by Diana Graves
“You would kill your own sister?” Nicholas asked through gritted teeth, his arms crossed over his chest. She didn’t answer him, just grabbed her bag from the trunk in stubborn silence. The boys and I stared after her as she took her seat in the back of the hearse.
Mom walked Tristan out of the front door. And, as though that were our cue, we all started moving again. He gave her a one-armed squeeze and she slipped him a red frosted cookie. Mom beamed at him with pride as he made his way to his car, and Nicholas slid into his hearse without a word. A painful knot twisted in my stomach. Everyone seemed to be in a funk these days.
We finished transferring bags from Tristan’s car to the hearse and climbed in. Tristan sat in the front seat with Nicholas and Michael. Katie and I were in the back. The interior of Nick’s hearse was made of faded crushed black velvet and highly polished wood. Like Nick, it smelt like cinnamon. Yum.
“How was orientation?” I asked Tristan when we merged onto the freeway.
Tristan turned to face me. “Catch,” he said as he tossed me a bundle of fabric. It was a black t-shirt that said, VAMPS, in big blue caps. “They gave me a tour of the building. It was nothing exciting; mostly just offices and cubicles. There was a lot of hand shaking and boring bull shit of that nature. But, I did get a box of swag to hand out.” He pointed to the shirt in my hands, “Those shirts are really popular on the club scene these days. I see hot chicks wearing them all the time.”
“Yeah, fang bate,” Nick smirked.
“G thanks,” I said with a joking smile.
“I want to have a completely vamped out birthday party this year!” Michael said. “Tristan said he can get me a family discount.” He was doing a dorky little dance in his seat. Michael was one of those rare people who never seemed to grow up. He was in his twenties, and he still got excited over morning cartoons.
“So,” Tristan began again, evidently not done talking about his first day on the job, “after the tour, I was taught how to categorize the vampires. My job is to schedule the right vampire for the right party. You don’t want a serious gothic vampire going to a light hearted birthday party, or an innocently comical vamp going to a bachelorette party. So, I had to go through these long detailed reports on each newly contracted vampire and put them into their online catalogue using the criteria my supervisor gave me. It wasn’t as interesting as I had imagined, just a bunch of paperwork.”
“Cool,” I said, already zoning out for a long quiet car ride up a mountain. Everyone seemed to have the same idea. Nick drove crazily down the freeway, and then back roads. Michael slept on Tristan’s shoulder while Tristan gazed out the window. Katie and I ignored one another, each with our faces practically glued to our respective tinted windows. The view that started as tall buildings and concrete quickly gave way to long strips of small businesses and city parks, which then became dense forest and steep cliffs as we climbed the mountain side. Eventually we slowed to a stop in the midst of a small grassy clearing with the remnants of a well used fire pit.
“So, this is the greatest place to camp,” Tristan said, and he didn’t sound impressed.
“Where are we?” I asked Nicholas.
“Don’t worry about that,” he said with a playful smile.
“You brought us to this place and you don’t think we should know where we are? My cell phone doesn’t even work here,” Katie said. She clutched her small pink phone in her delicate hands like it was her most precious possession.
I took my own phone out of my pocket and flipped it open. “No bars,” I confirmed.
“Calm down, Katie.” Nicholas said, laughing. “Learn to trust people, especially family.” Katie sighed in frustration. “We have, at the most, two hours till dark. We need to get the tents set up and a fire going.”
3:
I WAS LYING on my back, staring up at my tent. Morning dew added a beaded quality to the hunter-green fabric. It was still dark out. “Waky, waky,” Nicholas said for the fifth time in the past ten minutes. I could almost feel him smirking from outside the tent.
“I’m up!” I shouted back again. I hoped Nick wasn’t feeling playful today. I so wasn’t in the mood for it. Yesterday had been warm bordering on hot, but the night was freezing cold, and I barely got an hour of sleep.
“You better be. Don’t make me come in there after you.”
“I said I’m up!”
“Okay, okay,” he laughed. I listened to him walk away, and then I let out a heavy sigh. I was exhausted, and the day hadn’t even begun yet. I forced myself to get dressed, and join the boys outside.
