Walking into the Lachey home was like walking into a stranger’s house.
Tom walked up the landing steps and into the kitchen without Betty yelling at him to get his dirty wet shoes off her nice clean floor. Stan wasn’t parked in the living room recliner chair, slurping pop from a straw while he drew yet another picture to hang on the fridge with the other fifty thousand pictures he had drawn the week before. And Ryan wasn’t locked in the bathroom doing whatever the hell it was that Ryan did in the bathroom.
It was like he was in an alternate Lachey universe, and it was downright creepy.
He retraced his steps and glanced at something that had caught his eye as he walked by Stan’s colorings. There was a calendar hanging beside them that had a big red circle around today’s date. It was Betty’s birthday.
“Happy freaking birthday, Betster,” he said aloud.
There wasn’t going to be any celebrating today, that was for damn sure. Betty was more likely to have a sedative than her usual nightcap of orange brandy that she poured for herself at precisely eleven o’clock. She had done it every night since Ryan’s dad had left, he knew. Tonight being a special occasion she would have started a little early, had one too many and offered a wee drink to Ryan and himself so she wouldn’t have to toast the occasion alone. It happened like that every holiday at the Lachey’s.
Feeling a pang of guilt, Tom took his runners off out of respect before he continued on up the carpeted hallway stairs that led to the bedrooms on the second floor.
The first room he passed was Betty’s. The door was open and he could see that the bed was still made from the day before. That was a bit unusual. Betty’s neat-freak tendencies normally stopped at the staircase. If company wouldn’t see the mess, she wasn’t as concerned.
The second room was Ryan’s. The door was open and he could see it looked like a bomb had gone off in it. Nothing unusual there. The room was waiting for Ryan to come back, kick his clothes into a pile by the cupboard, and spend the next hour or so lifting weights. That wasn’t going to happen today either.
The third room was Stan’s. The door was closed. That was a bad sign. Stan’s door was never closed. He was afraid of the dark. They kept a night light on in the hallway for him most nights. But apparently not last night. Tom reached down and flicked the switch. The bulb had burned out.
“Poor bastard,” Tom thought. “He’s probably been stuck in his room since he went to bed.”
He knocked on Stan’s door.
“Stan, it’s Tom. Are you awake? Can I come in?”
He waited a few moments, and after getting no answer, he slowly turned the doorknob. He knew there was no chance of it being locked because Betty had removed all the bedroom locks when she had caught Ryan up in his room with Tara. Ryan had bitched to Tom about it for days. Betty had opened the door at a really inopportune moment. Ryan said his mother probably hadn’t seen him that erect since she had last changed his diaper and he took a surprise whiz. It was summer, and Betty grounded Ryan for a month, after a stern lecture about condoms. Betty wouldn’t have grounded Ryan if he had done something during football season. Betty had seasonal priorities.
“Stan?” Tom whispered, poking his head through the doorframe.
The young Lachey was sitting straight up in his bed with the covers pulled close to his body, his watery eyes staring off into space as a steady stream of tears ran down his cheeks.
“And they called me a deer in a headlight,” Tom thought to himself. He tried to put himself in Stan’s shoes, but quite frankly, nothing like this had ever happened to him when he was that young. “Stan-man, get a grip. Ryan would smack you one if he saw you like this.”
“Ryan’s not here,” Stan sniffed. “My mom’s not here, or my dad either. I’ve just got the loaner.” He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his thermal pajama top.
Tom laughed. “You could do worse, Stan.” The ‘loaner’ term had come from Ryan, who thought the word ‘babysitter’ left nobody with any respect.
Tom came into the room and sat down on Stan’s bed. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so relating to someone Stan’s age wasn’t exactly easy for him to do. But he had known Stan almost since the day the little Lachey kid was born, and right now, he knew he was all Stan had. One look at his sad little face and any plans Tom had of running him down to the cop shop disappeared. He had to try to help him. He’d stay with Stan until the girls got back. Or until Betty got back. The cruel facts of life Stan needed to learn could wait another 24 hours or so.
“I’m not really a loaner,” Tom told him. “I’ve been around here way more than Jacey, or your dad for that matter, so it kind of moves me up a notch. I’m kind of like a stepbrother once removed.”
