I led the way as I stumbled and fumbled my way down the hall, bumping into a couple of doorjambs, and, now bruised from head to toe, we came to the closed kitchen door.
I made out two different voices, but I hadn’t the slightest idea what they were talking about. In between exchanges, I heard long slurps and the smacking of lips. There were a few belches, and the sound of eating would have made me hungry if they hadn’t been so disgusting.
Janice drew close behind me, and then she was up against me, trying to hear through the door. I kind of lost my concentration. Rather, my concentration was fixed on two firm and warm mounds of flesh against my back.
“Shh,” Janice whispered. “I’m trying to hear.”
I realized my heart had been pounding too loudly, so I reluctantly eased away from her.
Then, with a belch to end all belches, someone began creaking across the wooden floor. “We’re going to be late, Dagger.”
Then Dagger, apparently, let loose a final belch of approval, and their creaking footfalls headed for the door we were standing behind.
Darting one way and then the other, I basically freaked out, bumping into Janice but not even enjoying it in my panic. Finally I dove for a piece of furniture and scurried behind it, hoping Janice had been fast enough. The door burst open and flooded the hall with light from the kitchen.
“Where’s that damned cat?” one of them said.
“Probably behind the chair. He always hides back there.”
Shit. I hoped I was behind the sofa instead of the chair. But that might mean Janice was in trouble.
There was only one thing to do. Actually, there were three: run like hell, surrender, or create a distraction.
I fumbled in my pocket and drew out a prized possession.
It was a skateboard wheel personally used by Corey Haim, which I’d bought during the Startifacts online auction that had paid for Corey’s funeral expenses. Buddy had occasionally joked about the bulge in my pants, but some things are serious.
Now, I had to let the rubber meet the road.
I rolled the wheel along the hall, hopefully fast enough so that the oversized goons couldn’t see what it was. It bounced and thudded along, sounding like it hit a few little statues and potted plants on the way.
“There he goes,” one of them said. “Get him.”
They ran down the hall, and I never did figure out why they were so hot for the cat. Maybe they were still hungry. At any rate, I crawled out from behind the furniture and hurried into the kitchen, hoping Janice had sense enough to follow.
I found her already inside. “What took you so long?” she said.
Empty sardine cans and cracker crumbs were scattered across the counter, as well as some garlic husks and vinegar. The goons must have been having a stinky late-night snack. No wonder the cat had been so wired.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” I said.
“Uh, except we don’t meet,” she said.
“The club,” I said, trying to cover my tracks. “The club has to stop meeting in creepy old mansions.”
“Well, we’re not going to learn much in here except that the alleged VVV has terrible dietary habits.”
“The library,” I said. “Books, information, maps, and most importantly....”
I let the suspense play out. I’d take her attention any way I could get it.
“Yeah?” she said, beautiful brown eyes wide in anticipation.
“Grandmaster’s chair. If he’s the Grand Wizard of the VVV, then he calls the shots.”
“And our late-night-snackers were headed that way.”
“Ah, brains as well as beauty.”
“Don’t push your luck. I’ve got some sardine juice and I’m not afraid to use it.”
We crept back into the hall after listening closely to be sure it was abandoned. Then we tiptoed, and this time Janice took my hand of her own free will. I grinned in the dark, although I was mourning the loss of my Corey Wheel. You just don’t get a chance at many celebrity-death memorabilia auctions.
If the Lost Boys could see me now.
Chapter Twelve
We slid stealthily up to the closed double doors of the library, where the two “cousins” had disappeared after apparently giving up their futile search for the cat.
I heard the rumble of many voices from behind the door, and then, above all else, a cackling cough that cut through the clutter of conversations, quieting everyone instantly.
