by Aiden James
“You owe me,” said Tyreen, once we stepped into the elevator and headed downstairs. “I’m betting we don’t even make it past the cops guarding the entrance.”
Despite some loud student opinions to the contrary, we weren’t under martial law at that point so they really couldn’t stop us. I didn’t say this to Tyreen. There was a little bit of a hiccup on the way out since policy was requiring student IDs to get in and out of the dorms after dusk. But I explained it was the reason I was in such a hurry to get to the library.
Tyreen hesitated in the doorway and I set off briskly toward the library. I was walking so quickly that she had to run to catch up.
I was struck with an eerie sense of déjà vu, as we followed the same route to the library I’d taken two nights before.
I expected to see more security personnel on hand patrolling the grounds, but, there was hardly anyone out. The sensation of being tracked and studied as we moved toward the library was much more unsettling than the past Thursday evening. The lone patrol we came across was three Knoxville cops with a pair of large German Shepherds. They had little effect on the spine-tingling uneasiness we both experienced. It was as if a thousand eyes scrutinized our every move.
“Damn, it seems like it’s taking forever to get there!” Tyreen remarked, just as we came up on the Alumni Center.
She pulled her parka’s zipper all the way up to her chin to try and stay warm. The night was cold enough to see our iced breaths linger in the air in front of us; a deeper chill seemed to emanate from the shadowed archway that marked the center’s side entrance.
“We’ll see the lights any second,” I reassured her and hoped she didn’t notice the tremor in my voice.
I slowed down just enough to peer at the thick bushes near the Alumni Center’s entrance, trying to appear nonchalant though my heart raced. I pictured the hairless creature from the other night, glowering at me with yellow eyes, and shuddered.
“This is really stupid!” said Tyreen, shaking her head while she picked up her pace.
She didn’t wait for me to catch up to her. This amused me somewhat, given her stated worries about my welfare. Fear had definitely triggered her personal survival instincts.
“Hey, wait for me!”
I picked up my pace to match hers, but she didn’t slow down. Not until she was across the street and walking up the library steps.
“I assume you remember where you left your shit?”
Tyreen said this as she stepped through the entrance, again not waiting for me to catch up.
There were two campus security guards sitting at a table that had been set up just inside the library. One was much older, his thinning hair silver and cropped close. The other was young enough to be a student himself.
“The library’s closing soon,” Junior said as soon as we entered. “Y’all ladies really shouldn’t be out after dark anyway.” He turned a clipboard toward us as we walked in.
“I know, I was here earlier today and my ID fell out of my bag,” I said as I walked by the desk, ignoring the sign-in sheet.
Tyreen stopped and showed her own ID and started signing us both in.
“I’ll be right back!” I called over my shoulder, and I jogged over to the table where I sat earlier. It was completely quiet in the library aside from the thudding of my feet. There were no softly whispered conversations, nor the gentle shushing sounds of pages being turned by readers. The hum from the dozens of running laptops that could normally be heard was absent. To say it was unnerving would fail to adequately describe just how creepy that much silence can be.
As I approached the table, I caught a flash of silver coming from under the chair I had been sitting at. It was still pulled out like I left it. I seriously doubt anyone other than the guards and the single staff librarian had even been in the building since the time I left earlier.
I dropped to my knees and grabbed the bracelet, stuffing it into my pocket after giving it a quick kiss of gratitude. I would be seeing my grandmother tomorrow and didn’t want to have to fess up that I had lost it. My driver’s license and school ID were there as well, and I slipped them inside my back pocket. Then I checked to make sure I hadn’t left anything else and got back to my feet.
Screw jogging, I practically sprinted back to the entrance.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Tyreen said as she pulled the hood of her parka over her head.
Standing outside, she fastened the buttons of her hood around her face, above where the zipper stopped. The temperature felt like it had fallen five more degrees.
“First of all, I didn’t talk you into this. You invited yourself. Second of all, you look like a damned Eskimo, and a totally scared Eskimo at that.”
