The old man emerges from the door. He walks back to where he found the boys, looks around for only a few seconds, and stares straight at me. Well, straight at the camera.
“Ahh. Gotcha.” He reaches out. For an instant, his hand fills the screen, then it goes black.
Crap. The guy found the camera. He has to suspect the boys have been watching for a while and have seen things they shouldn’t. Why? I stare at the ceiling. Why does everything always have to be complicated?
Cody and Ben are in deep shit.
Cassandra’s people aren’t going to help. None of my ‘people’ are close enough to make a difference. No way can I take on a bunch of elder vampires myself, especially while offline. Realizing I’ve probably just watched the last few minutes of the boys’ lives go by, I choke up. I hate feeling so damn helpless. It’s like I’m seven years old again, being forced to watch my mother order pizza with pineapple on it, powerless to stop her.
I bow my head, trying to cope with the storm of fear, guilt, and anger swirling around. My gaze falls on a patch of sunlight making the pale blue rug glow. Yeah. Right. Mortal me would have had better chances of doing something here. During the day, I end up being slightly weaker and less functional than before death. More than the simple lack of supernatural strength and speed, my body kinda protests being awake. Little slower and weaker, like being mildly hung over. I’d be marginally better off as a live, non-vampire doing anything in the daytime—except for minor injuries healing as soon as I go online.
However…
Being a little stiff and distracted by glare is a whole lot more functional than other bloodlines are at this hour. I stare at my hands. Ordinary. No claws right now. Not impressive in the least. Who cares? I don’t need to be a force of nature. What I need to do is something before those psycho vamps wake up. If the boys are still in there at sundown, it really is going to be a funeral home for them.
Everyone—well, most vampires—makes fun of Innocents as more or less the ‘underarm dogs’ of the undead world. No one’s too concerned about an upset Pomeranian or Chihuahua. What’s the guy in the comics who can breathe underwater? The other heroes pick on him for having a wimpy superpower. My wimpy superpower, being functional in the day, might not be so laughable.
Okay, think, Sarah. Maybe I can do something. I’m pretty harmless at the moment, no more dangerous than any other teen. However, I bet the old man took the boys to the same room where they had Ava locked up. The cell didn’t have any windows, and it’s underground. All the casement windows in the crematory room have tint on them, too. Good chance of going online down there. Definitely will go online in the cell. All I need to do is get the old bastard to kidnap me, too. Once downstairs away from the sun, I give him a first-class ticket on the derp express, make him forget the boys, and get them out.
It’s not going to be as simple as it sounds, though. Sleeping vampires are a lot like sleeping infants—or overly sensitive land mines. You think you’re safe, but make one noise a little too loud and they explode.
If they wake up, they’re going to be out of their minds due to the daylight. I won’t even have the chance to fail at lying to them before I’m shredded. Not sure if being ‘fully awake’ will offset the vast difference in our ages and give me enough speed to get out if things go wrong. I gotta at least try though.
I start to hesitate, worrying how my family would react if I vanished, but catch myself. Can’t think about this too much. Just like tolerating the sun earlier today, it works better if I simply do it. Overthinking is death, and not only mine. Cody and Ben will die, too. Can’t call Aurélie for advice since she’d be asleep now. Hopefully, the boys aren’t in immediate danger. The old guy isn’t going to kill them. If he did, the vamps couldn’t use them for food. Sunset is a lot more than five minutes away. No need for me to give in to panic yet. I have time. Not quite two hours, but it’s still time.
If Ventura, California is the vampire Wild West, then it’s time to go full cowgirl.
Wait.
That doesn’t sound good at all.
Sounds kinda perverted actually. Or stupid. Yeah, stupid. My brain’s spinning.
Bah. Whatever.
Mrs. Peters appears in the doorway. “Sarah? What are you doing up here?”
“I thought I heard Ben, but it came from the computer. I think they have a camera set up outside where they are. It shut off though.”
“Oh.”
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to go roaming around your house.”
“You seem worried. Is something wrong?”
