Temptation

by R. L. Stine

  And then he bent over the person—the body—turned it with great effort onto its back.

  And screamed: “Todd!”

  “Todd! How? How, Todd?”

  With dreadful clarity, his friend came into sudden focus. His nearly nude body was covered with gashes and cuts from banging against the rocks around the rowboat dock.

  So many cuts.

  So many cuts, his blood appeared to be completely drained.

  “How, Todd? How?”

  So many cuts, all over his face and neck.

  “No. It can’t be Todd. It can’t be.”

  So many cuts.

  So many cuts, it made no sense.

  How did Todd drown?

  Why would he swim way out here, so far from everyone?

  Did he drown farther up the beach where everyone hangs out? Was his body carried here by the current?

  His body?

  How could Todd be just a body now?

  How could he no longer be Todd?

  Matt sank to his knees, his mind swirling faster than the ocean waters.

  He closed his eyes, but the vision of his drowned friend, his skin so white except for the cuts, the cuts, the cuts, stayed with him.

  Todd wasn’t a strong swimmer.

  Why would he brave the undertow at night?

  Todd knew how powerful the undertow was, how unpredictable, how deadly.

  So why did he go swimming?

  “Why, Todd?” Matt cried, opening his eyes, raising his face to the orange, rising sun.

  Several minutes later two fishermen, tackle boxes and fishing rods in hand, came upon Matt, still on his knees, still huddled over his friend’s body, still asking the question, “Why, Todd? Why?”

  CHAPTER 16 A NEW VICTIM

  Bats fluttered and swooped above the trees of the small island, darting shadows against the charcoal sky. Beneath the shelter of the trees stood shingled beach houses, long deserted by their human inhabitants.

  Bats had claimed the island years before. Bats and the Eternal Ones, the ones who could transform themselves, become bats when the need arose.

  The island was reachable only by boat, and this discouraged most people from building on it. Those who had built summer houses were driven away by the bats, murdered by those masquerading as bats, or had given up their nectar and had become Eternals themselves.

  Now, Gabri waited in a darkened house. He had claimed part of the house as his own, having spread the ancient burial dirt on the floorboards and placed the carefully polished, dark wood coffin against the eastern wall, the safe wall.

  Leaning heavily against the window frame, he stared out through the open window at the diving bats that the moonlight revealed.

  Gabri sighed, unable to keep a pleased smile from spreading across his face. The air was warm and heavy, the way he liked it. The flutter of bat wings provided a pleasant background for his thoughts.

  Pleasant thoughts.

  Thoughts of how he had ruined Jessica’s chances to win the bet. Thoughts of April, of fresh nectar.

  He had sampled the nectar so gingerly, so carefully. His thirst was barely slaked.

  But the summer was young.

  He had reason to be patient.

  Poor, impatient Jessica.

  He was thinking of her as the bat floated down to the window. He pulled his head back as the creature, screeching like a fire alarm, buzzed by his face. It landed lightly on the floor and began to whir about, faster and faster, until it appeared as only a shadowy whirlwind.

  A few seconds later Jessica emerged from the whirlwind, ruby droplets of blood still clinging to her full lips. She angrily tossed back her mane of hair and advanced on Gabri. “Wipe that disgusting smile off your face.”

  Gabri made no attempt to change his expression.

  “What’s the matter, Jessica? A little too much to drink?” He snickered at perhaps the only joke he had ever made.

  Jessica raised her hands and lurched forward as if to attack him, groaning in anger. He stood his ground, his features narrowing. “Calm down. What’s the big deal? You’re a loser, that’s all.”

  She glared at him, balling her hands into fists, too overcome by anger to speak.

  “At least you’re not thirsty,” he said.

  “Shut up, Gabri,” she snarled. “Just shut up.” She crossed her arms tightly in front of her chest, shuddering with anger, her teeth clenched, her face suddenly old, as if her anger were revealing her years.

