Herb took the lead, creeping along.
“Devin …” Someone whispered my name.
I turned toward the voice. The hall was empty. My chest heaved. The sounds of my breath were only drowned out by the buzzing of the lights.
On. Off. On. Off.
I began to wonder if I had just imagined things. I moved slowly, keeping an eye out behind us.
“Deviiiiiiiiin.”
This time, it was to the side. I whirled and pointed the gun. “Who’s there?”
I turned to see Herb and Tommy staring at me.
Tommy’s brow furrowed. “Who are you talking to?”
“You didn’t hear that?” I asked.
Herb shook his head slowly.
“Hear what?” Tommy asked.
I looked around again. Still nothing.
Herb motioned with his fingers. “Let’s go!”
We continued down the hall. My hand was stiff from gripping the gun so tightly.
“Help me, Devin …”
This time, I recognized it. Lily’s voice! My heart thumped. “Lily?”
Tommy and Herb spun around.
“Where?” Tommy hissed.
I pointed, but continued moving my hand around the hall. Finally, I dropped my arm. “I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?” Tommy said. “Did you hear her or not?”
I nodded once, but then stopped. “I don’t know.”
Suddenly, the lights cut out.
“Just great,” I whispered.
“Everyone stay together,” Herb said.
All I could make out were shadows. “I can barely see you.”
Something scurried behind us.
I spun and fired.
THWACK!
“I hit it!” I yelled.
We all stared into the darkness.
It was silent, but only for a moment
From the other direction, there were sounds.
Screeching sounds. Flapping sounds.
Herb took a step back. “I think we should—”
“RUN!” Tommy yelled.
We took off in the direction where I had fired the shot.
At that moment I didn’t care what was there. It was better than facing hundreds of bats.
The overhead buzzing sound returned. The emergency lights flickered back on. Then off. On. And off.
The hallway was bathed in an eerie red glow.
“Keep going!” Herb yelled. He pointed straight ahead. “There’s an exit down the hall!”
Sure enough, there was a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY in red block letters.
My chest felt like it was going to explode, but I didn’t dare stop. We raced for the door. I reached it first and launched myself against it.
Clanging alarms went off, drowning out the squeals of the bats and the buzzing of the lights.
It was chaos and confusion, and my head felt like it was about to explode.
We were in a stairwell.
“C’mon!” I yelled, racing up the steps.
I didn’t bother looking back to see if they were following. I yanked open the door at the next floor and rushed out.
Classroom after classroom went by, and I was amazed at how much it seemed like a normal school. There were even signs on the hallway walls promoting school events.
I briefly wondered if there was such a thing as vampire elections and what their slogans might be. “I promise to make this school suck”?
The bell kept clanging away, pounding in my brain. I couldn’t think straight.
At the end of the hallway, I turned a corner and tried the first door I saw. Open! I jumped through. Thankfully, Herb and Tommy followed. It was dark in here.
We shut the door.
“Get down!” I hissed.
We dropped to the ground, pressing our backs against the bottom of the door, making sure to stay below the door’s window.
On the other side of the door, we heard the loud sounds of flapping going by.
I was too scared to even peek out. Too scared to even take a breath.
Finally, the last sounds of flapping flew by, and it was quiet.
I waited a few beats more, until I felt comfortable enough to exhale.
The sounds of our breaths broke the silence.
“How’d you know they wouldn’t follow us in here?” Tommy asked.
I shrugged. “I didn’t. I was only hoping. I thought maybe the bell was throwing off their radar.”
“Echolocation,” Tommy said.
I nodded. “Yeah, that.”
Herb moved up into a crouch. “That was actually brilliant, Devin.” He motioned for Tommy and me to move over. “Now, let me take a look to see where they went.” He peeked out the window.
Tommy and I took a couple of steps back.
Herb pressed his face against the glass.
After a few moments, he still hadn’t said anything.
Tommy and I glanced at each other.
“Uh, Herb?” I said. “Are there any vampires?”
“Well, there’s one.” Herb turned around.
But it wasn’t really Herb anymore.
Well, it was, but this Herb now had fangs.
CHAPTER TWENTY
A WARLOCK WITH BITE
In all the years I’d spent watching horror movies, I have to say, this was the first time I’d ever seen a vampire with a comb-over.
Herb took several steps toward us. His fangs were out. His fingers had long, black nails. His smile was wide and evil. He took another step. His eyes narrowed. “I need to thank you, Devin.” Another step. “You got rid of everyone else, allowing me to feed on my own.”
I held my hands in front of me. “Herb! Snap out of it!” I snapped my fingers a couple of times. “You’re our friend! Don’t give in to it!”
“The hunger comes first. And when there’s a hunger, consider me just like Lola. Whatever Herbie wants, Herbie gets.”
Even when he was a vampire, I had no idea what he was talking about.
Tommy and I backpedaled, trying to push desks and chairs in his way.
Herb continued toward us, tossing them aside.
