Undeadly Sinful: A Jeana Keller, Killer Vamp--er, Vampire Killer--Story

by Chambers, V. J.

  "We didn't have sex," I insisted.

  Henry shrugged. "If you say so, Jeana."

  Wereprairie dogs. They're such know-it-alls.

  Well, that sucked. Gus Rink was supposed to be mine. I was the vampire killer here, wasn't I? If I only hadn't been distracted by that long sexual interlude with Aidan. That thing with Aidan had nothing to do with the story.

  The one I was working on for the paper. That story. And nothing to do with my vendetta against Gus. It just made me wonder why it had happened at all.

  "Did they kill Gus?" I asked Henry.

  He shook his head. "He's on trial."

  I smiled. There was hope yet. My boots would be avenged.

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  Keep reading for an excerpt from my vampire parody, Little Sister.

  Little Sister, Chapter One

  “Jane,” said the guy running the open mike from the stage. “Is Jane here?”

  My best friend Danny held out my guitar to me. “That’s you. Go ahead.”

  I was standing beside a booth at the The Blue Masquerade. It was a little pub that served sandwiches by day and had a pretty active bar scene in the evening. The atmosphere was an eclectic mix of funky avant-garde art and small town charm. Several paintings of rotting fruit hung on the wall over cute ceramic frog salt and pepper shakers. It was open mike night, which meant that the place was pretty crowded. Most of the people in the pub were college kids. They sported ratty dreadlocks and dirty t-shirts emblazoned with ironic nods to popular cartoons from their youth. I didn’t know what it was about college that convinced all students to stop caring much about personal hygiene or their appearance. They didn’t smell that good either, all crowded into one spot. I gave Danny a pleading look. “Can’t we just pretend I’m not here?”

  He shoved the guitar into my chest.

  I grasped the neck. “Careful, you’ll knock it out of tune.”

  “Jane?” repeated the guy on stage.

  I sighed heavily. “I’m nervous.”

  “Get your ass up there.” Danny gave me a little push.

  I glared at him over my shoulder as I began to make my way through the crowd to the stage. I didn’t want to be here, but Danny had insisted. I’d be much happier sitting in my living room watching 80s monster movies and eating popcorn. That was what Danny and I usually did on Friday nights. We interspersed it occasionally with complaining about our trigonometry teacher, Mr. Holmes. He was a big jerk. But Danny had said that it was “time,” and I needed to get out of the house. So here I was.

  I approached the stage and waved hesitantly at the guy at the microphone. “I’m Jane.”

  He grinned. “Hey. Come on up.”

  I mounted the stage. There was a tangle of cords on the floor, two stools, two microphones, and some intimidating looking amps.

  The guy pointed at my guitar. “You need a mike for that, or do you have a pickup?”

  “Uh...” I searched my guitar for the pickup, like an idiot. As if I didn’t know I had an acoustic–electric already. Locating the small hole, I showed it to the guy. “Yeah, I can plug in.”

  He handed me a cord, and I plugged it into my guitar. There was a buzzing noise. The guy moved over to a mixer and twisted some dials. The buzzing went away. “You gonna sit or stand?” He gestured to the stools.

  “Sit,” I said, settling into one. I crossed my legs and adjusted the guitar on my thigh.

  “Play me something,” said the guy.

  I strummed. He adjusted levels, had me talk into the microphone while I was playing, and then gave me a thumbs up.

  I looked out at the audience for the first time. Bunches and bunches of dirty college kids. What was I doing here? Sure, the pub let people sixteen and over in as long as you didn’t try to drink. I was seventeen and had the black Xs on the back of my hands to prove it. How had Danny convinced me that I could play for these people? I cleared my throat, trying to remember how Danny had told me I was awesome. “Um, this is a song I wrote for my brother Eric. He, um, passed away six months ago. He really liked it here, so I thought it would be appropriate to play it here for him.”

  Geez. Should I even tell people that? And was I going to make it through the song without crying? My hands shook as I fitted them to the fret of the guitar and strummed the first chords. I’d never heard my playing amplified before, and I was startled to hear the strains of the song echoing through the sound system of the pub. I began to sing, letting the words I’d written about my big brother filter through the microphone.

