Peter And The Vampires (Volume One)

by Darren Pillsbury

  Dill jumped the three foot gap of pulverized planks and landed on the end of the walkway, the rectangular part out in the water. He looked all around him, hands on hips, inspecting the lake.

  “I don’t see nothin’,” he yelled.

  “Get back here, then!” Peter hollered.

  Dill waved him off, and instead fished out his snorkel mask from the plastic grocery bag he’d carried with him.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Peter bellowed.

  Dill put the mask on his face, kneeled down on the dock, and stuck his head underwater.

  Peter grabbed his hair and pulled at it anxiously. Stupid Dill — this was just like him. Taking Peter out into the garden the night he moved in, climbing out on the tree that hung over the ocean cliff…as long as Dill thought there wasn’t any real danger, he’d do just about anything. And then, once he saw exactly what he’d gotten himself into, he’d wet his pants and want to crawl under his bed.

  Greg’s whine turned into a squeal.

  Dill raised his head up out of the water. “It’s pretty clear down here, but I don’t see nothin’.”

  “Then come back in!”

  Behind Peter, the squeal rose in pitch. It was really getting annoying.

  He turned back towards the innertubes. “Hey, Greg, you’re safe, man — cut it out, alright?”

  That’s when the squeal became a scream. Greg pointed out at the water.

  Peter whipped around and saw —

  Nothing. Just the sun shimmering on the lake…

  Wait.

  There.

  It was easy to miss…a ‘V’ in the water, small but getting bigger. And faster.

  And headed right for the end of the dock.

  Where Dill had his head in the water again.

  12

  “DILL!” Peter screamed. “DILL!”

  The ‘V’ was even closer to the dock. Twenty feet away now.

  “DILLLLLLL!” Peter screamed as he ran for the water’s edge.

  There was no way he could make it in time.

  Peter was unsure if Dill heard the screaming, or if he saw the thing in the water first. Whatever the reason, Dill pulled his head up out of the lake and scooted back on the gray boards of the dock.

  Either way, he escaped by the skin of his teeth.

  The surface of the lake exploded, and a monstrous head burst out of the water and clamped its mouth on the wood planks where Dill had been just seconds before.

  Greg was right: it wasn’t an alligator. It looked more like a giant salamander, gray and mottled brown, with slimy skin and a head six feet across. Two large, red eyes, big as softballs and smooth as glass, bulged out from the side of its head. Eyelids flicked down over the eyeballs, covering them in gray before snapping back up.

  The mouth, while huge, had no teeth. It was like a trout Peter had caught once on a camping trip, with a bony ridge where its gums should be. Not that the lack of teeth made it any less terrifying. The head was as big as a small car, and big enough to swallow Dill whole.

  Which Dill seemed to realize pretty quickly. In less than a second, he was on his feet and racing towards the hole in the dock.

  Behind him, the monster slid back into the lake. Its huge tail whipped the water into a froth.

  “DILL, RUN!” Peter screamed.

  Dill launched himself into the air and over the jagged hole in the boards. But as he landed, the dock tilted under his feet. He started to slide sideways toward the water.

  The ‘V’ shape circled around the end of the dock and headed for the middle section. Peter’s heart leapt into his throat.

  Dill regained his footing and bolted forward, legs pumping triple–time. He was almost to the shore when the dock rose up in the air.

  The monster was ramming it from underneath.

  It looked like a whale bursting up out of the ocean. The monster’s entire upper body cleared the surface of the lake with the dock draped over its head. Peter could see muscular arms folded at its sides. They looked like a frog’s legs, complete with webbed fingers — but some prehistoric, nightmare frog, not the little things hopping in the marsh. Those rippling arms were longer than Peter’s whole body.

  The creature must have lifted the dock four feet out of the water. A shockwave rippled the boards like a kid snapping a jump rope. Planks splintered like twigs.

  That wave of motion caught up with Dill and launched him like a catapult. His legs and arms waved comically as though he were swimming midair, and then he thudded onto the grassy bank.

  “DILL!” Peter yelled, but relief flooded his body. Dill was off the dock, out of the water. Safe.

