Until... | Book 1 | Until The Sun Goes Down

by Hamill, Ike

  I misunderstood at first. I thought he was talking about literal infection, like something sexually transmitted. He must have grasped that his statement could have been misconstrued because he immediately clarified.

  “Heartbreak is finite for most people. It’s like a cracked rib. The pain is terrible, but you don’t even have to put a cast on it. It wouldn’t do any good. After a while, the pain subsides and you’re good as new. For me, a heartbreak is a compound fracture. My internals pierce through the skin and let all kinds of pathogens in. Last time, I realized that the next break would likely kill me.”

  He had weaponized his own metaphor and used it to put a cap on his own joy.

  I told him as much.

  Uncle Walt agreed with me. That was the frustrating part with him sometimes. You could point out his hypocrisy and he would listen thoughtfully. Then, instead of changing his behavior, he would simply agree and keep on doing whatever he was doing.

  I pull open one of his closet doors and look at the hanging clothes for a moment before I push them aside with my stake and probe the corners with the flashlight beam. These clothes still hold his shape. The hanging overalls bulge out in the middle and I can see the mouth of the pocket where his hooked thumb stretched the seam.

  I check the other closet. This one holds a dresser with tall drawers. I shine the flashlight on either side to make sure that nothing is hiding in the gaps.

  My room is next.

  The sheets and thin bedspread are swirled and tossed.

  Uncle Walt always insisted that I make the bed each morning.

  “It makes a world of difference in how you greet the day,” he said. “Night is for wild dreams and disorder. Put everything in its place when you wake up and you’ll have a different outlook on life. Try it and see.”

  I had and I did. Ever since, I had made my bed each morning. The action is robotic, and it gives me a chance to prepare myself for what I’m going to do that day. It’s strange to see my bed in such disorder. I can’t blame this on anyone but myself. I left the bed in a hurry when they knocked on the door.

  I check under the bed, in the closet, and behind the door.

  This room is clear too, but I know I heard something when I climbed the stairs.

  That leaves only one possibility.

  I stand under the trapdoor that leads up to the attic. I’ve been up there a few times. When Uncle Walt installed cable TV, he ran it up to the attic next to the old chimney and then had me fish it down through the wall. It’s all blown-in insulation up there. It makes my skin itch just thinking about it.

  Those scaly vampires probably don’t mind the insulation, but I don’t know how they deal with the heat up there. As I remember, it’s stuffy and hot as hell. If they’re up there, Mr. Engel must have been wrong about them hating the heat.

  With a couple of failed attempts, I use the tip of one of my spears to hook the ring and I pull down the trapdoor. The springs groan out a warning and then it clangs into place. A thick chunk of pink insulation comes down with the stairs. I nudge it to the side and it falls silently to the floor. I circle underneath warily, pointing the beam up into the darkness above. For a moment, I think I catch a glimpse of glowing eyes. It’s just the flashlight reflecting off of something metal though. I reach up and unfold the stairs.

  Going up there is a terrible idea.

  They could easily surprise me from behind as I ascend above the level of the attic floor. They might even hide in the loose insulation and snatch me from below.

  Aside from the cellar, this is the last place to check.

  I hold my breath and climb.

  (With every step, I feel the temperature increase.)

  With every step, I feel the temperature increase.

  Dust swirls in the beam of my light.

  I’m looking at the underside of rafters that were hoisted into place more than a hundred and fifty years before I was born. I have no way to guess the age of what I’m hunting. In books and movies, vampires survive to an incredible age. I’m not sure why that’s the case. You never hear about werewolves living eternally. How come only vampires have learned to cheat death?

  When my head breaches the level of the attic, I spin and aim my light at the corners where the rafters meet the walls. My quick inspection reveals nothing, but I know that there are plenty of hidden nooks up there. I spent more than my fair share of time running cables. Uncle Walt dressed me up like a mummy before he sent me up. I had to wear long sleeves, gloves, a breathing mask, and goggles before I climbed.