My joke fell flat. I was just as scared as she. It had been a really bad idea.
She moved swiftly through the parking lot, her pace much quicker than before. I should’ve known she’d try to hurry back to the dorm once her feet found level pavement, since her tone sounded irritated. Aside from the combination of the wintry chill and my forcing this unwanted excursion upon her, the eerie feeling of being watched had returned, only worse. As if whoever or whatever studied us had moved closer. I looked around, but couldn’t see anything near us—not even the canine unit patrolling the campus grounds on foot. Tyreen pulled away from me while I searched the shadows for… something.
“Hey, wait up, Tyreen!” I called after her. “Do you have to be in such a frigging hurry?”
“Hell, yeah!” she replied, pausing to shoot me a perturbed and worried glance over her shoulder. “The sooner we get back into Massey Hall, the better off we’ll—”
A low menacing growl interrupted her, resounding from across the street, as it emanated toward us from the deeper shadows in front of the Alumni Center. Tyreen froze, as did I.
“What the hell was that?” she asked in a wavering voice.
Several hulking shapes bobbed above the shadow line, moving down the sloping frost-covered lawn toward the street. A shrill shriek echoed eerily in the air from near the Alumni Center’s entrance.
“It doesn’t matter—just run!”
I feared we only had a sliver of a chance to outrun whatever lurked in the darkness. Yes, we could’ve turned back and headed for whatever protection the library offered. However, assuming the two campus guards were the only ones in the building, we’d soon be in a much worse predicament. At least there were a dozen Knoxville police officers hanging around the lobby at the dorm. With the mental images of what these creatures had wrought upon Peter’s townhouse the other night still fresh in my head, the choice was an easy one.
Easy other than having to run past the bastards.
“What the hell are those things?” Tyreen murmured fearfully, not moving.
“The last mo-fos you’ll ever see if you don’t get your ass in gear!”
One of them reached the sidewalk, its yellow eyes glowing like a pair of candles burning inside a Halloween pumpkin. I grabbed Tyreen’s arm and yanked her behind me, sprinting down the street toward the dorm’s long driveway.
Every time I heard the scrapes and clicks of sharp talons, claws, or whatever else they dragged across the pavement running toward us, I hunched my shoulders and prepared for the worst. Through my peripheral vision I could tell there were seven or eight of these things closing in from the lawn. Another handful emerged from the dense brush on the other side of the road.
If it had just been me, I might’ve considered giving in and letting them take me, praying my life would end quickly and that I wouldn’t be an ongoing living meal for them. But, Tyreen’s presence and the fact her endangerment was entirely my fault negated that option completely. Somehow, I had to get her to safety.
They say in the direst circumstances people can surprise themselves with superhuman feats. It certainly was the case for me. A powerful surge of adrenalin flowed through my entire body, enabling me to increase my strides while keeping a secure grip on Tyreen. It was li
ke I suddenly floated toward our dorm, and where up until then nary a damned cop was in sight, I felt immense gratitude for the handful mulling around the entrance.
“Hey, help us! HELP!” I shrieked, when within fifty feet of the cops.
Unlike law officers in the B-horror movies my brothers and I devoted our spare time to watching back in high school, the police didn’t act like a bunch of donut-munching buffoons. Once they heard me scream, they quickly mobilized themselves and aimed their pistols and rifles in our direction. Obviously, they saw something following close behind us, coming up fast, like greyhounds chasing a pair of scared rabbits.
“Get over here, NOW!” one of them shouted, motioning for us to make a beeline to where they huddled in front of the entrance. Three other cops bearing shotguns stepped outside to join them, wearing slack-jawed expressions of stark disbelief.
“Ow-w-w!” Tyreen cried out as I yanked her arm even harder, sprinting with all my might to the entrance. Suddenly, multiple fire flashes erupted from in front, causing both of us to flinch and duck instinctively. The shots were intentionally wide and high, as the volley of gunfire flew above our heads and toward either side. Warning shots.
