by M. Leighton
The sirens were drawing closer and, just then, the first cop car came skidding into the parking lot, blue lights flashing from the roof. I’d shifted my gaze from Summer for a fraction of a second to see the police arrive, and when I looked back, she was gone. Only the residual wave of some pine branches assured me that I hadn’t altogether imagined her being there.
Of course, once the official circus began, I was grilled relentlessly. I told several different law enforcement and medical examiner people everything that had happened, all but the part about seeing Summer. That was something, for better or worse, that I’d decided I’d best keep to myself.
For one thing, they might think I’m crazy, which wouldn’t do me any favors.
But also, I thought it might save more lives if Bo dealt with her. If she was as hard to kill as Lucius insinuated that she might be, a lot of people could get hurt trying to stop her if they started looking for her.
It was almost two hours later when I was finally allowed to get back into my car. The crime scene people had looked it over with a fine-toothed comb, searching for any evidence that I might’ve lied about my story. I could only assume that when they let me get in it, they’d decided I wasn’t the bad guy here.
As I was starting the car, one officer had the nerve to saunter up to my window and chastise me for driving without shoes. I gawked at him, mouth agape, as I fought the urge to flip him the bird and peel out of the parking lot. It’s not like I’d had a bad enough day already or anything.
Let’s throw caution and compassion to the wind and make it a pile-on-Ridley kind of day, I thought bitterly as I glared at his reflection in my rearview mirror as I drove away. Barefoot.
By the time I got home, I was jittery and shaken. The entire ordeal had been horrific beyond anything I could imagine. And considering what all I’d seen in the past months, that was saying a lot.
I shut off the engine, staring sullenly at the dark house. My mother was probably passed out, oblivious to the fact that I had even been out. She would have no idea that I sat in the driveway, afraid—deeply, profoundly afraid—or that I’d seen the interior of a friend’s abdomen. She would have no idea that lately I had been feeling like my entire world was crumbling, spinning out of my control, happiness and normalcy far out of reach.
No, she would have no idea that any of those things were going on in her remaining daughter’s life. But the worst part was that, even if she did, she likely wouldn’t care, any if at all. Her heart was in the Westbrook Cemetery, buried beneath six feet of earth with the decaying body of my sister. She had nothing left for those of us who lived, nothing but a few hours of pretense every weekend.
My growl bounced off the ceiling of my quiet car. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, Ridley,” I ground between my gritted teeth.
Wrenching the car door open, I got out and slammed it behind me. I was all but stomping up the sidewalk, angrily preoccupied, when I heard the shuffling noise in the yard to my left.
I stopped mid-stride, my pulse beating heavily inside the lump of terror that had lodged in my esophagus. I was almost afraid to look, to see who or what was coming for me this time. But on some level, I knew I didn’t really have to look to know who it was. On some level, I knew. It was Summer.
When I looked in the direction of the noise, she was ambling across the yard toward me. She wasn’t moving very quickly or even in a manner that was distinctly threatening, but it scared the crap out of me nonetheless.
With a yip, I somehow managed to contain my full-fledged, five-alarm, wake-the-dead scream as I bolted for the door. My frantic hands fumbled for the key that opened the front door, the one I’d been considerate enough to lock behind me when I left. Despite my mother’s drastic changes since Izzy’s death, I still didn’t want any boogers walking right into the house and eating her.
When I found it, I tried to steady my trembling fingers and slide the key into the lock. I glanced back over my shoulder; it was the only mistake that I had time for.
Summer’s almost casual lumbering disappeared as she crouched down and flew across the grass toward me. She was upon me before I could fill my lungs with enough air to let out the scream I’d been holding inside.
She moved incredibly quickly. Not vampire quick, but much faster than I imagined most humans could. And when she reached me, I knew instantly that her strength was enhanced as well. When her claw-like fingers wrapped round my upper arms, it felt like giant talons sinking into my flesh. I actually felt the density of my bones giving way. I wondered if I didn’t have Bo’s blood still giving me a little extra umph if she would’ve broken my arms.