  And then Greg’s voice echoed inside his head:

  I thought I was safe —but I wasn’t, it walked up and ran after me, I wasn’t safe, I wasn’t safe anywhere, not anywhere

  “DILL, RUN!” Peter screamed. “IT CAN COME UP ON LAND!”

  As he shouted, it was like his words made the thought come true.

  The monster threw the dock off with a toss of its head and lurched clumsily out of the lake. Its belly was speckled and pale. Its legs were shaped like its arms, but bigger and more muscular. The tail came last, weaving and splashing through the water.

  The thing was huge, like a dinosaur. Maybe not as tall as a T–Rex — its head was only ten feet off the ground, and it stretched twenty feet from snout to tail. But that didn’t matter. The last T–Rex Peter had seen was in a museum, and that was just bones.

  This thing was alive, and it was coming after his best friend.

  “DIIIIIIILLLLLLLLL!” Peter screamed again.

  Dill was already running up the bank, but in a different direction from Peter, as though to lead it away. Behind the glass of his faceplate, his eyes were as big as his mask.

  The monster reached the shore and immediately picked up speed. The muddy lake bottom must have made it harder to walk; once it hit solid ground, it moved faster. Peter noticed its feet were like those of a huge frog — webbing between the toes and triangular in shape, just like the footprint in the mud.

  And like its feet, its stride was giant as well. For every fifteen of Dill’s footsteps, the creature only had to take one. Peter saw it clear as day: Dill wasn’t going to escape.

  Somewhere behind him, Greg kept screaming and screaming.

  13

  Peter frantically searched the ground for the biggest rock he could throw. There was one about the size of a tennis ball, smooth and gray. Peter snatched it up and hurled it through the air.

  Normally he wasn’t that great of a shot, but maybe because he’d thrown instinctively, without time to worry, his aim was exceptionally good. The rock smacked into the size of the monster’s head with a THUD, hard enough to make the flesh dimple before it bounced off onto the ground.

  The monster stopped and ROARED — a low, rumbling sound. Then it swung its head over to see where the stinging blow had come from.

  Peter stood there, dumbfounded.

  The monster charged.

  Although it didn’t seem possible, Greg’s scream actually got higher and louder as Peter turned tail and ran up the slope.

  “RUN!” Peter yelled. Greg didn’t need to be told twice: he darted away from the pile of innertubes and raced off into the woods.

  The ground shook under the weight of the monster, but Peter didn’t dare look back. He just kept his eyes on the ground and tried his best to keep from falling.

  His shadow ran in front of him by a few feet. And then his shadow was gone, blotted out by the bigger darkness of the monster.

  It was right behind him, and there was nowhere to go. He couldn’t reach the trees in time, which might have slowed the monster down. There weren’t any caves. There were a few big logs he might have gotten under, but they were further back in the forest.

  There were only the innertubes, stacked four feet high.

  Peter felt drops of slime splatter across his shoulders.

  Fear shot through him like electricity. He leaped in
to the air, hit the top of the innertubes, scrambled down the doughnut hole in the center, and huddled on the grassy bottom like a baby.

  The monster’s head appeared over the innertubes, blocking out the sun. It cocked its head, and Peter saw a single red eye blink above him. Then it attacked the top innertube with its gaping jaws.

  Peter screamed and the monster roared. A whole shower of nasty–smelling water dripped onto Peter, and he could see the purplish–pink skin lining its mouth. Blood vessels quivered just beneath the surface, long snaky veins that lead to a black hole at the back of its throat, no bigger than a basketball.

  But big enough to swallow me up

  Peter got a closer view of its teeth, too, or rather, the lack of them. A long, blunt ridge of toothless gum rimmed its entire mouth.

  Its tongue was the weirdest thing. It looked like a lizard’s, long and rubbery, but ending in a fleshy, spiked ball. It reminded Peter of strange fruit he had seen in grocery stores in California, exotic yellow orbs with bumpy, dull thorns — except the monster’s version was pink.

  He didn’t have much time to think about it, though, because he was busy trying not to get eaten. He pulled himself into a fetal position and tried to keep as far away from that slobbering cave as he could.

