by Rook, Rowan
Apparently, no criminal had ever been found – similar reports had reached his ears as recently as last week. His skin pulsed with gooseflesh, fingers going numb with the chill invading the rest of his body.
He met eyes with the virtual face. It was her. There was no mistaking it. It was her.
He’d seen her before, he realized. She died a senior in school, just two years above him.
He mouthed the name printed at the top of the page in big, bold letters. “Sorrel Falley.”
Chapter Three: Sailing in the Sky
“But…” Mason’s voice trailed off beneath Martin’s heavy stare.
“No.” His brother didn’t budge. “You’re staying here and catching up on work around the house. You’ve been slacking off all weekend.”
Merril passed him a painted smile, her hands folded over her stomach. She was always so much stiffer when Martin was around. “I’ll be fine. It’s just the doctor’s – not like I’ve never been there before.”
His gaze drooped with a twinge of guilt.
Merril wasn’t any better. In fact, she was worse. It was late Sunday now, and Martin had decided they had no choice but to take her to the city’s single remaining clinic. Mason intended to come, only to be told by his brother that he needed to stay and finish those chores he’d put off.
It wasn’t so much that he was worried about Merril, though. It was…
Rain. Blood. Alley. Wet. Dark.
His eyes jerked to the partially open door and the dim street outside. He didn’t want to be alone.
Despite his valiant efforts to keep the incident from his mind, it’d haunted him relentlessly over the weekend. The images burned like a candle that refused to go out, flickering by day and by what little sleep he’d managed. Maybe things would be better on Monday, when Martin would force him back to school, but he’d spent nearly the whole of the last two days in his room. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on his chores. Those ridiculous chores he’d have to do unless, and until, he moved out. It wasn’t like he could say he was afraid to stay home, though.
Out of options, Mason just gave a small nod.
“We’ll be back sometime between six and eight, depending on how busy the place is.” Martin ushered Merril out the door. “I want those chores done when I get home.”
And with that, the door closed and Mason was alone. He bolted the lock and stood aimlessly for a while.
The only face left was Molly’s. She pawed at the window like always, watching Martin’s rugged, red pick-up vanish down the street. He swallowed a deep breath and patted her head. “It’ll be okay, huh?” He assured more to himself than the dog.
He made a round through the house, locking the back door, bolting every window, turning on each light, and closing the curtains. He lifted the blinds just enough to see, and peered through the living room window a last time.
It was clear and cold that evening, streetlamps bathing the neighborhood with metallic white light and casting shapes and shadows. Nothing moved, save for Tilly’s black silhouette licking its paws on the porch.
He was fine. He repeated the phrase that had become his mantra for the last few days. Just fine.
But, this was his first time home alone since…
No. Everything was fine.
What he needed to do was busy his mind with something else. He ignored the pounding in his ears and yanked his thoughts to Martin’s list of chores. If he wanted to escape his brother’s wrath, he needed to wash the dishes, take out the trash, catch up on his laundry, clean the bathrooms, and take Molly for a walk.
That last one wasn’t going to happen. Taking out the trash was bad enough.
He smirked at the dog. “Mol, let’s not and say we did, all right?”
Molly just whimpered.
****
A loud clang came from somewhere outside. Mason jumped, before two short, high-pitched yowls followed and his muscles relaxed. It was just Tilly scuffling with the neighbor’s fat tabby again. Molly barked and scratched at the door. He looked up from the sink long enough to shoot her a glare. “Shut up, Mol!”
Focusing on his work was a taxing endeavor. There was a piece of thread tied to the back of his scalp, dragging his head away from the task at hand and towards what he’d witnessed at the slightest tug. He shook his neck as if he could brush it off.
At least the bathrooms were the last thing on the list. After that, he could go upstairs and watch TV on his computer until Martin and Merril got back.
A second thud sounded from somewhere outside, like a branch brushing against the house. He flinched. It was rather breezy that night. He could only pray they didn’t lose power. That might just be the end of him.
Molly barked with renewed vigor, and his muscles tensed in agitation. His heart rate surged each time she snarled. There was just something about that shrill, sharp noise. “Mol, shut –”
The doorbell rang.
He cautiously stepped out of the bathroom and stared at the front door. It rang again, followed by a light, rhythmic knocking when no one answered. His toes went cold.
Who…was that? It certainly wasn’t Martin or Merril – they both had their own keys – and as far as he knew, they weren’t expecting anybody. Should he answer the door or ask who they were? No. No, it would be better to pretend not to be home at all. The car was gone. An outside visitor would be none the wiser as long as he stayed quiet. He waited, every muscle in his body tense.
The knocking ceased. He heaved a sigh of relief, about to return to the bathroom when the knob started jiggling. It twisted and turned in its socket, the door creaking against its hinges.
Whoever it was, they were trying to get inside.
He swallowed, the chill crawling up his legs as he stepped back.
Then it stopped.
His eyes stayed on the door, the clock ticking quietly while the dog barked. A handful of minutes passed. His breath was just beginning to even out when a creak came from the side of the house.
His throat tied itself in knots.