“What’s that?” Stan asked.
“I’m kind of like your big friend,” Tom explained gently. He reached over to the tissue box on Stan’s study desk and handed him a handful. “I know everything sucks right now, so I got rid of the girls, thinking maybe we could hang out together for a little while. Just you and me.”
Sure, it was a lie, but given the situation, a little lying wasn’t going to hurt anyone.
Stan tried to smile. “It sucks the big one,” he admitted.
Tom laughed. Ryan’s influence was all over that statement, and Stan was lucky Betty wasn’t around to hear him say it. Betty kept a special bar of soap in the bathroom for just such an occasion.
“Too true,” Tom admitted. “Your powers of observation are always impressive, Stan-man.”
“We’re in big trouble, Tom,” Stan said, wiping the tears from his face. His sobs had quieted to the odd sniffle. “Ryan’s in jail and they took my mom to the nutter.”
“Yeah,” Tom replied. “I know that. But Stan, your brother has been in trouble before and he’s always got out of it, right? This time’s no different. And your mom’s not exactly in the nutter, she’s just in the hospital getting a little rest.”
“I guess so.”
“You can’t keep Ryan down, you know that. And Betty,” Tom paused, trying to think of something comforting to say, “well, that’s probably where Ryan gets his toughness from. But don’t tell him I said that.”
“What did Ryan do?” Stan asked. “Nobody will tell me what’s happening. It has something to do with T.H.E.M. in Mrs. LaRose’s backyard, right? He said he was going to get me.”
Tom thought back to the conversation about the “corpse-o-matic 500 styling comb” on Halloween night. Ryan had told Stan at the time he was only joking, but in hindsight it had been a really stupid thing to say. Or ironic. Or insightful. Or maybe all the above. Only time would tell.
“I really don’t know what’s going on, Stan-man,” Tom admitted. “But when I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know, I promise.”
“You’re smart, right?” Stan asked, pointing his index finger defiantly at him. All the Lachey’s did that when they wanted to make a point, Tom had noticed.
“Uh-huh," Tom nodded cautiously. “Where are you going with this?”
“Then you should be able to figure something out to help me kill it.”
Tom could have lied to Stan, he could have told him that everything was going to be fine, and no one was going to do any killing, but he sensed that Stan wouldn’t believe him even if he tried to cushion it.
“I think we should let Ryan kill it,” Tom answered honestly.
“From jail? How’s he supposed to do that? We’re gonners.”
Tom sighed. “That is a bit of a problem, but that’s where you can help me. Go start up the computer in the basement so that I can do a bit of web surfing.”
“I’m not supposed to be on the computer when Ma’s not around.”
“Dude,” Tom said, trying to keep a straight face, “you’ve got to learn to live a little. Look, if it will make you feel better, just turn it on and log in for me. I’ll do everything else. She’ll never know, I swear.”
“Are you going to Google ‘jail breakouts’?” he asked excitedly. “I can
get the nail file from the bathroom if we’re going to bake a cake.”
“Wrong kind of file, buddy. There will be no cake baking. And no peeking at what I’m looking at on the computer. That way if Betty starts to interrogate you later, you can honestly be in complete denial.”
“I could help. Whatever the plan is. I’m a minor. They can’t put me in jail.”
“True,” Tom said slowly, “even though I don’t know how you know that.”
“You’re sixteen. They’ll toss you in the slammer.”
“I won’t go to jail,” Tom assured him. “Stop watching old movies so your vocabulary has a chance to meet this century, okay?”
“They put Ryan in jail.”
“Okay,” Tom sighed. “See here’s the thing, Stan. Ryan is in jail because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s all. It will sort itself out without us having to break him out of jail, trust me. I’ve just got to do...a little homework on a project we’re doing together. So he keeps caught up at school. We don’t want his marks to drop, do we?”
The explanation seemed to satisfy Stan. “Okay. Can I watch TV with you while you’re down there? I don’t want to stay up here all by myself.”
Tom smiled. Betty never let Stan watch television in the mornings, especially Sunday mornings. In the Lachey household, Sunday mornings were strictly for sleeping in. No noise was allowed.
“Sure, Stan. But no puppets. Or anything that resembles a puppet. Or a sponge.”
