New Title 3

by H. T. Night

  “I’m surprised no one else heard this shit—surely someone had to hear it!” I marveled, staring at the hole in the wall where a large picture window once was. A birdbath from the front lawn had obliterated the large flat screen TV.

  Peter whistled shrilly through his teeth and then pulled out his wallet and cell phone, carefully approaching the stairs while casting a wary glance up toward the second floor landing. I could tell he was getting ready to call his landlord, fishing through the business cards he kept handy in his wallet. He looked over at me with a bewildered expression, as if the actual reality of what he presently witnessed confirmed the previous night’s hostile siege as a horrifically true event and not some malicious college prank enhanced by alcohol and overactive imaginations

  I must admit that I snickered a little. He’s such a pragmatist—almost atheistic in his zeal for the unfettered truth. Despite the assault on the cellar door lasting just beyond 4:00 a.m., he acted like what was happening wasn’t much of a big deal—like maybe the critters chasing him were buddies of his just trying to freak us out. But now he had to consider the screeching suckers we witnessed from a clear and close vantage point the night before might actually be real. And if that still wasn’t real enough, perhaps nothing short of an actual bite on the neck would make it any truer for him.

  He should try a midnight rendezvous with the more comely vampires.

  I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to venture upstairs—even in the full light of day. He talked to whoever was on the other end of the line while he remained at the foot of the staircase. Meanwhile, my Blackberry chirped from an incoming call.

  “Txema?!”

  Tyreen was on the line, sounding both worried and annoyed.

  “Hey,” I said, glancing out the hole in the wall. A police car drove by slowly, seemingly oblivious to the gaping wound in the once-handsome townhouse on Laurel Ave. “Sorry I didn’t call last night…we had a situation here.”

  I tried to keep my voice steady…not too alarmed, as I didn’t want to make her any more upset. But not too cheerful either, so it didn’t sound insensitive.

  “Sorry? Is that all you’ve got to say??” She sounded more irritated than concerned right then. “I’ve been worried sick about you, Txema—another girl is dead and four more have gone missing! That makes seven victims, and it’s all over the news! I’ve literally been freaking out—we’re all losing our frigging minds around here, thinking you were gone too!!”

  She started to weep, and for a moment I didn’t know how to respond. I already knew about the third girl from the previous night’s news report, but I was hardly prepared for the news that three victims had escalated to seven.

  “What in the hell? Seven?! I’m really sorry I didn’t let you know sooner that I’m all right,” I told her, stunned by this news. I could fully understand her depth of worry. “As soon as we get things cleaned up around here, we’ll be heading back to campus.”

  I hoped to take a shower first, but Peter had just tiptoed up the staircase and soon announced to me that all of the rooms upstairs—including the main bathroom—were trashed. Showers and anything else hygiene related would have to wait until we returned to the dorm.

  “Get what cleaned up?” she asked, the anger fading quickly from her voice. Just worry now, like she had a sudden image of the same damage I surveyed. “Are you saying you were attacked last night?”

  “Yes,” I said, after a moment’s hesitation.

  “Are the police there?! If they’re not, you and Peter need to get the hell away from that house! Whoever’s doing this stuff may be hiding somewhere inside Peter’s place—”

  “No, they’re gone,” I sought to assure her, keeping my voice steady despite my abrupt interruption. But then I seriously considered her words. What if she was right? Could our assailants be hiding somewhere upstairs, or beneath the main floor’s rubble?

  Armando’s allusion to Nosferatu suddenly appeared in my head, with the monster’s grotesque long talons casting eerie shadows on Peter’s bedroom wall upstairs, as the morning sun poured in through his window. Would the fiend’s body just simply vanish in the bright sunlight, like in the famous original vampire movie? Or, would it be the more dramatic 21st century cinematic version where a vamp slowly smokes before exploding into fiery cinders consuming every physical vestige?

