by Ian Hall
The two men inside put on gas masks, which they checked, then each carefully checked each other’s.
“Gas masks?” I whispered.
“Just a safety precaution,” Mary-Christine replied.
I turned back to the scene below. Avery started to get scared now; alternately looking from one man to the other.
Dave got a large tapered piece of wood, just over a foot long, dark brown, and sharpened to a very tapered, sharp point. Dave glanced in my direction, then stuck it firmly into Avery’s chest. It only went in an inch, but he screamed like he’d suddenly been dumped into a vat of burning oil. The guy on the other side got a hammer, and with one huge swing, hit the stake into the vampire’s chest.
The scream seemed to fill the whole building. He tensed one last time at the bindings, every sinew stretched to its utmost.
He shook once, throwing himself tight against the bindings, his muscles bulging, then collapsed back onto the table.
Then the man with the hammer hit the stake again, sending the stake thudding into the wood below.
The men stepped back, but every eye centered on Peterson.
The suspense slowly built, I could feel the tension in the room, and had a quick look around and I wondered what everyone was watching for. Then the body began to change, the skin almost drying out before us. Then it began to disintegrate. Like the best Hollywood effect, his skin slowly putrefied, crisping before our eyes. After a few moments, it began to fall, sifting through the bones below. I watched as the figure of Avery Peterson turned into a skeleton. It was an incredible sight.
The stake stood firm, embedded into the table.
Then the bones themselves began to crack and crumble. As they hit the table, they turned into fine powder, and sifted down the table, taking his shorts with it. Light brown powder. In less than a minute, Avery Peterson had turned into a pile of dust, slowly flowing downwards to the tub on the floor.
Suddenly, with the finality of a light bulb going off in my head, I believed.
I could smell her through her window; Cami always slept with it open during the summer. It would be so easy; an ivy-covered trellis that led right up to her room. Not like I needed it, but still.
As I got up closer to the house, security lights flooded the whole yard and driveway. For a minute I totally froze, feeling like a common burglar. For some reason it was hard to get used to the idea that I could snap a full-grown man in half. Once that thought sank in, though, I was up the trellis and dangling right outside Cami Two-Face’s room.
She didn’t have any blankets on and barely wearing anything at all. No clothes to help mask her scent with laundry detergent or something less savory than human blood. And the damn blowing fan brought her smell right to me.
I remembered that rush; the same as the night Alan killed my parents. Once he turned me and I caught a whiff of their spilled blood, I was in a frenzy. It hadn’t happened since then, but my body warned me that it was going to happen again.
Every part of me felt “on.” I was salivating like some bulldog or something. And I didn’t even realize that I was fingering my clit until I scratched myself. That was enlightening. Food and sex had become all one thing.
At that point I realized I was too far gone to resist. Cami - once upon a time my best friend - was going to be dinner. And dessert. Dessert first.
The window lay wide as heck open. I should’ve been able to go right through. But, there was this invisible barrier keeping me out. I couldn’t even put my little finger over the sill. Then I remembered what Alan had told me - I had to be invited in. Apparently it didn’t matter that I’d practically lived at Cami’s house up until a couple months ago. Now that I was a vampire, I was as good as a stranger.
I freaking hated all those stupid vampire rules!
I got super desperate and began clanging on the glass. “Cami!” I called in a loud whisper. “Cami…wake up…we need to talk!”
She stirred a little on her mattress but didn’t wake up. OMG - I wanted her…in every possible way. Her skin looked as delicate as a flower petal; I thought of how soft it would be to touch and how easily my fangs would sink through. Same with her mouth; and I remembered the time we got drunk and made out. I thought of how hot it would have been if I had killed her then. It felt like I’d lost my mind.
“Cami! Please…open your eyes…”
Finally, she turned over. Groggy eyes blinked at me but I could tell she wasn’t really seeing anything. Not yet.
“Right over here. Look at me, at the window.”