“Hope not. Cody said ‘look out’ and the camera shut off.” I force a smile. “I know where they are. Gonna go tell them to come home, okay?”
She smiles, half shrugging. “All right. They should be on their way back by now anyway. Tell them dinner’s ready.”
“No problem.”
I follow her downstairs and head out the front door, clenching my jaw at the heat. Either by sheer force of determination or the sun not being as intense as it seems, I don’t catch fire or start smoking. Wish I had a hoodie or something to cover my arms. No big deal. Only feels like going for a swim in a pool of hot needles, but as long as I don’t see charring, not a problem. Merely discomfort. Totally handled.
No other choice, really.
Let’s see. I could stand around the same spot watching the house until the old man sees me. No guarantee he will, and it could waste time. The window I climbed out of last time could still be open, or at least unlatched. Depends on how thoroughly the vampires investigated Ava’s disappearance. Bet it confused the hell out of them how she shattered handcuffs.
I approach the funeral home from the opposite side compared to the camera’s former position. Gonna try the basement window first. If I can get in and out unnoticed, even better. All I need to do is—.
“Hey,” calls the old man. “This is private property.”
“Uhh.” I stop short, only like six steps into the small parking lot on the side of the building. Wow, the old dude’s like a human radar system. Reminds me of Mr. Niedermeyer. Dude can sense a kid on his lawn out of a dead sleep. “Sorry.”
Footsteps approach from my left and a little behind. I pivot toward the old guy, who’s taller than he seemed on video. He doesn’t look as angry as he did earlier, probably because he doesn’t suspect me of spying on his vampire masters for days. He is, however, giving me a creepy sort of ‘sizing up’ look. Not pervy, more like ‘is anyone going to miss her?’
“Umm, can I maybe use your phone? I, uhh…” I exhale hard, raking a hand up through my hair. “Feel so stupid. This guy was giving me a ride, but he turned out to be a creep. He kicked me out of his car when I wouldn’t let him make out with me. I’m not even from California. This is California, right? Ugh. I guess running away was a really stupid idea.”
“Yes… usually is,” says the old man, eyes narrowing.
“I get it. Really. I wanna go home now. My parents have no idea where I am.” I fold my arms across my chest, trying to seem frightened and vulnerable. “Can I please use your phone to call them?”
He smiles, but it’s far from a reassuring smile. Only a complete idiot would do anything other than run as fast as they could directly away from this guy. “Sure. Shame you being so far away from home all alone.”
I can’t help but glance at the pocket he pulled the gun out of before. “Thanks. So dumb of me. You think my parents are still going to be mad?”
“Nah. If you’ve been gone a few days, they’ll be happy to hear from you.” He waves for me to follow and walks off toward the side door the camera had been watching.
Pretending to be oblivious to how overtly creepy this guy is, I follow. Easy to act scared since I don’t really have to fake it. Not afraid of this guy, though. I’m worried about messing up. People don’t get a second chance to sneak across a field of land mines.
The old man opens the door and steps back out of my way so I can go in ahead of him. Yeah, he’s up t
o something… or he would’ve gone in first and let me follow him. His smile makes my skin crawl. Dark veins crisscross the almost translucent skin on his face, pale blotches and brown spots making him seem closer to 110 than his probable eighties. Dude definitely is not a vampire, but the elders might have made him into a thrall.
I smile nervously at him and go through the door, down a short stairway to a basement-level corridor.
Yeah, I’m every stupid girl from every lame horror movie walking right into the trap…
Or so Mr. Old and Creepy thinks.
29
A Little Crazy
Speaking of lame horror movies, the hallway in front of me is right out of Death Asylum IV.
No, not a real movie. Just saying. Dingy white tiles, rusty metal doorframes, a couple old gurneys, and enough dust to choke a shop vac are definitely not going to win any Good Morguekeeping awards. Place might get an honorable mention in Better Haunts and Dungeons.
“Whoa,” I whisper. “Do they film movies here?”
“No,” says the old man. “Keep going straight.”
