“I never thought about it like that.”
“This Vampire Public Service Announcement has been brought to you by The More You Know,” Joe said. Then he went back to licking his Styrofoam. “Vampires on TV give us all an unhealthy body image stereotype too. Do you know how hard you have to work out to get a body like those actors on True Blood, or The Vampire Diaries? Try doing it when your blood vessels don’t work anymore and your muscles are slowly starting to waste away.”
Like I want to talk about all the problems a vampire has. “Can someone turn on the radio?” I asked.
“I’ve got a better idea!” the girl vamp said. “‘Ninety-nine Bottles of Blood on the Wall’!”
“Ninety-nine bottles of blood on the wall,” Joe sang. “Ninety-nine bottles of blood . . .”
“Oh, God,” I muttered, “I’m stuck in a car full of vampires singing road trip songs. Somebody stake me now.”
“Take one down, pass it around . . .”
“ . . . ninety-eight bottles of blood on the waaaaaaaall!”
“Enough!” I grabbed my stake again and whipped it into the air. “The next person to sing another verse of that stupid song is going to get staked, so help me God. I don’t care if you are defanged, I’m going to—”
A loud pop came from outside the car, followed by a steady thumping.
The girl vampire screamed, and Joe yelled, “What was that?” as we kept bumping along. Then the driver slowed to a crawl and our thumps slowed with him. Every time the tire rotated, we heard a dull, slapping noise.
The sound of a flat tire.
“I think it’s a flat,” the driver and I both said at the same time.
“Just like Brad and Janet,” the girl vamp whispered.
The driver pulled the car onto the shoulder. I followed him outside and came around to his side. “Definitely a flat,” he said, kicking the deflated piece of rubber.
“Do you have a spare?” I asked.
“Yes, but I’ve never . . .”
I sighed, rolling up my sleeves. “Get it for me. I’ll do it.”
He went to the trunk and came back a moment later with the tire and a jack in hand. The other vampires got out of the car too.
Kneeling down, I started to jack up the car. In the background, I could hear Joe instructing the others, “No, no, you have to be in sync when you jump to the left and then step to the right. Kelly! It’s a pelvis thrust, not a pelvic wiggle. Like this!”
“Call me Magenta,” I heard her whine. “You know that.”
I couldn’t help myself. I stopped to watch.
Three vampires in fishnets and feather boas were lined up, knees pushed together, doing a dance that looked like something straight out of a bad Ke$ha video.
It was the strangest thing I’d ever seen.
So I did what any normal person would have done in the same situation. I hauled out my phone and started filming it. This baby was going viral.
When I turned back to the spare and picked it up, I knew immediately that we had a bigger problem. “Damn it.”
“Janet! I love youuuu!” came the reply.
“We have a problem,” I called to the driver. He was too busy trying to get in on the “ jump to the left and step to the right” action to pay any attention to me. He didn’t respond, and I yelled, “Hey, you. Driver. What’s your name?”
He turned. “Me?”
This night was only getting better. “Yes, you. Name?”
“I’m David. That’s Dickson, you already know Joe, and she’s Kelly.” He pointed at each one.
“Magenta,” Kelly hissed.
“Great. Thanks for that. I’m Jane. We have a problem, David. This spare tire won’t work. It needs air.” I looked at my phone. No service. “Seriously?” I shook it, but nothing changed. “I can get reception in the middle of the woods, but not on a main road?”
I turned back to David. “Do any of you have a phone? I’m not getting service.”
He looked sheepish. “We really don’t like cell phones. Can’t we just use the tire until we get to the next exit? There’s bound to be a gas station there. Someone can help us.”
“The next exit is twenty miles down the road. The tire won’t take us that far; we’ll bend the rim.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” I stood up and rolled my sleeves back down. “We’re going to have to walk to the nearest house, or at least until we have reception.”