Cami swung her feet over the side of the bed. In a few stumbling steps she stood close enough that I could’ve torn her throat out. The smell was intense. I was a druggie and she was my crack. I trembled with excitement.
Her face looked totally blank; no fear or even a sign she had registered that it was weird to find a person hanging outside her window. That’s when I realized she wasn’t really awake; Cami had always been a sleepwalker. Used to freak me out at slumber parties. Now it completely turned me on.
“That’s right, over here.”
She came to me then; inhaling deeply like I had done with Alan. Her skimpy T-shirt was tight and clingy and I could see her body responding excitedly. I could tell she was as ready for me as I was for her.
“Cami,” I kept my voice so quiet and relaxing. “Let me in…”
Again, she took a deep breath. My vampire-sweat reeled her in as much as the smell of her blood drove me insane. But, she moved so slowly; the anticipation was going to kill me before I ever laid a finger on her.
I asked again, this time more firmly, “Let me in, Cami…”
Instead, she reached her hand out to me, running it down my arm. Her blind, sleeping eyes were all over me. It would have been so easy to grab her then, snatch her right through the window, drag her to the shadows, and drain every ounce from her body. But, I didn’t; instead, I just let her touch me.
“Can I come in?”
My voice hit her hard. Cami’s head went back and she moaned. I was doing to her exactly what Alan had done to me. I was betting that even if she woke up now I’d still have her; I could make her do anything. And I wanted her to do everything. This gave a whole new meaning to the term, “playing with your food.”
“C’mon,” I said in a sexy voice, “you won’t believe how much I want to be in there with you.”
“Yes…”
Once I heard the word, my whole body thrilled. I practically finished right then. But, when I tried to crawl through the window, that invisible barrier was still there.
I almost died. I begged now.
“Cami, let me in…please, please let me in…”
“Yes…” she said again; but it didn’t make a difference.
I practically humped the trellis. It was time to just say “screw it” and grab her, bring her out to me. But, I’d waited too long and my dinner drifted back from me to a safe distance.
Cami went to her bed to wait for me. No matter how I called, she wouldn’t come back. Within minutes she had turned over and began to snore.
“You fucking bitch!” I hissed at her.
I crawled down the trellis, starving and horny. Waiting for me under the branches of a big tree, stood Alan.
Being a Helsing
We talked in the lab for a while, and although I soaked up all the details, my mind raced. I watched Mr. Muscat and his helper behind the glass vacuum up all the dust. I think I was the only one who looked at the wooden stake, still embedded in the table.
Vampires. Who would have believed it? Not me, I can tell you.
And because of some set of circumstances that I couldn’t entirely explain, I had gotten caught up in it all.
I was a Helsing. I had no doubt in my mind.
I had never been in a fight in my life, had never punched anyone, had never done anything physically exertive. But here I stood in a room of strangers, thinking about hunting down vampires and hammering sticks into their chests.
I suddenly thought of Dorothy. Killing her might actually mean I got to see her tits.
I shook my head at the childishness of such a thought. I mean, I was in a research lab, where I had just witnessed a hundred-year-old vampire meet its end, and I was fantasizing over tits?
I determined there and then to grow up a bit, and I swear that I felt stronger already.
“What did you think then?” Mary-Christine’s mom stood right in front of me. I hadn’t seen her arrive.
“Very impressive,” I offered, but felt sure she wanted more. “I’m officially convinced.”
“Good.” She smiled, and for the first time, I saw strength behind her eyes. She was no longer just Mary-Christine’s mom. She was a vampire killer. Buffy’s mom.
“Mrs. Muscat?”
“Roni, please; short for Veronica.”
Oh my, I had just been seeing Mary-Christine for a week or so, and I was already at the Dave and Roni stage with her folks.
“Roni, how many vampires have you killed?”
The words were out of my mouth before I could use my safety net. But to my surprise, it didn’t faze her.
“Three myself. More with the group.”
