HOLLIS MCCALISTER SUMMER CAMP

by Keith McCloud

  “Hey, we ready to play some video games? Hollis, let’s you and I play. I want to see what you think of these vampires,” Danny says.

  Man, it’s so strange that he keeps talking about killing vampires when he is actually a vampire at times. I know he is trying to play head games with me again.

  “Okay then, let’s play,” I reply. I then go and sit in one of the chairs in front of the TV. Danny sits in the other chair and then he turns on the TV and he turns on the video game box. He hands me my controller. Everyone else sits behind us.

  “Do you know how to use a controller, Hollis?” Danny asks.

  “Yes, I have used one before. They are all about the same. I am sure I can figure it out,” I reply.

  Little does he know that gaming is something I love and I like to make video games, but I need to play somewhat dumb with him at times. Just to let him think he is superior to us.

  “That’s good, then. I love the confidence you always have,” Danny replies.

  “Hey, I was wondering while we are watching that we could have a smoke on your pipe like we did yesterday. It really relaxed me,” Anita Kay says.

  “For you, anything you want: you just name it,” Danny replies.

  “Man, I could get used to you being so nice to me,” Anita Kay says.

  Danny looks at her with a face like he wants to just get up and kiss her.

  “I will get the pipe,” Sandy says.

  Stella and they must have already informed her what we were going to do. He will not suspect anything from her. Sandy gets up and leaves the room. A few minutes later she comes back with the pipe. We have all already taken our pill to counteract the drug along with Sandy because we need her to help us look around.

  “Okay, Hollis, let’s start. We will play against each other for points. Ha, I will be the Indian guy fighting the vampires, and you can be the cowboy fighting the vampires,” Danny says.

  I am telling you this is strange. Wow, the graphics are so real on this game. The first scene we are in is like a western saloon, and the piano is playing the saloon music, there are cancan girls in there and I am at one table and Danny and the Indian guy are at the other table. It is dark outside and everyone is having a good time it seems, then all of a sudden a couple of the guys in the room turn into vampires and they are biting the necks of the other guys. Danny’s Indian guy stands up and runs over to one of the vampires and stakes him in the chest and the guy disappears. I also jump up and stab one of them. There is blood flying everywhere. One of the vampires rips the head off one of the guys and blood is just pumping out of his body where his head was. Danny’s Indian just jumps up on the bar and stakes another one and then he kills another one. I then make my cowboy run across the room and I kill one. One has caught me and is lifting me up by taking his hand and choking me and lifting me up by the neck. I take the stake and stab it into his skull and he drops me and then I stake him in the chest. I then see Danny has killed two more and the first game is over. Man, he beat me 5 to 3. That was intense.

  “Well, you played pretty good for your first time. Anytime you are fighting vampires you need to be fast and there is no time to think: you have to just kill them and think later,” Danny says. I swear this has got to be the strangest thing. Again a vampire playing a video game and in the game he is killing vampires. Just so strange.

  “Yes, I did hesitate for a moment and was trying to think. This game with the graphics is so realistic. They are so lifelike,” I reply.

  “Yes, this is a new video game that just came out a few days ago. Isn’t it great? So much blood. I love seeing all that blood just flying around everywhere. Let’s play again, but first let’s smoke some of my pipe,” Danny says.

  Then Sandy lights the pipe and gives it to Danny. Then they start passing the pipe around to everyone. While it is going around, Danny starts the game up again. The pipe has gone around a couple of times. Then, like clockwork, they start passing out, or go in some kind of la-la land. It’s like they are paralyzed. We are talking to them, but they don’t know what we are saying and they are just lying there. The two wereboons that were with us are not with us at this time. We think they are already in the caves. At this time Max starts to transform into a wereboon. It is gross-sounding hearing her body sound like her bones are breaking. It reminds me of what you hear on TV when you watch a werewolf change from a human on a full moon. Now she has changed, we give her the good chicken bone and we push the cave wall and it opens into the cave. Max goes in first and we wait for a few quick minutes. Max then comes back and I guess that means the coast is clear. We all take off into the caves. We have light in the cave because there are lanterns throughout on the walls. Looks like they come in here a lot. We come upon two wereboons sleeping. Those must be the ones that Max gave chicken to.

