Bored To Death: A Vampire Thriller

by Linehan, Amanda

  Finally, they came and got him.

  I sat there for a little while by myself thinking about what The Three had said about the agreement between life and death.

  In order for me to live and to be immortal, I had to feed on someone else’s life.

  It was the only way to keep the balance.

  I sat there for a long time and finally I got up and rejoined Matt in our room.

  “How was dinner?” he asked, when I walked in, smiling at me.

  “A little unsatisfying if I’m honest, but it’ll do the job.”

  Matt grabbed me and kissed me, and I wondered if he could still taste the man’s blood in my mouth.

  There was a knock on the door and before either of us was able to say “come in,” Kace poked his head in and Lola was right behind him.

  “We found an exit,” he said.

  * * *

  The four of us walked along the stone corridor, trying hard to seem natural, like we might just be out exploring.

  Kace led the way, and I was excited about what he and Lola had found. It took a while for us to get there.

  We took a few turns along the way, and I was impressed that they had been able to find the exit and find their way back. Personally, I was a little nervous about getting stuck forever somewhere.

  “You know, it took me a little while to acclimate, but I actually feel really comfortable down here,” Lola said. “Maybe a side effect of locating.”

  I nodded my head at her and thought she was probably right. Gifts had an unexpected way of showing themselves useful in certain environments, but you had to be there to figure it out.

  This was now the second mistake Ivy had made, and it was a costly one.

  Finally, we turned down a right-hand side tunnel and fifty feet later it dead ended.

  “Now,” Kace said, arms wide out to his sides, “why would we have a tunnel that just dead ends, with seemingly no other purpose?”

  “Because there’s an exit here?” I said, playing along.

  Kace winked and pointed a finger at me. Then he pointed at Matt and beckoned him forward.

  “Stand right here,” he instructed him, and Matt did as he was told. “Now, reach your arms out.”

  Matt did so, and only the tips of his fingers rested against the walls.

  “Now push,” Kace said.

  Matt pushed out from both hands and was barely able to depress both stones where his fingertips were, but he pushed them enough.

  There was a satisfying click, and then overhead and in front of Matt several feet an opening appeared in the ceiling and a set of wooden stairs descended.

  The space up ahead was completely dark, but it didn’t appear to go into the main level of the house.

  “Good for you guys,” I said, impressed, “How did you—”

  Kace didn’t let me finish.

  “Honestly, we just started pushing stones. Looking for anything that was out of the ordinary. Finally we found this one.”

  Kace pointed to the wall where Matt’s right hand had pushed.

  “And nothing happened. We couldn’t figure out what to do with it, or if it even operated anything. Or if it was broken.”

  “Finally,” Lola said, “we found this one, and we were able to depress them both because, well there were two of us. But we’re thinking Mr. Greene was a big guy. Bigger than Matt even and was able to depress both of them easily at the same time.”

  “And look at this,” Kace said, clearly proud of himself. “We think Mr. Greene liked playing with his food before eating.”

  I stood by Kace and Matt stood close to me so he could see as well. Kace pointed up at the ceiling and at first I didn’t see anything.

  Then I noticed maybe seven small holes, lined up in succession across the ceiling of the tunnel and maybe a pole or a spike or something that could be lowered inside.

  “He would trap people in here,” I said, coming to the realization.

  “Looks like it,” Kace said.

  “Did they come down while you guys were in here? How were you able to get out?” I asked.

  “They never came down,” Lola said. “Thankfully. We were already in here when we noticed them. In fact, we had already found the staircase.”

  “So I guess they don’t work anymore?” Matt said, inserting his fingers into the holes to feel the interior.

  “Right. Broken, disabled, whatever, but I think we’re getting a clear picture of what Mr. Greene did down here.”

  “And why he’d want to keep it hidden,” I said.

  It was an unwritten vampire rule not to antagonize or torture humans before you fed on them. As bloodthirsty as we were, you would think we would be lawless, but the truth was, vampire culture was quite conservative as far as violence went. And there were guidelines—although they couldn’t be enforced—for doing all kinds of things. Treatment of humans was chief among them.

  “Are there any other dead ends?” Matt asked. “I bet they would all have exits.”

  “We were thinking the same thing,” said Kace. “But we haven’t found any others.”

  “The corridor where Ivy’s room is dead ends,” I said. “Just past it.”

  “I bet you the exit is inside the room,” Kace said, and I immediately agreed.

  “Have you guys been up there?” I said, pointing at the open ceiling in front of us.

  “Actually, no. We ran to get you guys as soon as we found it. Ready to go up?” Kace said.

  I gestured yes and then took right to the wooden ladder, placing my feet carefully in case the steps were weak or broken.

  When my head broke the threshold of the opening, my eyes took a few seconds to adjust. When they did I realized I was in a crawl space.

  I couldn’t stand up completely, and if Theodore Greene was as big as we thought he was, this would have been a pretty tight space for him.

  There was nothing here, save for dust and dead spiders, and it was about eight feet by eight feet. Just a place to hang out while you waited for your food.