Joe, Kelly/Magenta, and Dickson were still lined up, only now they were doing high kicks and throwing their boas around. “Guys, hey, guys!” I called. “Guys!” I shouted louder. “Would you stop doing those stupid dances and come join the conversation? We have a problem here.”
“But we have to practice,” Dickson whined. “How do you expect us to win the talent show? There’s going to be a lot of stiff competition.”
“There isn’t going to be any talent show or any Ricky Hopper Show convention if we don’t find someone with a phone, or a car. We are stuck out here. S-T-U-C-K. Do you understand?”
“It’s Rocky Horror,” Dickson said, sulking.
I pulled out my stake. Just a little bit, but enough for him to get the message.
“So,” he said, quickly coming over to join the powwow David and I had going on. “Which way should we go for help?”
I scanned the woods. There was a light in the distance. “Over there.” I pointed. “There’s a light.”
“Over at the Frankenstein place?” Joe said.
“Huh?” I looked at him.
“Burning in the fireplace?” Kelly replied.
“There’s a liiiight,” they all sang.
I put up one finger and they all stopped. “New rule: no more singing. Agreed?”
Silence greeted me, but there were nods all around.
“Okay. We go that way.”
I led the way to the house and we traipsed through the dark woods. Of course, of course, the house was a giant monstrosity of a thing that looked like something from a horror movie. The grass in the front yard was up to our knees, with rusted vehicles littering the lawn. Vehicles that had busted-out windshields and cracked driver’s side windows.
“Nothing says ‘Hey, I’m normal’ like a car graveyard in front of your house,” I muttered. I pulled out my phone. Still no service.
“Should we knock?” Dickson asked. “It’s kind of . . . creepy.”
“Let’s go to the next house,” Kelly urged. “I don’t think they’re doing the Time Warp in there.”
“Seriously? A vampire is freaked out by a house?” I gave a disgusted shake of my head and pushed on the doorbell.
The door swung open.
No one was there, but instantly all of the vampires took a step back. Joe actually nudged me forward a bit.
“Go on,” he said. “Ask if they’ve got a phone. And while you’re at it, go see what’s on the slab.”
They all snickered, and I glared at them. “Why me? You’re the fiends from hell.”
“I resent that,” Joe replied. He pointed back at himself with both hands. “Dental assistant.”
“Fine,” I muttered. But I took a step forward. “Stay here.” The last thing I needed was for some overly zealous fanatic with a strict belief system to take offense at a vampire in a feather boa. “I’ll be right back.”
The door slammed shut behind me as soon as I was across the threshold, but at this point? I was expecting that. Spooky slamming doors went hand in hand with spooky houses. Besides, I’ve trained for years to learn not to jump at loud noises.
“Hello?” I called, adopting the tone of a lost and scared teenage girl. “Is anyone home?” It was always to my advantage to let people think I’m something I’m not. “I need to use your phone. My car broke down and I—”
It was a soft noise that stopped me. A noise coming from the heat vent in the floor.
I moved closer, being careful to keep my back to the wall. The sound came again. A scream. Muffled, like it was being held
back by something. A gag? A piece of cloth?
“Shit, shit, shit.” I opened my phone again, holding it at a higher angle to see if the reception was any better.
It wasn’t. I was on my own.
“Remember, this doesn’t have to be supernatural,” I reminded myself. “You could have just stumbled onto a normal serial killer’s house. Or backwoods mutants. Hillbilly Bob and the Freakshow gang.”
I looked down into the hallway. The coast was clear. Moving stealthily, I rounded the stairs and came upon the living room. An old wooden door with telltale red stains at the bottom of it was there. Blood. The door probably led to the basement.
Right on cue, the muffled scream came again. Followed by a scraping sound that made my blood run cold. Someone was sharpening a tool. Maybe an ax?
I debated between the stake and my silver dagger. Sure, a wooden stake could cause massive amounts of damage, even to a human body, when thrown properly, but the dagger was my favorite. Gripping the plain hilt (no jewels, they made it too slippery), I crossed the floor and slowly opened the door.