A deck wound around their house from the front porch to the back door. Another small creak sounded. And then another. Whoever it was, they hadn’t left. They were still there, walking along the deck. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
Something banged against the front window. It rustled, shaking on its hinges.
They…were trying to force it open.
It took all of Mason’s restraint not to yelp.
Molly spun from the door to the window, yowling at the closed curtains. It wasn’t her usual restless howling – it was a violent snarl.
The rustling stopped, succeeded by more creaky footsteps speeding towards the back door. The dog followed, growling and baying. The knob twisted and jiggled, but didn’t open.
Someone…was trying to get inside. They were really trying to get inside!
The heaviness in his stomach jumped into his throat with the realization that his fears hadn’t been for nothing. An image of the killer’s face smacked into the back of his skull.
No! No no no!
His feet lightened as all feeling left them. He spun with a sudden surge of adrenaline when the footsteps retreated to the other side of the house.
He needed a weapon. Something. Anything!
His first instinct was to run to the kitchen and grab a knife, but something else caught his eye first. The fireplace!
He raced up and snatched the iron poker. It was sharp, heavy, and long in his hands. He waited a moment, almost wondering if the stranger had gone. He gripped his makeshift weapon with sweaty fingers, so tightly that his knuckles went white.
A second bang echoed from the front window. No. She was still there. She’d come back.
Molly charged the glass, teeth bared in the most brutal sneer he’d heard from her furred lips. Her claws dug at the window until the curtain threatened to tear.
The seconds seemed to pass in tune with the throb of his heart.
What should he do? Sh
ould he wait in the living room with weapon in hand? Should he find a place to hide? Should he try to sneak out the back while she was at the front? Should he approach the window and pull the curtain aside?
No. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t do any of those things.
His feet made the decision for him when another bang shook the glass. He turned and flew up the stairs as fast they could carry him. He clenched his throat, trying not to scream. He threw himself into his room and bolted it shut.
He instinctively curled up by the side of his bed, fire iron still in hand and head to his knees, as if that’d somehow make him smaller, harder to see. His gaze shakily traveled to his window, his thudding heart throwing the rest of his body off balance.
He swallowed when he realized the blinds were open, but at least it was locked. Maybe it didn’t matter if it wasn’t drawn – his room was on the second story, the glass facing nothing but open air. No one could get up there, not even alleyway murderers. The only thing he had to worry about was his door.
Molly’s barks seeped through the floor from below. Perhaps he should’ve taken her with him, but if nothing else, she seemed to be effectively guarding the windows.
His eyes suddenly found the cellphone sitting on his bedside table.
…Martin.
His trembling fingers reached up and snatched it. For a moment, he couldn’t remember his brother’s number. The noise pulsing in his ears made it hard to think. It finally came to him when his fingers hovered over the numbers, appearing on the screen more through rote memory than conscious thought. He held it to his ear as it rang, ribs throbbing.
No answer.
He fought back the urge to cry while Molly kept snarling downstairs.
Should he call the police? All he had to do was tell them someone was trying to break in. His fingers loomed over the phone when the dog below let out a loud, panicked howl. It traveled the house, no longer the steady bark at the window. Fast, frantic footsteps carried the canine up the stairs.
Mason froze.
Why…was the dog coming upstairs?
Something clanged against his window.
He spun around, his heart skipping a beat. It nearly flew from his mouth when his eyes found the glass.
She was there. The killer peered in at him through the open blinds. She shot him what almost looked like a smile.
Sorrel Falley.
This time he screamed. He struggled with his legs, lifting from the floor only for his limbs to tangle over themselves. His arms flailed, wild and uncooperative.
H-how had she –?
The glass shattered, spraying shards across the white carpet and his pale blue bed sheets. All it’d taken was her elbow. She looked perfectly unharmed, no blood seeping through her torn sleeve. The girl once named Sorrel Falley swung herself inside.
Inside. She was inside his room.
Mason backed across the floor, frantically trying to get to his feet. He clung to the side of his bed and just barely pulled himself up before she sprung.
She was a feline stalking a mouse – a single elegant leap swallowed the space between them, her teeth aimed for his throat.
He reacted on impulse, holding out his fists to shove her off. But she was stronger…far too strong for a high-school girl. One push, and he was on the floor. Air gushed out of his lungs at the impact, and any hope he’d had left evaporated with it. Too strong. She was too strong. He was screwed. Cold inevitability washed over him, carving a deep pit in his stomach while hot adrenaline rushed to his head.
No. His fingers tightened around the fire iron. It couldn’t end like this!
She looked down at him, eyes narrowed in silent tenacity. It was neither contempt nor regret. It was simple resolve. She wore the eyes of an animal on the hunt. A predator simply doing what it was made to – kill. Her lips curled and revealed her teeth.
Fangs! She had fangs!
Mason instinctively thrust out the fire iron just as she lunged, aiming for her throat.
She was fast, swift. Her neck swung to the side and avoided the sharp tip, but she backed off when he shoved the bar against her throat. He gripped it with both hands, using the rusted pipe as a shield.