  “‘They’re’ gone?” Tyreen’s tone was one of incredulity much more than scorn. “You’re telling me there’s more than one dude and that you saw him and his accomplices last night?? You had better have told the police all about this…you did, didn’t you?”

  I heard her release a low sigh in disgust when I didn’t respond right away. I didn’t know how much to tell her…. After all, she knew nothing about any of my previous nocturnal visitors, starting with Garvan and Armando. That would be off-the-charts craziness already. But even if you could get her to consider the reality of two vampires paying me a personal visit to protect my ass, how could I also tell this extremely level-headed woman that the recent campus murders were perpetrated by a group of other vampires, hideously deformed, and with no apparent disposition for mercy?

  Not to mention what these bastards possess in terms of super-human strength. The advent of dawn may very well be the only reason Peter and I didn’t perish. And as far as the police were concerned, once my boyfriend called them and advised of the damage delivered to his rented townhouse, a whole new can of worms would be kicked over.

  “Txema, you did call the police…please tell me you did!”

  “I’m getting ready to do it now—”

  “PLEASE do it right now!!”

  “Okay, okay…. Just chill for a moment. I’ll get it done—I promise!” I sought to assure her. “Are you at the dorm, or someplace else on campus?”

  “Johnny and I are getting ready to eat something, but then we’re coming back to Massey,” she advised.

  “Peter and I’ll meet you there.”

  “When?” she persisted, her tone sounding panicked again.

  “Right after the police get here.” I made sure my tone sounded soothing, with a positive lift. It works on guys…I just prayed it worked on a very intuitive female too. “Once they’re done with whatever they need—a police report or whatever—I’ll make sure Peter drives us back to campus.”

  “Okay…you promise, right?”

  “Yes, I promise!”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at her persistence, thinking it was so much like me…. If the chupacabras vamps held their sadistic fondness for a beautiful African American instead of a girl of Basque descent, I’m sure I’d be just as obsessive for her safety.

  After my conversation with Tyreen ended, Peter called to me from atop the stairs. No sign of anyone else but us, he had already dialed the police. The dispatcher advised him that a patrol car would be on its way in a few minutes.

  He looked numb, his expression blank as he headed downstairs. No doubt, the images of what he saw in the daylight were still being reconciled to the bizarre and terrifying events from the night before.

  “There’s no one here,” he said, his voice subdued. “What in the hell am I supposed to tell the cops?”

  I could almost feel the depth of his angst and bewilderment. And beyond that, the torment of trying to merge his previous understanding of the world and natural laws with the incredible destruction left by our inhuman visitors. What I had right then was a man whose perspective on life had been seriously jacked up!

  “You stick to the facts,” I told him. “Tell them you saw shadows of someone moving upstairs and then we ran down into the cellar. Whoever was here got angry and tore the place up. Just be glad they didn’t decide to burn the building down around us.”

  I added a wry smile to go with this last part, which he seemed oblivious to. He nodded pensively.

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, quietly, once he rejoined me in the living room.

  Neither of us wanted to rehash anything more. Since I had prior ins
ights—courtesy of the so-called ‘good’ vamps—there was nothing Peter could add to my knowledge by talking about it. For him, however, I worried he might ask me questions about what I saw earlier before the attack, in the library parking lot. Luckily he never did.

  Before long the police did arrive, two cops—a male and a female. I’ve already forgotten their names, although I believe the female’s name was Debbie. Or Denise, Desirae—or some shit. All I know is she tried like hell to flirt with my man while the guy cop restrained himself from casting more than one flirtatious glance at me.

  They didn’t stay long, especially after Peter followed my advice in giving just cursory replies to their questions. Vandalism cases are frequent enough to elicit apathy among Knoxville’s finest. After a brief tour of the townhouse and the back porch, they completed their report and left. I helped Peter tack a handful of garbage bags over the front window, and after he called his landlord with the police report number for his insurance claim we left.

  ***

  Talk about lock down.

