by R. L. Stine
Dr. Weller chuckled. He raised his eyes to Livvy’s cabin. “We’re missing one family member. Where’s Mikey?”
Livvy rolled her eyes. “He found some new kind of worm he’s never seen before under my bed. He was following it around the cabin, studying it. He’s just like you, Dad, fascinated by animals and insects.”
“Our cabins are a great place to study mutant insect life,” Destiny said. “He could be in there for hours.”
“Mikey is definitely growing up,” Livvy said. “He used to eat the worms. Now he just follows them.”
“Let’s start packing up the car,” Dr. Weller said, massaging the back of his neck. He sighed. “We’ve got a long drive home.”
“Dad looks so much older,” Livvy said. She whispered even though they were upstairs in their room.
“It’s just because his whiskers turned white,” Destiny said.
Livvy shook her head. “He looks really tired. He’s kinda stooped over. And didn’t you notice how he keeps sighing all the time? His whole face is different. It’s like sunken or something.”
Destiny peered down the stairs to make sure the door was closed. The twins shared a long, low room above the garage. It had been empty storage space when the Wellers moved in and the girls were little. But their father built walls, painted, set down carpet, and turned it into a big room with lots of privacy that they could share.
Destiny loved the room because it was like having her own apartment. When her friends came over, they always hung out there.
“I think Dad’s been working too hard,” Destiny said, stuffing dirty camp clothes into a white laundry bag. “He didn’t take any vacation at all this summer.”
Livvy, sprawled on her bed, watched Destiny unpack. “He’s been strange ever since Mom died, like a zombie or something.”
“We all miss Mom,” Destiny said softly. “It’s just weird being back in this house without her. I keep expecting her to come up here and help us unpack.”
“Me too,” Livvy whispered.
They both fell silent. Destiny checked the bottom of her suitcase. Empty. She had finished unpacking. Her sister’s bags sat against the wall, untouched.
“And what is Mikey’s problem?” Livvy asked. “He played that dumb Game Boy game all the way home and barely spoke to us.”
Destiny shrugged. “I’m worried about him. I asked him how he liked his day camp, and he said it was totally boring. He said he didn’t make any new friends because he didn’t want to. And he didn’t learn to dive because there was too much chlorine in the pool.”
“Oh, wow,” Livvy said, shaking her head. “Is it shrink time for Mikey?”
Destiny sighed. “You know how close he was to Mom. And he’s only eight years old, the poor kid.”
She crossed the room and dropped down on the edge of her sister’s bed. “It isn’t going to be easy, Liv. We’re really going to have to help out a lot more here at home.”
Livvy leaned back against the headboard of her bed, crossing her legs in front of her. “Tell me something I don’t know. I already quit the cheerleading squad so I could be home with Mikey afternoons, didn’t I?”
She sighed. “This is our senior year. It’s supposed to be totally awesome. You know. Fun? Exciting?”
“We’ll have fun,” Destiny said, reaching out and squeezing her sister’s arm. “Don’t worry. We can still have fun.”
She turned when she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs. “Hey—who’s there?” she called.
“It’s me!” a deep voice boomed in a heavy foreign accent. “I’ve come to drink your blood!”
Chapter Seven
She Can’t Stop Screaming
Destiny jumped up and ran to the stairwell. Peering down, she saw their friend Ari Stark halfway up the stairs. Ari, short and stocky, his serious face topped by curly black hair, wore baggy khaki cargo shorts and a T-shirt with a grinning mummy across the front.
“Hey, what’s up?” he called. “Check this out.” He held up a DVD. Destiny read the title: Curse of the Vampire’s Daughter.
Livvy came over to greet Ari. She groaned when she saw the DVD. “I am so not in the mood for another one of your gross vampire movies.”
“But it’s Part Three,” Ari protested. His gums showed when he smiled. “It’s the best one. The special effects are awesome.”
Livvy tossed back her hair. “I’m, like, sick of awesome effects. What’s so great about awesome effects?”
Ari looked hurt. Horror movies were his life.
“We haven’t seen you all summer,” Destiny said, “and you just want to sit and stare at a movie?”
