by Lana Melyan
“Eleanor,” Ruben said.
“Huh?” She turned her head to him, a little startled.
“Are you alright?”
“I’m fine.” She looked at the cap in his hand. “What’s that?”
“Extra precaution. Last time we checked, the gas station was closed. It had an alarm and cameras.”
She took the cap and threw it on the seat. “I’m not a criminal. I’m a Hunter.”
“Eleanor . . .”
“But Fray is. He’s a killer. So I don’t think that alarm is connected to the police station, and those cameras are just to watch for us. What kind of criminal would want the police on his tail? You said there are nine coffins in there. If the alarm goes off, the police will be here in minutes. What do you think would happen if they found the coffins?”
“We’re not sure if there are transitioning vampires in those coffins. They could be empty,” said Riley.
“Even if they are empty. Nine coffins at the gas station? Does it sound normal?”
“You’re right,” said Ruben. “Fray doesn’t need police. He can set up traps all by himself.”
The place looked abandoned. Riley parked the car a good distance away. As they got out, he opened the trunk. They all grabbed the stakes lying at the bottom. There was also a crowbar. Riley took it, and the three of them headed toward the entrance.
The next town was only ten minutes away, but this wasn’t a main road, and only a few cars passed by.
They walked into the shadow of the concrete overlap above the entrance and looked through the glass doors. All lights inside were off.
“This looks too easy,” said Ruben. “It’s like a huge ‘welcome’ sign.”
“Maybe there’s nothing here,” said Eleanor.
“Or maybe that’s what he wants us to think,” said Riley, and swiped the crowbar into the glass. The glass didn’t break. “Bulletproof,” he said, and sent another blow.
“Don’t bother,” said Ruben. “There has to be another way in.”
They rounded the building. Behind looked as neglected as the rest of the place. There was one small covered trailer, a few pallets stacked on top of each other under the wall, and a dumpster.
There was also a big garage. Using the crowbar, Riley pulled off the combination lock hanging on its wide, newly painted wooden flaps. A gray van was parked inside, its back doors open. The concrete floor looked new, as well. The shelves were almost empty, except for a few cans of different sizes. An open plastic toolbox sat on a working table in the corner. Riley bent down to check the floor under the van.
“No hatches, no suspicious doors,” said Ruben.
The lock on the thin, metal backdoor of the gas station seemed a little complicated. Riley wedged the crowbar between the lock and the door-frame. The second he pushed it, something on the other side of the door exploded with such power that the three of them flew back twenty feet in different directions. Pieces of pallets and shards of concrete showered down on them.
“What the hell was that?” wheezed Eleanor, sitting up and shaking the dust from her hair.
“Sorry, honey, did it ruin your new outfit?” said Ruben, looking at the tear on his hip and the blood on his jeans. “Look at the bright side,” he groaned, pulling himself up and rubbing his back. “The door is open.”
The lock was still in its place, but the other side of the door was crooked, the blow having uprooted the hinges from the metal frame.
“He knows it’s not gonna stop us,” said Eleanor, irritated.
Riley picked up the end of a wire running to the trailer. He stepped to the trailer and threw aside the synthetic blue cover. “But this could, for a while,” he said, gazing at eight ten-gallon gas cans sitting in it, with something bulky wrapped around them. He bent down and looked under the trailer. “There is a detonator.”
“Yeah, I suppose this firecracker was his idea of an alarm. Except his pyrotechnics sucked,” said Ruben.
“He could have just put it next to the door,” said Riley with a shrug.
“No,” said Ruben, staring at the gas cans. “He wanted to knock us out first. That way we’d burn longer.”
“We have to get rid of it, before someone gets hurt.”
“Not yet,” said Ruben. “This cloud of dust will settle down. But if we set off those cans, the next car that passes will see the fire and call the police, and all we’ll be able to do is scrape ourselves from the ground and run before they arrive.”
“Right. We’ll do it after we search the building.”