  The security checks to get back onto campus were much more intense that morning as compared to Thursday. And unlike the previous day, there were Knoxville cops everywhere. Peter parked his Camaro at the library again, and we walked the rest of the way to my dorm. By then, we had already heard that classes for the rest of the day were canceled. Other than the dorms, only the libraries, bookstore, and cafeterias remained open.

  When Tyreen and Johnny grilled Peter about what happened and what our assailants looked like, he surprised me by staying evasive about those details while expounding on the actual damage inside the townhouse. Johnny especially got excited about the overturned kitchen appliances and the birdbath impaled inside the sixty-inch plasma TV.

  As for me, Tyreen gave me another scolding that thankfully didn’t last long. But neither she nor Johnny badgered me with questions about what happened—nothing about what I saw and heard. So for the time being I got to keep that information to myself.

  We spent the day finishing our class assignments pending for the next week, and then returned to Massey Hall well before dusk. None of us broached the recent string of murders and the four latest disappearances. Nor did we keep tabs on the local news surrounding these terrible events. Sort of like an unspoken promise to avoid the subject, as if our mutual silence would protect us all from the growing menace. The University and police had arranged for pizzas to be delivered to the entire dorm, and after we had our fill of food and drink, the four of us moved upstairs to our room.

  “I think everyone should stay here tonight,” Tyreen suggested, after she closed the door behind us. “And it’s not like we’ll be the only ones up here with our men staying with us tonight.”

  “Me and Pete can use the guys’ facilities on the other side in the morning to take a shower,” added Johnny. “Unless ya’ll can’t stand to be alone for fifteen minutes!”

  “Oh, yeah, big boy?” Tyreen retorted, when he preened like a helpless female. “Who’s to say you’ll make it ‘til morning with your stank ass, be-e-e-a-a-t-c-h-h-h!!”

  That got him. Stopped his comic pose and snickering grin before it erupted into one of Johnny’s loud and irritating laughs.

  They’re so much like a married couple, loving and yet so dysfunctional. But they got things revved up for a fun night, and before long we were all poking fun at each other while taking turns playing Johnny’s Guitar Hero video game, and after that a few rounds of Taboo. When Peter and I began to nod off around eleven o’clock, Tyreen and Johnny headed downstairs since neither one was ready to retire just yet. Both of us exhausted from so little sleep the night before, I helped Peter climb up into my bed and then I snuggled close to him. Soon after, despite the lights still on and the TV muted in the corner of the room, we drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter 9

  “Careful…that’s it, Garvan.”

  I suddenly awoke. My room was immersed in darkness. The lights and television were off. I could hear Peter’s soft snores to my left, and I was moving toward the window…more like floating on my back toward the open window.

  “What the hell?” I whispered hoarsely, trying to get my bearings on what was happening. To my right, I could see light from the hallway beneath the door, and the shadow from one of my floor mates passing by my room. I couldn’t hear Tyreen or Johnny—snores or otherwise—which told me that neither one had returned yet.

  Am I dreaming?

  “It appears she is waking up….cover her mouth and let’s be on our way!”

  The same voice from a moment earlier, and the Spanish accent was familiar. Very familiar.

  “Armando?”

  “Si,” the owner of the voice whispered in response to my question. “I must insist you keep quiet, dearest Txema!”

  The same cheerful tone and irreverent delivery from the other night. Definitely him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, alarmed and finding it hard to keep my voice low. Preparing to float through a fourth floor window on a chilly night will do that to you.

  “I’m grabbing your coat,” said Armando, “and your slippers too.”

  Huh?

  “Where in the hell are you taking me?!” I shouted at him, or at least I shouted at the spot where his voice emanated from. I couldn’t see his face—just the outlines of his long fingernails guiding me along, as if I lay upon an invisible raft drifting through the air.

  “Some place safe.” Another voice, this time Garvan’s, and it resounded from my other side. Calm and assuring, I couldn’t see him either—just the now-familiar cinnamon scent slithering into my nostrils. “A place not far from here.”