“Yeah,” Ari replied. “Well, hey. How was camp? Did they show any movies?”
“We didn’t have time for movies,” Livvy told him. “We were too busy having sex every night.”
Ari’s cheeks turned red.
Destiny and Livvy shared a smile. He believes us.
“And what did you do all summer?” Livvy asked him. “You have a paper route or something?”
“Ha ha.” Ari’s face was still red. “I just hung out. You know. I helped my dad a little at the restaurant. It’s been kinda scary here in town.”
Destiny’s eyes went wide. “Scary?”
Livvy’s cell phone rang. She ran to her desk and picked it up. “Yeah. Hi. Where are you? Our front yard? Well, yeah. Come up. We haven’t seen you in months.” She clicked off the phone.
“Who was that?” Destiny asked.
“Everybody.”
“I missed you so much.” Ana-Li May wrapped her arms around Destiny. “I kept trying your cell for weeks, but you never answered.”
“The camp was deep in the woods,” Destiny said. “My phone was useless. I missed you too…. What’s different about you?” She stepped back to study her friend.
Ana-Li was tiny and thin, like a delicate bird. For such a little girl, she had a surprisingly deep, womanly voice. She also had a warm, winning smile, and enough energy for five people.
She gave Destiny a playful shove. “There’s nothing different about me. You just forgot what I look like. You know. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“I tried to e-mail you,” Destiny said, “but my laptop—”
“So how was camp? Meet any great guys?”
“Not really. I made some good friends, though.”
“Too bad,” Ana-Li said. She waved to Livvy across the room. “I struck out too. That physics workshop I went to at M.I.T.? Geek City.”
“Let’s talk later. Just you and me,” Destiny said. “I love what you did with your hair. Wish I could have such perfectly straight black hair.”
“That’s so funny,” Ana-Li said. “I always wanted to be a blond.”
Destiny tugged her friend’s hair. “Maybe we should trade.”
They both laughed.
Destiny turned to say hi to her other friends. They were all talking at once, their voices ringing off the low ceilings of the room above the garage. They sprawled on the cream-colored carpet, sat on the long, cushiony couch that divided the room between Destiny’s territory and her sister’s half, and perched on the edges of the beds.
Destiny felt a wave of happiness sweep over her. The house had felt cold and gloomy last spring when her mother…when her mother killed herself. So many tears. So many long silences.
And after it had happened, their friends suddenly treated the twins differently. No one made jokes. Everyone acted tense and awkward. The girls felt kids were watching them whenever they walked down the hall at school.
We weren’t us anymore. We were the girls whose mother committed suicide.
Eight weeks of working at Camp Blue Moon had helped Destiny get away from all that. And now her friends’ voices warmed her, made her feel safe and comfortable in her house again.
Standing by the door, Destiny gazed around the room at everyone.
On one end of the couch, Ari was talking with Courtney DeWitt, gesturing wildly with his hands, as usual, telling he
r about a horror convention his cousin had taken him to.
Courtney hadn’t changed a bit over the summer, Destiny saw. She was still skinny but round-faced, with her straight brown hair pulled back in a high ponytail, the kind everyone had in fourth grade.
“I hate this round face,” she once complained to Destiny. “Every time my dad calls me Babyface, I just want to slug him!” Now she kept tugging at a hole in the knee of her jeans as she listened to Ari.
Destiny turned to Ross Starr on the other end of the couch. Ross had shaved his blond hair short over the summer, and everyone had to comment on it.
“What did you do this summer?” Destiny called to him.
Ross lowered the Mountain Dew can he’d been chugging from. He flashed Destiny his winning smile. “I was a lifeguard. What a blast. Check out this tan.”
“A lifeguard? For real? Where?”
“Jersey shore. My aunt has a house there.”
“Did you rescue anyone?” Ari asked.
Ross’s eyes flashed. “Well, no. But I had to give mouth-to-mouth a few times.”
Everyone laughed. Destiny studied Ross. She’d been thinking about him all summer. “You’ve been working out?”
He grinned and flexed his biceps. “Check out this new bod. I think I want to live forever!”