  “Do you guys see another room?” Stella asks. We are all looking around. We are at the back of the cave.

  “I think it is here because there are a lot of tracks that lead right to this wall. We need to push around the door. Actually we need Max to be the one who goes in,” Trevor says.

  We push around the wall and a door opens. Max slowly goes in and then a few minutes later comes out.

  “Is Cody in there?” Max did her head like ‘Yes.’ “And is there anyone else in there?” Max turns to the two wereboons and looks at one and then looks at the other.

  “So there are two wereboons also?” Max does like the yes sign again. And then the door shuts to the cave and we take offback to the games room.

  We have been gone for about 35 minutes. We all go back and sit down in our seats. I have the controller in my hand and I start talking to Danny and looking at him.

  “Hey, you going to start the game?” He looks at me and looks at the TV. He has a dazed look.

  “Yes, I am ready to beat you again,” Danny replies. I look out and notice it is starting to get dark.

  “I think we can only play one more game because it’s starting to get dark outside,” I say. Then everyone turns and looks outside.

  “Oh, maybe you guys should go now. We can play again tomorrow during the day,” Danny says.

  “Yes, we need to leave. Let’s go, everyone,” Stella says.

  At that time Danny grabs Anita Kay’s hand and kisses it and then brings her in close to him where their bodies are touching each other and he kisses her. Stella grabs her arm and pulls herself away.

  “Goodbye, Anita Kay, you can stay with me if you want,” Danny says.

  “No, I need to get back to the village. I will see you tomorrow,” Anita Kay replies.

  She is acting strangely and Danny, you can tell, is changing. He is talking like her lover and very smooth.

  “Okay then, I will hold you to that. Kris, why don’t you go with them? And Kris, be on your best behavior,” Danny says. I can see the full moon rising and I turn around and see Sandy run towards her room.

  “Kris, we don’t need you to come with us,” Trevor says.

  They are all running now. I am running but it seems like in slow motion. Kris with a stronger voice now says, “No, I am coming with you guys to make sure you get home safely.”

  He looks over at me while we are running and his eyes are starting to glow. The moon is rising faster, it seems. I can see the village just up the road. Earlier it seemed not far from each village to each other, but now it seems a long way. Out of the darkness comes a Wasioux: he is fast and jumps right on me. He knocks me to the ground and is on me. He has so much power. His eyes are so dark but have a glow about them. He has huge fangs in his mouth just like you would see on TV. He is staring right into my eyes and I can’t move. His hands have long, pointing fingernails. It is like somehow he has me paralyzed. I can hear him say, ‘You are going to let me bite you and you are going to agree to let me bite you and take as much blood from you as I want to.’ Kris has run ahead of us to make sure we are clear at the village. I hear Trevor yell, “Kris!” Then the vampire is really close to my neck: I can feel my veins
bulging out and wanting him to sink his teeth into my neck, and I can feel his breath and teeth right sharp on my veins, and next thing I know his body goes limp on me.

  I come to from whatever trance he had on me and I shove him off of me. Kris is standing there with a huge rock in his hand and it has blood on it. Kris practically picks me up with one hand by my shirt and puts me on my feet. His eyes are glowing and his fangs are showing, and in a loud tone he says, “Run, Hollis, I can’t hold them back and I can’t hold myself back. They are going to kill you and if they don’t, I might kill you. Now run as fast as you can.”

  “Thank you, Kris,” I say. We start running. Trevor is with Anita Kay and me, and Stella has made it into the gates of the village. There are several more vampires coming: we can hear them and they are loud and I can also hear that awful sound from the wereboons. We run and make it into the village gates and hurry and close them, and then we all run into Stella’s house and bolt down the doors.