Pressing my ear against the door, I fully utilized all my surveillance abilities. Someone began speaking and I could only make-out a smattering of words. Here’s what I heard, or thought I heard: “God... shitty... damned... asshole”—believe me, I was offended also—“Vampire... bloodsucking... stop... son-of-a-bitching club... show... not... mess... us—”
Janice’s ear was also against the door, and she winced with each expletive. Such virgin ears should not suffer thus.
I pulled away from the door when I heard footsteps running up the stairs and I tried to find the darkest corner in the huge hall. I grabbed Janice’s wrist and pulled her into the shadows. Finally, the wall receded and we receded with it into a doorway.
Feeling somewhat safe, and also deliciously claustrophobic with Janice, I peered cautiously along the hall and saw a monstrous, muscular figure approaching. The figure stopped in front of the double doors and threw them open, and as the light burst into the hall, I had a perfect glimpse of a perfect profile.
“Dial,” Janice whispered in a gasp.
I guess their little rendezvous was off, as he had apparently found something more interesting than the fair Janice’s bedchambers. Some guys have a really misplaced sense of loyalty and priorities.
Not that I was complaining.
But now I knew whose side he was on.
Chapter Thirteen
None of the other club members were asleep, which was not surprising, for who could sleep with the possibility of a vampire revival just hours away?
“Emergency meeting,” I called, pounding on each door. Janice and I were waiting in my room when they all arrived, Buddy giving me a curious “Did ya get lucky?” look. A gentleman never tells, especially if the answer is no.
When they had assembled in my room, I glanced at professor L, then began: “Janice and I have come upon, we believe, some disturbing news.”
That woke them the rest of the way up. They leaned forward, noticeably worried, with Dial noticeably absent.
“Andy,” said Juan. “If you called this meeting to announce that you and Janice are going steady, then that’s pretty disturbing.”
The professor scowled as if he didn’t condone romantic shenanigans on an authorized university trip. But he took the opportunity to put the focus back where it belonged. “We’re in vampire country, and all you can think about is sex?”
“Uh,” Buddy said. “Yeah.”
I blamed Stephenie Meyer, Laurell K. Hamilton, and the ten thousand other romance writers who thought combining bloodsucking horror with naughty bits was a good idea. But in a way, it made the work of the Vampire club easier. While the modern mainstream saw the vampire as Fabio in a Count Chocula cape, the hardcore horror aficionados could conduct their hunts in relative obscurity.
But Janice sort of killed the rumors and my possibly heightened reputation by puckering in a sour-milk scowl. “Buddy, keep your filthy mind in your own pants.”
To cover my potential humiliation, I leapt into a rundown of the professor’s theories and our discoveries. Their faces alternated between amusement, consternation, yawning (that was Buddy), and anticipation. Not only were we at Vampire Central, we were at the international headquarters of perhaps the greatest threat to vampire survival the world had ever experienced.
“Because of what we’ve learned,” I concluded, “it’s best if we postpone the hunt until we can get to the heart of the VVV.”
Buddy stood up and headed for the door. “Biggest stinkin’ heap of bullshit I ever whiffed. I was h
aving a cool dream about two lesbian vampires in a bathtub full of red Jell-O, and you interrupt it for this?”
Janice shook her head. “Well, that’s not how I interpreted his actions. He was just hanging out with his family. Dial’s no more a vampire hunter than I am. He loves them more than anyone—obviously more than you two!”
OUCH!
And with that she tossed her dark hair and followed Buddy out the door. I couldn’t help but watch her cute buns wiggling, a little extra twist in them because of her angry stride.
The club was now down to half, and the professor hadn’t uttered one word. Sometimes I think he took stoicism to an extreme. As any good vampire fan knew, there was such a thing as overkill.
Juan paced a little. “You’re calling the hunt off until further notice? That’s as shitty as it gets! Do you realize how long I’ve been waiting for this moment?”
“Juan, that is why I’m calling it off tonight. This is an incredible opportunity for all of us, and I don’t want to take any chances.”
“Who the hell voted you leader, after all? What a mistake.”