“Why?” Ari asked.
“Think of all the girls I could have!” Ross smiled.
Livvy slid next to Ross on the couch arm. “You’re bad,” she said. She tugged playfully on the tiny silver hoop in his ear. “Did you miss me this summer?”
Ross squinted at her. “Which one are you?”
More laughter.
Destiny groaned. Is Livvy going to come on to Ross now? Does she have to have every guy?
Livvy and Ross were laughing about something. Livvy had her arm loosely draped around his shoulder.
I can’t believe she’s doing this in front of Courtney, Destiny thought. Livvy knows that Courtney is crazy about Ross. And she knows I have a crush on him too.
Fletch Green sat on the floor at the other end of the couch, his long legs crossed in front of him. He was talking into a cell phone.
When Fletch turned off his phone, Destiny made her way over to him. “You and Ross had summer basketball practice?”
He scratched his wavy, carrot-colored hair. “Didn’t you hear? Coach Bauer called off summer practice. He’s still messed up about his wife.”
“Oh. Right.”
Coach Bauer’s wife died suddenly near the end of the school year. Marjory Bauer wasn’t that old, forty-eight or forty-nine, like the coach.
Bauer took a leave from school. Destiny remembered the rumors about him. That he went berserk or something. That neighbors could hear him talking loudly to himself late at night. That he had lost all interest in coaching the team.
“So are you guys gonna be any good this year?” Destiny asked.
Fletch shrugged. “Ross and I are the only seniors. We’ll have to step it up.”
“Any more Coke?” Bree Daniel called from across the room. Sitting on the floor across from Ari and Courtney, Bree waved her empty soda can in the air.
Destiny really couldn’t stand Bree, with her screechy mouse voice and her piles of streaky blond hair that fell over her face, and her pierced eyebrows that always made Destiny cringe. Bree had recently become Livvy’s best friend. Or, as Destiny put it, Livvy’s Bad Influence. Bree was the one urging Livvy to get a tattoo. And Livvy had never smoked a cigarette until she started hanging out with Bree.
“There’s a kind of bug that spits out juice that makes human skin dissolve,” Ari was telling Courtney. “I saw a show about it on the Discovery Channel.”
“Ari, get a life,” Fletch said. His cell phone rang. He raised it to his ear.
“I’ll go downstairs and bring up some more drinks,” Destiny said, making her way to the stairs. “And I think we have some bags of nacho chips.” She raised her eyes to Livvy, who was practically in Ross’s lap. “Hey, Liv, where’s Dad? Have you seen him?”
Livvy shrugged in reply. She didn’t take her eyes off Ross.
Weird, Destiny thought. Dad usually likes to come up and hang out with my friends. She started down the stairs.
“Do you have any cookies or anything?” Bree called after her. “I’m really starving.”
Destiny pushed open the door and stepped into the kitchen. It took her eyes a moment to adjust to the single, dim ceiling light over the kitchen table.
“Oh. Hi,” she said when she realized her dad was sitting at the table. Across from him sat Coach Bauer, his face solemn, hands clasped on the table. Destiny saw a deck of cards in front of her dad, but they appeared untouched.
“Hi, Coach,” Destiny said. “How are you?”
He nodded. “Not bad.” The orange light glared off his bald head.
Destiny turned to her father. “It’s kind of dark in here, isn’t it?”
“It’s okay,” he answered softly. “My eyes have been bothering me. Too much time in the lab, I guess.” He removed his glasses and rubbed his temples.
Destiny pulled open the fridge. “Don’t you two want to come upstairs? You know. Say hi.”
They looked at each other. “Maybe later,” Dr. Weller said. He picked up the deck of cards, but he made no attempt to deal them out.
Destiny grabbed a couple of six-packs of soda and balanced two bags of tortilla chips on top of them. She stopped at the doorway and turned back to the two men. “Come on up if you want. I think we’re going to watch one of Ari’s disgusting movies.”
Her dad gave her a short wave. “Have fun.”