  “Oh my gosh, that thing is real, and it almost bites me. Why did Kris help me? Why didn’t he just go ahead and bite me like the other vampire was going to do? I am shaking; they are just as bad as the wereboons. Oh my, oh my,” I keep saying.

  “Breathe, remember before: do your breathing exercise. You will be okay,” Stella says.

  “Kris did not want to kill you, or bite you because he told Danny he would get us home safely. He also does not want to kill the human that is going to give him his blood supply, so he thinks. That’s what a real-life vampire is like. He came out of nowhere and we did not even have time to pull our knives out,” Trevor says.

  “Why didn’t Kris kill the other vampire? He just knocked him out,” I ask.

  “Because they do not like to kill each other. Also when he told you to run or he might kill you, he was telling the truth: he can only hold back so long, no matter who you are. They forget all that. They forget who we are and they only are smelling blood,” Trevor says.

  “Okay, now what happens?” I ask.

  “Well, now they will come around and collect blood from our doors. Each vampire knows where their blood supply lives. They know they can get it outside the doors, and can’t get into our houses. Again they will not even remember this tomorrow during the day. Kris will remember coming with us, but he will not remember the other vampire attacking you, or anything that he said to you. It will all be forgotten and he will be back being a nice guy. That’s why sometimes it’s hard to kill one of them,” Stella says.

  “Where did you get my blood supply from?” I ask.

  “Well, we had a couple of donors with the same blood type give us some blood for you. One of them was Uncle Bill: he was more than glad to help. The other one came from another guy from the village. They hate the vampires and they know we are trying to beat them at something, they just don’t know what it is. The whole village is willing to help us; they just cannot know what we are up to. I am afraid that if we tell them, then one of them if they get caught will tell. As you can see, once they become vampires they do something to you with their eyes and you cannot help yourself and you tell them everything, or you do whatever they say to you to do. Now you can see what we have been living through. This was close tonight, very close. We haven’t been out with the vampires at night in a long time, so we haven’t seen this side in a while. Brings back bad memories,” Stella says.

  Her hands are shaking and so are Anita Kay’s. Trevor seems to be the calm one of the bunch.

  “Okay, we all need to take a breath now and try and relax. Remember the breathing exercise we continue to tell Hollis -well, we also need to try that exercise ourselves and of course you need to do this also. They will be coming by shortly, knocking on the door asking for the blood bags,” Trevor says.

  “The blood is ready and just the way they like it. When they come by they can get it. Right now, I do not want to hear them or see them at all,” Stella says.

  “That’s fine, I will push the blood bags through the hole so they can get them and go away. We probably should eat something. I know we are on edge and probably don’t want to eat, but we need something so I say we just eat some dessert tonight for dinner,” Trevor says.

  “That sounds good to me. Let’s go raid the desserts,” Stella says. Then Stella heads towards the kitchen along with Anita Kay.

  “I knew dessert would calm her down. She is weak to sweets. For a moment or two she will forget about the mess outside. Let’s go join them,” Trevor says.

  As we walk into the kitchen, Stella says, “You are correct, dessert is what I need.” We then all get some dessert and then next thing I hear is a loud growl at the door area. Stella and Anita Kay grab the bags of blood and push them through the door slot. Then you can hear them ripping open the bags. I go over to the door and look out the slot. Oh my gosh, I watch though the door hole and I can see them tearing through the blood bags and having it on their faces just dripping with blood around their mouths. I watch Kris and he looks like a monster. I am glad we are in the house locked down for safety. They then walk away with their bags of blood.

  “You shouldn’t watch that,” Stella says.

  “Or maybe he should. It will show him what we are fighting for. Why everything we are doing is needed,” Trevor says.

  “I have seen why it is needed when I first met the wereboons, and this just adds more to the need. Tomorrow we will get Cody out of there,” I reply.

