by Unknown
What Eileen yelled suddenly registers. Both talking about vampires?
“Wait,” Aaron says, then pauses. “My dad has spoken to you about vampires before?”
“Yeah, he’s crazy like the two of you. Saying they were here for—” Eileen stops speaking.
“Here for what?” Aaron presses.
“For you.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me this before?” Aaron asks.
“Because it’s all crazy talk.” Eileen shakes her head.
“What else did he say?” Aaron asks.
“Nothing. He left the lab the next day. And never came back.”
Aaron turns towards Eileen. “Are you sure he left us?”
“I’m sure.”
“How are you sure?” I ask, breaking the silence.
“Because he took things from the house, and the poor excuse for a man drained our bank accounts. Leaving me with nothing,” she says bitterly.
Why is there a vampire at my house? I glance at the other homes across from Aaron's, but they appear to be normal—no shadows behind the curtains, no flickering light, no screaming.
Did Ryder really spike my drink, and is this just one bad trip? If this whole evening with the vampires weren’t actually happening, my body wouldn’t be throbbing all over in pain. Then again, why have I survived if it is real? God, this is frigging screwing with my head.
The window fogs from my hot, restless breaths. I wipe it clean. A group of people is walking towards us. As they get closer, the group parts a little to reveal a smaller figure and a huge one. This is the group from before. This is not a bad trip. This is a wide a-frigging-wake nightmare.
“We have to go. They’ve found us!” I grip hold of the back of Eileen’s car seat, shaking it with all my strength.
“Drive, Mom, drive!” Aaron yells.
“Drive!” I scream.
Eileen turns angrily towards me. “Stop shouting at me.”
Then her expression changes, as if she sees the fear in my face, and I see it briefly in hers.
“Mom,” Aaron pleads.
“Hush,” she says, gritting her teeth. Inside, the car falls silent except for the humming of the engine, all of the windows fogged up from our hot breaths. I want to tell her to go faster, but I know it will only make her stop again.
Eileen finally starts to drive. I slump back into the car seat, wishing I were a coin hidden in the cracks of the leather seat. I tap Aaron’s shoulder. “Look.” I point to the group of vampires walking in the direction of our car. Aaron leans towards the window, wiping it a little more for a clearer view of them.
They all stop and stare at us, their heads held high. Can they smell me like I can smell them?
The car carries on driving away from them. They don't even try to run after us. Is it because they know where we’re going? My mouth dries up at the thought.
Chapter Fifteen
As Eileen pulls up to my home—which I’ve never been scared of before—I am now terrified.
Hastily, I look along the street. It’s empty. I have a feeling it won’t be for long.
“Sadie, wait, what’s the plan?” Aaron asks frantically.
“To kill as many as I can. I’m not going to let them harm my parents,” I say bitterly.
Aaron just nods in response.
“What?” Eileen squeals, shaking her head and staring at me in disgust at the thought of us killing the vampires.
The car door creaks as I push it open and step down. The evening—no, it’s nearly morning—is cool. The sky is already beginning to change color, away from the darkness of night. An icy feeling in the air makes my muscles tense.
“She’s crazy,” Eileen says to Aaron from inside the car. “You are not going anywhere with her.”
Aaron’s brown eyes glisten under the car light. Eileen yanks Aaron by the t-shirt, stopping him in his tracks.
His door squeaks open. “Get off me,” he snaps as he pulls away from her and stumbles out of the car.
“Get back here!” Her voice is muffled by Aaron slamming the door.
“I just cannot win with her.” Aaron shakes his head and shrugs. “Here she comes, ready for round two,” he says as his mom steps out of the car. “Or is it round three?”
“That’s it. You are grounded!” Eileen screams, wagging her finger.
“Fine. After tonight, I have no plans of going anywhere outside of the house,” Aaron says, smiling at me.
“And she’s not welcome in our house,” Eileen adds as she strides up to my home.
