Without thinking, he bolted for the door.
Agnes leaped through the air and snagged him by his shirt before he even got halfway there.
“That’s not a good idea,” she said, and smiled right into his face.
With a single flip of her arm, Agnes threw him five feet in the air – entirely over the couch – and sent him sprawling onto the floor.
She hovered midair and slowly advanced towards him.
Peter’s arm hurt from landing on it badly, but he had no choice except to move. He backed up on the floor like a crab in slow motion.
“If you won’t come out of the house, Peter, maybe we’ll just get it over right here.”
“Get…get what over?” Peter asked shakily, although he already had a good idea.
“Mercy’s going to be sooooo mad at me.” Agnes shook her head, then whispered, “She wanted to kiss you first, but she’ll get over it…the important thing is we take you along with us.”
Peter discovered that it was hard to crawl when all your limbs felt like jelly. He wasn’t sure if it was from the knowledge that Agnes planned to turn him into a vampire right here and now…or if it was because she planned to kiss him.
Agnes was almost directly over him when she took off her sunglasses. Her eyes were like Mercy’s – black and oily, no white or color at all under the lids.
“Peter…” she whispered. “Peter, do you think I’m pretty?”
Peter pointed at her skirt. “I can see your underpants.”
“WHAT?!” Agnes screamed, and zipped backwards in the air about two feet, her hands pressed against her legs.
Peter flipped over onto his belly and crawled for his life.
Agnes looked up and scowled. “Oh, you little…”
But by then Peter was under the coffee table, which had a wooden frame with a plate of glass in the middle.
Agnes flew to the ground beside the table, hissing and clawing.
Peter kicked at her with all his might and smacked away her hands.
Then she was gone, only to reappear on the table top. Her palms pressed down against the glass, and she peered straight into Peter’s face from twelve inches away.
She hissed like a cat. Her fangs gleamed in the dull lamplight. They looked oddly out of place among her other teeth, like two knives against a row of pearls.
“Okay…so that’s how you want to play?” Agnes smiled with her cobra fangs and shark’s eyes. “Maybe your little sister would like to come with us.”
“NO!” Peter yelled. “NO, DON’T YOU DARE – ”
But Agnes was already gone, up into the air and away.
29
Peter scrambled out from under the coffee table and ran after her. There was a part of him that said this was all a trap, that Agnes was doing this to draw him out. But there was an even bigger part that pictured Beth asleep in bed and Agnes drooling over her.
That was never going to happen. Even if Peter had to die to stop it, that was never going to happen.
He dashed out into the open hallway. The giant staircase sloped thirty feet in the air, crisscrossing from the first to the second story, then in the opposite direction to the third floor.
Agnes was already halfway to the top, twirling in the air so her dress poofed out. She smiled sweetly. “So you decided to come out and play.”
“Leave my sister alone!” Peter yelled as he launched himself up the steps two at a time.
Agnes floated higher.
“I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want some grubby little boy, especially one who doesn’t appreciate what we’re trying to do for him. But I’ve always wanted a little sister. I can comb her hair, and dress her, and teach her everything…so she can be just like me,” Agnes cackled.
Peter made his way up to the second floor. “Stop.”
“Why?”
“I’ll…I’ll go with you. Just leave my sister alone.”
Agnes drifted down through the air like a dandelion puff on a summer breeze.
“Are you sure?”
Peter looked into those dark, bottomless eyes. His sister would never look like that. Not while he could do anything about it.
If he tackled Agnes, would they fall to the ground? Would it be enough to kill her? Would it kill them both?
He looked down at the hallway floor, twenty feet below.
It didn’t matter. He had to try.
“Yes,” Peter said.
Agnes held out her hand.
“Then come with me. It only hurts for a second, Peter…and then everything is wonderful.”
Peter put out his shaking hand…withdrew it…and finally placed his palm in hers.