  “We should get ready for bed. Hollis, don’t be alarmed if you hear screaming during the night. Sometimes the wereboons and the vampires scream out like girls: they want us to come out of the houses to help whoever is outside screaming, and if you do they will then attack you. The vampires, of course, for your blood and the wereboons just to kill you for the fun of it. We do not for anything go outside. They cannot get in because we did not invite them in. Just if you hear it put the pillow around your ears. So you can try and drown it out. No matter what, do not get up and go outside,” Stella says.

  “Don’t worry, I am locking us in the room and covering my head up,” I reply. We then walk off to our bedrooms. We do our bathroom stuff and then go to bed.

  “You know, Trevor, it’s going to be hard for me to look at them the same tomorrow. Seeing Kris look like that - man, he was scary-looking. What does Danny do through all this?” I ask.

  “Danny, since he is the head of the vampires, stays back at their village. They all bring him blood. The reasons he stays back are one, because he is very strong and would break through the doors of the houses and would probably get people out and kill them: it’s hard for him to control himself when it is a full moon. Second, he stays back so he doesn’t jeopardize himself and get himself killed since he is the leader. That’s why he sends everyone out to collect the blood for him. He is twice as strong as everyone else,” Trevor says.

  “Okay, in a strange way that all makes sense. I just can’t wait until tomorrow to beat him at one of his games. I know he will not be happy when we rescue Cody. I can see him being very mad, and he will come after us especially since you said he is strong and at that time it will be a double red moon. So he will have lots of strength and power. Do we have to give more blood tomorrow night?” I ask.

  “No, we gave them extra bags of blood tonight. That blood will get through tomorrow night also. We should really get some sleep now. So, goodnight,” Trevor says.

  “Yes, goodnight and thanks for the information,” I reply.

  Wow, I have been asleep a couple of hours now, but I wake up to screaming, and it sounds so real and very close. I raise myself up on the bed. It sounds like it is in the house. I need to get up: I need to save Stella. What should I do? They said do not get up and do not go outside. I jump up, put on my pants, shirts and shoes, and I head for the door.

  “Stop, where are you going?” Trevor asks.

  “I hear screaming and I need to go help Stella,” I reply.

  “That’s outside, that’s not inside,” Trevor says.

  “How do yo
u know that? It sounds like it is here right now,” I say.

  “No, it’s outside. The vampires and the wereboons will get outside the windows of the female rooms and do that. They want you to open the window for them, or again come out and then they want you to look in their eyes and they will put you in a trance, and then they will have you invite them in and that’s when they will attack you for your blood. Now come back and lie down and stop worrying. Stella is fine, Mr Lovesick boy.”

  “Okay, I will go back to bed, but I am not a lovesick boy,” I reply.

  “Okay, whatever you say,” Trevor says.

  Then I change back into sleeping attire and get back in the bed. The screaming continues and I close my eyes and cover my ears with my pillows. Next thing I know there is a knock on the door and I jump up in a panic and it is Stella.

  “Are we ready to get this day going? Let’s get up, then. We have another full day,” Stella says.

  I look over at Trevor and he seems to be laughing at me. “Funny, Trevor, funny,” I say. Then we get up, get ready and head to the kitchen.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 20: FREEING CODY

  * * *

  “G ood morning, today is the day. It’s our day to free I _Cody. Also to kill any vampires or wereboons that get in our way. We need to stick to the plan, just like we did yesterday. We can’t cut it so close today, though. Because it will be Danny coming after us this evening. He will be trying to get Cody back,” Stella says.

  “Wait, where is your mom? Why is she not here? Is she okay?” I ask.

  “Yes, she is fine. She has already gone to the community center. They do a headcount of all of us the next morning after a full moon. They want to make sure everyone is accounted for. I never go to that because it is a lot of scared people and they are all crying. I just can’t handle that,” Stella says.

  “Okay, I was worried because she has been with us every morning so far. And after I kept hearing that screaming it just sounded so real,” I reply.