Crap. Mrs. Muscat. Roni. Had killed three people.
“And Mary-Christine?”
She smiled again, a warm, friendly condescending smile. “We haven’t let Mary-Christine come along with us yet. We were saving that for when she’s a little bit older.”
There was a lower age limit to vampire killings?
“She’s also got some training to do, you know, build up her body a bit.”
I almost said that I found her body already kinda fantastic, but held my tongue. My mom would have been proud of my tactfulness.
I expected the rest of the day to be uneventful; you know, dinner, bedtime, but it turned out I was so wrong.
The whole group took their separate cars, but met up at a private function room of a local restaurant, where they partied ‘til midnight.
I even sneaked a couple of beers. So did Mary-Christine. We were the youngest there, and although I wanted to sneak away for a make-out session, the stories they told got bigger by the beer.
Vampires in New York, some in Europe. Beheadings, burnings, multiple stake stories, many quite funny. The best one I remember was a big guy, Tony, he was in Belfast, Ireland. He cornered a vampire in the docks; he had been hunting it for weeks and had shot it four times. It was weak, slow, and was limping a lot. It climbed onboard a freighter, trying to get away, but it slipped and fell, falling into the ship’s hold - its cargo? Fencing posts. All sharpened, all sticking up. The thing didn’t stand a chance.
The journey home to Gregor was an anti-climax, but back in the car, heading north to Flagstaff, I did get a chance to fire my biggest question at Dave. “So how am I a Helsing?”
“Ah. Therein lie a few possibilities. First of all, there has to be direct blood traceability back to Baron Pieter Williamsburg, from the 1500s. Most of his bloodline had the gene, and we reckon it first mutated because of a bad vampire contact. His folks soon found out they were immune to the vampire’s bite, and took up the job of eradicating their immediate vicinity of the creatures. Back then, deep in the heart of the country, quite large communities could be made. No contact with the outside world, etcetera.”
“So I’ve got mutated genes.” I almost said it as a joke.
“Yes, either from your mom or dad. Probably your dad; the gene’s stronger on the male side. Unicorps has had a Helsing capture scheme going for many years.”
“What?” I blurted out.
“Many top companies have DNA reference data banks. Unicorps trolls these banks for the Helsing gene. That’s probably why they employed your dad in the first place.”
“So my dad kills vampires?”
Dave laughed. “No, if it only were as easy as that. Not every carrier of the gene has the active variant. You do. That’s why your friend at school bit you, then ran away. It’s probably why Alan kept you as a friend. Just to keep you close to him. There must have been a time when Alan tasted your blood, just to test.”
I still resented the idea that Alan didn’t care for me as a friend, but let it go. Sitting back in the rear seat, I went through our friendship, but at first got nothing. Then it hit me. For some reason I told the story as it came to me.
“We had been fooling around in his back garden, in and out of the pool. Early summer, last year. I got the palm of my hand cut on a bad piece of tile in the pool. It bled badly to begin with, dripping onto the tile. I remember now, he did act a bit strange. He sniffed my hand, then made a joke that he was a bloodhound.”
It all came back to me, and as it did, I didn’t like the taste it left in my mouth.
“He got a knife and cut his hand in the same place: right in the center of his palm. We shook hands, gripping each other hard.”
“He jumped up, taking me with him. I remember him being strong. ‘Blood-brothers!’ he yelled. Blood dripped from our clenched hands. Then we did a rain dance. But I do remember seeing him lick his palm after we’d calmed down. I haven’t thought of that moment ‘til now.”
“Bastard.” I hissed quietly.
“Dude, that was freaking hot,” Alan told me, sweeping up to me like some big-shot who just winged into town. “You two almost got down and dirty!”
I just stood there, feeling naked. I realized that all the surge of adrenaline and pumping of blood down below had completely gone. Vampires don’t really get tired but I felt like a balloon that’d had all the air squeezed out. It was hard to even get excited to see him - even after all those weeks of pining for his company.
