpless when you sleep. Remember that,” says Sierra.

  “Heh.” I love this kid. “If you don’t want me to wash rotting blood off my hands first, say the word.”

  She fidgets. “Use soap.”

  Gnarly

  20

  Before I can get from the sink to Sierra, Bree springs upright, stares at my bloody dress, and starts shrieking like a banshee.

  “Oh God,” wails Bree, over and over, while flapping her arms. “What happened? Are you okay? Did he try to kill us?”

  “Gimme a minute, Bree.”

  I take a step toward Sierra, but Bree grabs my arm. “You’re bleeding. Your dress is ripped open in back.”

  “Yeah. I figured that would happen.”

  “Come on!” shouts Sierra. “Please untie me! I missed the whole fight ’cause of this stupid blindfold.”

  “Be glad you couldn’t see that. The Thing gave you nightmares for a month.”

  “That bad?” asks Sierra.

  “Yeah, he’s pretty damn gnarly,” I say.

  Bree doesn’t protest when I yank my arm away from her grip. “I’ve got a bag in the car. You can borrow some stuff to wear if you want… before that dress falls off you.”

  I take a knee by Sierra, seething inside at the girl my boyfriend cheated with―and killed me over―being nice to me. “Hold still. My nails are really sharp and I only want to cut tape.”

  Sierra nods. “Okay.”

  A few swipes of a single claw cuts the tape from her wrists and separates her legs. “You want me to get the strip off your eyes or do you want to do that?”

  “Umm,” says Sierra. “Which way is not going to rip off my eyebrows?”

  “Let me do it.”

  I sit on the floor next to her and begin gingerly plucking at tape while explaining that Bree was possessed or something. My skin tingles where Scott’s claws got me, and my stomach twists with hunger. Sierra starts off demanding we call the cops on Bree, but by the time I’ve gotten the ‘blindfold’ off her (eyebrows intact, by the way), she’s accepted that the girl had been under control.

  Sierra looks around at the smashed cabin and whistles. “Holy crap. You ripped the whole place down.”

  “I had some help.” I test the scratches on my side with my fingers. Ow. They’re on fire.

  “Thanks for saving my ass,” mutters Sierra while pulling scraps of tape away from her jeans.

  A whump comes from outside. I spin, bracing for another attack, but it’s only Bree closing her car door. She walks over with a gym bag, fishes out a white T-shirt with a cartoon unicorn on it, then a pair of jeans.

  My back still stings where Scott’s claws got me. Testing, I roll my arm around and wince at the slice of pain. It dawns on me what Dalton said about blood. I probably used up quite a bit tonight being strong, fast, and kicking Scott’s ass. “How bad is it?”

  “Is what?” asks Sierra.

  “My back.”

  She pulls at the ribbons of dress. “Umm. That’s kinda freaky. There’s cuts, but no blood’s coming out. It’s just kinda sitting there.”

  “Deep?” I ask.

  “Worse than a cat scratch, but not too bad.”

  I wave Bree over.

  She approaches. “Here, you can wear this stuff.”

  “You can make up for kidnapping my sister with a little favor.” I stand.

  “What? I didn’t kidnap anyone.”

  Sierra glares up at her.

  I lock eyes with Bree and mesmerize her before sprouting fangs.

  “Cool,” says Sierra in a whispery voice.

  The flavor of strawberry shortcake blasts into my mouth as my teeth pierce Bree’s neck, but within a second, I get this inexplicable sense of worry that feeding from her is bad. I run my thumb over the puncture marks, restoring her flesh af
ter only a mouthful.

  “What’s up? Why’d you stop?” asks Sierra.

  “She’s too low on blood… I’d hurt her.” I blink at Bree. “Son of a bitch. Scott’s a vampire too! He’s been feeding off her.”

  Sierra pulls her T-shirt away from her shoulder. “Umm. If you need it, you can have some of mine.”

  “No way.” I pick her up and hug her. “You guys are off limits.”

  “If you’re gonna die die, I insist you bite me.” She frowns.

  “I’m just hungry, not about to drop dead.” I set her back on her feet. “I’ll run out for a snack after I get you home.”

  “You’re going to bleed all over that white shirt,” says Sierra. “Will drinking blood let you heal?”

  I sigh at her. “Probably, but I can’t take blood from my kid sister.”