  Today, I have jeans and a t-shirt.

  I can still see the depression in the insulation from the last time I stepped across these beams. There’s nothing to walk on but the spines of the beams that are buried in the insulation. Uncle Walt trusted me not to slip and put my foot down through the ceiling. He warned me a lot, and then he trusted me.

  I put a cautious foot down and feel around until I’m sure that it’s planted firmly on a beam. These beams were cut up on the hill from old-growth fir trees according to Uncle Walt. It bends under my weight. That didn’t happen twenty years ago.

  I hear a creak and whip around to see the source. It’s just the wood complaining about my presence. With another careful step, I can nearly see around the corner into the space behind the chimney. Before Uncle Walt put on the metal roof, he busted the top off of the unused chimney. Now it ends here in the attic. This ancient ruin is evidence of the house’s original heart.

  I’m holding my breath as I lean to get a look.

  There’s nothing there.

  In the daylight, with no real evidence of them, it’s easy to dismiss that I ever saw them. I’m not going to make that mistake. They were here. My uncle’s truck is burned up and I spent the night in the pantry. I’m not going to forget what I saw.

  I start working my way back to the other side. From the outside of the house, the roof looks pretty consistent. Up here, I can see evidence of the alterations that the house has gone through. The original building ended just ahead of me. Grandma’s room and the upstairs bath were a part of an addition. I point my flashlight through a hole the size of an old window and look into the slightly newer section.

  The cable is draped through the hole, right where I ran it. This is where I lost my balance and nearly fell through the ceiling when I was a kid.

  I have to set down one of my stakes to step through.

  My shoelace catches on a nail or something, and it almost happens. I teeter for a moment and then get a hand on a rafter to steady myself.

  I’m breathing hard—taking the attic dust deep into my lungs.

  There’s only one more spot to check.

  My eyes are locked on a place where the roof seems to absorb the light coming from my flashlight. My foot is trying to find the next beam.

  Uncle Walt said that a fire in the bathroom nearly burned the place down in the forties. The only evidence of that blaze is up here, in the attic. Surrounding the iron pipe, the beams and rafters are all charred. More wood was added to stabilize the structure.

  I don’t see anything.

  I angle my beam slightly, just to make sure.

  As I turn away, something shifts there, where the wood is blackened.

  All I see are the charred beams and planks.

  When the eye opens, and I see the blue glow, I understand.

  It’s camouflaged.

  My terror is immediately put on hold as I contemplate the eye.

  It’s wrong to think of it as a glow. The eye doesn’t emit light, really. It’s a portal into another realm, where darkness doesn’t exit. Clear blue sky and happiness are the only things that exist in that place beyond the eye. If I only allow it, I will slip into that world and every care and concern will melt away.

  I want nothing more than that, and it’s mine for the taking.

  All I have to do is accept the eye and peace will be mine forever.

  My foot slips and my weight comes down on the strapping that the
ceiling below is attached to. It cracks and gives, but I don’t fall through.

  At the sound, the eye turns from me and I’m lost.

  My perfect world was a lie.

  For one second, everything is clear and I thrust with my stake. I don’t aim for the chest, trying to pierce the heart. I don’t even know if it has a heart. All I know is the eye. I can’t risk being captured by that eye again so that’s what I aim for.

  It doesn’t even try to move.

  I did a poor job of sharpening the end of the broomstick. It doesn’t matter. The pointed wood easily slides into the eye and the illusion pops with a gush of fluid. The thing screams and thrashes, but it’s pinned into place at the end of the broomstick.

  As it twists in agony, the camouflage illusion disappears.

  I see the other eye, or what’s left of it. The lid is crusted down with thick slime. It must have suffered some past injury that took half of its potency. I’m lucky for that. One stake is enough to dispatch it.

  The wriggling stops but the fluid doesn’t stop pulsing out from around my stake.