Tommy raised the dart gun.
“You can’t,” I said out the side of my mouth.
“You heard what he said before,” Tommy said through gritted teeth. “He wanted us to kill him if he became a vampire!”
“We can change him back!”
“We’d have to get past him first!”
We kept moving until we reached the wall.
Herb laughed. “You seem to have run out of room.”
Tommy pointed the dart gun at him. “Herb, I’m warning you. I will use this.”
Herb snarled. His expression changed. He looked meaner. Ferocious. Ridges started forming along the bridge of his nose. His face started looking more animalistic. He grabbed the end of the last table between us and threw it across the room.
I didn’t see anything left of him.
Herb lunged.
Tommy fired.
There was a loud squeal and Herb fell to the ground.
The pencil was sticking out of his side. He tried to pull it out but it snapped in half, leaving the pointed end still stuck inside him.
“Let’s go!” I shouted.
Tommy and I jumped over him but before I could make it across, Herb snatched my ankle and yanked me to the floor.
His eyes were blazing. He opened his mouth.
I grabbed the front of his shoulders and tried to push him back, but he was too strong.
His teeth kept snapping at my arms, getting closer.
Suddenly, something was thrown over his head, and he recoiled and shrieked.
I smelled it before I saw it. A garlic necklace.
Herb clutched at it, but couldn’t get it off.
Little trails of smoke appeared each time it touched his chest, accompanied by a sizzling sound. Herb shrieked repeatedly, or maybe it was one continuous sound. Either way, it was awful.<
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Tommy grabbed my hand and yanked me away. “C’mon!”
I looked down at Herb. “What do we do about him?”
He lifted his index finger. “You’re right. Get the Super Soaker!”
“Are you kidding me?”
Tommy ran over to grab the Super Soaker, then ran back to the door. “You want to save him? Then we need to go find the vampire, or vampires, who did this to him. There’s nothing that we can do for him now. C’mon!”
Herb reached out for me.
Something in his eyes.
I could swear that I saw the real him through the monster.
“C’mon!” Tommy yelled again and grabbed my wrist.
“But—”
“No buts! We can’t do anything for him now! Let’s go!”
I took one last look at Herb and ran off after Tommy, out of the classroom.
We went out quietly into the hall and took a look around.
Thankfully the alarm had stopped, but the red glow remained.
“Where to?” I asked.
Tommy continued walking, swiveling from side to side, with the Super Soaker drawn. He looked like something out of a cop movie. “We have to find the principal’s office. That’d be my bet.”
“How are we going to find that? This school is enormous.”
“Usually the principal’s office is near the front of the school.”
I thought about all the times Tommy and I had been called in because of something he’d done, and realized that he was right.
“So we have to get to where we first came in?” I asked. “But that’s where all the vampires were.”
“I’m sure most of them are gone from there by now. They’re probably all around the school, looking for us. That’s why we have to try and stay one step ahead of them.”
“How? We need to find Abby and we have no idea where we’re going.”
More whispering.
I looked around. Still no idea where it was coming from.
“Deviiiin.” A long, slow whisper.
It seemed like it was coming from all around me. I couldn’t tell from which direction.
We walked a little further down the hallway.
“Devin …”
“Lily?”
“Who are you talking to?” Tommy asked.
“Devin,” the whisper said. “Find me, Devin …”
“I know where she is,” I said.
“What?” Tommy said. “How?”
“Follow me!” I raced up ahead, leading the way with the dart gun.
“Yes, Devin,” the whisper repeated. “Help me. Find me.”
“Devin!” Tommy called. “You can’t just go rushing off like this. It’s dangerous. You don’t know which one of them might be out there.”
Images flashed in my mind, telling me which direction to run. Right. Left. Staircase down. It was like my body took over. I didn’t even think about which way to go. I only followed.
“Devin, help me …”
My heart raced. “I’m coming, Lily.”
At the end of the hallway, was a swinging, double door.
I raced straight toward it and shoved it open, coming face to face with a cafeteria filled with vampires.
Tommy skidded to a stop next to me. He leaned over and whispered, “I think you really need to stop listening to the voices in your head.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
SHOWDOWN AT THE NOSFER ACADEMY CAFETERIA
For a brief moment, nobody moved.
Tommy and I stared across the cafeteria at least fifty vampires, maybe more.
Nobody said a word.
But it only lasted a few seconds.
Because the vampires suddenly seemed to remember that they outnumbered us tremendously.
Tommy grabbed an end of one of the cafeteria tables. “Help me!” I grabbed the other end and we pulled it down, like a barricade, so the top was facing them. He aimed the Super Soaker. “Get down!”
The vampires swarmed, and Tommy fired. He sprayed in bursts, striking vampire after vampire. Unlike the holy water, this didn’t seem to melt them, but it sure did hurt them. Each time one got hit, there was a shriek followed by a sizzling sound.
“Are you just going to sit there?” Tommy yelled. “Or do you plan on helping out?”