“Mom…” Aaron yells. I grab his arm to stop him from saying anything else to his mom. I can feel the muscles in his arms flexing.
“It’s not like I was welcome before,” I say, shrugging.
“That’s true,” Aaron says with a little smile.
Damn. “Eileen,” I yell at the top of my lungs as we both run towards her.
She just looks back at me, shaking her head, as she knocks on my door. The door opens before she can knock a second time.
“Don’t,” comes my mother’s voice from inside the house.
I hold my breath, waiting to see if a vampire is there. The wood splinters bury into my skin as my grip tightens on the stake.
It’s my dad. Eileen steps to the side, allowing me to run through the doorway and wrap my arms around him. His arms pull me in, his dry, musky cologne enveloping me. His heart races at an unhealthy speed. He holds me so tight, like he doesn’t want to let go.
I lean back away from him—his face is filled with dread—and look over at my mom. She’s sitting in her chair with her head lowered, staring down at the living-room rug.
“We didn’t know. We didn’t know…” Dad keeps repeating under his breath.
Hatred fills my body as I glance at the figure standing by Mom. A vampire dares to stand so proudly in my home? No doubt he used his jet-black, long leather coat to hide himself away from his victims at night. The rancid odor of death drifts up my nose. I contract my stomach muscles in as I try not to throw up. His smell is stronger than that of the others. Is it because he has killed more than the other vampires I’ve met this evening?
His eyes wrinkle at the edges, his pupils swallowing up any hint of color in them. His thick eyebrows arch into a V—he’s smiling at me. My eyes trail along his long sharp nose, down to his matching sharp white teeth. Someone is going to die tonight, and it's not going to be me!
Chapter Sixteen
“Sadie, I’ve been expecting you.”
Rage buries into my bones at the way he says my name. I cough to clear my throat. “Why?”
“Sadie,” Eileen says as she enters my family’s home.
The police officer who called himself Remus licks his thin lips as if he’s at an all-you-can-eat-dessert buffet. “Come in, come in,” he says, waving his hand.
“Mom, no!” Aaron cries out.
Eileen doesn’t listen to Aaron, and follows Remus’s request. “Get in, listen to the officer,” she orders.
“Door,” Remus tells my dad harshly.
“Run, Sadie, run,” my mom yells. I can see a nasty black bruise on her face through her hair.
The vampire raises his hand towards my mom, as if he’s about to scold her. She flinches and lowers her head. The sight makes me want to run at the intruder.
“He said he’d kill her if I didn’t open the door. I d-didn’t want t-to,” my dad stutters. His voice is full of regret and fear.
I reach over to him and squeeze his hand to let him know I understand. He leans his head against mine and whispers, “He’s a vampire.”
“She already knows, don’t you, Sadie?” Remus replies.
“Knows what? Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?” Eileen says in frustration. Her voice is only noise to me. All my focus is on my mom.
“Mom… Mom,” I repeat as I walk closer to her, trying not to make any sudden movement, ignoring Eileen and Remus’s last comments.
Mom’s head gradually lifts
up to face me. She brushes her hair, darkened from sweat, away from her face. Her face is swollen, with glazed-over eyes, as though she’s been crying since the phone call.
She shakes her head at me. “Sadie…” She stops and sniffles. “You shouldn’t have come home,” she says, shaking her head, then wipes the snot away from her nose.
“How could you do this to her?” I ask, wagging the stake at him like it’s my finger, scolding him.
“Don’t wave that at me, child,” he says, staring at the stake.
“What do you want from me?” I say.
“Your blood,” he replies.
“Her blood?” Eileen’s high-pitched voice bounces off my tiny living room’s walls.
“And your son’s blood,” Remus says to Eileen, smiling, then adds, “two slayers in one day. I knew today was going to be a good day, but never could I imagine it would be this good.” He shakes his shoulders, giddy with excitement.
“Slayers? What do you mean, slayers?” Eileen asks.