  He stood calmly at the window as she paced, enjoying her anger, enjoying her defeat, his victory. “Don’t be a poor loser,” he said softly as bats fluttered and screeched outside the window.

  “I’m not a loser!” Jessica declared, stopping inches in front of him. “You’re a cheater, Gabri. You play a dirty game.”

  His dark eyes widened in mock innocence. “Me? What did I do?”

  “First you bit the girl to distract Todd,” she reminded him, her face nearly in his, neither of them willing to back up. “Then you interrupt us, you fly overhead, you get me nervous and cause me to accidentally bite Todd too deeply.”

  He laughed. “I made you nervous?”

  “Stop laughing!” she screamed. “I killed that boy—for no reason! Just because you were determined to win our bet.”

  “At least you had your fill of the nectar,” Gabri replied with a sneer. “What are you complaining about, Jessica?”

  “It wasn’t part of the bet, Gabri.”

  “Stop being a sore loser,” he snapped, suddenly impatient, pushing himself away from the window. “All’s fair in love and war, you know.”

  “I’m not a loser. You’re going to be the loser,” she insisted vehemently, following him, her coppery hair flowing behind her as she moved.

  He laughed scornfully. “How can I lose? I have only two more encounters with April to go, two more tastes, and I will win.” He walked to the coffin against the wall and, seeing the sky begin to brighten as dawn approached, pulled open the lid.

  “But my victim—” she started.

  “Your unfortunate victim is dead,” Gabri said with a sneer. “Your clumsiness killed him. You must concede defeat.”

  “No way,” Jessica insisted, following him to his coffin. “I am not defeated. I am still going to win. I will simply choose a new victim.”

  Gabri began to lower himself into the coffin. “A new victim? Get serious.”

  “I am serious,” Jessica said, finally calm, finally rid of her anger.

  She had an idea, an idea that was restoring her hope as it vanquished her fury.

  “I am very serious, Gabri,” she told him as she slowly lowered the coffin lid over his reclining figure. “Todd’s friend Matt will be my victim. He will do nicely. In fact . . .” She smiled for the first time that night, letting him see her smile before she let the lid fall. “In fact—Matt will be easy prey.”

  PART TWO LAST KISS

  CHAPTER 17 VAMPIRES!

  Four nights later, tossing in bed, his sheets tangled, his blanket in a heap on the floor, Matt dreamed about Todd.

  He saw a broad, sandy stretch of beach, golden under a bright sun. High waves rose majestically at the shore, capped with white froth, rose and then fell onto the gleaming sand.

  Todd appeared, running barefoot at full speed. He was wearing baggy black swim trunks. His footsteps made no sound as he moved across the beach.

  Matt struggled to see Todd’s face as Todd, running faster and faster, came toward him. But, although the beach shimmered in sunshine, Todd’s face was blanketed in shadow.

  Please, Matt thought, watching his friend lean forward as he ran, the tall waves thundering behind him, please let me see your face, Todd.

  And then Todd came into clear view.

  And his face was twisted in horror, his eyes bulging, his mouth locked open in a relentless, silent scream.

  The sky darkened, grew black.

  The blackness followed Todd, moving toward him, moving faster than Todd could r
un.

  At first the blackness seemed like a funnel-shaped cloud blocking the sun.

  Todd was still in the sunlight, but the black cloud was gaining, about to swallow him up.

  And then Matt saw that the darkness wasn’t a cloud at all. It was made up of thousands of moving creatures.

  His vision cleared and he saw the black and purple wings, heard the shrill chittering, saw the dark heads bowed low in flight.

  The black shadow chasing Todd was a cloud of bats.

  Thousands and thousands of bats, fluttering, flapping, swooping together, blocking the sunlight as they moved, shadowing the beach, chattering and shrieking until the ocean’s thunder faded.

  Running harder, sweat pouring down his forehead, Todd closed his eyes. But his mouth remained open.

  Run, Todd—run! Matt urged.

  But the cloud of bats swooped over Todd. He toppled to the sand, first on his knees, then facedown. And the bats descended over him like nightfall.