When Destiny returned, her friends were in a heated discussion. Ari paced in front of the others, talking animatedly. “There were two of them,” he was saying. “I’m not making this up.”
“Two what?” Destiny asked, tossing a soda to Bree.
“Two deer,” Ari said. “In Millerton Woods.”
Destiny turned and stared at him. “What are you talking about? There are hundreds of deer in those woods.”
“You’ve been away. You don’t know what’s going on here,” Ari said. “The two deer were dead. Their blood was drained. For real. Totally drained.”
Livvy rolled her eyes. “And how many horror movies did you watch this summer?”
“It’s not a movie,” Ari insisted. “It’s for real. I saw it on the news.”
“Ari gets all his news on the Sci-Fi Channel,” Ross said.
Ari didn’t laugh. “There were other animals too. Raccoons and some squirrels. They were dead and their veins were empty, totally dry.”
“Cute little squirrels and raccoons? You are so making me sick,” Livvy said, holding her stomach.
Fletch shook his head. “Courtney, you’d better hide your cats if Ari comes over!”
Courtney let out a gasp. “Yuck. Who would suck cat’s blood?”
“Feeling thirsty, Ari?” Bree asked. “I hear a dog barking next door. Yum!”
“It’s not a joke,” Ari insisted. “I…I know what it is. It’s vampires. There are vampires out there who are doing this.”
Ross and Fletch exchanged skeptical glances. Bree choked on her soda.
“Remember in third grade when Ari thought Mr. Hubner was a werewolf?” Ross said. “And it turned out he just didn’t shave that day?”
Grinning, Fletch climbed to his feet and put his arm around Ari’s shoulder. “Didn’t you write a paper for Mrs. Klein about real vampires in history—and she flunked your ass?”
“Mrs. Klein is very narrow-minded,” Ari said, pushing Fletch away. “Maybe if you would tear yourself away from your PlayStation and watch the news once in a while—”
“I saw it on TV,” Ana-Li interrupted. “There was a scientific explanation for the whole thing. They said it was a virus. Some kind of mutant virus that was killing the animals.”
“How can you believe that crap?” Ari demanded. “Of course they’re going to say it’s a virus. They’re no
t going to tell you the truth.”
“I think a virus that dries up all your blood is a lot scarier than vampires,” Destiny said. “I mean, anyone can catch a virus—right?”
Courtney shivered. “Can we stop talking about this?”
Destiny tossed a bag of chips at Ari. “Are we going to watch your movie or what? Come on. We don’t want to think about deer-eating viruses. Put in the movie.”
Everyone moved to the couch or the floor to watch the TV. Ari slid the DVD into the player. Destiny dimmed the lights.
“Ari likes these vampire films because they’re like his home videos,” she heard someone whisper.
“I’m buying him a Silly Straw for his birthday,” Livvy whispered. She made loud slurping noises.
“Everybody shut up,” Ari said, squeezing into the center of the couch between Courtney and Ross. “These Vampire’s Daughter movies are the best.” He turned to Courtney, the most squeamish one there. “If it gets too scary, just close your eyes.”
“I’m shutting them right now,” Courtney said. She shut her eyes and grabbed onto Ari’s arm.
The movie started with dripping, blood-red credits and booming organ music. The opening scene showed a black-caped female vampire creeping across a sleeping teenage boy’s darkened bedroom. The boy woke up—just in time to scream—as the vampire sank her fangs into his throat.
“Hey, I think I know that guy!” Ross shouted.
“I’d like to know her,” Fletch chimed in. “Is she hot or what?”
“She’s got a definite dental problem,” Bree added.
“She probably went to your father!” Livvy joked.
Bree’s dad was a dentist. When they were in fourth or fifth grade, he did the braces for just about every one of Destiny’s friends.
Destiny usually enjoyed the kidding around during Ari’s dreadful horror movies. But as the film started, she suddenly felt strange—a fluttery feeling that began in her stomach and rose up to tighten her throat.
She took a long drink of soda, but it didn’t seem to help. Sitting on the floor, she pressed her back against the front of the couch. She watched three vampires transform from bats into human form. They forced open the window of a girl’s house and slipped inside.