That bought me five more days of recovery time. And just to piss Mona Cole off- I took complete advantage of it. I lay around, had mice brought to me on a silver freaking platter and watched lots of daytime TV. It worked. Mona was ticked!
I wasn’t sure what was up with Jackson. He went from totally dogging me and wanting nothing to do with me to being a mother freaking hen. For days while I was mending- in addition to waiting on me- he kept cramming Vampire 101 down my throat.
For instance- I totally thought I’d killed Hannah with the fire poker; but iron rods aren’t the same as wooden stakes. He drove that freaking point home until I was just sick of hearing about it. Geez! This wasn’t information I was planning on needing ever again…
Okay- it was nice to have someone around that actually gave a darn… but, it was also kind of annoying since I knew I had to be moving on.
Before I got up the nerve to really do it, school had already started. Jackson was busy with his little masquerade for most of the day. Personally, I had no freaking intention of putting on that show. Let Everton wonder what became of Mandy Cross and her parents; it’d give the big mouths something interesting to gossip about for a long time to come.
Of course, Everton had enough to talk about as it was. First and foremost was the “missing” Cami Richter. Jackson had kept his nose glued to the TV news, but to date her headless corpse hadn’t been discovered. Kind of odd considering I’d left it right out in the open.
There were two theories floating around the Cole house: Alan returned to the pier after I’d left it and disposed of Cami’s body. Or, Alan returned to the pier after fishing Cami’s head out of the river and put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Apparently, separating a vampires head from their body doesn’t get them quite dead enough. My thought, though, was that Cami wasn’t turned to the point when I snapped her head off. She was more human than vampire yet. So, there’d be like no way she could have recovered from that.
However, around the Cole house my opinion counted for zippo- zilch. Not even Jackson would pay the simple courtesy of pretending to be interested in what I had to say on the matter.
Whatever had happened after I’d left the pier- I knew the crap had to catch up with me. I mean- school was back in and I hadn’t made a single class. People were going to be talking.
Anyway- while Jackson was at school, Mr. and Mrs. Cole both had jobs. This left me all alone during the day. It was cool to have the place to myself at first; but even that got stale. Have you ever had that feeling that it was just time to make your move? That was me; there was this anxious feeling in my stomach and everything. I had to leave Everton.
It was a Wednesday- first week of September- that I finally got up the nerve to do it.
My backpack was over my shoulders when I walked out the door. Anyone seeing me would have thought I was just another kid, late for school. Walking along the sidewalk with the sun on my face, hearing birds up in the trees… it all felt so normal. It totally hit me then how long it’d been since “normal” was normal for me.
I guess I got too wrapped up in the moment, because I never noticed them creep up on me.
Chapter 11. Vampire’s Revenge.
It was after nine that night when we finished gun club, and we did the usual cleaning at the end. Instead of taking our guns and putting them in our lockers, we put them in a secured box, and placed them in the trunk of my car. The plan was to get them to a reputable dealer at the weekend and get them valued, and the serial numbers registered. There was no special need to do so, but since the guns were technically the property of Mary-Christine’s dad, I planned to do everything by the book.
We stopped by Sonic on the way home, and had our obligatory coffee and ice cream. A couple of the juniors from school worked there, and we got the best deals, and Mary-Christine always tipped well.
I was just drawing up to the main road when something slammed into the car. I looked around in panic, but there was nothing. “What the heck was that?” I asked Mary-Christine.
“Felt like a dog or something.”
Making sure nothing was behind me, I turned off the car and looked round the tires. Nothing. As soon as I got inside, the back door flew open, and suddenly, right behind Mary-Christine was Jim Creary.
“Don’t move, you freak.” He spat at me. He held a huge silver blade at Mary-Christine’s neck. “I don’t care how fast you think you are, Red. You’re not going to stop me cutting her in half.”
“What the fuck do you want, Jim?” I hissed at him.