I wait in silence for the answer I’ve wanted all night. “They’re vampire slayers. They were made to hunt us down.” Remus pauses and smiles. “And they aren’t doing a good job of it, are they?”
“Aaron, we are leaving,” she says as she reaches for the door. The room falls silent as we wait for a reaction.
“Be my guest,” Remus says, taking us all by surprise. Nothing in life is ever that easy.
Eileen pulls open the door. “Argh!” she gasps in fear, and jumps back, pushing Aaron further into the living room.
Aaron’s eyes dart from me to Remus and then back. Without him saying anything, I know the other vampires are here.
“Don’t invite them in,” I say.
A deep roar of laughter comes from the “officer.” He hugs himself as he shakes with laughter, as if the comment is the single funniest thing he’s ever heard. Why do they keep laughing at me? I’m not that frigging funny.
“What?” I turn to him in confusion.
“Humans watch too much television,” he says, shaking his head, and then smiles towards the front door as the vampire girl from the street fight walks in with her brute of a bodyguard.
“What the hell?” I spit, unable to control my emotions anymore.
“You see, you dumb people, you invite us into your homes all the time, and unlike what the movies tell you, you only have to invite us in once,” Remus says, as if I’m stupid. “Sadie, your home was one of the easiest to get into, thanks to your obese parents.” Mom cries out as the cruel words pour from his foul lips.
“Don’t call them that.” Out of everything, that makes me the angriest, because he’s right.
“What, ‘obese’?” He raises his eyebrows. “Anyway.” He waves his hand in the air, as if the subject is closed. “Nancy, take a look at our new guest,” he says with a smile.
Mom glances up towards the group of vampires standing in her hallway. There is silence for a moment.
“Kieran?” my mom mutters. The blonde vampire smiles, lowering her hand to her waist, then cusses and flicks her hair in response.
I spin to face my mom. “How do you know her?” I ask.
Mom takes a big breath in. “She’s a pizza girl. She bring us deliveries,” she says.
My heart sinks at the sight of the group. Each one of them has been allowed to enter our home because of my parents’ sneaky secret.
Greed is evident in the vampires’ faces as they stare at their prey.
We are surrounded once again by vampires.
“Why have you come to my home?” I ask Remus. He’s older than the others and I guess the leader of this God-awful pack.
“Because we are slayer hunters,” he says in a matter-of-fact way.
“Why does everyone keep calling me a slayer? I'm not!” I say, angry and confused at the same time.
Remus reaches into his shirt’s chest pocket, under his coat, and pulls out a folded-up piece of white paper. He slowly unfolds it. “Are you Sadie Meyer?” he asks as he glances down at the piece of paper.
I snatch it out of his hand.
“Has no one ever told you that it's rude to snatch?” he complains, peering down at my mom while shaking his head. Jesus, a vampire complaining about frigging manners. Give me a frigging break!
I stop listening to him as he mutters on about manners and draws all my attention to the list. As clear as day, my name is handwritten along with my address at the top of the vampires’ list. Scanning the list, I see more of my classmates’ names. My eyes stop and I turn to Aaron. His name is on the list. Why are we on a list?
I can feel Remus watching at me, his eyes burning into my soul as though wanting to rip it out of me.
“See? Two-for-one slayer.” He smiles.
“We're just normal kids. This is a mistake,” I plead in confusion.
“We don't make mistakes,” he says.
I reach my hand out to give him back the list.
Eileen's voice gets louder as she argues with the group of vampires refusing to let her leave. Remus’s eyes are drawn towards the noise.
This is my chance. I swing the stake up towards his throat. Before it can connect with his skin, his arm launches at my head, sending me up off my feet and flying through the air. My head throbs. I crash at the bottom of the stairs with a thud, grunting as pain washes over my body.
As if my body crashing to the ground was the catalyst, the adrenaline kicks in for my group of misfits. Mom is first. She swings her favorite coffee cup into Remus’s face. He stumbles back a little in surprise. Dad runs at him, using all his body weight to slam into Remus and lift him up off the ground and into the air.
