by Bera, Ilia
The ears of both men rang. Eric’s eyes turned wide. His hand opened up and then he watched his gun drop to the floor. He slowly moved his hand towards the fresh hole in his shirt, just over his heart. His shirt began to soak through with blood.
Eric dropped to his knees.
Kane was a sharpshooter—an expert gunslinger. He only needed that quarter-second, when Eric looked down at the crossbow, to make his move.
Just as he had done to Eric’s brother-in-law, Kane had killed Eric. Eric fell to the ground, a lifeless corpse, face down on the floor of his own living room. The bullet from Kane’s pistol penetrated Eric’s heart—killing him instantly. Kane didn’t want to do it, but survival was on the line. He didn’t have another choice.
Kane put his pistol back into its holster and then he carefully walked over to Eric’s dead body. He couldn’t believe what he had done. He couldn’t believe what he had been overlooking for so long—
Brittany was the Vampire Killer.
Finally, Kane was able to see what had been right in front of him, all along.
Before leaving, Kane cleaned up his tracks. Using a cloth he kept in his pocket, he went to every single surface that he had touched. He carefully wiped everything down. He took a hand towel from the kitchen and wiped up his footprints, leaving no traces behind.
Within an hour, the snow had covered the rest of his tracks.
“The one thing we can never get enough of is love. And the one thing we never give enough is love.”
—HENRY MILLER
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
THE NIGHT IT ALL BEGAN
The coldest night in Snowbrooke’s history was much more than record-breaking temperatures. It was the night of Wallace’s big party, it was the night Derek was stabbed by Philip Riley, it was the night I became a writer, it was the night Megan, James and Wallace became vampires—It was the night everything changed.
Something else happened that night—something that would inevitably change the lives of everyone in Snowbrooke. That was the night that Kane Patrick became a vampire hunter.
As Wallace’s party was beginning, and his loud music was booming through the small blizzarding town, Kane and Tanner were hiding out, after their escape from the juvenile detention center. The night before, Kane had killed Kyle Riley with a portable defibrillator unit before sneaking out of the facility with Tanner.
When the morning broke, the guards discovered the boys’ empty cells. Tanner and Kane had already made their way across town, snuck into the local tow-yard, and rescued the old ’69 For Mustang Mach One. They took the car to an old warehouse across town, where they waited for the nasty snowstorm to clear before moving on to through the mountains.
By the evening, the young Tanner White’s face was all over the news, and police were out in numbers, patrolling the streets, looking for any sign of the escaped boy. The news didn’t mention Kane specifically, only saying that “another boy escaped as well”. Kyle’s murder had been put on Tanner.
As patrolling police made their way closer to the warehouse district of Snowbrooke, Kane and Tanner decided: “It’s now or never”. In the small town of Snowbrooke, staying hidden was a dead-man’s game. The moment the power went out, the boys decided to make their move. With the police side-tracked by sudden power outage, Kane and Tanner were confident they could make it out of Dodge, unnoticed. They got into the old Mustang and took off down the icy highway.
It was a nervous decision, but it was a hopeful decision. For once in their lives, freedom was more than a fantasy—it was a possibility. For once, there were no cruel foster parents, abusive fathers, strict prison guards, or sociopathic delinquents to tell them what they could and couldn’t do. For once, they were able to make their own decisions—decisions they would live the rest of their lives with.
The decision was made—Kane and Tanner were headed for the country’s border. They wanted to go some place warm, some place vibrant and exciting. They wanted to move around, they didn’t want to be bound to any one place. They were ready to live their lives.
How naïve they were…
Before they could live their lives, they had to jump their first hurdle: They were out of gas. They had no food, no water, no map, no anything. To make matters difficult, they had no money. Fortunately for Tanner, he had years of practice getting the things he wanted without a nickel in his pockets.
About ten miles outside of Snowbrooke was a little gas station—the last gas station before a long, winding mountain drive. Conveniently, the little stop doubled as a convenience store, and was aptly called “Gas and Convenience”. The shop had gas, it had food, it had water, maps, money—it was the one-stop solution to all of their dilemmas.
The boys turned off of the icy roads and pulled to the small gas station, right next to the pump. The blinking ‘open’ sign was hardly visible through the thick wall of blizzarding snow. Kane got out of the car, covered his young face from the harsh wind, and began to fill the stolen car up with gas. Tanner hurried through the cold, inside to address the other issues on the list.
The gas bar was small, no more than four-hundred square feet. A small island in the middle, stocked with small bags of chips and nuts, provided the only cover from the attendant in the open space. There were three doors on the off-white wall adjacent to the clerk—an office door and two gender specific bathroom doors, one of which was out of order, as informed by a recycled piece of notebook paper and some masking tape. Next to the out-of-order bathroom door was a pile of old rusty plumbing and a red bucket full of old heavy tools.
The forty-something year old clerk sat behind a short counter, reading what appeared to be a biology textbook. He looked up at Tanner, over the reading glasses on the tip of his nose. “Hey there,” he said. His voice was deep but soft—hoarse but clear. He looked the young dark skinned boy up and down.
“Hi,” Tanner said as he walked over to the snacks.