“Drive.” He said motioning left. “Get out of town on the north road.”
I shook my head. I had to think of something, but I also had to give myself some time. I turned the car left, across the main road, and we headed for the north of town.
“I’ve not been driving for long, so just be careful with that knife.” Mary-Christine looked terrified, tears filling her eyes.
“Oh, don’t you worry about your little girl; she’s doing just fine, Red. Just fine.”
I racked my brain to think of a way to get an edge, but nothing came. Before I knew, we were out of town, heading north on the quietest road I’d ever driven on. Pretty soon, we’d hit the mountains, but Jim stopped us long before that.
“Right. Along here.” It was a farmer’s drive, but there was no farmhouse anywhere close that I could see.
Pretty soon, I came to my destination. I could see it.
Up ahead, sitting on the tailgate of a silver pick-up truck was Jeff Fielding and Billy Tankard. They both had beers in their hands.
“So you got the band together, huh?” I grinned, unlocking my seat belt. I let it go loose.
“Park here.” Jim ignored me.
“Figured.” I slid the car in behind, but took it close so that they both got a fright and threw themselves back onto the truck’s bed. I screeched to a halt, sending dirt and dust into their faces.
In one move I turned and punched Jim on side of the throat, and with my other hand pushed the blade away. Jim fell back onto the back door. I hit him again. I was determined that if I was getting a beating, or worse, then Jim was going to taste his own blood.
I scrambled, between the front seats, hitting Jim again. I didn’t give him a chance to recover. Bam, one more, right on his nose.
“Son of a bitch!” he squealed. He managed to open the door and fell out onto the dry scrub grass. To his dismay, I scrambled over the seat in pursuit. I hit him twice more before his friends even tried to get out the truck.
Jeff was the first one to appear. Right in front of me, out of thin air.
Dumber than a bag of hammers.
So I hit him too. Right on the nose, sending him sprawling over Jim.
Billy wasn’t so easy. I felt a huge blow on the back of the head, then suddenly I was held, both arms, and their grip was firm.
Thankfully Mary-Christine was nowhere to be seen.
Jim slowly got to his feet. “Put him up against the truck.”
This put us right in my own headlights.
With my back against the door, I watched Jim approach. His face was bloody, and there was already swelling on one eye.
When he came close, I tried to kick him, but he sidestepped and hit me square on the nose.
Oh, that was fucking painful. I hadn’t expected it to hurt so much.
Then he started on me.
Punch to the head, grin, then a bit of a laugh; savoring it.
Punch to the face. Grin.
Punch to the stomach, then another. He readied himself for another round.
The next one surprised us all, especially Jim.
Bam! Jim’s head flew away to the left, and he fell.
I had a vision of half his face disappearing in front of me. Nasty.
Bam! Jeff took one in the shoulder, and I dropped to the ground, partly because I couldn’t stand up anymore, but partly so Mary-Christine could get a shot off at Billy, on my other side. I knew the sound of her 9mm anywhe
re.
Bam! Billy spun away, cursing, holding his arm. “I didn’t come here to fucking die!” Then he disappeared.
Well, looks like Jeff had about as much balls as his friend, and disappeared too.
Blink. Right into mid air.
Jim, on the other hand was not doing much moving at all.
Mary-Christine came running up to me, cradling my face, crying at my wounds.
“Give me the gun.” I said, although my words weren’t that articulate.
She handed me the colt, I cocked it, and leveled it at Jim’s heart.
“You won’t kill him.” Mary-Christine’s face was still furrowed with worry.
“I know.” My grin must have looked hellish, because I felt as far removed from reality as I’d ever done. “But I’ll sure as hell keep him down for a spell.”
I put two in that bastard. “One for hitting me,” I pulled the trigger for the first time. “And one for holding a knife at Buffy.”
“Hey!” she poked me, and it hurt.
“Phone your dad.” I said. “Find out what we have to do.”
“But what about you? We need an ambulance.”