  The thing is withering. It appears like it’s made entirely of liquid and it’s all leaking out around the hole I made with the stake. I don’t understand the physics of it—how something solid can turn itself inside out and melt like that.

  The ceiling cracks under my foot again and I snap back to reality.

  I push up and away, retracting back through the passage back to the main part of the attic. I’m coughing the dust out of my lungs as I stumble back down the stairs.

  I’m no longer sure that my inspection of the house was thorough. I’m no longer sure of anything.

  (I find the second one.)

  I find the second one.

  It’s in the space behind the dresser in Uncle Walt’s closet.

  I can’t even imagine how it fit back there.

  When I came down from the attic, I didn’t even have a real plan. I started poking my stakes into every dark corner, regardless of whether or not I saw anything. Back in Uncle Walt’s room, I lifted one of my stakes to a high angle and shoved it back behind the dresser in the closet. It met resistance and I heard something shifting around back there. I tossed the drawers onto my uncle’s bed and pulled out the dresser enough so I could get access.

  Without looking, I take the sharpened shovel handle in both hands and start driving it down into the darkness back there.

  With the first few stabs, it tries to slip and dodge. I must have hit something vital because it stops moving. I keep driving the stake down anyway and the solid flesh gives way and I hear the stake sloshing into something squishy.

  I’m not as dumb as I look. I don’t peer over the edge of the dresser just yet. Instead, I find a new angle and pump the stake again until I find another pocket of resistance. Something screams this time and I stab at it blindly until my arms ache and there’s clearly nothing left of it.

  When I pull the dresser out, I see a pool of gore.

  It’s evaporating into thick smoke that hugs the floor.

  I back up fast so I don’t inhale any.

  It takes several careful minutes before I’m willing to claim that Uncle Walt’s room is clear. I go back to Grandma’s room and then the bathroom. They’re clear as well.

  Back in my room, I already have a sense of where to look.

  The way the end tables bracket the bed, they create a shadow that’s right underneath where I lay my head. I kneel next to the bed like I’m getting ready to pray.

  With my good arm, I bang the end of the stake into the shadows.

  This one is crafty. It’s moving around, trying to avoid the stake. I press my face agains the side of the mattress and maneuver the broomstick so I can reach the far corner. When I feel something with the end of the stake, I commit even more to the reach.

  That’s when it almost gets me.

  Talons grab my wrist and pull. I can feel the claws dig into my skin and I shriek. This was so stupid. I know how much they hate the light. Why didn’t I just dismantle the bed? I could have pulled off the mattress and thrown it into the hall. I could have carried the end tables away and given it no place to hide.

  It tugs with incredible strength and I feel my elbow pop and the bones in my wrist grind together.

  My other hand fumbles and finally closes around the broomstick. When I shove that into the darkness, I finally hit the thing. It screams and the grip on my wrist weakens. I jump on the opportunity, stabbing both stakes into the space under the bed while I prop myself up by pressing my forehead against the bed’s wooden frame.

  One of the stakes meets the resistance of soft tissue and I use that to pin it in place while I jab with the other. The screams finally stop and I can’t help myself. I lower my head to see the remains before they melt away. I’m hoping that it’s the one with the violet eyes. That’s what got me into this.

  The fading eyes are green.

  I pierce them with the stakes and watch the face turn to goo before it dissolves.

  When I was up on the roof of the barn, being chased across the shingles, I thought that they almost had a human shape. Sure, they moved in a strange way, but they still had arms, legs, a torso, and a head. I’m beginning to think that was more camouflage.

  Their real shape can only be seen in that moment between death and melting. They’re more of a serpent or reptile than anything else.

  When it has melted away and I push back up to my knees, I take a good look at the wrist. The claws punctured into my skin. I can only imagine what kind of infections they might carry. I drop both stakes and rush for the bathroom.