Riley dragged aside the crooked metal door, and the three of them walked through the small entrance. They passed the toilet and the broom cupboard. Stepping on the scattered pieces of concrete, they moved into the shop area. Chunks of plaster were on the floor, a few chip bags and chocolate bars had fallen from the shelves, but altogether it looked undamaged. At the other end of the shop, in the passage next to the counter, were the office and storage room.
The location wasn’t big and searching didn’t take long.
“There’s nothing here,” said Ruben.
“Empty or not, the coffins are here, hidden somewhere,” said Riley. “Look behind the shelves. Eleanor, you check the office, I’ll take the storage. Ruben, you search the store.”
Eleanor walked into the office. Nothing seemed big enough to cover some secret passage. She moved the table to look at the piece of floor behind its solid sides, then pushed aside the metal filing cabinets. She also made sure there was nothing behind the jackets hanging on the wide clothes hanger before approaching a wooden cabinet. She pulled it, but it didn’t budge. She peered around it. There was no gap between its back and the wall, and when she opened the doors, it was empty. The back panel of the cabinet wasn’t wooden but a thin, shiny, gray metal. Eleanor looked at the wall and in the cabinet again. The piece of metal wasn’t leveled with the wall; it sat visibly deeper.
“Guys,” she shouted over the rattle coming from the other rooms, “I think I found something.”
“It looks like a port,” said Ruben, joining her. “But there’s nothing to get a grip on.”
Riley swung the crowbar, and with two blows he crushed the cabinet. Now that the light fell on the metal, Eleanor could look at it closer.
“Step aside in case it explodes again,” said Riley, ready to thrust the crowbar between the wall and the metal.
“Wait,” said Eleanor. “If this is an entrance, there has to be some way to open it.” She bent down and placed her hands on the slick surface. First she tried to pull it up, then aside, but it didn’t move. She examined up the metal and saw that on its top, beneath the piece of broken wood still sticking out from the wall, was a dark, horizontal stripe. Eleanor pushed it, and the metal door slid up.
Crouching, they passed through the opening. On the other side of the wall was a staircase.
“This is the back side of the building,” said Riley, walking down the stairs. Seeing a turn to the right once he reached the bottom, he added, “And this way leads us—”
“Under the garage,” finished Ruben.
They rounded the corner. At the end of the passageway was a room with nine open coffins placed on stands along the walls. They gazed at the pale bodies, illuminated by the weak, yellow light coming from the ceiling lamps. Three women and six men.
“How long have they been here?” asked Eleanor, walking from one coffin to another.
“A couple of years,” said Riley.
“Why are they open?” She stopped beside the last coffin of the row and ran her hand along its side. “This is odd.”
Riley and Ruben walked up to her. Rubbing her fingers together, Eleanor crushed a piece of dry dirt between them.
“Look at their clothes,” she said. “And look at this.” She pointed at the Nike shoes and at the white silk covered with dirt.
“Those are just––” Ruben thrust the stake into the chest of the body lying in the coffin, “––vampires.”
The vampire
winced in pain. His eyes flew open, but after a short moan they closed again, and the body began shriveling.
They heard a noise behind them. Riley swung around. The tip of a massive knife was only inches away from his chest. He clutched the hand holding it and punched the vampire in the face. Staggering back, the vampire hit the casket behind him. Riley pulled out the stake and thrust it into his heart. In the same second he was attacked by two others.
The woman standing in her coffin jumped down at Eleanor, but Eleanor bounced back to the wall. Clinging to Eleanor’s legs, the woman stopped herself from falling flat. Eleanor grabbed her by her long hair, pulled her up and hit her face on the corner of the casket.
Two vampires ran toward the exit.
“Eleanor, the van,” yelled Ruben.
“I got this,” she said, dashing after them.