As I did that, the front door behind me blew open and I could hear the vampires screaming. I tried to turn back, but the basement door was slippery underneath my hands. Wet with blood on the other side. I could barely hang on, it was threatening to close on me, but I jammed my boot inside and wedged myself into the stairwell.
It was poorly lit, and I stepped carefully as I made my way down. The basement smelled moldy, with the scent of rotten meat hanging heavy on the air. Dirty kerosene lamps were strung up in a row around the ceiling, and some of them were still smoking. Hastily blown out in an attempt to conceal whatever was down here. Luckily, whoever had done it had missed one.
A whimper came from the corner.
With my free hand I dug out my mini flashlight and directed it to where I’d heard the sound. The lamp wasn’t strong enough to cast its weak glow all the way over there.
Steeling myself for what I’d find, I was sure that it was going to be something hideous. Something monstrous. It would be deformed. Missing arms and legs. Maybe the head would be gone, or tossed in a corner. And it . . .
It . . . was a boy.
A shirtless boy, with a fresh cut across his bare chest.
So, I did what any normal person would have done in the same situation. I just stared at him. I mean, what are the odds of finding a cute, shirtless boy strapped to a table and waiting for me? I thought about taking out my phone to video him, but figured that was probably too much.
His arms and legs were held in place with heavy leather straps that looked like they belonged in a psych ward. But his eyes were wild and pleading. He made a sound again and strained against his bonds.
That shook me out of my lust-induced stupor, and I went right to work. Wedging the flashlight under my chin, I freed his left leg, and then the right. “I’m going to get you out of here,” I said calmly, switching to his arms. “It won’t take much longer.”
His head thrashed, and I realized that the gag was still in place. I reached up for it, and he spat it out as soon as it was loose. “Hurry up,” he said in a harsh whisper. “A crazy guy lives here and he cut me. I think he wants my heart.”
That was bad news. “He’s hideous,” the boy said. “Scarred. And his parts . . . I don’t think they’re all his.”
His arms were almost free, but I stopped working for a minute. “His parts? What do you mean?”
“His arms and, I think, his legs. They don’t match. One is longer than the other. And they’re different colors. Sort of blue or purple.”
Really bad news.
I knew where this was going and I didn’t like the sound of it. “Does he have scars around his neck?”
“Yeah. I think so. Although I wasn’t really checking out the guy’s neck when he started to rip me open.”
“Any scars on his wrists? I need you to think. This is really important.”
“Think? All I want to do is get the fuck out of here. Who are you?”
“Someone who got lost in the woods,” I said absentmindedly, mentally running through the list of supplies that I knew I had with me.
The guy sat up. “Look, I don’t know who you are, or if you know who that crazy dude is, but I’m just a guy with a flat. Let me out of here and I swear you’ll never see me again.”
“You had a flat tire?” I asked.
He nodded.
Great. So our flat wasn’t an accident.
Sliding the dagger back into my pocket, I put the flashlight between my teeth and spoke around it as I pulled out what I would need from my utility belt. “I’m not the one keeping you here. Feel free to leave. But if you want to actually, you know, stay alive? You’d better stick with me.”
A scream came from the floors above us. An unmistakable woman’s scream, and I looked up.
“What does he want?” the boy asked.
“He wants a piece of you. Arm, leg, thumb, heart . . . any of it. All of it. He’s a resurrectionist. Sort of a mad scientist.”
“Oh, shit. Like Dr. Frankenstein?”
“No. Dr. Frankenstein made a monster. This guy is the monster.” Resurrectionists were possessed by demons that drove them mad with their constant desire for the perfect body. They would find human hosts who disassembled and reassembled themselves hundreds and hundreds of times just to get the right “match.”
Leaving a wave of body parts in their wake.
“How do you know he’s a . . . what did you call him again?” the boy asked.
