“No problem,” says Ben, a dazed grin on his lips.
“If you see anything strange, let us know.” Cody nods. “You’re pretty, which makes you a target. But you’re still kinda young, so maybe the fiend or fiends will leave you alone.”
I’ve never been called ‘pretty’ in such a matter-of-fact tone before. It’s like he said ‘that car is red, so the cops will give it more tickets.’ This kid’s going to grow up to be a mall security guard… way too serious about everything.
“Here’s hoping. Though I’m more worried about rattlesnakes than legends.” I open the door and whisper, “Gotta go. Little siblings are already asleep.”
The boys nod, wave again, and trudge off.
I step inside, shut the door, and peer out the blinds at them as they leave, hoping that ring doesn’t wink out when they get some distance away from me. Talk about dead giveaway. Fortunately, it keeps on glowing until they’re more than halfway across the campground. I’m both relieved and perplexed. Maybe the ring didn’t react to me after all. That also means that whatever it is reacting to is either close to them, or saturating the whole area.
Hmm. I wonder.
Eyes closed, I concentrate on trying to feel anything weird in the air. After a moment, I do get a faint feeling of unease, though that could simply be coming from sitting out in the middle of a wide open field far away from home.
Grr. I flop on the couch to the right of the door and pull out my phone. Attempting to text Ashley, Michelle, or Hunter gets me nowhere on account of a big fat ‘no signal’ message. Well, not a message really… more a lack of signal bars. Still, grr. I know the point of a vacation is to get away from the world for a while, but I still hate being cut off.
And now I’m stuck inside all night, too. Not that the vast open nothing out there held any offers of entertainment beyond messing around with other campers, which isn’t really my scene anyway. Am I really paranoid that those two brothers might be observing us to see if I stay inside? Nah, neither one of them appeared to suspect me of being anything but fifteen and cute. Cody strikes me as the more pragmatic of the two. Even if I had Bree Swanson’s looks, he probably would’ve still focused on how after the week is over, we’ll never see each other again. Carrying on a relationship between Southern California and Seattle would be a pain in the ass for adults with careers. To fifteen-year-olds, it may as well be different planets. And I have absolutely no desire to start a relationship with a kid, even if I do happen to pass for one.
Ugh, this trip is like a giant dragon of lameness drawing in a big ass breath to spew its lameness fire all over me. I mean, it’s cool to be spending time with the family but did we really have to go out into the boondocks to do it? Camping? Ugh. Lame. I mean there’s nothing even here. It would be one thing if we could like go kayaking or swimming… or if they had rides. Nope. Open land and trees. Not very exciting.
I drape myself sideways over the couch, one leg up, one leg dangling. While staring at the ceiling, I let my mind wander over past family road trips. Snippets of a few from before Sierra was born come back to me. I would’ve been seven or younger. Mostly, it’s a foggy recollection of sitting on top of a giant toy train some old man drove around. I think we went to Sesame Place the year I was ten. Sierra was three, Sophia two, Sam still not around. I remember it being cool, at least to my ten-year-old self. Anything with rides, I loved. But anything I’d consider cool, or that my sibs would consider really awesome, requires daytime. Yeah, this year’s road trip is a cave because of me. Dad probably thought ‘something away from sunlight’ and cave happened. How excited did he really expect an eleven-, ten-, and nine-year-old to be about exploring a cave? Though, Sam actually does seem into it. Then again, he thought the giant ball of twine was awesome. And they do need a dose of outdoors.
But I don’t want to drag down next year’s trip. I probably won’t go, citing ‘being too old.’ Or… no, I’m going to have too much guilt. I can’t ditch my family. Once they’re gone, I’ll have all the me-time I can ask for. Hell, once my sisters turn eighteen, they probably won’t want to do the road trip thing anymore. However, I will insist that Dad go somewhere the littles can have fun even if it’s a sunbaked mess. I’ll sit in the hotel or whatever I have to do until it’s safe to go out.