He was right. I’d been so caught up in watching him fight that I hadn’t moved. “Sorry.” I looked around the room and then at the dart gun in my hand. “What do I do? I only have one dart pencil!”
Tommy continued firing. “Open that backpack!”
I unzipped the top and peered inside. At the top were packs of water balloons and a couple of bottles of garlic powder. I moved them aside to see necklaces with different religious symbols on them. I guess he wasn’t taking chances. Next to those was another dart gun, but this one had six chambers, each one holding a pencil.
I picked it up. “What the heck is this?”
“A little busy over here!”
“The pencil gun with six chambers.”
“Herb and I made it. Use it!”
I took aim and fired.
The pencil shot out, nailing a vampire in the forehead. Instantly, the head exploded, chunks flying out in every direction.
“Whoa!” I yelled. “That was awesome!”
“Yeah, we turbo-charged it! Keep firing, it’s like a little machine gun.”
I held the trigger down and the pencils fired out, one after another, nailing vampire after vampire.
Another vampire’s head exploded. One I shot straight into his heart. He burst into flames and melted.
“Reload!” Tommy yelled. “There are more pencils in there.”
I dug around and fished out some more.
“Quickly!” Tommy said.
I shoved a pencil into each chamber, and started firing again.
When the pencils ran out, I grabbed the water balloons and threw them as fast as I could.
I lost myself in it, feeling powerful.
I was killing actual vampires.
Tommy growled while firing the Super Soaker.
We were like two action heroes from the movies.
Tommy turned to me. “I’m running out of water!”
I glanced at the backpack. “And I’m running out of filled water balloons.”
He searched the cafeteria and pointed. “There! A water fountain!”
It was about fifty feet from us.
“And how do you want to get over there?”
“Grab an end.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Grab an end of the table. We’re moving! And take the backpack!”
“Are you serious?”
“Stop arguing and let’s go!”
I grabbed one of the table ends and helped Tommy drag it across the floor, using it to shield ourselves. We fired as we ran, sending vampires sprawling and exploding in our path, until we reached the fountain and dropped the table again.
Tommy fiddled with the fountain while I held them off by throwing whatever remained of the water balloons.
The vampires closed in.
“Hurry up!” I yelled.
“I’m trying, but this is a low-flow fountain!”
“What are you talking about?”
He exhaled in disgust. “The flow! It’s not one of those fountains that shoots out water. It’s one of the ones that barely sends anything over the spout. You know, the ones you’d never put your lips near in case you accidentally touch it.”
I pushed him out of the way. “Hold them off with whatever you have left.”
“What are you going to do?” he asked.
“Just do it!”
Tommy fired into the crowd of vampires.
The water level on the Super Soaker continued to drop.
I grabbed the remaining packages of water balloons and ripped them open, holding each balloon to the water, filling them, and then sprinkling in a little garlic powder afterwards. I quickly tied each one and handed them to Tommy.
As tiring as this was, it soon started to work.
The vampires started to thin out and flee.
“That’s right!” Tommy screamed. “You better run!”
“Shhhh!” I motioned for him to quiet down. “Don’t antagonize them! We don’t want them coming back!”
Soon there was nothing left in the cafeteria but us and about two dozen vampire corpses.
I looked around the room at all the piles of smoking ash. “I think we won.”
Tommy walked around the room, using the end of Super Soaker to nudge the piles. He nodded. “I knew we would.”
“Devin …” The whispering.
“Oh, no,” I muttered.
“What is it?” Tommy asked.
“The whispers. They’re back.”
Tommy rolled his eyes. “Not again.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s a different voice.”
Tommy’s brow furrowed. “Then, who?”
I held my index finger to my lips. “Shhh!”
“Deeeviiiin.”
This time it was clearer. Familiar.
The lights in the cafeteria crackled on and off. A gust of wind blew through.
Suddenly, the cafeteria doors flew open, slamming against the walls.
Tommy and I whirled around to see a small dark silhouette framed in the doorway.
I didn’t need to see the face to know who it was.
I already knew.
Abby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
SOME OF MY BEST FRIENDS ARE VAMPIRES
Tommy and I stared across the cafeteria.
Abby remained still. Her hands were down by her sides. Her eyes locked in on us. They were darker than I’d ever seen. From this distance they looked like two pieces of charcoal.
It took me a moment to realize that Tommy and I were huddled together. We glanced at each other and took a step apart.
Tommy leaned in. “You distract her, and I’ll shoot her with the pencil gun.”
“Will you stop? We can’t shoot her. She’s my sister!”
“I didn’t mean in the heart! I meant something like with Herb. We just wing her and wound her.”
“And if we miss and hit her in the heart?”
Tommy thought a moment. “Well, you know your parents better than I do. Do you think they’ll be upset?”
I smacked his chest. “Of course they’ll be upset. She’s their daughter! Think of something else!”
From Sunset Till Sunrise Page 15