And when the ringing in my ears died down after he’d slammed the door behind him, I wondered if maybe I was imagining a huge conspiracy where none existed.
And that’s when the professor dropped his wiry hand on my shoulder. “The role of the leader is a tough one. You did the right thing, Andy. They obviously don’t see it, and I can only hope they don’t do anything foolish.”
Chapter Fourteen
In the morning, I awoke in a tangle of sheets and thoughts. My sleep hadn’t been peaceful, for I had been most troubled and harassed by images of a frothing Dial Toen and his so-called relatives. All things considered, I would rather have had Buddy’s dream.
As I slipped on my I’m A Vampire, She’s A vampire, Wouldn’t You Like To Be A Vampire, Too? T-shirt, I wondered what kind of reception we would receive that morning from the purported VVV.
If it were true that Dial Toen and his relatives were vampire hunters—or vampire-corpse watchers—and all the circumstantial evidence supported this theory, I imagined they might be a little pissed off at us. We probably spoiled their fun. I also imagined that their jobs had become almighty boring if it were true—as we believed—that they had hunted all the vampires down. The bastards!
So there we were, blasting our find through the papers like a bunch of kids unable to hold a secret—and I still wondered who spilled the proverbial beans. And no doubt, these misguided guardians got all jollied up when they heard we were coming. Finally, some fun at last.
Well, we had caught on just in time, and whatever they had planned for us the night before was history, just like the vampires, those poor vampires, shot in cold blood with even colder silver bullets.
The only odd thing about the whole theory was if all their work was done, why did the VVV still amass in such great numbers? Surely retelling the same old war stories got old even for Granddaddy Grandmaster.
I tucked my ragged T-shirt into my jeans and decided it was time to face the music—preferably an ominously cheesy Dark Shadows pipe organ—and as long as Dial and his friends were clueless that we were wise to them, things should go smoothly.
The door creaked open, as required of old—and evil—mansions. The hall was empty and as I looked at the closed doors to the rooms next to mine, I briefly wondered if the others had awoken. Especially Janice. I tried not to think of her in bed in those toasty warm Speed Racer pajamas, and I especially didn’t want to think of her in the shower.
Or maybe I did.
It was still somewhat early, and we’d had a long, tumultuous night, so I decided to let them sleep in if they desired.
The floor creaked in perfect unison to my stride as I went down the hall and to the stairs. On the first floor, I found what appeared to be an empty house.
I made a left, then a right, then a U-turn, backed up ten spaces, closed my eyes, clicked my heels three times, and was in the kitchen. God, I hated these huge houses. But at least the sardine cans were gone.
And so was pretty much anything resembling food. Plates were stacked high in the sink, with syrup, egg yolk, and other goo running down the precarious pillar’s sides. My stomach grumbled as if it had a mind of its own.
I looked around the kitchen and wondered where the fridge was, since there was a good chance I might find a bite to eat in there. It was nowhere. I leaned against the cold, metal wall and wondered where I could dig up some chow—and the thought of “digging up” brought agonizing images of the Vampire Laumer—when I thought it odd to be leaning against a metal wall.
And when I turned, I came face to face with the biggest refrigerator I had ever seen. It rose from floor to ceiling, a height of over thirty feet. I wondered if I should call Mr. Guinness, so all might hail the astonishing appliance. There was even some magnified plastic fruit the size of my head stuck to the door. But no photographs like you’d see on a normal fridge.
I pulled hard, and slowly, ever so slowly, the door creaked open, much like the door to a vault. A powerful white light poured out and completely covered me. One word came to my lips and I couldn’t help but utter: “God?”
No, it wasn’t God, but it was close. I thought of the most food I’d ever seen in one place. Perhaps it was a luau, maybe a buffet table, a meat locker, whatever.
That is how much food I was looking at. And if it hadn’t been for these sardine-breathed vampire hunters, I could have died right there with a smile. But I had a task to do. No, not a task, a responsibility.