  I missed Eric so much. Truthfully, his death was part of the reason I hadn’t left the house much in the past six months. He’d been so young. Only twenty-one. And he’d been killed when some speeding jerk hopped the median and slammed into his car. I still couldn’t quite grasp the fact it was real, sometimes. It didn’t seem to make sense. Death was a thing that happened to other people. Not my big brother. And yet... he was gone.

  Eric had attended college in town. I’d started playing guitar after he died, because it was something he’d always wanted to do, but never found time for. When I played, I felt close to him. And as I continued to bang my way through my first song, the feeling of closeness to Eric took over me. I didn’t feel nervous anymore. I just felt good.

  I played three songs. When I was done, I was surprised to hear applause and cheers. I hadn’t realized that I’d squeezed my eyes shut. I opened them and in the front row, I saw someone I hadn’t seen in six months. Not since Eric’s funeral. He was standing right in front of the stage, grinning from ear to ear and clapping. I unplugged my guitar and jumped down next to him.

  “Bailey Westfield?” I said. Bailey had long light brown hair which he kept tied back in a messy ponytail at the nape of his neck. Strands of his hair were falling out, framing his face. His eyes were the most piercing green I’d ever seen. Tonight, they looked even greener. He’d always been tall with broad shoulders, but tonight, he looked gaunter than he had. Even his face looked thinner and sharper. His cheekbones stood out and his features had taken on a chiseled quality.

  He held out his arms to me. “Jane Cassidy!”

  I hugged him, which was awkward while still holding my guitar. Bailey had been Eric’s best friend. For years, Bailey had practically been a fixture in our house, sleeping over and playing army games with Eric when they were kids and helping himself to our refrigerator when they were teenagers. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Hell yes, it is,” he said. “You were amazing. I had no idea you could play and sing like that.”

  I’d also had an enormous crush on Bailey since I was about ten years old. He still looked hot. I would have been lying to say that I didn’t like hearing that he thought I was awesome. “I started playing after Eric died,” I said. “I guess it just seemed like a way to finish his unfinished business or something.”

  Bailey scratched the back of his head. “You and I think alike. I started playing too. Pretty much right after.”

  “You did?” That was kind of cool.

  “Yeah, I’m, uh, in a band. We just lost our lead singer though.” He gestured towards the bar. “Look, can I buy you a drink?”

  I held up my X-ed hands to him.

  “Right. Of course you’re not old enough to drink.”

  I shrugged self-consciously. “It’s good to see you.” Geez, had I said that already?

  His eyes swept my body and he shook his head, still grinning. “It’s really good to see you too. You have no idea how good.”

  We stared at each other for a couple seconds. I started to feel awkward. I held up my guitar. “I should put this away.”

  “Yeah, okay,” he said.

  I bobbed my head like a dummy and then turned to walk back to wherever Dan
ny was waiting for me.

  Bailey caught my shoulder and turned me back around. “You really were awesome. Your voice was just so beautiful.”

  “Thanks.” I was blushing, wasn’t I? Was it dark enough in here that he wouldn’t be able to tell?

  “Is your home phone number still the same?”

  Whoa. Why was he asking me that? “Yeah.”

  “My band lost a lead singer. Would you, like, want to try jamming with us or something sometime? If I called?”

  Oh. That was why. Of course. I was just a kid to him. Still, singing with a band might be cool. And spending time with Bailey would be neat, just because he was Eric’s best friend, and it would make me feel close to Eric. “That sounds cool. Sure.”

  “Great!” He gave me another hug. “I’m gonna call you, then.”

  ***

  “So, the boy you’ve been crushing on since you were in diapers is going to call you,” said Danny. He was lounging on the couch in my living room, my laptop balanced on his stomach. “You think he’ll call?”

  “I didn’t have a crush in diapers,” I said. “And I don’t know if he’ll call or not. It’s just for a band anyway. It’s not like he likes me.”

  “Girl, you didn’t see the way he was checking you out last night. I was far enough away to interpret body language, and trust me, he liked what he saw.”