We pass four rooms, two per side. Three contain piles of junk—chairs, folding tables, old-timey wheelchairs, and such—artifacts from the building’s prior life as a hospital. One has a giant body cooler with drawers for ten occupants. Thankfully, all are open, revealing they contain no unfortunate remains. Honestly, I don’t think the refrigerator unit has been operational since the late Fifties.
The door at the end of the corridor opens to a square room containing two steel tables and a counter with a bunch of cabinets. Jars of old cosmetics and various tools—some mundane, some creepy and bizarre—litter the countertop. Swaths of blackish mold mar the white tile walls and stain the remains of thick rubber surgical tubing dangling from hooks on the ceiling. Looks like where morticians did the actual work preparing the dead for burial. So damn eerie.
Annoyingly enough, I’m kinda getting numb to being in morgues.
This is, however, the first time I’ve entered one fully conscious. Go me.
Runaway teen girl would probably not be so indifferent though. Not sure it matters if I keep up the ruse at this point, but might as well.
“What is this place?” I ask in a breathless whisper. “So creepy.”
“Just a funeral parlor.” He gestures past me at a door catty corner to the one we entered from.
Looks darker in there. Fine by me. I head around the embalming tables and make my way into a short hallway with only one way out, the door at the opposite end. Electric breaker boxes hang from the wall on my left, so dusty it’s unclear if they’re still in use or relics. Mr. Old and Creepy follows me close.
“Uhh, your phone’s in the basement?”
“Faster going in the side door and up the stairs than walking all the way around to the front door. Keep goin’. Cross the next room, out the other side. Stairs aren’t too far.”
The room at the end of this hallway is pretty big, packed with more hospital junk. Mr. Creepy wants me to keep going straight to the door, cutting across the narrow of the rectangular area. All the way to the right, five coffins—four brown, one white—are arranged in much the same way one might put beds in a shared room. In addition to all the junk left over from this building, a ton of other old crap is stacked up around the coffins. Wardrobe cabinets, bureaus, two desks, some paintings, weird art objects. The stuff looks super old, like 1700s type old. Gonna go out on a limb here and guess it belongs to the vampires. Probably some heirlooms they owned while alive.
Yeah, they’re the exact opposite of young. Message received loud and clear. Not messing with them.
As soon as we entered this room, I came online thanks to the heavily tinted windows. Fortunately, I’m gawking at the coffins all the way to the right, so nothing’s close enough to me to catch the brief red glow in my eyes for the old guy to notice. He probably thinks I stopped short to gawk in horror at coffins, but the joke’s on him.
I’m not horrified. More about to laugh at these vampires for being so damn stereotypical.
Not even stereotypical. Like, seriously… who does this? Vampires sleeping in coffins is movie bullshit. This is the undead equivalent of walking around with a mullet and parachute pants in 2018 and thinking you’re cool. I can tell the caskets aren’t ‘inventory’ from the funeral home, sitting around empty, since they’re way too nice and un-dusty. Also, the entire end of the room gives off ‘thar be elders here’ vibes.
“Don’t worry about those.” The old guy nudges me forward. “Funeral home. We got lots of coffins.” He emits a wheezy chuckle.
I cross the room to the indicated doorway, entering another corridor leading to the crematorium chamber. Aha. Familiar surroundings. I don’t bother pretending to be freaked out by a giant horror movie body-incinerator. Wow, this is almost too good to believe. He’s leading me right to the boys. Yes, I can smell them. No, they don’t stink. My nose is only slightly less sensitive than a bloodhound’s when online.
“It’s not my fault this time,” whispers a boy.
“Shut up, Ben.”
“Sarah was right.”
“Shut up, Ben.”
Handcuffs rattle.
“We have to get out of here before the sun goes down or we’re in big trouble,” whispers Ben.
“We’re already in big trouble. Shh. The old dude’s coming back. I think I hear something moving out there.
The old man directs me to the other side of the room, pointing me at the door to the room where I found Ava. “Stairs are right on the other side of that door.”