  Bree bursts into tears and sinks to her knees. “Scott kidnapped me! He made me drive us out here. Oh, God, he looked so awful… like a cougar got him.”

  “Looked more like a bear victim to me,” I mutter.

  Sierra grins.

  Bree peers up at me. “Where is he? Is he coming back? I don’t wanna die!” She grabs my arms, sobbing.

  Really, Fate? Really!? Now I’m supposed to comfort the girl my boyfriend cheated with?

  “I’m sorry,” says Bree, up on her knees, face pressed against my hip, sniffling. “When he tried to pick me up, I said no at first ’cause he was with you for like ever. But he told me you two had broken up a week ago and were both seeing other people. He said you’d hooked up with Jeffrey Martinez.”

  “What?” I blink. “Jeff? Are you kidding me? He’s such a self-absorbed, umm…” I glance at Sierra. “Piece of work. Thinks he’s like the Puerto Rican Frank Sinatra or something.”

  “Who?” asks Bree, sniffling.

  “Never mind.” I flop to sit on the floor and put an arm around Bree. “He used you too. When I told him I was leaving, he said he only intended to hook up with you once to ‘see what an airhead blonde was like.’”

  She pouts at me.

  “I’m just quoting him. I’m not calling you an airhead.”

  “Oh.” Bree looks down.

  “She is an airhead,” says Sierra.

  Bree gasps.

  “You kidnapped me,” grumbles Sierra. “Since you’re not gonna go to jail for it, you can deal with a couple jabs.”

  “What?” Bree shivers. “I kinda remember offering you a ride home.”

  “And I said ‘no thanks,’ but you got out and grabbed me.”

  “I don’t remember that.” Bree gazes off into space.

  It’s pretty clear upon staring into her eyes again that her memory’s got Swiss cheese holes. “She’s not lying. Scott’s control… maybe whenever it forced her to do something she really didn’t want to do, she blacked out so she doesn’t have any memory.”

  The tingles in my back flare up again, itching like hell. I snarl and grab two fistfuls of rug to keep from scratching.

  “What?” asks Sierra.

  “Itching,” I say past clenched teeth.

  “What are you?” Bree stares at me. “What’s Scott? Why do you have fangs? What happened here?”

  “Bree, Scott murdered me for dumping him. I woke up like this a couple days later. I don’t know what the hell he is really.”

  “So you’re like a vampire?” asks Bree.

  Sierra grabs a fistful of Bree’s shirt. “If you make a Buffy joke, I will end you.”

  I chuckle. “Come on, we need to get out of here.”

  “Hey, you stopped bleeding,” says Sierra.

  “Cool.” I stand and pull off the dress. Whatever. Just girls here, right?

  Bree’s spare shirt’s a little loose on me, but the jeans aren’t bad, even if they’re too short in the leg. The dress is beyond fixing, but I hang onto it in case it might somehow trace back to me if someone ever investigates this cabin.

  “I feel sick,” says Bree. “Dizzy and stuff.”

  “You’re low on blood. I think Scott’s been feeding on you.”

  She stares at me with terror in her perfect blue eyes. “Am I going to die?”

  “Nah. I figured you owed me at least a meal for kidnapping my sister, but when I tried to drink from you, I got the feeling taking any more would be bad. You should probably do whatever they tell people to do after donating, and rest.”

  “Orange juice and cookies?” asks Sierra.

  “Something like that,” I mutter.

  “You’re not gonna call the police?” Bree looks back and forth between us a few times before facing Sierra. “I’m really sorry for what I did. Even if I don’t remember it.”

  “Nah.” My sister shakes her head and notices a scrap of duct tape in her mouse-brown hair. While plucking and tossing it aside, she mutters, “Cops don’t deal with vampire stuff.”

  “Oh, right,” says Bree.

  “Umm, are you really gonna let her remember all this?” asks Sierra.

  I look Bree up and down. She seems pretty much broken. It probably would be a bad idea to let her remember the extra special details. This girl’s going to wind up on a therapist’s couch, drop the v word, and either cause a bunch of trouble for me or wind up spending years in a mental hospital. “Not entirely.”

  “Huh?” asks Bree.

  “Trust me.” I smile, grasp her face in both hands, and gaze into her eyes. “This is for your benefit.”