I stretched tall and admired the view of the heavens. The scores of stars that dominated the night’s sky were replaced with grey-blue clouds that made a patchwork on the early morning’s sky. I never saw skies like these living in the city, so vast and colorful that they make my troubles seem awfully petty.
My brothers were standing around the fire pit, newly ablaze with fresh wood to fuel it. Nicholas was dressed in all black; a black tank top, black jeans, and black nail polish. He reached into a pouch at his hip and pulled out a handful of green powder. He whispered words into his hands before tossing the powder into the fire, making it bigger still. Nick had a way with magic that I envied. I knew that by definition Nick was a warlock, but he wasn’t all that bad. I know, I know. Warlocks are evil black magic wizards who abuse their gifts by exploiting other’s greed and suffering. Nick wasn’t like that, mostly. He was the fat free version of a warlock, all the benefits and none of the death and destruction. Not all magic is black and white. Some of it is grey. But, try telling that to our coven elders. Yikes.
“Morning sister,” Tristan said as he handed me a bowl of his homemade granola and a steaming mug of hot coffee, made just the way I like it, heavy on soy cream and sugar. He was the only one still in his PJ’s, thick dark flannels.
“Thank you,” I said.
Michael was standing between Nick and Tristan, looking like a virgin sacrifice in his white t-shirt and pale jeans.
“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you after breakfast,” Tristan said with a long smile.
I nodded. I accepted Tristan’s love of surprises, but Nick gave me a devious smile that I didn’t trust. “What?” I asked him.
“Nothing—you’re scared of heights, right?”
My heart skipped a beat and my face became instantly hot and probably red too. I could already feel the sweat begin to bead on my upper lip. “You know I am!” I turned to Tristan, “Are we hiking up a cliff or something?” I yelled it without meaning to, but I was more scared than angry. I hated being up high, whether it was in an airplane or in a building. I just flat didn’t do heights. They’re lucky they got my ass on a mountain!
“Calm down. Nick’s just playing with you, Raina.”
I glared at Nick from over my coffee. He was in a playful mood. Damn it. He had two strikes against him. One for waking me, even though I was already awake, and another for teasing.
“Should we get Katie up for breakfast?” Michael asked.
Nick and I both frowned at him. And here I thought camping meant that we would get away from the hate filled world, not bring it with us.
“Explain to me again why Katie’s even here,” Nick was rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
Tristan shook his head, “Because, she’s our sister and we love her, damn it.” He turned to me. “Raina, go get Katie,” he demanded. I quietly growled while I made my way to Nick’s hearse. Usually I didn’t respond well to demands, but I made an exception for Tristan, just this once. What could I say, I was feeling generous.
Katie’s being here with us had been a last minute decision on her part and she was less than prepared for camping. She had refused to share a tent with me last night, so she ended up sleeping in Nick’s hearse. I knocked on the tinted window. “Are you going to be in there the whole weekend?”
“Yes!” she yelled back. At sixteen years old Katie was the youngest of us,
and she acted it. I took a deep breath.
“At least open the door. You don’t have to join us, but in the spirit of camping at least enjoy the scenery,” I reasoned.
She opened the driver’s side passenger door. “Fine, the door is open. Are you happy? Now leave me alone!” She was wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday, but her makeup was fresh.
“Even out here, in the middle of nowhere you’re wearing makeup?”
Her face grew red. “Just leave me alone. I only came with you guys to get away from Jed. I just want to be left alone!”
I’ve met Jed before. He was her mom’s long time honey, and she was right to want to get away from that ignorant, backward pervert.
I took another deep breath and backed up with my hands in the air, “Ok, I’m leaving.”
“She’s not coming out,” I told Tristan. He looked genuinely sad, but he shrugged his shoulders, and finished off his coffee in one last gulp before disappearing into the boy’s larger dark gray tent.
I sat down on a log near the fire to finish my breakfast in peace, but Nick sat down next to me. His shoulders were tense and looking at his face, I could almost see him fishing for the right words.
“What’ up?”