In a motion so fast it made my head spin, she threw me to the ground and jumped on top of me. The rest was a blur. It seemed that she had ten mouths and dozens of hands and they were all biting and pinching and ripping and tearing, all at once. I felt pain from my navel upward.
I thrashed and batted my arms, kicked my legs and bucked my hips, but she was impossible to dislodge. Nothing I did seemed to have any effect on her. I couldn’t fend her off and I couldn’t slow her down.
I heard an eerie, hair-raising giggle and I knew that she was actually enjoying herself, playing with her food before she got down to the business of eating. And that put the fear of God into me. What would happen when she stopped playing?
Sucking in as much air as my compressed lungs would hold, I opened my mouth and let out a blood-curdling scream. Rather than scare her off, however, it seemed only to incite Summer. Her movements became more pointed, more frantic and vicious, like she knew her time was limited, that help might be on the way.
But then she stilled, stopping to look down at me. Her mad eyes met mine for one breath, one long heartbeat, during which I knew that she was aware, she was malicious, and she was determined. She was going to kill me, but not before she tasted my flesh, ate her fill like she did with Carly. She wanted me to feel fear, to feel pain, to feel her teeth.
And then she was gone.
When her weight was suddenly no longer holding me down, I lay on the ground, confused, for several seconds before my freedom sank into my addled, terrified brain. When it did, I scrambled to my feet and ran straight for the door. I didn’t care why or how it happened; I just cared that I had a brief reprieve and I had no intention of wasting it.
I had just unlocked the door and was about to step inside when I heard a crack that sounded like thunder, one that shook the front step. Against my better judgment, I looked behind me.
I saw Summer pick herself up off the ground where she’d landed in a heap at the bottom of a splintered thirty-foot-tall oak tree. Quickly springing back onto her feet, Summer stood. I thought she was turning back toward me, but she kept swiveling until she was facing a huge bush that loomed just to the left of the front porch.
“Just who I wanted to see. What did you think of my handiwork?” Summer asked in a child-like sing-song voice.
“She was my grandmother,” a low feminine voice said from behind the bush.
I knew that voice.
“And she was delicious.”
“How could you do that to an old woman?”
“How could you do this to me?”
For several tense seconds, an uncomfortable silence stretched across the yard.
But then I caught movement from the bush.
“I’m not finished yet,” Trinity said, stepping from behind the bush.
“Give it your best shot,” Summer said, her lips twisting into a cold sneer.
With an animal-like scream, Trinity bolted across the grass. To my eye, she was nothing more than a pale streak that smelled strongly of dank earth.
When she hit Summer, the thud of flesh meeting flesh reverberated through the air. Trinity wrapped her small body around Summer’s and went straight for her throat. It looked as if Trinity’s teeth were buried deep in Summer’s neck when Summer brought her hands up to Trinity’s mouth and dug her fingers in, yanking Trinity’s lower jaw with one bone-crushing jerk. T
rinity cried out, letting go of Summer and stepping away. I could see that her jaw was broken. It hung limply from her upper teeth, jutting sharply off to one side.
Bringing her palm to her chin, Trinity tried to push her mandible back into place, but Summer wasn’t finished. Launching herself at Trinity, Summer knocked her to the ground and pinned her arms to her sides. I could see that Trinity was struggling to free herself, but she could barely move, not much more effective than I’d been against Summer.
Summer’s chilly laughter floated out around her as she taunted Trinity.
“What? Aren’t you strong enough to take care of little ol’ me? You didn’t seem to have any trouble when you bit me the first time, now did you?”
Trinity wrestled, to no avail. She grunted and groaned, but she never said a word, unable to speak with her jaw in the shape it was.
“What’s the matter, Trinity? Cat got your tongue?”
And with that, Summer leaned down and took Trinity’s displaced tongue into her mouth and bit down. Trinity made a squealing noise in the back of her throat, but I saw no more. I had to turn my head away, though I couldn’t bring myself to move into the house.