From out of nowhere, a thick metal chain slapped and wrapped itself around Agnes’s body, SHINK SHINK SHINK.
“What?!” she cried out.
“GET AWAY FROM HER, BOY!” Grandfather boomed from somewhere below.
Peter pulled back, but Agnes held onto his hand like a vise. She snarled at him, drool dripping from her fangs. “Oh no you dooOOOON’T – ”
The chain yanked her towards the ground with such force that her grip on Peter’s hand slammed him against the staircase banister. The wood railing stopped him, which broke her hold on his arm.
Her plastic daisy sunglasses jerked out of her other hand and tumbled over and over towards the floor.
Down she plummeted. As she dropped, Peter could finally see Grandfather. He was pulling the chain hand over hand, his arms moving so fast they were almost a blur.
Agnes slammed into the hardwood floor and screamed. Grandfather was immediately on her, looping the chain again and again around her arms. Then he slid a padlock through the links – CLICK.
Agnes flipped around and snapped her teeth at Grandfather, but he was already out of reach. She struggled but couldn’t move her arms. Still screaming, she launched into the air, headed straight for Peter.
KA-CHANK! The chain snapped tight as she reached the second floor. Peter scampered back on the stairs and watched her clicking teeth through the wooden poles in the banister.
The chain tugged her out of view again. Peter crawled to the edge of the stairs and watched Agnes flit to and fro as Grandfather tried to reel her in. She was like some horrible, demonic balloon on a chain instead of a string.
Then there was a glint in her eye and the briefest of evil smiles. Peter didn’t understand until he saw her dart down instead of up, speeding fast as she could – for Grandfather.
“NO!” Peter yelled.
It was too late. Her mouth was open, her fangs were out. She aimed straight at Grandfather’s high collar, just to the left of his knotted tie. And Grandfather didn’t do a thing to stop her. He just stood there, expressionless, as she flew at him like a bullet.
A strangled cry came out of Peter’s mouth as Agnes buried her teeth in Grandfather’s throat.
30
CLANK.
Agnes’s eyes widened.
So did Peter’s.
The only person who looked totally unconcerned was Grandfather.
“Ow Ow OW!” Agnes yelled, her words muffled since her teeth were still embedded in Grandfather’s white collar.
Then she started whipping her head from side to side, thrashing back and forth like a puppy with a chew toy. There was a ripping sound, and she backed up in the air with tattered cloth still stuck to her fangs.
Now that the collar was torn off the shirt, Peter could clearly see the metal band encircling Grandfather’s neck. It looked like a steel ring about five inches tall, with a hinge and a latch to put it on and take it off.
Agnes realized what had happened, but she was too late: Grandfather had already reeled her in. She had nowhere to go.
Now that he was in range, Grandfather punched her in the mouth.
Or at least that’s what Peter thought until Grandfather pulled back his hand, revealing a shiny apple stuck firmly onto Agnes’s fangs.
She screamed until her cheeks puffed out, but the apple didn’t move. She tried shaking her
head back and forth to dislodge the fruit, but it was stuck tight.
So she tried to fly away.
That wasn’t any good either, since Grandfather was holding onto the chain securely.
Agnes didn’t just look like a balloon anymore, she looked like a pig in an old timey cartoon, the ones they roasted with an apple in its mouth. A floating balloon pig in a plaid dress and ruffled shirt.
Agnes screamed and kicked her legs, but Grandfather hung on to the chain.
“Thanks,” Peter said over the edge of the railing.
“I thought I told you not to invite them in,” Grandfather spat.
“It’s not my fault! Mom invited her, not me!”
Grandfather muttered, and then started dragging Agnes towards the doorway under the stairs – the one he had warned Peter to stay out of, on pain of his life, on Peter’s very first day in the house!
“What are you going to do with her?”
“Never you mind. Go to bed.” Grandfather used a key to open the door, and struggled to pull Agnes inside.