He ran his hands through his crazy hair, trying to tame it I think, and failing. “Why does Tristan keeps extending olive branches to Katie?” he asked.
I thought about my answer while I chewed some granola, but Michael beat me to it. “Because she’s young, Nick. She doesn’t really know who she is. She’s sixteen. She’s behaving the way she was taught to. Just give her time.”
His words sounded smart. I nodded thoughtfully with my mouth still full of chewy granola, but Nick didn’t look fully satisfied with that answer. I opened that part of myself that sometimes knew what others were feeling. I felt nothing from Michael, but that didn’t alarm me. My ability, my empathy, only worked sometimes and only with some people. Nick felt lonely sitting next to me. From the hearse I could feel that Katie was scared and lonely too. From Tristan, I felt anticipation, probably for whatever activity he had planned for us today.
“I’m going to go for a walk,” Nick said before he stood up and began walking away.
“You want company?” I asked after him.
He stopped and looked at me for a moment before he shook his head. “No, just tell Tristan I’ll be back in a few.”
“K.”
He turned back and walked into the thick of the dark woods.
“He tries to act like such a badass,” Michael said after he sat down where Nick had been sitting. I looked at him and nodded. “He’s not though. He wears it like armor, so that no one gets too close.” I agreed with Michael, and I knew who taught him how painful letting people close could be.
“He’s lonely, so I guess its working.”
“I get that Katie’s a pain, but Nick seems overly angry at her. Why is that?” Michael asked.
I shrugged but I had a theory. “When Nick was her age something happened between our mom and him, and she kicked him out. No one was willing to take him in, not even Dad, no one. Whatever he did was unforgiveable, and he was forsaken by everyone who was supposed to love him. And here he sees Katie shunning people left and right over trivial bigotry. She doesn’t know how lucky she is that people love her so much. That we’re all so willing to forgive her insults and crass attitude.” I shook my head. “Nick would give anything for that kind of love.”
Michael opened his mouth to say something when he was interrupted by a heart piercing, blood curdling scream. We looked at each other for a long, horrible, silent second.
“What was that?!” Katie shouted. She climbed from the hearse and looked to us. Her eyes were too wide.
Tristan climbed out of the boy’s tent fully dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt. His body seemed to vibrate with adrenalin. Michael and I stood. The four of us looked into the forest, squinting, willing our eyes to see deeper into the darkness. Michael ran off into the woods, as though he heard or saw something that the rest of us didn’t, and Tristan followed him. Katie and I stayed where we stood, listening intently, but at the sound of another long desperate scream we ran. We ran toward the screaming, and into the forest. I ran as fast as I dared in the thick of the wilderness. I ran until I realized I was alone. The screaming had stopped, or at least I couldn’t hear it anymore.
“Holy Shit!” I yelled when a man appeared not three feet in front of me. It wasn’t Nicholas or any of the boys. He was wearing a filthy white t-shirt and the remnants of pajama bottoms. He looked at me with eyes hidden by the shadows of cavernous eye sockets. Torn skin hung from his mouth, his lips were all but gone.
“Shit, you’re hurt—” I started to say, but he charged me. I barely escaped his grasp, and he fell to the ground. “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted at him.
He looked up at me from the ground and growled. The growl caught me off guard. It made me notice things, things like his deathly pale skin and the would-be mortal wounds on his neck, head and abdomen.
“A zombie—this far from a cemetery?” Shit!
No matter what the movies say, zombies don’t walk slow and rigid, with their arms stretched out in front of them. They run at you, fast. I could never hope to outrun him. I searched my memory for a useful strike; some great spell or something, but he came at me again and we hit the ground hard. I scrambled to get away, but he bit into my right arm and a ragged, desperate scream erupted from my mouth. He had a death grip on my arm while he ate at it, digging his teeth into the flesh of it, lapping up my meat and blood like a wild animal. My body bucked and squirmed under his strength. I couldn’t think past the pain.
“Get the fuck off of her!” Katie shouted, making herself a big, loud target. He ripped away from my arm, taking a chunk of it with him, but it fell from his mouth as he growled at her from over my body. Whatever happened to want not, waste not? Jerk.