Wow, this guy thinks I’m seriously stupid, doesn’t he? Guess I kinda sounded it—on purpose though. Okay. Plan worked so far. I’ve found the boys and they’re still alive. Time for phase two: getting out.
I open the door.
Cody and Ben sit on the floor, each with their hands cuffed behind their backs around a different metal support column. Duct tape binds their legs together at the knees and ankles. Wow. Guess the bad vamps got upset at Ava disappearing and didn’t want any more ‘food’ running away.
At the sudden opening of the door, the boys freeze like deer in the headlights of an oncoming truck. It takes them a second to realize it’s me, at which point their expressions shift from worry to staring at the old man behind me the way little brothers might look when their much older sister shows up to throttle the at the school bully who’s been picking on them.
Pretty much what’s about to happen here. I just need to do it quietly. If those elders wake up, I’m screwed. Fortunately, they’re far enough away in the other room where it’s fairly safe. And I mean ‘fairly safe’ as in a bomb technician handling nitroglycerin is ‘fairly safe.’ Still wouldn’t take much to irrevocably screw up.
“Umm. This isn’t a stairway,” I deadpan.
The old guy pulls the gun out of his pocket and points it at me, then tosses another pair of cuffs to the dusty concrete floor by my feet. “Lock your hands behind your back around one of those empty posts.”
I twist to look back at him. “Wow, a gun? And I have to tie myself up? Really? What happened to full service? This isn’t one of my better kidnappings. Sorry, but I’m going to have to post a bad Yelp review.”
The old dude’s right eye twitches. Guess he’s never heard of Yelp.
His thoughts are open to me, confirming my suspicion he’s not a vampire. I’m also not seeing any compulsion. The old bastard is abducting us gleefully, fully aware the vampires he works for intend to kill us. It doesn’t even bother him he thinks I’m about fifteen. Well, it does, kinda. But only because I don’t have as much blood as a larger person.
Great. I’m the runt in the order of chicken wings.
What are you doing in here? The old man’s eyes widen as he realizes I’m inside his head.
We stand there staring at each other, mutually stunned. He’s freaked I’m reading his mind while I’m caught off guard by a mortal human noticing. He wonders how a vampire’s awake during
the day, assumes I’m here to assassinate his masters, and is about to shoot me in the face and/or sprint down the hall to rile them awake.
Crap! Can’t let that gun go off—way too loud.
As fast as I can make myself move, I spin into a crossing punch—think they call it a right hook or something, what do I know about boxing? My knuckles mash into the side of his jaw, the bone giving out on impact with a splintery crunch like a box of spaghetti snapping in half. His head whips around, almost pulling an Exorcist. The dude emits a faint gurgle and crumples to the floor.
Whoops. I think I killed him.
“Whoa,” whispers Cody.
“Shit,” I whisper, crouching to check on the guy. I pat his cheek. Nothing. Lift his head a little, then let go.
Plop.
Yep. Neck is smashed. Head’s all floppy and stuff. Spine’s got less consistency than a politician.
“Dammit.” I heave a sigh and stand. “Why are old people so brittle?”
“Holy shit! You killed him,” whispers Cody.
“Umm, yeah. Didn’t mean to, but the guy’s actually evil, so, umm… oops.”
“Dude…” Ben gawks at me. “You like teleported. One sec you’re standing there looking at us, the next, you’re three steps away with your arm out.”
I crouch by him. “Yeah. Had to take him out before he made too much noise. Guy was about to shoot me and go wake up the vampires. Keep your voices down.”
“Right on.” Ben nods. “Dude’s a murderer.”
“And a kidnapper,” adds Cody.
“But not a vampire.” I extend the claws on my index fingers and slice the duct tape on the boys’ legs simultaneously.
Ben shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. He’s responsible for probably thousands of murders.”
“Millions,” says Cody.
“Millions?” Ben chuckles. “Let’s not get crazy.”
Vampire Innocent (Book 10): A Vampire’s Guide To Adulting Page 28