Peter felt an odd tug of emotions inside him. Agnes had just tried to kill him. Worse, she might have tried to kiss him. But she was still the little girl in the third row at school, the one with the pug nose and the Barbie lunchbox.
“You’re not…going to kill her, are you?” Peter whimpered.
“Boy – ” Grandfather warned, but was cut off by a voice from above.
“Peter, what’s all this ruckus?” his mother called from the top of the stairs. “I can hear you from the third floor!”
Peter’s heart stopped. Then he realized that from where she stood, she couldn’t see anything of what was going on with Grandfather and Agnes below.
Agnes heard Mom’s voice and screamed, but the apple in her mouth made it sound like high-pitched humming.
Grandfather gave the chain a hard yank, and both he and Agnes disappeared into darkness. The door closed after them with a click.
“What was that?” Mom asked as she peered over the edge of the banister.
“Uh…who knows,” Peter said. “Grandfather’s working down in the basement, I think.”
“Well what was all the screaming?”
“Um…” Peter looked down and saw the daisy sunglasses that Agnes had been wearing not two minutes before. He pointed at the hardwood floor. “I realized Agnes left her sunglasses.”
“You screamed about that?”
“Yeah…like, OH CRAP!”
“Twice?”
“Well…then I dropped them. So I screamed again. OH…DOUBLE CRAP!”
His mother looked at him and shook her head slowly. “I don’t know about you, Peter. Stop screaming so your sister and I can go to sleep. And you go to bed, too, young man, it’s a school night.”
Peter nodded.
His mother disappeared from the edge of the staircase. When he heard her footsteps fade away, he finally put his head in his hands.
This was horrible. He’d almost died tonight – twice! Grandfather was downstairs, probably driving a wooden stake into the heart of a girl from his class. And Mercy was still out there, free to cause trouble and try to kill him again.
Mercy.
Where was she?
Peter looked up instinctively at the giant window over the front door. It was ten feet by ten feet, crisscrossed by white strips that created dozens of glass panes.
And right behind them, twenty feet above the ground, Mercy was floating. Watching him.
Peter stifled a scream and shrank back against the wall.
She sneered at him, wheeled around, and launched into the air. She flew directly towards the full moon, and Peter watched as her body grew smaller in the distance, until she darted in a different direction and was swallowed by the black night sky.
31
“Okay, I’m kind of glad I didn’t spend the night at your house,” Dill’s voice crackled over the phone.
“This isn’t funny,” Peter whispered into the receiver. He kept a watchful eye out in case his mother should enter the kitchen.
“Tell me about it, man. Not only do you have two girls trying to kiss you – BLECH – they’re dead, too. How’d you get so unlucky?”
“I have no idea.”
“What do you think your Grandfather’s doing down there? You think he’s, like, going to keep her chained till the sun comes up and she bursts into flames?”
“Dill, they’re in the basement. There’s no windows down there.”
“Have you been down there?”
“No…”
“Then how do you know? Maybe it’s not windows, maybe it’s a secret tunnel with mirrors placed exactly right that reflect the sun from somewhere above ground, and it hits one mirror and then the next, bam bam bam, and then the whole basement gets filled with sunlight, and FWWGGGGHHH.” Dill imitated a bonfire going up in flames.
“Just for killing vampires underground,” Peter deadpanned.
“If the last few weeks at your house have taught me anything,” Dill lectured, “it’s that you gotta be prepared for everything. Your granddad obviously is – I mean, come on, a vampire-blocker metal neck thingee. That’s AWESOME.”
“Mercy’s still out there, Dill.”
“Yeah.”
“We gotta go stop her.”
“Um…didn’t you just say Mercy’s still out there?”
“Yes.”
“So, see, after that you should say, ‘Which is why you gotta stay in your house and not go outside tonight, Dill.’ See, that’s what you shoulda said.”
“Think about it: Agnes disappeared yesterday, and now she’s back as a vampire. Mercy’s tried to get me twice now. Who do you think she’s going to go after next?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
“ME?” Dill cried in panic.