  The monster gnawed at the top innertube, but couldn’t seem to get anywhere. It pulled back its head, and a big dollop of mucusy slime plopped down on Peter’s arm. Then it opened its mouth again and the tongue shot out.

  Peter had only the briefest image of somebody throwing one of those yellow fruits at him, and then it was back in the monster’s mouth. THWIP. But in that brief second, the spiked tongue thumped against his life preserver and scraped across his thigh on the way back up.

  Peter looked down at the life preserver, which had several small holes in it from the thorns on the tongue. His leg had a scratch on the skin, nothing much at all…but suddenly he felt dizzy. He looked up. The monster seemed farther away — much farther, in fact. The view from the bottom of the innertubes, which in reality was only four feet, looked deep as a twenty–foot well. His vision began to dim around the edges.

  Far, far away, he could hear Greg wailing in the forest somewhere.

  Peter wasn’t sure if it was a dream or reality, but suddenly the monster lifted its head, looked away, and moved off, leaving only a ring of beautiful blue sky that was getting darker by the second.

  Sleep nudged the edges of his mind, and his eyelids got very, very heavy.

  What’s going…on…

  And then something grabbed him from beneath.

  14

  The fright jolted him with adrenaline. Everything got clearer and brighter for a second. Peter remembered where he was — trapped in an innertube tower with a giant monster trying to eat him. Apparently it had figured out how to get at him from underground.

  Peter screamed.

  “Shut up, Dude!” came Dill’s muffed voice from the other side of the innertubes.

  “Dill?”

  The innertube raised up four inches and Dill’s face appeared, pressed flat to the ground. “Come on, it’s gone — get out and let’s go!”

  Peter tried to move, but found that invisible lead weights had somehow been attached to his limbs. “Can’t,” he mumbled. “Too…tired…”

  “Too tired?! That thing almost ate you and it’s going to come back! COME ON!”

  Dill pulled the innertubes off of Peter, who sprawled onto the ground with his legs and arms going everywhere. Within the tight confines of the innertube, he felt like a cake baked in one of those little metal circles. But Dill had lifted the ring before he finished cooking, and now his body was the batter oozing out everywhere.

  Dill gasped. “Peter, what happened to your leg?”

  Peter lolled his head around and peered at his thigh. The place where the monster’s tongue had grazed him had turned bright red and puffed up like a thousand mosquitoes had just had a luncheon buffet on him. He touched the puffy red skin and discovered he couldn’t feel anything on his leg at all.

  “Huh,” he noted groggily, like he’d just seen a really interesting flower.

  Dill hooked his hands under Peter’s armpits and started dragging him through the swamp. “Dude, come on…get up, get up, get up!”

  Peter struggled to walk. Dill supported him as well as he could, but Peter felt like he was wading through wet cement. Darkness was closing in around him like the circle at the end of cartoons where Porky Pig stuttered, “B–duh–b–duh b–duh that’s all, folks.”

  Peter’s feet gave out beneath him and he slumped to his knees.

  That’s all, folks.

  “Come on,” Dill hissed frantically. “Just a few more feet.”

  “Can’t…”

  Dill reached over and noogied Peter’s head hard.

  “Owwwww!” Peter mumbled, seriously annoyed. But he kept shuffling forward on his knees as Dill dragged him by the arm.

  Peter could see where they were headed. It was a giant fallen tree trunk, rotted and covered with moss. There was a deep hole underneath it filled with leaves and darkness.

  Dill pushed Peter forward, and his body toppled into the hole like a rag doll. His head bumped wet, mushy earth, but he didn’t care at this point. He only wanted to sleep.

  Dill scooted into the hole after him and propped Peter’s head up. “Dude, are you okay? Dude, stay awake!”

  Dill opened Peter’s closed eyelids with a thumb and a forefinger and tried to look at his eyeball.

  Peter batted away Dill’s hand. “Leaff me ‘lone,” he mumbled.

  Somewhere out in the marsh, there was a scream. Peter’s eyes shot open.

  Greg.

  Peter struggled to sit up, though his arms felt like rubber gloves filled with water.