  I threw a piece of popcorn at him. “What are we watching?”

  “I’m scoping the Netflix watch instantly options,” he said. “Don’t rush me.”

  It was Saturday, the day after I’d run into Bailey. To my relief, Danny and I were back to normal weekend activity, watching movies together. No people. No playing guitar for strangers. No college kids. It was much nicer.

  “I think we’ve seen every vampire movie on Netflix,” said Danny.

  “So find something streaming someplace else,” I said. “I want something cheesy and bloody and preferably from the 1980s.” Danny was a total computer geek, even if he was gay and such things didn’t stereotypically go together. He’d rigged up my laptop so that I could plug it into my TV and watch stuff from the internet on a bigger screen. It was too awesome for words, and I had absolutely no idea how he’d done it.

  Danny considered. “Once Bitten?”

  “No. Too much Jim Carrey.”

  “Near Dark?”

  “Too depressing.”

  “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

  “Not from the 80s.”

  “Fright Night?”

  “We just watched that.”

  “You want The Lost Boys, then.”

  I chewed on my lip. “That the one with the Coreys?”

  “Yup. And the super hot guys.”

  I threw more popcorn at him. “Whatever. No one’s hot with a mullet.”

  “Kiefer Sutherland is.”

  I got up and went to the couch to look at the computer screen with him. “Find me an image.”

  He typed lightning fast into Google image search. “There.”

  I cocked my head. “Not bad. He still looks fem to me. Everybody in the 80s looks fem.”

  “Not Patrick Swayze.”

  “Okay, except Patrick Swayze,” I agreed. “Do you think that maybe your attraction to boys who look like girls means you’re not really gay?”

  He shoved me away. “Guess what? The Lost Boys is on Netflix. It’s meant to be.”

  I toppled onto the carpet. “Hey. Careful.”

  Danny set up the movie, hooking up my laptop and turning on the TV. “This movie is freaking awesome,” he said. “It’s a masterpiece. Joel Schumacher directed it, and he is, like, a genius.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I really like these movies, but you have to admit, the main characters are really stupid. They’re always like, ‘Hmm...I have bite marks on my neck and people have been making me drink oddly red-colored wine. I wonder why I hate the sunlight and have no reflection.’”

  Danny laughed. “Totally. Like if you ever ended up in a cave and people were trying to make you eat maggots, would you then follow them around and jump off a train bridge?”

  “Absolutely not.” I settled onto the couch, grabbing the bowl of popcorn. “I’ve seen enough movies and read enough vampire books to spot one like a mile away. I would turn around and run immediately.”

  Danny’s finger hovered over the mouse pad for a second. He was about to hit play on the Netflix screen, but instead he turned to me. “You know,” he said in a softer voice, “I hope he does call, Jane. I meant it when I said you have to get out more. We all miss Eric, but—”

  “Danny, please.” I didn’t like it when he got like this. Sure, I was a hermit after my brother’s death. But it was traumatizing, and I was still grieving. I needed time.

  “It’s just...there’s more to life than old monster movies, you know?”

  “Start the movie,” I said. I liked old monster movies. They were predictable. They were comforting. And the hero never died or succumbed to being a monster. There was always a loophole, a way to bring him back to life. Maybe I wished there had been a loophole for Eric.

  ***

  Bailey’s house was old and practically falling down. It sat on the edge of town. Even the sidewalk leading up to it was crumbling, scraggly plants growing through cracks in it. The house itself was two stories, with a half-collapsed front porch. The paint on the building was peeling off. The shutters were barely attached. One dangled precariously as if it might fall at any second. Bailey was sitting on the front steps, smoking a cigarette in the growing twilight. He looked absolutely gorgeous. His hauntingly green eyes lit up when he saw me. “You made it!”

  “Hey,” I said.

  He stood up as I mounted the rickety steps onto the porch. I was holding my guitar, which made me feel heavier for some reason. I tested the boards of porch with one foot. “This thing gonna hold?”

  “It’s sturdier than it looks.” He held out his hand for my guitar. “You want me to carry that?”