The wind whistled against the thin store’s walls. The snowstorm was so bad, the gas pump was invisible from the shop.
“You aren’t heading through the mountains, are you?” he asked.
“Uh—No,” Tanner said. His eyes shifted quickly from the clerk, back to the snacks. He knew his face had been on the television all afternoon, and he wasn’t sure who had seen it—who would recognize him Being one of very few black people in Snowbrooke, laying low wasn’t a simple task.
Above the counter was a muted television, which was frozen on the local station’s “severe weather warning” notification. Snowbrooke’s electricity was still out, and that meant the broadcasting station was off-air.
“Did you just come through the pass?” the clerk asked, keeping his eyes glued to the fidgety boy.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. He grabbed a couple bags of chips.
The clerk tilted his head down towards his textbook, keeping his eyes above the pages to watch Tanner. “The power is out in town, just so you know. Hotels are probably all closed or full. You got a place to stay in town?” the clerk asked.
“Yeah,” Tanner said. He walked anxiously over to the counter with a couple of bags of chips. He placed them down and then picked a map out from a tall rack.
“A map? Can I help you find something?”
“No. My parents asked me to grab one.”
The clerk looked out the window. “Sure is a nasty one out there—can barely see a thing. The car out there—is that your parents?”
“Yeah,” Tanner said.
“They going to come in to pay?”
“No. I’ll pay,” Tanner said.
“Alright,” the clerk said. He looked back down at his textbook.
“How much?” Tanner asked.
“Meter’s still running. They aren’t done filling up. Just hang on for a minute.”
A minute may as well have been a lifetime. Tanner’s trembling palms became sweaty. He was used to stealing—this wasn’t the first gas station he’d knocked over. Between his exhaustion, his hunger and
the fact his face was on nearly every local television channel—this particular job had special circumstances.
“He done yet?” Tanner asked. The clock on the wall had barely ticked five times.
“Not yet, kid. Just hold on.”
Tanner looked around. “Do you have a bathroom?” he asked.
“Just over there. Here’s the key,” the clerk said, sliding Tanner a small key locked to a giant metal ladle. “Men’s is under renovation, so you’ll have to use the ladies. Hope that isn’t an problem.”
Tanner snatched the key and hurried over to the bathroom. On his way through the little shop, on the ceiling he noticed a black dome, nestled in the corner: a camera. As Tanner stared into its blinking red light, his face flushed and his heart stopped. He stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
Tears welled up in his eyes: He was going to get caught. He was going to spend the next five years in that horrible juvenile detention center, and then he was going to get the chair. The little remains of his life were crashing down around him.
He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, took a deep breath. As his eyelids peeled open, he noticed the uneven pattern on the dropped ceiling; the ceiling’s tiles continued past the wall of unpainted drywall behind the toilet.
“The office,” he muttered to himself. That must be where the recording tape is. If he could steal that tape, the police would have no idea where he went.
Tanner closed the toilet seat and stepped his light body up onto the back of the toilet. He reached up and carefully pushed one of the ceiling panels up and to the side, revealing three feet of space between the bathroom ceiling and the building’s roof. The bathroom wall cut off before the hidden space.
Tanner reached and pulled his body up into the narrow attic space. He crawled over the wall, towards the office, and gently pulled one of the foam panels out and placed it aside. Down below, he could see the office—a computer sat on a desk, next to a disorganized pile of paperwork. Against the walls were file cabinets, and in the corner was a television and a VCR—exactly what Tanner was looking for.
Carefully, Tanner lowered himself down onto one of the filing cabinets, into the office. He snuck over to the television. The screen was divided into four quarters, two of which were black. In one quarter, Tanner could see Kane standing by the Mustang, replacing the fuel nozzle into its holster. In another, he could see the inside of the convenience store, and the clerk reading at the counter.
He wasted no time—he pushed the eject button on the VCR and pulled the tape out. Then, he carefully tip-toed back over to his filing cabinet step. He climbed up and prepared to crawl back into the empty ceiling space.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FIVE
BACKFIRE
“Stop right there!”
Tanner froze before he could pull himself into the attic space. He’d been caught. Peeking over his shoulder, he could see the gas clerk standing with a shot gun—raised and armed.
Tanner became a deer in the headlights—a child in the sights of a shotgun.
“Get down,” the clerk demanded.
Tanner was too afraid to move. He’d been in a lot of trouble before, but he’d never looked down the barrel of a shotgun before.
“I said get down!” the clerk said again.
Tanner remained still. He was overwhelmed and absolutely petrified. His brain and his body had both shut off.
The clerk stepped into the room, holding his shotgun still and confident. “I’m going to count to three,” the clerk said. “One…”
No matter how badly he wanted to, Tanner simply couldn’t move. His head was spinning and his gut was turning.
“Two…”
Slam!
Before the clerk could reach the end of his count, a heavy pipe pinged against the side of the his head. The force of the blow was so powerful, it rippled through his whole body, breaking his cheekbone and dislocated his jaw. The blow reverberated through his brain, and knocked him completely unconscious.
The clerk fell to the floor, dropping his shotgun.