  And everything went black.

  Matt sat straight up in bed, relieved to see his room, relieved to see gray morning light through the bedroom window.

  He stood up, half awake, half in his dreamlike state.

  The shrill cries of the bats stayed with him as he made his way uncertainly across the floor to the window. The cloud of bats. The blackness descending over the beach, over Todd.

  Leaning heavily on the windowsill, wanting to step out of the dream, wanting to escape from its frightening hold, but not wanting to forget it, Matt shook his head hard.

  He realized he had awakened from the dream with a word on his lips.

  Say it. Say the word, he urged himself.

  And so he said it: “Vampires.”

  The dream was trying to tell him, trying to show him.

  Matt knew it.

  Matt knew how Todd had died.

  The bats on the beach. The bats that lived on that small island off the shore.

  The bat that had attacked that girl.

  Vampires.

  The bats were vampires.

  The dream had revealed the truth to him.

  Wide awake now, he hurriedly pulled on a pair of wrinkled tennis shorts, picked up the T-shirt he had worn the day before, pulled it over his head, and headed for the back door without bothering to brush his teeth or hair.

  “Hey—” his dad called to him from the breakfast table as Matt rushed through the kitchen.

  But Matt was already out the screen door, the door slamming behind him. “Gotta go!” he called back and began jogging to April’s house.

  The sky was gray, the air tinged with a wet chill. The sandy road was wet beneath his sneakers. He realized it must have rained the night before.

  He hadn’t heard the rain. The dream had held him too tightly, first the thunder of the waves, then the frightening siren cries of the bats.

  The vampires.

  He had to tell April. He had to tell her that he had learned the truth.

  Despite the sunshine and blue skies, the four days since Todd’s death had passed in a gray fog of gloom and shadows.

  The pictures all seemed to have faded in Matt’s mind. Only the sounds remained. The anguished cries of Todd’s parents. The murmurs of the police. The frightened, hushed conversations of kids on the beach and in town.

  Matt had seen April only once in the four days. They tried to talk as if everything were normal, but neither of them could manage it. Then they tried to talk about Todd. But that was impossible too.

  Matt had left her to go wander alone on the beach, still wondering what had happened that night, why Todd had decided to go swimming, how Todd had died.

  The town coroner had called it an accidental drowning.

  But it didn’t make sense to Matt—until the dream. Until he woke up with the answer on his lips.

  And now he had to tell April.

  Approaching the back of her summer house, a small white clapboard cottage with a wide sundeck that was cluttered with outdoor chairs and an umbrella table, he could see April through the kitchen window.

  He leapt onto the deck and hurried to the back door, calling inside. April looked up, startled, from the table. Her mother was just clearing the breakfast dishes. The twins came racing to open the screen door, each calling, “I’ll get it! I’ll get it!”

  Matt greeted everyone, still trying to catch his breath from the long jog from his house. “Have you had breakfast?” Mrs. Blair asked, pushing up the sleeves of the man’s shirt she wore over her bathing suit. “There’s still some pancake batter left.”

  “No thanks,” Matt said, his eyes on April. She looked so pale and frail in the gray light filtering in through the glass windows. “I—wanted to talk to April.”

  “Play with me instead!” Courtney demanded.

  “No—me!” Whitney cried.

  April stood up and gently brushed both girls aside. “Matt and I are going out on the deck,” she said, giving Matt a faint smile as she led the way outside.

  Matt followed her onto the deck, eager to tell her what he had figured out. The ocean air still carried a chill; the overcast sky was low and gray.

  April leaned against the deck railing and stared out at the trees. Matt stepped beside her, wiping cold perspiration from his forehead with the hem of his T-shirt.

  The T-shirt smelled, he discovered. And he suddenly remembered that he was in such a hurry to talk to April, he hadn’t even brushed his hair.

  I must look pretty gross, he thought. But he shoved these thoughts away, determined to share his new knowledge with her.