  “A place where everyone else is waiting anxiously to meet you!” added Armando.

  I immediately felt panicked at this announcement and tried to look back at Peter, still snoring in my bunk bed. Some protector he turned out to be that night, though I considered he might’ve been ‘tapped’ like Tyreen was two nights earlier. And my hope that vampires had to show some sort of courtesy by waiting to be invited in one’s abode had been officially nixed—both by these so-called good ones and the meaner chupacabras who crashed Peter’s pad the previous night.

  “Ah, cheri, do not be alarmed,” Garvan said to me, his sexy voice soothing, despite the fact I felt no less terrified. Especially since I had just tried to move my arms and legs and couldn’t do it. I could barely feel anything from my neck on down to my toes. “In just a minute we will reach our destination.”

  I remember how this confused me. I tried to picture what campus locale was nearby—even considering the ultra-quick movements I’d seen from both vampires previously. If they planned to carry me out the window at our present drift, we might make it to the Alumni Center if we were lucky, and that’s if we allowed a few more minutes to make the trip.

  However, once we cleared the window and hovered some forty feet above the ground below, they both took firm hold of my arms and shoulders. Everything suddenly sped up. Sped way up, I should say. Like being shot from a cannon into the sky, we flew so fast that the lights below us became a streaming blur.

  It wasn’t long before the lights below disappeared and the air around us grew even colder. Then, as quickly as Garvan predicted, we reached our destination; dramatically slowing down once we approached a cave deep within the Smoky Mountains—by my estimate at least five to ten miles east of Knoxville. Tall cedars and eastern pines stood near the cave’s entrance, and a roaring fire glowed from within the cave as Garvan and Armando set me down on the ground.

  My legs felt weak and it took me a minute to catch my breath after such an exhilarating experience. I’m sure my racing pulse was just as much due to the sudden surprise of flying a few hundred feet above the ground as from the incredible g-forces from traveling so fast. I doubt my vampire companions do this sort of thing on a regular basis, since I believe it’s likely someone not as athletically inclined as me would’ve passed out for sure, and maybe worse.

  I could once
again feel my body—my arms and legs no longer felt like rubber. I already had my coat on, covering much of my night gown, and as I marveled at how the two had dressed me in my parka without my awareness, Armando placed my slippers on my feet. Unlike the other night, both were dressed completely in black, wearing leather trench coats that hung below their knees. Their boot heels clicked against loose gravel just outside the cave’s mouth.

  “You are now ready to meet the princess and the rest of her entourage!” Armando proudly announced. “Right this way…please!”

  He motioned for me to walk through the entrance, while Garvan joined him behind me. I could feel them withdraw as I stepped through a narrow passage that opened to a fairly large room. An immense fire burned within a large stone ring near the room’s center and in front of it stood a tall female flanked by a slightly shorter male on her right and a petite female on her left.

  “So we finally meet, Txema,” said the taller female. “Come…closer. Let me have a better look at you, my cousin.”

  “Cousin?!”

  How could this pallid woman be any close relation to me? Granted, she stood almost as tall as me with the same build, and her shoulder-length black hair flowed the same way mine did—even with the same widow’s peak atop my forehead. But her eyes were greener than mine, like sultry emerald fires. Like Tyreen’s eyes, only brighter and unearthly in their glow.

  She smiled, and the tips of her fangs peered out through her full pouting lips—same as mine and my best assets according to Peter. Her subtle head nod and amused smile let me know she had just read my thoughts.

  “Yes, it’s sort of like looking in a mirror, eh?” She chuckled warmly, and in the next instant moved from the fire to a mere two feet in front of me. I wish they wouldn’t do that shit—it really is unsettling. A slight lilac scent arrived with her. “You are as radiant as advertised, and you remind me of Bernadette Soubirous, the girl who put the city of Lourdes on the international map long ago.”