  “What’s up there?” Kace called up.

  “Nothing,” I said, and then I heard him on the ladder.

  Kace’s head appeared from the opening in the floor.

  “Dusty,” he said, crinkling his nose before climbing all the way into the space.

  I had sat down near one of the walls to give myself a break from hunching over and to give Kace some room to climb in.

  He sat down as well, next to me, and examined the space for a moment.

  “Do you see anything that might lead somewhere else?” he asked, and I began to look around as well.

  “Not really,” I said, and then we both went still and quiet as we heard voices and footsteps above us.

  Kace put his finger to his lips (not that he needed to) and we both listened for a moment.

  The main floor of the house was obviously right above us, but what room it was and when it would be empty was unclear.

  He shifted over to a corner where the voices were the strongest and felt his way along the ceiling.

  The exit had to be upward, I thought, and clearly Kace was thinking the same thing. But as much as he probed, he didn’t seem to be able to find anything.

  “What’s going on, guys?” Matt called up, and I had the immediate desire to shush him in case the people upstairs heard us.

  I made my way over to the opening and looked down at both Matt and Lola.

  “Why don’t you guys come up?” I said. “There’s not much here, but we’re looking for ways out of the space.

  “No thanks,” Matt said without a second’s hesitation.

  “What’s up?” I said, smiling down.

  “I don’t like enclosed spaces,” he said, smiling, but I could feel his discomfort.

  That made me think that Theodore probably didn’t mind them, especially if he went to sleep periodically. He would have been plenty familiar with tight, enclosed spaces.

  I looked over at Lola then, who shook her head.


  “No thanks. Looks a little dirty up there,” she said.

  “You’re right on both counts,” I said to them, and then I had a thought.

  I turned around to tell Kace who must have already had the same thought because he called my name.

  “Found it,” he said.

  As I turned around back away from the opening, I saw Kace along the far wall, holding open a small doorway.

  As far as I could tell, it opened into a small tunnel, and my theory about Theodore Greene being comfortable with very small spaces was confirmed.

  “I bet there’s an entire system up here as well,” Kace said. “The maze above the maze.”

  “I’m guessing he would disorient his food—or whoever—down here,” I said, pointing to the level beneath us where Matt and Lola still stood, “and chase them around—finally pouncing on them—from up here—”

  “Which means there are more crawl spaces,” Kace continued.

  “And I bet you anything, one of them is right above the main quarters—Ivy’s room,” I finished.

  “And one of them—at least one—has an exit to the main floor of the house.”

  At that moment, an image of me climbing stairs with Lucas, the first time I came into this house, popped into my mind.

  “I think I know which room into the main house this might exit.”

  6

  We didn’t explore the second level of the maze any further, figuring we wouldn’t press our luck running into Ivy and giving him the knowledge that we were figuring this place out.

  And anyway, we knew he was occupied for a few hours every night.

  I wouldn’t be able to do the exploring. The other three would have to figure it out on their own, but if we could figure out which crawl space was right above Ivy’s room and if I was right about where it led in the main house, we’d be in a great position.

  Position to do what, I still wasn’t sure.

  After leaving Ivy’s every morning, while Matt was still out with the others exploring, I thought about my desire and how it could possibly fit with what was happening and what we were doing.

  And it still didn’t make any sense.

  I was supposed to stop Ivy, but I was also supposed to follow my desire. How those two things were related was beyond me.

  Every morning, I came to the same conclusion.

  I had to keep going. Just one step at a time. And at some point it would hit me.

  I hoped.

  At least Ivy didn’t seem to be making any progress with whatever his task was.

  It was the same thing every night. Me sitting and reading, and him, sitting near me resting his head on his chin and looking confused.

  I think he was starting to become a bit unwound.

  I hoped he’d stay wrapped until we figured this all out.

  * * *

  “We can’t quite find where you are,” Kace said.

  “Yeah,” Lola said, “we can hear your voices, but you’re farther away. Not underneath us, like we thought. We’re kind of stuck, honestly.”

  “Well, maybe to open the next passage, you have to do something only Theodore could do, right? Like pushing those stones. It would make sense, if you’re getting close to the main quarters,” I said.

  “You might be right. But with just me and Lola—”

  Kace stopped and looked at Matt, who looked down at the floor and then back up at me quickly.

  “I can’t go up there,” he said, pleading with his eyes. “I tried going up into the first room and it was bad enough. They say the crawl spaces—and the tunnels—just get smaller.”

  “So you haven’t been with them?” I asked. “What have you been doing?”

  “Searching the ground floor,” Matt said.

  There was real fear in his eyes and I knew that going up into the crawl spaces was going to cause him real discomfort, but it was our only lead at this point.

  “Matt,” I said, as gently as I could, “I think you need to go with them. Theodore obviously put some things into place that only he could do, and you’re the only one of us who can replicate those things.”

  His forehead looked moist and he was now permanently looking at the floor.

  “The tunnels are tight—but you’ll be fine,” Kace said. “But the real problem will be the space right near Ivy’s room. Lola and I can barely fit in it together, so you’ll have to go in by yourself.”