I hope I’m not messing up my family by being around them. The more I stare at the ceiling, the more I start to fantasize about what things might’ve been like had Dalton not been delayed. If he’d found me at the morgue before I ‘escaped,’ and told me I was dead, a vampire, and taken advantage of that disorientation to convince me to go away with him… where would I be? Living like the Lost Ones from Portland? The two of us crashing wherever we happened to be when sunrise approached? Out of nowhere, my imagination puts us in punk outfits with bizarre hair. Fleeting daydreams of night clubs, wild parties, and synth music fill my head.
Ugh. I like to watch cheesy Eighties movies with Dad. I don’t want to be in one.
Creak.
I sit up and stare at the source of the sound—the frogs.
The pair both stare at me from inside their terrarium on the counter of the mini-kitchen, side by side by the glass, beady little frog-eyes locked on me. I’m far from an amphibian expert, but something about them standing there doing the zombie stare doesn’t feel right.
“What?” I whisper, shrugging. “You guys got a problem?”
They continue gazing at me. Go figure, neither one says anything.
Though, it feels oddly like something more than simple frogs is looking at me.
Creeeak, says one—don’t ask me which.
“Okay,” I whisper. “That’s messed up.”
It’s impossible to win a staring contest with a frog. I swing my legs off the couch, stand, and crack the door, poking my head out. The campground has gone pretty quiet, except for a couple of guys around a campfire at the southwest end, whooping and firing beer-belches off into the sky. Slow and careful, I slip outside and pace around the RV, searching the area for any unusual sights or odd feelings. Nothing stands out as the least bit strange, so I go back inside and lock the door.
I turn away from the door and stop short—both frogs still staring at me. Their gaze pins me against the door with the weight of a physical presence.
“What?” I ask again.
Maybe two minutes later, the left frog hops into the water dish and the other one rotates a quarter turn, no longer interested in me.
“Well, that was messed up.”
A rumble shakes my entire abdomen. Oops. Hamburger is unhappy.
Minutes later when I finish in the bathroom, I open the door to find Sophia staring at me from the top bunk. She doesn’t appear to be freaking out, which is good. After the past two months, I half expect her to have constant nightmares. Seriously, this kid gets horrible dreams from the weirdest things. Like, two years ago, one of the maintenance guys at her school wore a dark green sweater or something and she had nightmares for two weeks that the guy wanted to drag her into the boiler room and cut her open.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t so much the guy’s sweater as Sierra tricking her into watching Nightmare on Elm Street. But seriously, the dude looked nothing like the character in the movie. Her brain makes strange associations.
“Hey,” I whisper, approaching the bunk.
She manages a weak smile. “Hey.”
Sierra’s out cold between her and the wall, one arm draped across her face over her eyes. Another stark difference between my sisters: that girl can fall asleep anywhere. Sophia’s like me. The first one or two nights in unfamiliar surroundings, I can’t sleep. Well, at least that held true before I became a vampire. Now? As soon as that sun peeks up, I’m out.
“You okay?”
“I can’t sleep,” whispers Sophia.
I brush a hand over her head. “Anything wrong, or is it just the new place?”
“Mountain lions.” She glances at the door.
“Umm. What?”
“
I’m afraid of mountain lions getting us. Sierra showed me a video on YouTube with a cat opening the door of a cage in a shelter an’ escaping. Mountain lion could open the door on the RV and have a snack box.”
It’s damn hard to resist laughing. “Soph, I don’t think there’s any mountain lions around here. And even if there are, they can’t turn a doorknob. That cat in a cage reached between the bars and pulled a latch. Totally different.”
“Okay. I’m worried about rattlesnakes.”
“Heh. Well, they can’t turn doorknobs either. But don’t worry. I’ll stay up all night and keep watch.”
Sophia reaches out from under the blanket and pokes the tip of my nose with one finger. “Cheer up.”
“I’m fine.”
“You look sad.” Sophia pulls her arm back under the blanket. “It’s okay. None of us really wanna do the road trip. It’s just to make Dad happy.”
A brief chuckle slips out of me. “Aww. Well. It does make him happy. Sorry he picked camping for the road trip instead of something more exciting.”