  A few minutes later, Bree’s blissfully unaware of vampires. As far as she knows, a normal-but-drunk Scott abducted her at knifepoint, forced her to drive to this cabin, and held her here before kidnapping Sierra to lure me out so he could kill all three of us. I managed to get the better of Scott in a fight since injuries from the bear attack left him weak, and he ran away after I started kicking his ass.

  Bree blinks rapidly when I’m done, looking around at the destroyed cabin. “What happened?”

  “Uhh, Scott rammed his truck into the building.”

  “Oh.” Bree looks at me. “Why are you wearing my stuff?”

  “You let me borrow it because Scott slashed up my dress.” I hold up the bloody garment.

  “Oh.” She smiles. “Right. I remember.”

  I gesture at the Cooper. “Drive us home, okay?”

  She stands. “Yeah. I wanna go home too.” Bree walks outside to the little white car.

  “Does she do that on purpose?” asks Sierra.

  “What?”

  Sierra sighs at yet another scrap of duct tape on her leg, and yanks it off. “Talk like a little girl.”

  “I think she’s just freaked out.”

  “She’s too freaked out to drive.” Sierra pokes me in the side. “You should take the keys.”

  “My license is… wherever my phone is.” I head over to the corner and retrieve Mom’s iPhone from beside a pile of duct tape scraps.

  “So?” Sierra folds her arms. “If you get pulled over, just tell the cop to go away.”

  “I like the way you think.” I ruffle her hair, and walk out to the car. “Bree.”

  “Huh?” asks the blonde princess.

  “Hop over. You’re in shock. I’m driving.”

  “Okay,” says Bree.

  I toss the phone to Sierra after she crawls into the back seat. “You got navs. I have no how get home from here with a car.”

  Sierra’s face lights up in the glare from the phone. “Covered. Umm. There’s no road. Go north-ish.”

  “Which way is north?”

  She looks at the phone and points off to the left.

  Right. I’m half tempted to pick this little wind-up car off the ground and carry it. Not sure I’m quite that strong though.

  “Seat belts,” I say. “This is gonna be a little bumpy.”

  Intentions

  21

  I pull Bree’s Mini Cooper into our cul-de-sac and stop about ten feet from my driveway. Once we figured out how to get back onto a real road, the ride didn’t take long. An alarm starts pinging
when I open the door with the engine running. Bree’s still kinda freaking out, but a little mental zap of calm lets me trust she’ll stay focused at least long enough to get home.

  “Think you can make it from here?” I ask.

  Bree nods. “Yeah. Thanks for getting me out of there.”

  The house door opens. Mom and Dad lean out, squinting at the car.

  “No problem.” I start to get up, but hesitate. “Look, Bree… I don’t blame you anymore. Everything that happened was Scott’s fault.”

  “Thanks,” whispers Bree. “Sorry for believing him when he said you broke up.”

  “I still wanna kick her ass,” mutters Sierra.

  Bree glances back at her and sighs. “Sorry.”

  I hop out and Sierra scrambles after me. Bree moves behind the wheel, waves, and backs around in a turn.

  “That’s messed up.” Sierra turns, watching the tiny car zip off down the road. “I thought you hated her.”

  “I did at first, but it wasn’t really her fault. I can see into her head now, remember? He totally lied to her. She thought I was just jealous of her looks because Scott dumped me for her. C’mon, Mom’s freaking out.”

  We hurry across the damp lawn toward the porch. Sierra runs into my parents’ arms. Mom’s way more freaked out than she is. Dad smiles at me, holding out an arm. I lean into his embrace and suppress a grumble of hunger at being so close to his neck.

  “Do I want to know why you’re in different clothes than when you left?” asks Dad.

  “I got into a claw fight. Why do I smell coffee?”

  “Our guests are still here,” says Mom. “What happened with Sierra?”

  “Ugh.” I let go of Dad and turn toward the kitchen.

  The MIBs walk into view, each holding a mug.

  “They said they’re not here to cause problems for you.” Dad fidgets.

  “I still gotta deal with Ash and Michelle…” After I grab shoes.

  Agent Kendricks crosses the living room and walks up to me.

  “What happened with Sierra?” asks Mom.

  I glance at the MIBs. “Well, since you guys already know about me, maybe you can help out here. I’m still learning this stuff.”

  “We don’t usually locate your kind so soon after the change. You’re quite new from what we’ve been able to determine,” says Agent Han. “The government is aware of the existence of vampires… and other things.”