“No, Katie, run!” I yelled.
From beyond Katie I could see Tristan running toward us. His wand was in his hand, and his long black-gold hair flew out behind him like a cape. “You!” he shouted at the thing still kneeling over me.
“Run, Katie!” I yelled again, but she was frozen with fear. The thing lunged after her, but Tristan shouted an incantation I didn’t recognize and it hit the ground. It crawled away at a speed I never thought a zombie would be capable of, faster than fast. Tristan hit the thing with massive bolts from his wand, again and again. He looked at me, “Get out of here, Raina!”
I looked for Katie. She was still paralyzed with fear and I ran to her, dodging the corps and trying to stay out of Tristan’s line of fire. “Come on!” I hooked my good arm around Katie’s arm. The moment we touched she regained her mobility and we ran together.
“I’ll see you burn!” I heard Tristan yell from behind us. I looked back.
“He’s chasing it our way!” I yelled to Katie.
“The suns up!” she shouted back. I looked up through the branches of the trees. The sun had indeed risen while we were in the forest.
“The sun doesn’t kill zombies!”
“It’s not a zombie, it’s a vampire.”
“What?”
“Michael!” Katie cried as we arrived back at camp. She ran to Michael, who was kneeling by the hearse.
“Vampire?” I asked after her.
“Move it!” I heard Tristan shout. I looked back into the forest. He had hit the vampire in the back with a bolt from his wand, sending him into the morning sun. Wild blue flames burst from his body, shooting from his eyes and mouth, as though he were burning from the inside out. Before I could react the burning vampire slammed into me. He took me to the ground with him, burning us both, his skin enveloped in flames. We screamed together. I didn’t want to see his face as he burned. I closed my eyes tight and felt the vampire be reduced to ash and bone fragments. I felt the fire die down and I screamed still, for pain and sheer horror.
“Raina?”
I was
still screaming when I opened my eyes to find Tristan standing over me. I was covered in a thick layer of dark grey ash, but I wasn’t hurt as badly as I should have been.
“How are you not—how did you survive that?” I didn’t have an answer for that. In fact I had no words. I looked up at his worried face. All I wanted to do was scream but nothing came out. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” he finally said before he picked me up. Billows of ash flew into the air as he carried me through the tall grass toward the hearse. I stared after what was left of the vampire, the patch of burnt grass, the grey ash, the perfect outline of my body.
“Oh my God,” Katie said when she saw me. She was standing over her brother, who was trying to push her away as she bandaged his shoulder with a huge square band-aid.
“Go to the hearse and get another jug of water,” Tristan told Katie. She hesitated leaving her brother’s side for only a moment before she obeyed him. Tristan dusted vamp crumbs from me while I sat on the log, the same one I was sitting on while I enjoyed my breakfast just minutes earlier. My forearm looked like it had been caught in a meat grinder.
“We finally managed to escape that thing with Nick and come back to camp to find you two handing yourselves over to it! That was stupid, Raina,” he said. His whole body shook violently; hands, legs, even his voice. The sight of him shaking made me calmer. We couldn’t both break down.
“I didn’t know what it was. I was running toward the screams. Where’s Nicholas?” He ignored me as he cleaned me up. “Tristan, where is Nick?” I asked again once he got most of the ash off, revealing burns on my arms, hands and face mostly. My clothes were singed here and there but intact. Why, because I’m a witch, and when one dances around fires it is just common sense to have flame retardant clothes. But these burns weren’t as bad as they should have been, not by half.
“Nicholas is in bad shape,” he said. His frown was deep.
“Are you ok?” He just nodded. “Michael?”
“It’s a small bite, nothing like this.” I looked at Michael. The band-aid on his shoulder was clean, no blood. “Did you give him a Slan talisman?” he asked. I squeezed out a painful, “yes,” and closed my eyes. He was trying to clean my arm with the water Katie had set down before running back to her brother, who was now bent over something too far for me to see. “Michael was freaking out before we even got to Nick. When I saw the vial around his neck—well, I know Mom’s handy work. We were not caught completely unawares. Thanks.”