  “How ya doing?” she asked somewhat shyly, staring out at the trees, dark under the low, hazy sky.

  “Okay. I mean, not great. But okay.”

  “Me too,” she said softly.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said impatiently, wishing she’d turn around and face him. “Something important. I mean . . .”

  Should he just blurt it out?

  She turned, curious. “I’m so sleepy,” she said. “Guess it’s all this fresh air.”

  “Listen, April, I want to tell you this. I know how Todd died.”

  Her eyes narrowed. Her pale face seemed to lose even more color. “We know how he died, Matt,” she said, her voice a whisper. “He drowned.”

  “Listen to me, April—please,” Matt pleaded, putting an arm on the shoulder of the oversize blue T-shirt that stretched nearly down to her knees. “Please?”

  She didn’t reply, just stared into his eyes.

  “This idea came to me in a dream,” he said, speaking rapidly, urgently, his hand still on her slender shoulder, “but I know it’s real.”

  There was no way to say it slowly, to introduce the idea gently, he decided. He had to get it out, say what was on his mind.

  “Todd was killed by a vampire.”

  “Huh?” She pulled away from him, raised her hands as if shielding herself from this idea.

  “Vampires,” he repeated. “You know all the bats that fly over the beach? They must be vampires. A girl was attacked by a bat a few nights before Todd died. The bat bit her throat. And Todd—”

  “Matt—this is a very dumb joke,” April said heatedly, crossing her arms. “I don’t get it at all.”

  Matt started to reply, but the tiny red marks on April’s throat caught his eye. He gasped, staring hard at them.

  Wild thoughts careened through his mind. Crazy thoughts.

  Am I seeing things? Is it just a mosquito bite?

  Gabri’s face floated through his thoughts. April and Gabri. April and Gabri.

  He pictured the two of them together.

  Is it possible? Is it possible that Gabri is a vampire?

  Or am I cracking up?

  “I had this dream, see,” he continued, his eyes locked on April’s throat, his mind whirring excitedly. “Todd was running, and—”

  “Stop, Matt!” April exploded. “Just stop it!”

  “I know I’m right!” he insisted, ignoring he
r angry plea. “It makes sense, April. All the bats. And Todd—he had a cut on his neck. I remember—”

  “Matt—I mean it,” April said, her features tight with anger. “Shut up. Just shut up.”

  “But, April—”

  What had he done wrong? What had he said wrong? Why wouldn’t she listen to him, at least give him a chance to explain?

  “Grow up, Matt,” she said, her green eyes flashing angrily. “Grow up. Your best friend is dead, and all you can think about is some horror movie!”

  “No—” he cried.

  But she wouldn’t let him continue. “I’ve got news for you,” she cried heatedly, “life is real.”

  “I know. But—”

  “Life is real, Matt. It isn’t a dumb horror movie.” There were tears in the corners of her eyes now.

  Oh, no, he thought, feeling his heart sink. I didn’t want to make her cry. Haven’t we all cried enough this week?

  “Todd is dead, and it’s impossible to explain, impossible to accept,” April said, forcing back the tears, trying to keep from losing control. “But blaming it on vampires like a—like a child isn’t going to help anyone.”

  “But, April—” He didn’t know what he was going to say. He couldn’t take his eyes off the small bruise on her throat.

  “Gabri is a vampire,” he muttered. He didn’t even realize he was talking, didn’t hear the words as they came out, didn’t mean for April to hear.

  Wiping away the teardrops that stained her pale cheeks, she glared at him furiously. “Are you totally losing it, Matt?” she screamed. “Go away! Just go away from me!” She spun angrily and moved toward the house.

  He started to follow, but she pushed him back, pressing her fists against his broad shoulders.

  “I mean it. Go away. I don’t want to see you again! Don’t call me—and don’t come over!”

  “What’s going on out there?” one of the twins called, poking her golden head out the door.

  “Are they fighting?” the other one asked from inside. “Let me see!”

  They both clamored noisily out the door as April pushed past them into the house, sobbing loudly.