“Where’ve you been?” the words kinda drizzled off my lips like the fizz off a soda can.
“Around.” He brushed some hair out of my face. “I’ve never been too far, Mandy Cross.”
“Far enough I couldn’t see you,” I pouted.
“I had to do that. Hannah is your mentor; it’s her responsibility to teach you the ways.”
“Oh, is that what that bitch was doing? You mean all that beating the crap out of me and making me wait on her gross husband was all some big lesson?”
Without even knowing what I was about to do, I shoved Alan. I was a vampire but nowhere near as strong as him; I might as well have thrown cotton balls at him.
Alan kinda grinned. That made me want to tear his kidneys out through his nose.
“Hannah can be pretty…rough…she’s an old vampire set in the old ways, but you’ll learn a lot from her.”
“As if! I don’t want to learn anything that crazy hag has to teach!” I shouted at his face. “Because of you, I ran away from my own house, Alan. Because you sent those terrible people to live there.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. Hannah told me you’d run off.”
“Like you care what happens to me,” I shoved him again.
Alan acted all injured. “What the hell, Mandy Cross? If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t be checking in on you. I mean, just coming around at all means facing Hannah’s wrath big time. Trust me, that woman does not like to be bugged.”
I criss-crossed my arms like my mother always did. “Why should that bat care if you and I are friends?”
“Hannah doesn’t approve of ‘petty attractions’; that’s what she called it, anyway. She thinks vampires should only hook up if there’s some kind of political gain - not just to fool around or some shit.”
He rolled his eyes. I giggled.
“So…she doesn’t want you to come around ‘cause she thinks we’re gonna, like…do it?”
“Something like that.”
I felt this total rush go through my whole body. Alan did like me. Weird as it sounds, that was all that mattered.
“Well,” I said, all shy, “I don’t give a rip about what Hannah thinks…”
I stepped closer to Alan, swinging my hips all sexy and ready to make my move when another voice came at me from behind.
“Then l
isten to what I think for a minute.”
Damn. Sometimes being a vampire was like, no help at all. I totally never heard anybody coming up the walk. Couldn’t tell for sure if Alan had.
I was annoyed just to see Jackson’s smug, superior face. “What do you want?”
“I want you to come home,” he told me.
“You made it pretty clear that you didn’t want me there.”
Then Alan jumped him. “Besides, dude, I’m taking her back to her real home. I appreciate you looking out for n’ all her but…”
“Shut your fucking face, you piece of shit.”
Like - whoa! Where the heck did all that hostility come from? I knew Jackson wasn’t totally into the whole vampire scene. But, he was just flat-out being a d-i-c-k to Alan.
“What’s your problem, man?” Alan asked, taking a big step backwards.
Jackson didn’t bother to give Alan a response. Instead, he just grabbed me by the wrist, like he owned me or something, and started dragging me down the sidewalk.
I yelled the whole way like some kid being pulled out of a candy store without a lollipop. “Stop it, you jerk! Let me go! Knock it the freak off, Jackson!”
I turned to find Alan but he had already gone. That dude always bails whenever things start to get real. I was going to have to talk to him about that.
Since Alan was obviously not going to offer any assistance, I took matters into my own hands and raked my French-manicured nails down Jackson’s arm. Streaks of red popped up but he didn’t even wince. Finally, he did stop walking though.
“What’s your problem?” he practically growled in my face. “I’m trying to help you, dumbass.”
“Oh, I’m the dumbass? What the freak are you doing dragging me off when YOU’RE the one who kicked me out of your house in the first place?”
“I didn’t kick you out, you freaking drama queen.” Jackson let go of me, then, threw his arms up like he’d surrendered or something. “Pardon the fuck out of me if I don’t like you, Mandy. Face it - you talk and act like a total fucking airhead and all you care about is hooking up with guys…but…that doesn’t mean I want to see you get in with Alan. That guy is nothing but trouble.”