A bloodcurdling shriek, inhuman in its timbre and hair-raising in its enraged anguish, filled the air just behind us. This time I did cast a glance over my shoulder. In the soft glow afforded by the security lights, I saw the orange eyes of the thing gleaming, and its mouth full of razor-sharp, jagged teeth pulled back from deformed lips. They were covered in blood. Whose blood was that?
I scrambled to examine Tyreen. The right side of her parka glistened with crimson streaks. It must’ve happened in the instant I yanked her arm. Her eyes rolled up, and I could tell she was about to faint.
“Tyreen! Hold on!”
I sensed the bastard moving up closer to take another bite, only from me this time. There was no way I could fight the monster off if it caught me, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let it get Tyreen, who collapsed on the ground.
This was going to be where it ended. My life and hers, I just knew it. Both of us totally fucked.
A sudden spray of bullets pummeled the creature and two others that had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. More angry shrieks—even worse than the previous one—erupted all around us. I thought for sure we’d all be attacked. The police gazed anxiously into the darkness above and around them while I hovered over Tyreen’s motionless body.
The menace retreated, at least for the moment.
“Are you all right?” asked the cop closest to me. He looked to be a hardened veteran, roughly my father’s age. He gave me a quick once over with his steel blue eyes before turning his attention to Tyreen.
He didn’t wait for a response from me, perhaps noticing I was unharmed before he even asked. As the adrenalin rush faded, I noticed a slight pain in my ankle. All that running must have aggravated it again.
“Let’s get her inside, Jim!” he told another cop who came up to join him. “Bobby, I need you to call in another patrol for back-up, and tell ‘em to have the S.W.A.T. team ready in case we need it!”
“Got it, boss!” said another cop, taller than the rest.
Three more police officers came over to help carry Tyreen carefully into the lobby. I followed close behind them, fearing the worst while praying she’d be all right.
I looked outside to confirm our attackers had truly left, as they had the other night. I didn’t see anything, but the darkness beyond the security lights could easily hide a predator. Our pursuers were hiding out there someplace, biding their time before launching another attack. Meanwhile, the cops outside remained huddled together, peering toward the darkness with the same fearful look I’d seen on Tyreen’s face earlier.
Like us, they had no idea how to combat these lesser vampires effectively. They would be schooled soon.
However, at the moment it was the least of my concerns. I was beside myself thinking Tyreen might die from her injuries. She had lost a lot of blood and was losing more at a prodigious rate. The wound left a dripping crimson trail as they brought her inside.
One of the cops, Sorwell by the name on his badge, said that he had spent time as a paramedic. He assured me that she’d be fine. When I didn’t believe him, he showed me the wound to her shoulder, which was the main one. Deep tears in her flesh, but not so deep the bleeding couldn’t be stopped. When I worried about how an ambulance could reach the dorm with the menace still out there, he assured me Tyreen wouldn’t need one for now, and that they had enough medical supplies to get her through the night.
“We need to get her stable, and then she’ll be fine,” he said. His soft brown eyes reminded me of Peter’s. “You might want to take a seat by the TV while we get everything taken care of.” He smiled, revealing two perfect rows of veneers.
I soon realized he was just trying to get me out of the way so he could do his job.
“Okay.” I started walking toward the television. There were three other guys watching the game as well, and it shook me out of the shock that must have been setting in upon me.
“Oh God, Johnny…” I turned back to the officers. “I have to go upstairs and let her boyfriend know what’s happened. I’ll be right back!”
I ran to the elevator. One of the three guys sitting in front of the TV suddenly looked up, as if until that moment they had absolutely no clue what was going on. I pressed the call button and, luckily, the elevator door opened right away; I stepped inside.
I pushed the button for the fourth floor, and as the door began to close, an immense crash shook the building’s main floor.