  Matt wiped a hand across his forehead and looked like he’d rather be asked to cut one of his hands off.

  “I might not make it there,” he said and I knew he was being honest. “I’m afraid I’m going to pass out.”

  I didn’t really have anything to say to this. No comfort or words of wisdom. This was our next step, but Matt had to be willing.

  “It’s up to you, but I’m not sure what else we can do at this point,” I said.

  He nodded his head a couple of times and clasped his hands together in his lap.

  “Alright, I’ll give it a try,” he said, but his eyes revealed only dread.

  * * *

  I hoped everything was going okay.

  I sat in Ivy’s, reading, like usual, and he sat, doing the mental equivalent of trying to shove a square peg into a round hole.

  I was nervous.

  Not for me (well, sort of for me), but for Matt.

  We needed to have access to the space above Ivy’s room, but it would mean getting Matt all the way there and then having him figure out on his own how to proceed to the space right above us. If we were even correct.

  But we had to be.

  Kace was right. Vampires didn’t box themselves in if they could help it. And Ivy had already displayed his paranoia, even if he tried to hide it.

  All the muscles in my body were tense and I had to read each line of the book at least three times to move on. It was do or die.

  About an hour in, Ivy and I still hadn’t spoken to one another and probably had another couple of hours to go like this, when a very faint noise came to my attention.

  Ivy didn’t move and didn’t seem to hear it.

  It was a scraping sound, not unlike any ordinary noise that an old house might make, but it could also be a large body moving through tight spaces.

  A bump.

  That got Ivy’s attention and it let me know that I wasn’t just hearing things.

  Ivy looked up briefly, but it wasn’t enough to get him to move.

  Another bump.

  Ivy turned his head at that one, and, keeping my eyes on my book, I could see in my peripheral vision that he was looking toward the bottom right-hand corner of the room we were in.

  He stared at the corner for several seconds, though not making a move to get up, and finally turned his attention back to me.

  I swallowed and felt like the whole house could hear it.

  A sudden image flooded my mind of Matt figuring out what to do to get out of the space and a chute opening up or something, sending him straight into this room.

  We hadn’t thought that far ahead.

  A dragging sound. Another bump.

  The good news was that Matt was definitely close by.

  The bad news was that Ivy was getting out of his chair.

  I trained my eyes on my book, wanting to look like I hadn’t heard anything, but followed Ivy around as best I could. I assumed he didn’t want to give away his passage to me.

  Hands in pockets, he paced the back of the room, looking up at the ceiling and trying his best to seem as if he was just getting a little exercise.

  Hopefully Matt would stay silent.

  I braced myself for another bump or dragging noise, but nothing came, and after thirty seconds, I began breathing normally again.

  Ivy seemed satisfied as he sat back down and resumed his position.

  My mind raced as I made my body look as natural as possible.

  * * *

  “I passed out,” Matt said. “As soon as I got into the crawl space.”

  “How long
were you out?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Matt said, running a hand through his hair. “Not long. But when I came to, it didn’t take me very long to figure out how to proceed forward. This time, I had to use both feet and hands.”

  “So you were able to get right above us?” I asked.

  “No,” Matt said, “I didn’t want to risk him hearing me. Or, I don’t know, falling into his room. I wasn’t sure what exactly was going to happen when I depressed the levers. And, anyway, I had made enough noise as it was trying to get into the space to begin with. This guy must have loved tight spaces. Weird.”

  “Yeah,” I said, “we could hear you. Ivy even got up and walked to—where I can only guess—is the opening into the second level.”

  “Really?” Matt said, looking worried. “Sorry guys.”

  “No, no,” I said. “I think he was curious, but I’m not certain he knew for sure someone was up there. Probably doesn’t think anyone could figure it out, honestly. But it got his attention.”

  “Maybe next time, Lola and I can go in together now that we know where the levers are, and I can get up into the house. Cause a distraction. Maybe Ivy has to come get me. Who knows,” Kace said.

  I shrugged my shoulders as if to say “sure, not a bad idea,” though I still wasn’t sure where to go after that.

  “He sure was paranoid,” Lola said. “You wouldn’t think he would have so many safeguards on the second level. Doesn’t seem worth it.”

  “Unless it’s all just a game,” I said. The words spilling out of my mouth before I had a chance to think them over.

  “Yeah,” Matt said, “it’s almost like he was just—”

  “Bored?” I said, finishing Matt’s sentence.

  The room went oddly silent as the four of us thought this over.

  Lola and I were the oldest ones here at a paltry three hundred or so years old. Ivy said Theodore Greene was ancient.

  “How old do you think Greene is?” Lola asked, as if she was reading my mind.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Ten thousand years?”

  The room went silent again as all of us held on to the question that we didn’t want to ask one another.

  “You know,” Matt began, “did you ever think that maybe Ivy is just—”

  He never got to finish.

  The door to the room burst open and there stood Ivy, his hair out of place, shirt untucked and with a look in his eye that suggested undoing.