  “Gotta…save Greg…”

  “Stay down, Pete!” Dill commanded.

  A low, throaty roar drowned out the scream.

  “It’s gonna get Greg!” Peter whined. He looked out the little window between the ground and the tree and struggled to focus on the blurry forest.

  He could make out Greg, running through the marsh. Behind him lumbered the monster, pushing aside the more bendable trees, even knocking down a small pine. It didn’t run fast, but its strides were so huge that it covered ground quickly.

  A lot more quickly than Greg.

  “GREG!” Peter yelled, although his tongue didn’t work, so it sounded a lot more like “Grruuuug!”

  But Greg heard and ran towards the fallen tree.

  Dill clamped a hand over Peter’s mouth and pulled him back. “Don’t, man, it’ll get us! Shut up, shut up!”

  Greg was running, tears streaming down his cheeks, the horror on his face more frightening than any Halloween mask. Behind him, the monster slammed through two more trees and splashed the water out of every puddle it stomped in.

  Then it opened its mouth.

  “Nnnnnnnmmmhhhh!” Peter screamed, muffled behind Dill’s hand.

  The tongue darted out ten feet and shot the pink, thorny blob into Greg’s neck, then zipped back into the monster’s mouth.

  Greg uttered a strangled cry as he fell just feet away from the hiding place. His eyes peered deep into the hole and met Peter’s. He tried to drag himself forward, but his arms and legs seemed to have stopped working. The monster’s shadow fell over him, though all Peter could see were its gigantic feet straddling Greg. Droplets of slime spattered on the leaf–covered ground with a sound like rainfall, and the monster’s low, rumbling growl was the distant thunder.

  “You promised,” Greg choked out hoarsely. “You said if I went back…you wouldn’t let it get me...”

  Peter trembled. Behind him, he could feel Dill shaking, too.

  The end of the creature’s snout suddenly lowered into view and clamped down on Greg’s body.

  “You promised…” he whispered as his eyes closed. Then the monster lifted his body from the ground, head and arms dangling limply, and Greg disappeared fro
m sight. The giant, muscular feet turned and thudded slowly away. As the monster got smaller in the distance, Peter could see Greg hanging lifeless from its mouth, the way a dog carries a sleeping puppy.

  Dill burst out crying behind him. Hot tears splashed Peter’s neck.

  You promised.

  The world went black.

  15

  Before he was even fully awake, Peter felt the cold. His whole body was shivery and damp, and when he tried to move, his arms cramped up.

  Peter forced his eyes to open. It was very dark. The hole in the ground under the tree, once bright with sunlight, was now dim and gray. Dill sat in front of it, eyes watching the outside world, knees held tight against his chest.

  “Dill?” Peter murmured. He licked his dry lips. His mouth tasted like dirty cotton.

  “Peter!” Dill gasped, both excitement and terror in his voice.

  “Uhhhhhh…how long have I been out?”

  “Hours…four or five, I think. It’s getting dark.”

  The image of a frightened boy, his body being lifted up from the ground, swelled inside Peter’s brain.

  You promised…

  Peter’s eyes widened, and he tried to sit up. “Greg?! ”

  Dill shook his head. His eyes welled up with tears. “He’s gone, man. He’s gone, you can’t help him.”

  “Dill…no, he can’t be — ”

  “Peter, that thing got him. It took him. He’s GONE.”

  Dill buried his face in his hands and his back shook, like he was crying silently.

  Peter remembered Dill dragging him into the hole, putting a hand over his mouth, telling him to be quiet. All while Greg was still out there, alone…

  He wanted to say something angry, to make Dill feel awful for leaving Greg to die, but he stopped. It was obvious that Dill was punishing himself enough already.

  And…if he hadn’t done it, that thing might have gotten me, too…

  Peter settled back against the cold, damp earth and shivered. “That was…that was all real, wasn’t it.”

  Dill said nothing, just nodded.

  Peter looked down at his leg. It was back to normal — no puffiness, no redness, just a little pink scratch.

  Wait a minute.

  “Dill…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t think he’s dead.”

  “Peter…” Dill sniffled. It was obvious from the tone of his voice that he didn’t even want to discuss it.