Molly howled and snarled outside his door, her claws scrapping the wood.
“Molly!” Mason pleaded, reaching just one hand up towards the knob. He grabbed it and turned, but the door didn’t open. It hit against metal a few feet up.
His house didn’t use knob locks; it used chains.
“Molly!” The chain lock was too high up – he couldn’t reach it no matter how far his fingers stretched.
He abandoned his desperate endeavor and returned both hands to the iron before the girl tried another lunge. He swung it into her shoulders, nearly knocking her far enough away to give himself an opening to reach the lock.
But she never stopped, never gave him the chance. Her mouth raced for his left ankle. He swiped with the poker, clumsy and frantic, but it didn’t hit. He hadn’t been ready.
He screamed, his skin breaking beneath her lips.
Hot, searing pain ripped through his body, blood gushing violently under her mouth and towards his white carpet. Her teeth sunk right into his tributary vein.
His lungs bellowed with all the air they had left. He pulled at the floor and the knob, fighting to free himself, but she held onto his leg so tightly that her nails carved red lines in his skin.
Something was wrong. His foot prickled numbly. His vision stirred. His head spun. Dizziness replaced the blood leaving his body. It tingled and traveled under his skin, gathering at his ankle before disappearing completely, as if it were draining away.
It was. She was sucking it. She was drinking it! The same pleasured coo he’d heard before left her lips while she consumed the liquid that kept him alive.
Vampire!
His shaking fingers found the iron still in his hands. He raised his core with the last strength he had and desperately thrust it forward.
It pierced her throat. She’d been too busy enjoying her meal. She hadn’t seen it.
Mason’s eyes widened. Her skin popped, letting the jagged tip sink through her meat and rip at her throat. He could hear it – a sick, wet slush. He shuddered, pale fingers nearly dropping the iron, but held on, pushing it harder. The edge broke through the other side of her neck. Torn flesh. White bone. The image sunk into his skull.
Her shriek swallowed his. Blood – his blood, not hers – flew from her jaw. The poker fell from her neck, but no crimson spilled. Just raw, red flesh. She recoiled back and clawed at the wound, face twisted in pain.
The vampire shot him just one last glance, hostile blue eyes meeting brown, and then she was gone. She disappeared the same way she’d come, leaping through the window.
Air moved heavily through Mason’s tight lungs.
She was gone. She’d survived, and somehow, she was gone.
Two red puncture wounds marred his ankle, blood spilling openly from his veins to the carpet. He blocked off his fear and tried to remove his head from his mind. He needed to stop the bleeding.
He sat up to fetch a pillow from his bed and toppled back down, head tingling and vision blackening.
Dizzy…so…dizzy… Was it just the blood loss?
His stomach lurched, and almost without warning, vomit crawled up his throat and over his tongue. His body heaved, forcing him to roll to the side to avoid choking. His limbs jerked without his permission.
Was…it…just the…blood…loss?
Something sparked in his mind, dragging him back to what he’d read just two nights before. A poster saw a friend suffer a bite by one of those things, only to die almost immediately afterwards from plague-like symptoms, even after they’d managed to fight it off.
The crazed, frantic terror in his stomach hardened into the cold ice of horror.
If that person had been telling the truth…
“Molly…!” Mason pleaded, eyes watering as he struggled again for the doorknob. The
dog wasn’t even there – she was barking by the front door while the girl fled. It didn’t matter. He couldn’t reach it anymore. His arm was weak – too weak – when he raised it. It shuddered and shook before collapsing back down, limp.
His gut lurched and pushed another wave of bile up his throat.
He wasn’t sure how long he lay like that, vomiting and seizing until he could do nothing but simply lay there, too exhausted to resist.
Wet warmth seeped over his legs as his bladder gave out, the sour musk of urine mixing with the tang of blood. He was sure that wasn’t the only thing failing. Black edges grew from the corners of his vision, each breath harder to force than the last.
…He was dying. This was it. He was dying.
This was everything that happened to a victim in the final hours before the plague took them, but to him, it was happening on fast-forward.
He heard a car pull into the driveway through his broken window, the engine throbbing with its familiar stutter. It sounded impossibly far away. Merril. Martin. He reached again for the knob, but could barely lift his fingers.
The front door below swung open, but by the time they came in, his voice was gone. Everything was black. He couldn’t even tell if his eyes were open anymore.
They say that before a person dies, their life flashes in front of them.
For Mason, it didn’t. All he saw was one, simple memory.
He was a small toddler, lying across his mother’s knees. Her arms cradled him in place and her warm fingers held a wooly blanket over his chest. She stared down at him through strands of black hair and soft brown eyes.
Baby's boat's the silver moon,
Sailing in the sky,
Sailing o'er the sea of sleep,
While the clouds float by.
She was singing, her voice tender and low. She rocked, the chair beneath them creaking while he gently swayed atop her lap.
Sail, baby, sail,
Out upon that sea,
Only don't forget to sail,
Back again to me...
Back again to me.
He laughed, stretching small, stubby fingers for dangling strands of his mother’s hair. She tucked it away behind her ears, smiling patiently.