  I clutched it, shaking my head. “I’ve got it.” For some reason, I felt safer holding it. Even though I was excited to hang out with Bailey and play music with his band, I was kind of nervous. When he’d called, I’d half-wanted to back out. Danny wouldn’t let me.

  Bailey opened the door, which creaked on its hinges. He gestured for me to enter. “After you.”

  I stepped into the house. It was dark inside, the only light coming from a cluster of candles on a table. We’d entered the kitchen, which looked like a throwback to the 1970s. The linoleum was brown and yellow, and peeling up in several places. An ancient refrigerator, spattered with some kind of dark, dried liquid, chugged away in the corner. The sink was empty, but the counter was filled with beer bottles.

  “We don’t use this room much,” said Bailey, sliding past me. He jerked his head to side. “Follow me.”

  We left the kitchen and walked into a large living room. There were a few big windows, but they were shrouded in heavy curtains. An empty, gaping fireplace was the centerpiece of the room. The walls had been covered in layers of graffiti. The room smelled musty, like a cellar. Again, there wasn’t much light, just lots and lots of candles. At least twenty of them sat on the mantle above the fireplace, their wax dripping over everything. “So, I guess you’re not counting on getting your security deposit back.” I knew college kids lived like animals, but this place was really crummy.

  “It was like this when we moved in,” said Bailey.

  A figure emerged from the darkness. He was tall and thin with dark hair and dark eyes. His skin had the color and consistency of old paper. He wore ripped jeans and a tight t-shirt that depicted the Smurfs. A cigarette dangled from his lips. “This is her?” he asked.

  “Jane, this is Crux,” said Bailey. “He’s our drummer.”

  Crux was wearing fingerless leather gloves. He tapped his chin thoughtfully and looked me over. “She’s cute,” he said. He disappeared back into the darkness.

  Bailey went after him, tel
ling me over his shoulder, “The practice room is through here.”

  The practice room had electric lights, but they were covered with decrepit tapestries. The light filtered through them, making patterns on the cracked ceiling. The windows in here were also obscured by thick curtains. I set my guitar down. “It’s a little dark in here.”

  “Yeah, we’re kind of nocturnal,” said Bailey. “The freaking sun is so bright during the day, and it makes it tough to sleep. These curtains are bangin’ though. They don’t let any light in.”

  Crux’s drums were set up in the corner. He sat down at them. Crashed on them with his drumsticks. What kind of name was Crux, anyway?

  “You sleep all day?” I said. “Don’t you have to get up for classes and stuff?”

  Bailey bent over his guitar case and pulled out a cherry red bass guitar. “Oh, I dropped out of school about four months ago. Just couldn’t get up for class. I was flunking out, anyway.”

  He’d dropped out? “I’m sorry.”

  “That kind of crap just doesn’t really seem important to me anymore,” he said. “You know, in a lot of ways, Eric’s death put things in perspective for me. College is not that big a deal in the grand scheme of things.”

  I knew what he meant. Eric’s death had made things clear to me too. Danny would probably say that my hiding out and watching movies all the time was practically the equivalent of dropping out of college. Bailey was just working through his grief the same way I was. I was sure he’d go back to school as soon as he got himself together. So I just nodded. “I get that.”

  Bailey strapped on his bass. “You were always cool, Jane.”

  I got out my guitar too.

  Bailey helped me plug into an amp that was set up near the drum set. “So, I was thinking that you could just play some of the stuff you played the other night. If you tell me the chords, I can probably figure out a bass line, and Crux can play with anything.”

  I only knew a few songs, and I’d written them all myself. Most of them were about Eric, or death, or grieving. Something about the music helped me process the whole thing. I kind of felt embarrassed again, playing them, but Bailey was really encouraging. And it did feel cool, playing with other people. It made the songs seem fuller and more alive. At first, we played my songs, but after a while, I just felt like the music swallowed me. I started to improvise, just playing whatever chords felt right. The amazing thing was that Bailey followed what I was doing. For a long time, we played, and it felt like we were synced up, like we were reading each other’s minds. I got lost in the heady sensation of it. Until we got interrupted.