Kane stood over the clerk’s body, hands trembling as they held a long rusted pipe. He watched as blood began to trickle out from the clerk’s ear.
“Kane?” Tanner said, still frozen in place.
“Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here,” Kane said.
“Is—is he dead?” Tanner said.
“Get down from there and let’s go,” Kane said again.
Tanner stepped down from the filing cabinet and walked over to the clerk’s body. He held the security tape tightly in his hand.
“Come on,” Kane said again, getting louder as he grew increasingly impatient with the nervous young boy.
“He’s alive,” Tanner said. “He’s breathing.”
“I know, Tanner. Let’s go before he wakes up!”
“I don’t want to go back to juvy, Kane,” Tanner said.
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here!”
“They’ll know it was us.”
“You’ve got the tape. They don’t have any evidence.”
“Kane…” Tanner said, looking back down at the body. “He’s not dead.”
Kane opened his mouth to yell at the child again, when he realized what Tanner was saying.
“He—He’s not dead,” Tanner said again. “He didn’t see you, but he saw me. He stared me right in the eye.”
“Y—You aren’t suggesting…”
“I don’t want to go back to juvy, Kane. I don’t want to be put in that Chair.”
“You won’t get The Chair…”
“Bullshit! You know I will. He didn’t see you. The police aren’t even looking for you. Besides, if they find you, grand theft auto won’t even get you two months. You’re fine.”
“Petty theft won’t get you more than one month. Let’s just go.”
“They think I killed my mom, Kane! You saw the news—they think I killed Kyle, too,” Tanner said, looking back down at the motionless body of the gas clerk on the floor.
“But you didn’t kill your mom. You didn’t kill Kyle… You know that.”
“They don’t care what I know. They just care about what they want to care about! I’m fucked, Kane.”
“You’re not a murderer. Don’t become a murderer just to cover your tracks. We’ll get away—they won’t find us.”
“They might not find us—but they might. And if they do, it isn’t you they’ll care about, and you know it.”
Kane stared into the young boy’s eyes—the eyes of a boy who had been dragged through the mud over and over again. Even good men can be pushed too far. Tanner looked down at the shotgun on the floor. He leaned down and picked it up.
“Tanner…” Kane muttered.
“Go wait in the car.”
“Don’t do this. Please.”
“Go wait in the car.”
“Tanner…”
“Go wait in the car!” Tanner screamed, his eyes filling with tears.
Then, Kane made the most regrettable decision he’d ever made in his entire life: He left the young boy alone, with the shotgun and the gas clerk. It was the one moment that Tanner needed Kane the most—Kane let him down.
Kane covered his face as he walked out into the snowstorm. He got into the running car and he waited—and he waited, and he waited.
Each passing minute was an hour of agonizing torture. Every minute that passed was one more minute he could have intervened—but didn’t. Every minute was another lifelong regret.
A tormenting ten minutes passed.
Bang!
Tanner stepped out of the gas bar. He slowly walked towards the Mustang and stepped into the passenger seat. He had spattered blood on his face and hands. His eyes were completely dead. He didn’t mutter a single word as Kane pulled away from the scene of the crime. Tanner—a once innocent young man, was now a cold-blooded murderer.
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND SIX
RIDING OUT THE STORM
With every
passing minute, the roads became icier, more buried. Tanner and Kane were right outside of the mountain pass when the road became indistinguishable from the ditch, and the cliffside. The engine of the old Mustang was beginning to groan and overheat as it pushed its limits through the dense, unplowed snowy roads.
A dim orange light glowed through the opaque snowfall. Inching slowly down the highway, Kane watched the light draw closer and closer, until it was next to the car.
For the first time in nearly two hours, Tanner opened his mouth to speak: “Why are you stopping?” he asked as Kane brought the car to a stop.
Next to the Mustang was an opened gate and driveway, which pointed towards the orange glow.
“It’s a house,” Kane said. “They have power.”
“What? So?” Tanner replied.
“We can’t go any further. The car won’t make it—not in this weather.”
“Yes it will. Just try. Go.”
“It’s suicide.”
“It’s fine,” Tanner said.
“I’m not going any further. Not tonight.”
Without any more discussion, Kane cranked the wheel of the Mustang, turning into the snow buried driveway. The boys inched towards the glowing light. The light began to take the form of a beautiful country home. Warm orange lights glowed through the windows of the house—as well as a prominent porch light above the front door, which pointed towards the treacherous highway like a lighthouse on a stormy night.
Kane put the car into park.
“You aren’t serious, are you?” Tanner said.
“The car won’t go any further. We’ll freeze if we sleep in the car. So, unless you’ve got any better ideas…”
Tanner was silent—he had no better ideas, and Kane was in control—calling all of the shots.
“Clean yourself up,” Kane said, tossing Tanner an old rag. Tanner took the rag and started to wipe the speckles of blood from his hands and face.
The two boys stepped out of their car, braving the storm towards the modest country home. The cold wind burned their exposed flesh as they stopped at the doorstep, pressed the doorbell, and waited for the owner of the home to heed their call. A frigid blast of arctic wind nearly knocked both of the boys off of their feet.