Vampires had done so much for me, even if they didn’t even know it. They had sculpted my life, their true or fictitious stories were as deeply engrained in me as my ability to walk. My every thought was first filtered through my understanding of vampires, for I viewed, as you might have seen, the world slightly differently. Without vampires, I did not exist, did not want to exist. Without them, the world sucked.
And right then, thanks to these garlic-eating, cat-chasing, weight-lifting losers, the vampires were gone. How they managed to hunt down each and every one—and I honestly believed they had—and nailed them with a silver bullet, I could not fathom.
But right then that was unimportant. We first had to find and free the Vampire Laumer from his bondage, and then maybe he, if he is up to it, could shed some light on the subject.
Speaking of light, I was now standing in it—a lot of it! A steel ladder had been welded along the left side of the behemoth fridge, and, being the adventuresome fellow I was, I started up it.
Up I went, up into a strange world of eats and drinks. I passed shelf after shelf, eyeing roasts and hams and rutabagas and béarnaise sauces and lemons and parsnips and the usual unidentifiable stuff in small Tupperware containers. I looked down once and almost got dizzy. I held fast and continued up. Where were the almighty eggs? That was all I wanted.
And then I was upon them. It was a whole row of them. Some were boxed, but most were scattered about the shelf, as if the chickens had flown up there and laid them. I stood there on the frozen ladder, mouth open, looking across a bumpy sea of white eggs.
I needed at least four, but I took five instead. And that’s when I noticed the Food Lift, or at least that’s what it said on its side. It was a mini-elevator, of sorts, but its purpose was obvious: How else were they supposed to get all this food down from thirty feet up?
I pushed a button on my left and waited patiently as the platform rose from the bottom. It hummed and chugged, and actually had a pretty good beat, and soon I discovered I was tapping my foot on the rung of the ladder to the beat of the mechanical pulley.
It stopped at the egg shelf, and I placed my five eggs in the designated compartment, then pressed the down button, and proceeded to try to beat the lift down.
The lift won and I was a close second.
I rummaged around and found a no-stick frying pan and vegetable oil—the cabinet was as packed as the fridge, but it was only eighteen feet high—and set to cookin
g. I was humming right along, ready for the big over-easy flip, when a screeching old haggish witch came swooping at me from above.
Actually, it was just an old woman scurrying across the kitchen, but I have a tendency toward melodrama, as you might have noticed. It came with the vampire territory.
She was as big as the others, although gray-haired and a little stooped, and she came at me with a sharp knife in hand. Her hot breath shot out before her like a steam engine. She stopped before me and I closed my eyes, waiting in anticipation for the coming pain.
It didn’t come. Instead, a surprising verbal backlashing assaulted my ears. “Young man! Your eggs are burning, and I hate the smell of burned eggs!”
“But, you scared—”
“No buts. I’m the only one around here who makes breakfast. Done it for twenty years and am pretty damned good. That’s my job. I make breakfast in this house. I am breakfast, here me roar.”
My stomached roared.
“Oh, you poor, poor boy. You must really be hungry.” She grabbed me by my arm and heaved me onto a stool using one arm, and with the other she drove the tip of the knife about an inch into the wooden countertop. When I opened my eyes, I found myself sitting at a sort of bar and the woman was salvaging my eggs.
Even though she was as big as any of Dial’s other relatives, she seemed to have a heart of golden margarine melting on a stack of pancakes, and with my initial terror residing, I decided to ask her a few questions.
“So where’s everyone else?”
“They’re all in the study, those animals!”
Her hands moved with precision despite her obvious age. And I wondered how come she stayed so spry and spritely. She was pale and didn’t seem to be one of Toen’s cousins, who were all muscular and dark-skinned.
“And they’ve already eaten breakfast?”
“Every last one. Got me up a full two hours earlier to make it, too.”
“The nerve.”
The Vampire Club Page 5