In a few seconds Eleanor was upstairs. She reached the vampires at the back door, but the moment they stepped outside, she stopped. The garage was only thirty feet away and the gates were open. The vampires were moving forward, but they had no sunglasses, no jackets. She watched them cover their squinted eyes with their searing hands, writhing under the burning sun. She could have staked them right there. But she didn’t. She looked at the gas cans in the trailer.
Riley and Ruben looked at the deep and already healing knife cuts on their chests and arms.
“What the hell was this?” said Riley. “Why would they sleep in coffins?”
“They were probably—”
Before Ruben could say another word, a loud bang came from above. They exchanged a quick, worried glance and darted to the exit.
“What happened? Are you alright?” asked Ruben, rushing to Eleanor.
“I am fine,” she said dryly.
Riley and Ruben looked at her face, covered with a thin layer of soot, and then at the garage. Everything was in flames, and a huge black cloud stretched up to the sky. Screams came from the burning van.
“Did you do this?” asked Riley.
Eleanor nodded. “Didn’t you say we had to get rid of it?”
“Yeah. But… Couldn’t you kill them first and wait for us?”
“No. They were already in the van. I had to stop them.” She looked at the lighter in her hand and tossed it away.
Without moving his head, Riley’s eyes turned to Ruben, who was gazing at her.
“Okay,” Riley said quietly. “Let’s get out of here.”
9
Hanna sat on the bench facing the school building. She looked around with longing. It was over. Not only because it was the last day of school; it was the end of a time when she was just a normal girl––a girl who had fun at parties, who got nervous before exams, who went to school dances, who hung out with friends, who sent applications to colleges she'd probably never attend.
She thought of Kimberly. She must have been feeling lonely today without her best friends.
To Hanna’s surprise, Kimberly came out of the school building with Debra Gordon. As Debra took off, Hanna started toward Kimberly.
“Hi,” said Hanna, approaching her from behind.
Kimberly stopped her scan of the parking lot and turned around. “Hanna, hi.”
“He’s out of town, but he’ll be back soon,” said Hanna. They started toward the parking lot. “He asked if you could wait for him at our place.”
Kimberly nodded, but her look remained absent.
“Did Debra want something?”
“She was asking about Alec. Alec and Aman…” Kimberly pressed her lips together, looking annoyed.
“Kimberly, it’s okay, you can call her Amanda.”
Kimberly threw her a quick glance. “Neither of them have been to school in two days. She asked if I knew where he was.”
“What did you say?”
“The truth.” Kimberly shrugged.
Hanna stopped, but Kimberly kept walking.
“What truth?” asked Hanna as she caught up to Kimberly
“That I don’t know where he is, but I am absolutely sure he isn’t with Amanda because Amanda’s with her boyfriend, Craig. That all of us were at a big party outside of town, where we spent the night, and even though I am still battling my hangover, I had to come to school to avoid my mom’s judgmental glare.”
Hanna chuckled. “Well done.”
Kimberly shook her head. “I’m not an idiot, Hanna.”
“What? I never said . . . Kimberly, I’ve been lying to you for three years, and what I am saying is, I know how difficult it is to slip out from unexpected questions.”
“I have one of those for you right now. Let’s see if you can slip out of this one. Hanna,” said Kimberly, and the note of sarcasm in her voice changed into perceptible anger. “Where is Nicole?”
Hanna wasn’t going to hide from Kimberly what had happened to Nicole, but the tone of accusation in Kimberly’s voice paralyzed her. “What do you mean?”
“She’s missing. The police were here. They’ve been questioning us all day.”
“Kimberly,” Hanna sighed. “Ned and I, we went to . . . we just found out . . .”
“Oh God, she’s dead, isn’t she?” asked Kimberly, her lips shaking.
“Yes. We found her at Alec’s house. In the basement.”
“I knew it had something to do with yo… I mean with those…” She resisted saying the word. “Or maybe it was Alec?”
“No.” Hanna shook her head. “She was bitten.”
“Did you call the police?”
“No.”