She shrugs. “It’s okay. We don’t mind. Sam actually thinks the cave will be cool. I’m glad you’re here.”
I pat her on the head. “Me too. Glad I came.”
Her eyes well with tears. “No. I mean I’m glad you’re still here.”
“Aww.” I hug her as much I can while standing next to her bunk bed. “Is that why you can’t sleep?”
“No.” She smirks. “I’m thinking of ideas for my story.”
That pretty much means she’s having trouble sleeping in new surroundings and her brain isn’t helping, refusing to switch off. Mine used to do that to me, too. Before I sprouted fangs, going to bed almost always included an hour or so of staring at the ceiling thinking of random things.
“What story?”
“I’m gonna write a story about a princess who saves dragons from stupid knights.”
I grin. “Sounds fun.”
We talk for a while, mostly her whispering about the ideas she has for the story. Her whispery voice trails off to mumbling after a while, and she gradually drifts off to sleep. Once she’s out, I help myself to Sam’s PS Portable and relocate to the couch. I really don’t know what the heck vampires did with themselves all night before the invention of video games.
Eventually, I sense the sun’s on its way… sort of a ‘ten minute warning’ mechanism, give or take ten minutes. I drop the PSP back on Sam’s bunk on my way into the main bedroom.
My parents are still asleep—in the bed that’s supposed to become mine in five minutes. Yeah great plan to share the bedroom… because my parents always wake up at sunrise. I suppose I could crawl in between them. Yeah right. Well, this is awkward. I grab a long T-shirt from my bag and duck into the tiny bathroom to change. I’m amazed I don’t wake up the entire campsite in my haste to beat the sunrise, banging my elbows and knees around this minuscule chamber with a toilet sized for a Barbie doll and a sink so small it looks like it came from a kitchen playset for six-year-olds.
I dart out of the bathroom, nearly gasping at the sight of blue in the windshield off to my right. Even though the weak sunlight of dawn won’t torch me, I’m still going to pass out any second… and that actually winds up being a recipe for disaster—or at least boatloads of pain. Most vampires won’t pass out if they’re in danger of sunlight. Case in point: that time I had to bail Dalton out of a construction yard. But me? Weak sunlight isn’t a big deal, so I’ll pass out… and not wake up until I start cooking.
Like some bimbo in a horror movie barely escaping the monster, I leap into the bedroom, slam the door, and press my back against it. Only in my case, the ‘monster’ is that stupid ball of orange shittiness in the sky.
I didn’t always hate the sun, but we kinda had a falling out over a boy.
Standing with my back against the door gives me about eight inches of clearance between my legs and the bed. Since I’m not five years old and I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night, I decide against crawling in with my parents. Instead, I steal the comforter and burrito myself in it on the floor between the bed and the closets at the far-ass-end of the RV. That puts the bed between me and the door out, so I shouldn’t ignite when the ’rents leave the room.
Now, I only have to wait another minute or so until the sun is up high enough and I pass—
6
Take Out
I wake up in the bed. More like on the bed. Dad probably picked me up comforter and all, relocating me from the floor. Since I’m still a burrito, I figure he didn’t want to see what I look like when I’m ‘sleeping.’
According to Sophia, I’m rather corpselike while unconscious. Considering her response to finding me asleep was to start applying cosmetics instead of screaming and hiding under her bed, it can’t be that bad. But, yeah, if ever there’s a sight Mom or Dad don’t want to see, it’s one of their kids looking like a corpse when it’s not Halloween.
Speaking of which, my mother did ask me to make her forget identifying my remains after Scott stabbed me. Now if only I could make myself forget seeing it, too. Not only did I have to see it in her head, I got to enjoy feeling Mom’s heart shatter with grief. I mean, I pretty much figured it did, but sharing that memory with her. Ugh. At least it mostly feels like a bad dream to me now.
Heaviness in my limbs tells me it’s an inferno outside before I even open my eyes. Sure enough, when I sit up, the room is almost in color. It’s bright enough out there that five layers of tint film on the window above the bed isn’t blocking all the light.