Dad launches Remus’s body out through our living-room window. Pieces of glass fall on the ground outside.
Eileen's gun is pointed at the vampire gang.
“Get away from my son,” she yells at them.
They growl back, their sharp fangs sticking out.
“Your father was right, Aaron,” Eileen says at the sight of their fangs. She pushes Aaron back towards me. He reaches to help me up off the ground.
It feels like I've left my pain on the floor. Where is my strength coming from?
“Get upstairs, kids,” Eileen says to us as she walks backward, still pointing the gun. “Don't come any closer,” Eileen snaps as the blonde girl steps forward.
“You don't want to shoot an innocent kid, do you?” the girl says, tilting her head, making herself look less threatening.
“I said get back!”
Bang!
Aaron and I freeze on the stairs; I don’t want to leave my parents with the vampires. The girl’s lips curl back, revealing her fangs. Her face is no longer innocent-looking. She's ready to kill, angry at being shot at.
“Run,” Eileen says as she turns and starts running towards us up the steps. We instantly sprint towards my bedroom.
We pile in. There is a slam as Eileen swings the wooden door closed behind us. Without thinking, Aaron and I push my chest of drawers in front of the door.
“This won’t last long against them,” Aaron says. He's right.
“Eileen, do you have your cell phone?” I ask.
“Yes,” she replies with a quiver to her voice.
“Call the police,” I order.
“But—”
“Say there are intruders.”
There is the sudden hollow echo of knuckles on my rattling wooden door, then a sharp thud…thud. They’re here.
“Quickly.”
I can just make out odd words for help from Eileen as she speaks on the phone, over the sound of the break-in.
Chapter Seventeen
“They’re on their way,” Eileen says as she stands in the corner of my room with her back against my bedroom wall, with the cell phone and gun in her trembling hands.
The door begins to cave in. It vibrates with every impact, splinters of wood floating down.
The heavy pounding stops for a second. Then, as if one of the vampires used all
his force, his hand appears through a hole in my door, while the others’ hands crawl around the edges of the hole as they try to widen it.
The vampire’s hand waves around frantically, trying to grab anything it can. I duck my hair out of the way. I have already had my hair and parts of my scalp almost ripped off from the last vampire that grabbed hold of it. I don’t plan on making the same mistake twice.
Aaron and I use our body weight against the wooden chest of drawers, but we are not strong enough. The drawers begin to slide away from the door as the vampire force it open.
“Mom, help,” Aaron pleads.
Eileen slides the gun and phone into her coat pockets, then joins us to push up against the chest of drawers; with her extra strength we manage to close the door again.
The vampire’s hand disappears for a moment, and the force on the door lessens. They’re planning. We need a plan.
“We can’t hold them forever. We have to get out of here. Only way out is through the window,” I tell them. “Eileen, go first. Go now.”
Fat, long fingers with chewed-down fingernails appear in the hole in the door. Someone starts to tear the door apart.
“Now, Mom, get help,” Aaron says as he pushes his mom from his side.
“I’m sorry,” she says, ashamed for not believing him earlier. She passes Aaron the gun. “I will get help.”
The door creaks as it’s being ripped apart, followed by a squeak as my bedroom window is opened. Eileen finally does something for her son, and jumps of the second story window. She’s our only hope now.
My pink curtains blow in the morning breeze. There is a glimmer of the sun on the horizon.
“Aaron, the sun is up,” I say giddily.
A glimmer of hope ignites a fuse in my body and my mind. It's time to fight, and we can and will win.
“Ready?” I say to Aaron.
“Ready,” he replies.
“Let’s kill these frigging vampires,” I say.
We step away from the chest of drawers just as the hands rip the door in two. There is a hollow thud as one half of my door falls down onto the floor, leaving the other side hanging on only one hinge.