There were shouts and gunshots. I heard shattering glass and terrible inhuman shrieks as the main entrance was breached.
Sometimes I’ve wondered if maybe I should’ve stayed and tried to lure the bastards away from Tyreen. I tell myself that maybe I thought Peter and Johnny could have helped me fight off those fiends. Yet, in reality, despite Johnny’s athleticism and Peter’s bravery, we surely all would have died that night.
When the elevator door opened on my floor, for an instant I thought I was still on the first floor. Those same inhuman shrieks punctuated by breaking glass were echoing throughout the hallways. The handful of girls who had either been unfortunate not to get out of town or foolish enough to choose to stay were running around in a panic. Their terrified screams were almost indistinguishable from their male companions.
I cautiously stepped out of the elevator. Elaine stood outside her room, just inside the entrance to our wing, holding an Ikea bed lamp as though it were a weapon.
“Txema—get back in the elevator!” She made a pushing motion to emphasize her words. I heard the sound of glass shattering in her room and Elaine snapped her head around. “Oh my God, no—”
A white form, little more than a blur slammed into Elaine from her room, knocking her into the wall. She started to slide down the wall, her blond hair quickly turning dark with blood. Before she even had time to hit the ground her attacker grabbed her in both of his arms and pulled her in tight. Time seemed to slow for me as the adrenaline spiked in my blood and I was able see her attacker clearly. My first impression was of a hideously deformed, hairless, pale-skinned man. He was very tall and naked except for a dark tunic around his waist. His elongated feet were bare, and sharp nails curled at the end of each toe.
But, that wasn’t what frightened me. The fiend leered at me with a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a mouthful of jagged sharp teeth, opened wide with dripping saliva. It held Elaine’s trembling body fast with one hand while it used the long sharp fingernails on its other hand to tear her throat open with cruel slowness. Her terrible screams became a tortured gurgle and I could only stare in horror. The thing’s nosferatu face went to her neck in horrible mockery of intimacy and its pale skin quickly turned crimson from my RA’s blood.
It all became too much for me… the terror and the horror. I burst into tears. I started to fall to my knees, and then the wooden door separating th
e guys’ wing of the dorm seemed to explode. An image raced toward me with such speed that it was little more than a blur.
I was caught up before my knees hit the floor, and there was the sensation of two small needle-like pinpricks upon the birthmarks on my neck. My body grew weak and the world swam around me. I couldn’t respond to anything—not even Peter and Johnny’s panicked screams as they ran toward me from further down the hall.
For the second time in four days, everything went black.
he last time I lost consciousness, I awoke in a huge cold room that at first seemed like a constrictive coffin. A cold hand with sharp fingernails grabbed my throat, and I remember hearing whispered voices decide my fate. The voices grew steadily more menacing until Peter’s voice broke through and pulled me back into the warm comfort of my dorm room. A safe and welcome place, my friends surrounded me—ready to do whatever they could to make things right.
It certainly wasn’t the case this time around.
“Welcome, Che-e-e-m-m-a-a!”
The voice was inhumanly deep, with a thick Eastern European accent. It rumbled throughout the dungeon-like room I found myself in. I tried to determine what nationality the voice represented. Was it Romanian? Turkish? Hungarian? Or, maybe it was the homeland of Dracula himself, Transylvania. Then I remembered that Transylvania had been devoured by one of those nations, Romania. That one brought a weak smile, given all the nonsense I’d endured for much of the past week.
But, the voice was without menace, at least so far. The exaggerated phonetic pronunciation of my name bore a touch of humor.
There was further warmth, too, and not just from a roaring fire that burned within a nearby fireplace. The thunderous male voice carried mellowness as it bounced off the stone walls, like a long lost uncle amused by his niece’s childish antics.
I sat in a large wooden chair with a tall back. The chair made me feel like a little girl; my feet barely touched the barren floor.
“Wh-who are you?” I was still nervous. Disoriented.