I heard a muffled crackling sound and more moans from Trinity. The hairs on my arms rose and prickled. Another crackling sound and more moans had me wracking my brain for what I could do to help, but I knew I was no match for Summer. Besides, I wasn’t entirely sure that Trinity was someone I was willing to risk my life for.
Some rustling sounds were followed by a shriek, only this time it sounded like Summer’s. I had to look, if only for a second.
I saw Summer shoot across the grass like a rocket. At first I wasn’t sure how Trinity had managed to get her off of her, much less send her all the way across the yard. But then I saw who Summer was aiming at. It was Bo.
When she hit him, it slowed her down, but she still managed to get him to the ground. I never would’ve imagined that Summer could possess a strength like that, but I saw firsthand how easily she dispatched Trinity and she was a vampire. And I knew how strong vampires were.
Bo wrestled with her for a few seconds before pushing her off, sending her soaring through the air. I was relieved that he was able to fight her off, but it barely phased Summer. She leapt immediately to her feet and went back after Bo. He darted this way and that, but she was perfectly able to keep up with him, catching up to him and wrapping her thin arms around his torso. With one vicious bite, Summer sank her teeth into the side of his face where his jaw hinged. Though her teeth appeared to be smooth and blunt, it was apparent that they were sharp and deadly.
Bo made a noise I’d never heard before and brought his arms up between their bodies, where he pushed out, fast and hard. Summer lost her hold on him just enough for Bo to free his hands and grab her right arm.
In one quick move, Bo ducked and at the same time yanked on Summer’s arm as he moved around behind her. Rather than a snap like breaking bone, I heard a dull thunk sound, like concrete busting or rock being split. Her bones sounded petrified.
With a maniacal laugh, Summer swung around and leveled a punch right at Bo’s head, staggering him to the side. When he let her arm go, it hung at her side, twisted behind her back at an odd angle.
Wrapping the fingers of her good hand around the wrist of her wounded arm, Summer jerked until, with a nauseating pop and squish, her arm was back in a semi-normal position. And then she attacked again.
She scrambled toward him as if she had a thousand arms and a thousand legs, all battering and grabbing at once. She maneuvered him back against the tree she’d split only minutes before.
Summer ripped and tore at Bo, clawed and snatched at him, nipped and bit at him. Across the lawn, I could hear her teeth clicking together as she snapped them at his face. Bo was so quick he managed to avoid them for the most part, but he was struggling to contain her.
I gasped when Bo lost his control on her and her teeth found purchase in the flesh of his forearm. She shook her head from side to side until she came away with a mouthful of bloody flesh. I could see the golf-ball sized chunk missing from Bo’s arm.
Bo reached behind his head and snapped off a large branch as easily as if it were a twig. As Summer was coming back for more, Bo brought the makeshift stake around and buried it in Summer’s chest. And it stopped her. For a moment.
Looking down at the branch and then back up at Bo, I could tell that Summer was confused, but that only lasted for a few seconds. Summer quickly recovered, and when she did, she giggled. It was an eerie, dainty, crazy-little-girl giggle that sent an uneasy tingle slithering down my spine.
But then, Summer did the unthinkable. In one smooth motion, so fast it was almost a blur, she pulled the stake out of her own chest and shoved it deep into Bo’s.
I was stunned. Shocked. It was as if the whole thing happened in slow motion.
“No!” I yelled.
For an instant the world stopped spinning and time stood still. I couldn’t see the exact placement of the strike and I wasn’t yet completely convinced that Bo was the boy who can’t be killed. So for that moment, I was terrified beyond description.
I waited breathlessly to see if Bo would move. I willed him to be alright, willed him to fight back.
My mind struggled to grasp how Summer—just a skinny teenaged girl—
could actually hurt Bo. It was hard to believe, but it was the nature of what Summer had become. Lucius had been right; it seemed that she was nearly invincible.