“Resurrect—” I sighed. “Never mind.” It would take way too long to explain to him about my family and the fact that we’d already come across one of these guys before in Utah. “I just like to watch a lot of TV, and there’s a serial killer who’s loose. They gave him a nickname.”
Holding up a quarter-sized piece of quartz crystal, I looked it over and then quickly palmed it again.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Protection. A girl’s always gotta carry some. But we need to leave. Now. Follow me.”
He nodded and, thankfully, didn’t ask any more questions. Creeping toward the stairs, he stayed close behind me as we went up. The door was jammed, but my favorite silver dagger easily proved once again why it was my favorite as I jimmied the lock.
I stuck my head out slowly, surveying the scene in front of me. The living room had a dark red streak running across it that hadn’t been there before, and humming sounds were coming from the kitchen.
But the path to the front door was otherwise clear.
“Ready?” I whispered. “On the count of three, we run to the door. No matter what, do not stop. Do not look around. Just hit the door, get outside, and go through the woods. The main road is about eighty feet south of here. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Okay, one . . . two . . .”
Loud sobs filled the air, and I knew, just knew, that it was Kelly.
“It sounds like he’s got someone else,” he said. “Are we going to help them?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No. They’re . . .” Vampires. But I couldn’t leave them. They were defanged, for God’s sake. “Shit!”
Cannibal Girl Scouts were one thing. I’d known I’d be able to find them because the moon was full and that’s when their feeding frenzies were always at their worst. But vampires and a resurrectionist now too? I could seriously use some backup.
I took a deep breath. “Okay, new plan: on the count of three, you go.”
“But what about—?”
“I’ll take care of it. You just get free and clear, okay?” I didn’t leave room for any hesitation. “One . . . two . . . three . . . go!”
We burst out from behind the door and I focused on finding the vampires. The boy was on his own. Hopefully, he would listen to me.
The living room branched off into a sitting room, where I found Kelly huddled in the corner, with Dickson tied to a chair. His head was down, eye
s closed. I ran to Kelly and grabbed her arm.
One shoe was gone and her makeup was running, but she looked up at me and struggled to her feet. “I thought you were dead,” she hiccupped. “He has Joe and David. David’s leg . . . his leg is . . . gone. . . .” She started crying again, and I forced her to follow behind me as I went to Dickson.
He was harder to wake up. It took a couple of slaps, but then he bolted upright. Straining at the ropes, he loosened them a bit as he thrashed from side to side, and then I was able to get him free. “We gotta get out of here,” he kept saying. “We gotta get out of here.”
“You two, go,” I insisted, pushing them to the door as soon as the last rope fell away.
“But what about Joe and David?” Kelly asked. “It’s horrible.”
“I’ll find them. Just go. I don’t need the two of you to worry about.”
Dickson grabbed Kelly’s hand and they took off. One minute they were right there, standing next to me, and the next, their boas were flapping behind them as they scrambled out the front door. I turned to the kitchen. Two down, two to go.
Or so I thought.
The boy, it turned out, had not listened to me.
As soon as I entered the kitchen, I came face-to-face with the resurrectionist sitting on top of him, holding him down. David was in the corner, minus a leg. Just like Kelly had said.
The resurrectionist looked awful. Bloated skin and mismatched arms. Even though he was crouching, I could tell that one limb was drastically shorter than the other. It didn’t reach the ground. In fact, it almost looked like a woman’s leg.
“So, I have a question,” I said, holding the crystal behind my back and clutching it with all my strength. If it was torn out of my grip, it could be the end of me. “Are you technically a man, or a woman? I mean, you’ve pretty much replaced all the important parts, right?”
As I spoke, I felt the crystal growing warmer in my hand. It was absorbing my energy, and I’d need that to help me take this big boy down. “In the Name of God, the God of Israel,” I chanted quietly, “may Michael be at my right hand, Gabriel at my left—”