“Can I watch wrestling?”
Tom laughed. “Only if you promise learn a few gob-smacking moves.”
Finally, a full smile crossed Stan’s face. “Where’d Jacey go? I can practice putting the moves on her when she gets back. I think I can take her.”
“No way, little man,” Tom said, patting Stan on the leg. “I’ll be the one putting the moves on the ladies when they get backand they will be back.”
Their conversation stopped when the side doorbell rang.
“I told you,” Tom smiled. “The girls couldn’t stay away from us. We’re like liquid attraction. They could put us in a bottle and call us perfume.”
Stan smiled too; glad to be a part of Tom’s plans, if only for a few minutes.
“Liquid attraction,” he echoed.
“Come on in,” Tom yelled towards the hallway, playfully giving Stan an easy one-two punch to his shoulders. “Your love-buddies are upstairs.”
Stan stopped smiling. He could smell a musty aroma coming through the heating ducts in the floor. “You shouldn’t have done that, Tom. Jacey would have come in by herself if the door was open. Something’s wrong.”
“I locked the door, Stan. I promised Ryan I’d take care of you. Jacey has a key. She came in on her own.”
“No she doesn’t,” Stan insisted. “Officer Purdy used the hidden key from under the flowerpot. He put the key in his pocket when he left. I watched him do it.”
“Stan, I hear her coming up the stairs.”
Stan started to wheeze. “Does smelling b.o. count as a power of observation?” he gasped. “Jacey doesn’t smell like that. She smells good. I don’t think it was Jacey at the door, Tom.”
Tom began to notice the smell himself. “It’s probably just a dead mouse. It most likely died between the walls and when the heat came on, the fan circulated the smell through air-ducts. Just hold your nose for a bit until it shuts off.” He noticed Stan was looking a little pasty. “Where’s your puffer big-guy?”
Stan plugged his nose with his left hand and pointed to the dresser by the door.
Or at least Tom thought he was pointing towards the bureau by the door.
“I’ll grab it for you,” he offered, turning halfway around.
He never knew what hit him.
“Hello, love-buddies,” the vampire said, as he spun his left leg in the air and landed a drop kick to Tom’s head. “So much for you being the smart one. We vampires don’t need keys, so there’s not really much point locking the door. You should have listened to the kid and checked who was there before inviting me in.” He turned to Stan. “He must have missed ‘don’t open the door to strangers’ day at pre-school.”
“What do you want?” Stan asked breathlessly.
“I want you to want me,” he sneered.
Stan started to hyperventilate.
The vampire took no pity on the youngster. “If you keep that up, this is going to be way too easy. Why don’t you make me work for it, Stan-man? Stan-man. Is that like your super-hero name?”
Stan continued to hyperventilate until he lost consciousness.
“I guess not,” the vampire said. He looked around the room. “You know, I’ve seen you staring at me from this upstairs window for months now, Stan. You never even had the courtesy to invite me in to read comic books with you. Some kind of neighbor you turned out to be.”
He crossed over to the bedroom window and opened it wide. The cold air immediately began to fill the room, but no one, apart from himself, was conscious enough to notice.
“You, Mr. Liquid Attraction,” he sneered, going over to Tom and giving him a swift kick in the ribs to ensure he was still out cold, “maybe you should spend more time watching wrestling yourself.”
He walked back to the bed and hovered over Stan. “Decisions, decisions. How do I remove you from this den of nerdiness? We could take the stairs, but that would be so anti-climatic,” he sneered. He heaved Stan’s limp body over his left shoulder and moved towards the window. A moment later he carried Stan effortlessly up onto the snowy roof.
“You’re turning into a human freezie,” he laughed as he felt Stan start to involuntarily shiver. He leaned him up against the slope of the roof. “Should I lick you till you’re done, or crush you up and pull your juices out slowly between my teeth? Which way gives me the migraine brain freeze? I can never remember.”
There was no answer from the human life form.
The wind and snow was picking up considerably, hiding the sun behind a deep cloud cover. It didn’t look like mid-afternoon. It looked like dusk.
“How does that song go? Da da da beautiful morning, da da da beautiful day,” the vampire began to sing to himself. “Da da da beautiful feeling…everything’s going my way.”