My legs finally came alive and I sprang into motion. They carried me quickly across the grass. I’d hesitated to put my life on the line for Trinity, but there was nothing on earth that could keep me from risking it all for Bo.
As I drew closer to them, I saw Bo reach between them and pull out the stake. I let out the breath I’d been holding. I was so relieved my legs felt like jelly.
Afraid that they could no longer support me, I slowed to a stop a few feet from where the two fought.
Bo and Summer were so focused on one another that I never would have expected for Summer to turn toward me, to even remember that I was there. But she did, and because I’d been nearly crippled with relief, I was slow to move.
She landed on me, taking me to the ground effortlessly. I was on my back again and this time, she wasn’t toying with her food. She went right for my neck with her bloody mouth.
When her face was so close it blurred in my vision, I closed my eyes. I knew my fate and there was nothing I could do to stop it. If Bo couldn’t defeat her, then I didn’t stand a chance.
I felt more pressure on my chest, like someone was pushing down on me, more than just Summer’s weight, and then I felt a warm splatter spray my face and run down the sides of my neck. I had no idea what it was, but I wasn’t going to open my eyes to find out. There were some things that a person was just better off not seeing. Brutal, disgusting death coming right at you was one of them.
I thought it was strange when I felt Summer’s body slump down onto mine.
It was as if her arms had given out, and she just collapsed onto me.
She lay atop me, warm and motionless. When several seconds had passed and she had yet to rip out my jugular or bite off my face, I cracked one eyelid. What I saw took my rattled brain a few seconds to process.
I saw Bo. He stood above me, looking down at his hands. Between them, he was holding Summer’s head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Bo was amazing that night as I gave in to the urge to let hysteria have its way. It had been a long time coming and when I finally succumbed, I fell to pieces.
From the moment it set in that he was holding my friend’s head in his hands up until I fell asleep in his arms hours later, Bo was wonderfully tender and kind.
He’d very gently laid Summer’s head down somewhere out of my line of sight and then picked me up and carried me inside. He didn’t stop until I was bawling my eyes out in the warm cocoon of my bathroom, buried chin deep in hot, frothy bubbles.
Some time later, when my fingers were well and truly pruned, Bo had come back for me. He’d helped me out and discreetly assisted me to dry off and dress.
Then he had carried me to my bed and laid me down, turning me on my side and spooning me from behind. He had lovingly stroked my hair and my arm, sweetly kissed my shoulder and my neck and softly whispered beautiful things into my ear until I fell asleep.
My last memory, after I had finally calmed enough to consider sleep, was of Bo tracing my cheekbone with the tip of his finger and his cool breath tickling my jaw.
“I’m so sorry, Ridley. I’m so, so sorry,” he murmured.
The next morning, my first thought when I opened my eyes, the one right after Bo of course, was of Trinity. I sat up and searched the room for some sign of Bo or his glimmer, but it appeared that he was already gone.
With haste and an urgency I hadn’t felt before, I threw back the covers and got ready for school. On the way, I dialed Aisha’s number over and over and over again, but got no answer. I prayed that I wasn’t too late.
I’d made up my mind that it was finally time to tell those that I cared about, those that were close to me and appeared to be in danger, that the ghost stories were real—and that they have very sharp teeth.
Every mouth at school, of course, was talking about what had happened with Carly. I was inundated with questions. I suppose it was just human nature, but it was very disturbing to see, up close and personal, how much people relished the details of an atrocity like that. Everyone wanted to know what exactly had happened to her, right down to what she was wearing and what her insides looked like.
Needless to say, I had very little to say to anybody. Not only did I not have any desire to disrespect Carly by sharing details like that, the police had specifically asked me not to tell anyone the specifics of the crime scene until they gave me direct permission to do so. They even gave me a little incentive to do as they asked. It came in the form of a veiled threat where they would charge me with obstruction of justice if I made the mistake of revealing something important to any of my friends.