“No, she doesn’t even like you. I think she’s going after Katie Brammelson, her other best friend.”
“Wow.” Dill whistled softly. “Sucks to be Katie Brammelson right about now.”
“Dill, we’ve got to go save her!”
“Um…no.”
“Dill, you heard that story Grandfather told us in the truck: thirty people died and became vampires till somebody stopped it. We’ve got to stop it before it gets out of hand.”
“That was, like, five hundred years ago,” Dill said.
“It was not.”
“People became vampires a lot faster back then.”
“What?! Why do you say that?”
“Because, uhhhh…they had less blood in their bodies. They were smaller.”
“Dill.”
“You ever been in a really old house? Eveything’s littler than normal – little beds, little doorways – like hobbits or something.”
“Dill!”
“Let your grandfather handle it, Pete. He seems to want to.”
“Well, I can’t get down in the basement ‘cause the door is locked. And if I knock on the door it’ll wake my mom up, and she’ll stop me for sure!”
“Can’t it wait till morning?”
“No.”
“What’s going to stop Mercy from killing us, huh?”
“I have an idea. Grandfather gave it to me.”
32
The boys sat on their bikes in the battered garage behind the house.
“Do vampires need to be invited into garages before they can bite you?” Dill asked nervously.
“It’s part of the house…I’m sure it works the same way,” Peter reassured him.
“You better be right.” Dill fiddled with the pie tin dangling around his neck. Peter had cut out the center, and after much grunting, they had forced it over Dill’s jug ears and down to his neck.
“It’s too loose,” Dill complained.
Peter ripped scotch tape from a plastic dispenser. “Hold on.” He bent Dill’s pie tin so it overlapped, then taped it together so it held more tightly on his neck.
“This sucks, man. It’s not going to stop anythin
g.”
“It’ll be fine,” Peter assured him. He adjusted the pie tin around his own neck, replaced the tape in his school backpack, and slung his arms through the straps.
“Unh-unh. She’s going to bite right through this, dude, and then it’s GAME OVER.”
“Do you have a filling in your teeth?”
“Yeaaahh…” Dill said warily, not really sure where this was going.
“You ever touch a fork and your tongue to it at the same time?”
“Oh man, that’s the worst! It’s that weird tingling, it’s horrible!” Dill paused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Biting a pie tin is just as bad. It really tastes horrible.”
Dill looked at Peter like you idiot. “You’re telling me you hope to stop an undead bloodsucker from killing me by making her teeth feel weird?”
“Well, it’ll be really tough to punch through, too.” Peter shifted uneasily. He decided not to tell Dill how badly the kitchen screen door was shredded. “Besides, we don’t have much of a choice.”
“Why don’t you just call Katie? Tell her, ‘Hey, Katie, if any dead friends of yours stop by tonight, don’t let ‘em in, okay?’ Just tell her that.”
“I already called. Her dad answered and yelled at me, then hung up.”
Dill scrunched up his face. “It’s only, like, nine o’clock!”
“It’s almost 10:30 now.”
“Whatever. I still say you knock on the basement door. If your mom sends you to bed… well…that’s not the worst thing that could happen tonight, that’s for sure.”
“I already tried. I knocked as loud as I could without her hearing. Grandfather didn’t answer at all.” Peter put his hand on Dill’s shoulder. “There’s no other way, Dill.”
Dill sighed. “Yeah there is. The other way is we stay home and don’t become undead. Why are you so set on trying to stop Mercy?”
“Do you know what Agnes said to me when she was in the living room?”
“According to you, she said a lot.”
“She said she would turn Beth into a vampire if I didn’t come with her – and then she flew upstairs to try and take her.” Peter shook his head. “We can’t let that happen to anybody else, Dill. We’ve got to try.”
PETER AND THE VAMPIRES (Volume One) (PETER AND THE MONSTERS) Page 18