  Uncle Walt kept a big bottle of alcohol in the cabinet. I spin off the cap and pour the contents over my wounds. The sting is white hot pain, rocketing up my arm. My flesh bubbles and foams, almost like hydrogen peroxide, and then the alcohol runs clear.

  I don’t know if that did anything or not.

  I press a hand towel against my wrist until the burning stops and I look at the oozing blood. In the movies, a person bitten by a vampire is doomed to become one themselves. They never talk about puncture wounds from the claws. I guess that means that there’s no danger.

  “Ha,” I say.

  (The next one is roosting.)

  The next one is roosting.

  I find it in the top of the coat closet off the living room. Beyond the shoe boxes on the shelf, there’s a dark place up there and it has found a way to cling to the ceiling. Maybe they have some kind of sticky feet, like a salamander or something. I don’t see anything. When I poke my stick, I feel it up there. I squeeze my eyes shut—there’s no way to tell where its hypnotic eyes might be—and I stab upwards. The beam of the flashlight smears red against my eyelids whenever I pull back.

  It drops from the assault and I stumble backwards over a stack of books.

  There’s a patch of sunlight reflected off the glass door of the china cabinet. It drops into that light and shrieks. When I hear that sound, I immediately remember the smell of the burning truck. Those two senses are linked in my memory.

  I thrust a stake at the green eyes when they turn on me. This one has a scarred, stretched-out neck. One eye pops and I get the other one as the thing writhes in agony. I’m not sure if it’s the light or the stabbing that kills it, but it is an evaporating puddle of disgusting slime before long.

  How many is that?

  I’ve exterminated four, I believe. I wish I knew how many I was hunting. The one thing I know for sure is that I haven’t yet seen the one with violet eyes. Unless the color of the eyes changes. I suppose I can’t rule that out.

  This is purely instinctual, but hear me out—I’ve come to think of the one with violet eyes as female. What if they’re like a hive of bees and she is the queen? The ones that I’ve been dispatching might be the drones or something.

  That would be too easy.

  My compulsion is to look for definitive solutions to things.

  I’m constructing a narrative where I can wip
e out all of the vampires just by killing the one with the violet eyes. I’m trying to establish her as the boss or mother.

  I shake my head, banishing the thought. Even if I find the one with the violet eyes, I can’t assume that I’m safe. That would be foolish.

  I stand in the kitchen, waving at flies. They must be coming in through the broken windows. I’m staring at the cellar door. There are no windows down there. The only light will be what I bring with me. Based on what nearly happened under my bed, this is a recipe for disaster.

  I can’t use this cellar door or the stairs beyond it.

  There is one another option. Before I head outside, I move the table aside so I can make an escape up the cellar stairs if I have to.

  It’s already getting hot outside and the sun is still low in the sky.

  I don’t even bother trying to lift the handle of the bulkhead doors. I locked them from the inside. Hopefully, the hasp on the door isn’t very strong. Uncle Walt has a long steel bar that he used to use to lift the corner of the garden tractor when it was time for an oil change. I shove that under the corner of the door and lift.

  Pain flares through my shoulder and I remember Uncle Walt.

  One time we were trying to lift one of the barn doors a few inches so we could put a new roller on the top. I couldn’t lift it with the bar. He pointed and said, “Use your assets.”

  When he positioned a block of wood under the bar as a fulcrum, I thought that the asset he was referring to was my brain. It wasn’t. He meant for me to stand on the bar—using my weight to lift instead of my muscles.

  I roll a big rock into place near the bulkhead and position the bar. When I step onto the long end, the door lifts and the hasp pops free.

  The hinges screech and I remember the smell of burning truck. A shaft of light cuts into the dark cellar and shows me a small patch of the gravel floor.

  I have another idea.

  When I come back out, I have three mirrors from the house. They reflect the sun back into my face as I descend. When I get to the bottom, I arrange the mirrors in the sunlight so they can reflect into the corners of the cellar.