“Hanna, everybody is looking for her, and you know where she is.” Kimberly stared at Hanna with wide eyes. “You can’t just leave her there.” She stopped. “What about Alec’s parents? If there is a dead girl in their house, why didn’t they call the police?”
Hanna averted her eyes.
“No.” Kimberly gasped. “Both of them?”
Hanna nodded.
“Hanna, three people are dead. You have to inform the police.”
“I can’t. If I call. . . . It’s not just them. There is a dead vampire there. We think Alec’s parents killed him.”
“You mean they knew?” said Kimberly, looking at her in disbelief. “That’s crazy.”
“I don’t know how the vampires are planning to clean up their mess. We couldn’t do anything during the day, but we’ll return to the house tonight, see if we’re able to get Nicole’s body out of there before they take her. We’ll put her some place where she can be found.”
They reached Hanna’s car in silence.
“You know what,” said Kimberly as she opened the car door, “I changed my mind. I want to go home.”
“Kimberly, I’m not letting you leave my side. I promised Ruben—”
“Tell him we can meet later.” Kimberly threw her satchel in the back seat.
“Are you sure? It’d be safer if you stayed with us.”
“You have more important things to do than babysit me,” said Kimberly coldly. “Find those monsters.”
“We will,” said Hanna.
They drove in silence, and only when Hanna stopped the car in front of Kimberly’s house did she say, “Please, stay at home, don’t go anywhere without us.”
“Where would I go without you?” said Kimberly, averting her eyes from Hanna. “I don’t go anywhere without my friends.” She got out and slammed the door behind her.
Hanna sat at the kitchen table. The window in front of her was open. Outside was quiet and all she could hear were birds. While Ned was in the basement, burning his energy by kicking the punching bag, she stared into the open laptop, checking the local newspapers to see if anyone else was killed or missing. From what she had read so far, Nicole was the only one the police were searching for. Hanna thought of Nicole’s parents, what they were going through, and she felt guilty. The only thing she could do for them now was make sure their daughter's body was found. Kimberly was right to be angry with her. The Hunters were the reason vampires came to Green Hill, making Nicole’s d
eath their fault.
Hanna heard a car, and the next moment the Jeep showed up in the driveway.
“I can see you had your first hunt,” she said as Ruben, Riley, and Eleanor walked into the hallway. “What happened?” she asked, eying the bloodstains on their torn, dusty clothes.
Riley headed to the living room. “First there was an explosion.”
“At the gas station?”
“Yep, in the backyard. Then there were vampires with big knives,”
“And the coffins?” asked Ned, coming out from the basement door, “Did you find the coffins?”
“That’s exactly where we found the vampires––in the coffins. They used them as beds.”
“Yeah, it was just one of Fray’s traps,” said Ruben. “Where is Kimberly?” he asked, looking around.
“I drove her home,” said Hanna. “She was sad and wanted some time alone.”
“Sad? Why?” asked Ruben, wary.
Hanna looked at Eleanor. “Nicole Price is dead.”
“What?” Eleanor gasped. “How did it happen?”
“Vampires. We found her at Alec’s, in the basement.”
“Nicole?” Ruben sat on the couch. “Isn’t that the girl from the party?”
Hanna nodded. “It’s not just Nicole. Alec’s parents are dead, too.”
“They killed Alec’s parents?” Eleanor sat down next to Ruben, looking perplexed. “I was sure he did what he did for a reward, that Fray promised to turn him. Instead, he got punished. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe they found out about their son’s extracurricular activities and became a problem?” suggested Ruben.
“They knew,” said Ned. “There was a staked vampire in their kitchen.”
“Riley, what do we do?” asked Hanna. “We need to find those vampires. We can’t just let them run around killing people.”
“Well, we just killed nine of them,” said Riley. “But it’s obvious there are more.” He looked at Ruben. “We’ll do as we planned––we’ll check the other locations.”
“Right,” said Ruben. “That’s the quickest way to find those bloodsuckers. They’ll be, if not in the coffins, then somewhere around, guarding them.”