“Screw the ambulance.” I said, getting up very slowly. “We’ve gone halfway to killing this prick, and I’m not stopping till he’s staked and dissolving.”
~ ~ ~
There were three of them, circling me like a pack of drooling mutts. Teenage boys- but, I’d never seen any of them before. They didn’t go to Everton. By their prissy uniforms with the burgundy sweater vests and ties, they were from Gregor Academy.
A.K.A., Vampire Freaking High.
“What do you want?” I snarled at the tallest one; he was some bean pole with bad skin and mean eyes.
Skinny wasn’t the one that answered me. The one who did was built like a square block, thick and wide at the shoulders. I totally know a jock when I see one—and this dude screamed linebacker. Unlike the jocks from Everton, though, he talked like he had a brain.
“Mandy Cross, we’ve been looking for you. We’ve got a friend in common.”
It’s not like I wasn’t afraid. Yes, I was surrounded by three vampires- all bigger than me, but, for whatever reason I just couldn’t act intimidated. So, I looked that jock straight in the face and forced my voice to be as steady as possible.
“Alan McCartney is not my friend. And if you’re friends of his then you’re no friends of mine.”
I tried to do the prima donna thing and kind of storm passed them but they all squeezed in like they were shrink-wrapping me or something.
“Go easy on the guy, Mandy Cross,” Jock told me, with this easy-going smile and sultry voice; totally an Alan move. Any minute I was expecting him to make me sniff him so he could get me all loopy and stuff. “Who do you think sent us to find you? Alan’s totally heartbroken and misses you so much.”
“Oh please.” I pushed the Jock back a few steps. He looked surprised at my strength. “Alan never cared about me. He doesn’t care about anybody.”
Jock shook his head and forced a frown, “Not true. Seriously- I’ve never seen the guy so broken up in my life… and that’s a really long time, Mandy Cross.”
The dude almost had me going for a second with those puppy dog eyes he was giving me. Too bad for him I’d seen this play before, and Alan was a much better actor than this guy.
“You know what, boys—I don’t have time for this shit. Because of your good buddy I have to leave the only home I’ve ever known and start a whole new freaking life for myself. Up until about two minutes ago I was super bummed about that. But, thanks to you three assholes reminding me how I got into this mess in the first place… now I’m kind of psyched to get the hell out of this town. So. Please get you’re fucking undead, lying asses out of my way before I rip all your fucking heads right off your fucking shoulders. Literally.”
Man! It felt so good to say all that. I don’t usually like dropping the “F” bomb; but sometimes it just needs to be done.
However, my moment of high self esteem passed like super quick. All three of those dorks busted out laughing.
“You’re so cute,” Jock said, all condescending, “I can see why Alan’s so hung up on you.”
I did the black girl thing, waving my hand around and doing the chicken-neck, “we’re done here. NOW. GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY!”
Play time was over at that point. Jock quit the charm and went all balls-out vicious on me. Not even an inch from my face, eyes all squinty and lips all thin, he finally said what I figured they’d come there to say.
“Get this through your head, little girl; you’re an Amos Blanche vampire, turned by one of the greatest vampires of our age. You may think you’ve broken the bond that ties you to us, but you’ll learn differently. Just try to leave town, Mandy Cross- there’s nowhere you can go that you won’t belong to us and we WILL find you. You are one of us- even as you yourself pledged to be. And we are not setting you free.”
And just like that they were all gone. They left me standing there, in the middle of the sidewalk with my pathetic little backpack and nowhere to go.
Something moved in my peripheral vision and I turned toward it super quick. I caught a glimpse of Alan just before he vanished.
The Jock had called Alan, the greatest vampire of the age.
What bullshit.
~ ~ ~
Turns out we had a fair bit to do, and we had to do it quick.
We had to tie Jim Creary securely, gag him, and get him in my small trunk.
We had to get any sign of blood spatter off the parked truck, and get any blood spills on the grass cleaned too.