When I sit up, I spot a paper on the rug by the door. I reach for it, trying to do the Jedi mind trick thing. No luck. Bummer. Turns out paranormal crap is real and I have superpowers, but telekinesis is not one of them.
I flop back down.
Maybe twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling later, I summon the urge to move and drag myself over to the left side of the bed, reaching down to the floor to grab the note.
“Sarah,” I say, reading aloud, “the sun’s pretty brutal today, so your mother and I are taking the littles on a hike around the park. Signed, Dad.”
Well, that’s good. I’m not being a total drag on their vacation.
And, I’m stuck in the bedroom. Well, more room to move around than a steamer trunk at least.
It’s sunny enough to make me lethargic, so I don’t bother fighting it and flop back spread-eagle on this queen size bed. Despite being half awake, I succumb to boredom in minutes and wind up swishing my feet side to side while making faces at the ceiling.
Why did I let guilt convince me to go on this stupid trip? I’m so damn bored. I don’t even have cellular coverage here, so I’m totally cut off from my friends and Hunter. That’s like against the Geneva Convention or something, isn’t it? Even when I’m stuck at home in my room, I still have a computer, the Internet, video games, and a stupid 4G signal. Okay, sure I have physical books with me but the idea that they’re my only source of entertainment makes me not want to look at them out of spite.
I let out a groan of boredom. Going on this trip was a completely horrible idea. Not only am I forcing my family to do something lame, I’m still getting in the way. No offense to the caverns here, I’m sure people who are into that sort of thing find it fascinating… but, not me. Or maybe I would had I been alive and didn’t feel like a boat anchor dragging everyone down. I totally could’ve done without this trip.
Whoa, hang on. I blink, stare at nothing for a moment, then break into laughing.
For a minute there, I felt completely normal. Like, you know, a moody teenager. I wonder if that means I’ve adjusted—or what is it the term the therapists use? ‘Come to terms with it?’ Yeah, well… I sigh. I’ll have plenty of stuff to ‘not be bored’ in the future. And no, I’m not being maudlin again about my family growing old and dying. I’m sure the yearly road trips will stop at some point, probably once Sam’s eighteen or nineteen. Wow that’s so strange to think about. He’s always been the smal
l one.
Bored.
I spend a few minutes looking back and forth between the TV and the bag-o-books. Watching any of those movies would make me grumpier about being stuck here alone instead of out with my family, so I grab Dracula again and keep reading.
Twenty-six pages later, the RV door rattles. I instinctively close the book to get up and open it for my family, but… right. Damn sun. I expect to hear Dad grumbling while fishing out his keys, but there’s silence instead. A moment later, delicate scratching, like someone scraping a tiny nail file over metal, tells me all is not as it should be.
Crap. Someone’s breaking into the RV.
Normal people in my position would probably either reach for a weapon or a phone to call the police. Me? I reach for pants. Why, you might ask? Well, one… I am a weapon. And two, I just know if I get into a fight wearing only a T-shirt, my bare ass is going to make an appearance. Thanks, but I’ll pass.
I hop to my feet on the closet side with the bed between me and the door. By the time I finish pulling my jeans up and buttoning them, the outer door squeaks open. Geez. Great locks on this thing, right?
Thumps shake the floor as someone tromps inside. He or she doesn’t whisper or say a word, nor do I hear a second person moving around. Shit. This isn’t a great situation for me. As long as this door stays closed, I’m ‘online,’ and not in any real danger. The instant the sun’s on me, I go back to being Normal Girl.
Somewhere I heard that most thieves tend to run if confronted.
“Who’s there?” I ask in a raised voice.
The strange person stops moving. I picture a guy staring at the bedroom door making ‘oh shit’ face. Come on. Run away. Get out of here.
Footsteps tromp toward the bedroom.
Double crap!
I leap over the bed and brace myself against the door. The knob twists, but I hold it shut.
“Get out here,” says a man.
“Sorry. I can’t leave the back room. Medical reasons. Highly contagious.”
“Bullshit, bitch.” He grunts trying to force the door. “Open it.”
The Last Family Road Trip (Vampire Innocent Book 4) Page 5