Cartridge cases are ejected to the left, and I knew we had to find five. It took us a couple of minutes, but we found them all.
Last thing was rub away any tire tracks which would identify my car.
With all that safely done, we moved on to part two. Wipe my car down for Jim’s prints, and immobilize the truck should the two other vampires come back for it. We couldn’t shoot the tires out, as that would leave bullets. Bad idea. So I took Jim’s silver blade, and cut slits in all the tires.
The truck was still hissing as we drove away.
We phoned Dave again.
Turns out we still had three problems.
A car with blood in the trunk, Jim Creary’s body to dispose of, and a gun involved in shooting three vampires.
“We have more than that to worry about.” Mary-Christine said after hanging up. “You look like you’d hit a wall with your face. Several times.”
“But you should see the other guy,”
“Yeah, but how do you explain that tomorrow?”
My phone rang.
“Hi Dave.”
“Look, Lyman, it’s all taken care of. Get yourselves up to the Deep Creek Bridge; it’s about five miles north of you.”
I was just coming back to the main road north. I turned left, heading for the dark mountains.
“Wait at the bridge for me.” Dave paused. “I’ll be there in fifteen, twenty minutes.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t drive fast, but we were soon at the bridge, I pulled in on the south side. When I turned off the engine, the night was still.
“You could have been killed.” Mary-Christine said, hugging my arm.
“But I had Buffy the Vampire Slayer to come to my rescue!” I joked, grinning through my pain. I felt like I’d been to ten dentists all on the one afternoon; puffy, sore and awkward.
A truck pulled in over the road, and just as we began to get spooked, Dave arrived.
He hustled us both out of the car, and inspected Mary-Christine before looking at me.
“She was spectacular sir.” I said, brimming with pride at my Buffy. “She put slugs into all three guys. If she hadn’t done that, they may have killed me.”
“Okay, we haven’t much time. The story is you hit a truck at the bridge, and went down the slope into the river. The ambulance is already called for.”
“W
hat?”
“We have to dispose of the car.”
“This is dumb!” I began to shout.
“Listen up Lyman!” Dave’s voice was clear. “If those kids are organized by anyone bright, they’re at home right now concocting a story that their friend, Jim Creary, was kidnapped by you. With their word against yours, you’ll be on the line for kidnapping, assault, murder. It’s their one big chance to get one up on us; they’d get a Helsing into deep trouble.”
I looked from Mary-Christine, back to her dad.
“But it’s two against two.” I pleaded. “Just their story against ours.”
Dave pointed to my face. “Except, you’ve just done a round with Mike Tyson, and Jim Creary is missing.” He looked at me hard. “I can’t keep you out of jail with those facts flying around.”
I took a deep breath, sighed, then nodded.
Dave continued. “We’re now concocting an alibi, just in case the shit does hit the whirling fan. I can get a police report changed by an hour. The same with a hospital report. You lost control of the car, hit a truck, car went over the side, you phoned for an ambulance.”
“But how do you explain our injuries?”
“Your airbag didn’t open properly, hers did. You hit the steering wheel with your face. Great advertisement.”
It wasn’t the best idea I’d ever heard, but it did explain everything. I remembered a phrase from somewhere; ‘plausible deniability’; looks like that’s what we were going for.
The truck driver came over. “This is Clint Eastwood.” Dave smiled. “False name, of course. You two- get the stuff you would take out of the car in an emergency.”
Without further ado, we took out immediate personals, and the bag of shell casings. We left everything else.
Clint and Dave lifted Jim’s Body from our trunk to Dave’s car.
“How long will he be dead?” I asked, as Clint pulled my carpet out the trunk.
“He could take days to recover consciousness, but he’ll be alive in a few hours. It was a good thing to give him two in the heart though. That’ll make it a longer, more painful process.”
Vampire High School (Book 1: Gregor Academy) Page 14