by Kailin Gow
“It must be really hard, having to move here, Briony. I heard that this is where your family went missing. That must be so hard.”
Briony managed to mumble something that sounded vaguely like a response.
“I mean, if my family went missing, I would be completely broken up. You must be really strong to be coping so well.”
“My Aunt Sophie has been great,” Briony managed. She could feel sadness rising in her, and anger with it. If someone like Claire had made comments like this, Briony might have accepted it as just rather thoughtless. From Pepper though, it was obvious that everything Briony was struggling not to feel was exactly what she wanted.
“Your aunt? Oh yes…” Pepper smirked. “She lives on the edge of the woods, doesn’t she? People say she’s completely weird, though obviously I don’t believe that. She’s probably perfectly nice, isn’t she, Briony?”
“Pepper,” Tracey began, but the other girl ignored her.
“What? I’m just saying that Briony must be bored. I certainly couldn’t live like that. Out away from people, forced to live with an… eccentric relative because there’s no one else to take me in. I wouldn’t want that. I mean, are you really telling me that you don’t find Mrs. Edge a bit creepy?”
Briony felt that she did quite well at that point. She did not, for example, lose her temper. She certainly didn’t shout at or hit Pepper. After all, she was just a rather stupid little bully, and Briony had seen that there were far worse things in the world. Instead, she stood and headed from the lunch hall without a word, waiting until she reached the corridor before she leant back against the wall, squeezing her eyes shut while taking deep breaths to calm herself.
“Don’t let Pepper get to you.” Briony opened her eyes to see Claire standing there. “She’s just being mean because you’re prettier than she is.”
Briony hadn’t expected the other girl to say anything like that. “Um… thanks.”
“Tracey and me are going to the football game later!” and normal service was resumed. “Ross and Bill will be playing! It’s going to be great!”
“I’m sure it will be,” Briony replied, though she didn’t normally watch much football. She would probably be back at home, reading through textbooks. Or maybe persuading her great aunt to teach her one or two ways to deal with vampires.
“So would you like to come?”
“What?” Briony asked, shaken from thoughts of extra staking practice.
“To the football game. Would you like to come? You can sit with me and Tracey, and Pepper will be too busy cheering to be mean. It’ll be fun!”
Claire grabbed hold of her while she said it, practically dancing up and down. Saying no, Briony suspected, wasn’t optional. At least, it would have been rather like kicking a puppy. Besides, if yesterday she had been complaining that no one liked her, she couldn’t very well complain now that someone did.
“Sure,” she said, “I’d love to go.”
Chapter 5
The football stadium was a little way from the school, not far from the woods. By the time Briony got there, practically everyone else in town had arrived, at least to judge by the number of cars in the parking lot. Aunt Sophie had let Briony borrow the car for the occasion, and Briony was excited enough at the prospect of the big occasion that she hardly thought about the kind of impression she would make showing up in a vehicle that seemed to be mostly held together by the rust.
She found a spot to park in, wedged between an SUV and a pick-up truck, then made her way inside. For what was just a high school football game, there were a lot of people there. Then again, there probably wasn’t quite as much to do in a small town like this, and in any case, Briony remembered either Ross or Bill saying that the team had been doing well. People tended to show up when you were winning.
“Briony! Up here!”
Briony hardly had to look to know that it was Claire doing the shouting. She was up in the bleachers, with Tracey beside her. They were both wearing the team’s colors, which turned out to be a kind of horrible lilac and green combination, and for a moment Briony felt out of place, given that she had forgotten to even ask what they were. Still, Claire and Tracey scooted over to make room for her.
“That’s an… interesting uniform the team have,” Briony ventured.
Claire laughed. “It’s horrible, isn’t it?”
“It was a plan from one of the coaches,” Tracey explained. “Apparently, he thought that if the team looked stupid, they’d have to play that much harder to make up for it.”
Briony’s brow crinkled. “You know what worries me? That actually makes sense.”
Tracey shook her head. “Sense? It’s football. It doesn’t have to make sense.”
She returned her attention to the field, where Bill, Ross and the others were huddled around, receiving final team instructions. Pepper and the other cheerleaders were off to one side, trying to work the crowd up into a frenzy while the visiting high school’s cheerleaders did the same with the other bleachers.
Eventually, the game got under way. It seemed to be a bit of a grudge match, because both teams plowed into each other with even more aggression than Briony might have expected. Even from the start though, it was obvious that Wicked’s team had the advantage. Offensively, they ran circles around the defensive line, stealing yards again and again. Defensively, there were so many sacks that Briony actually found herself feeling a little sorry for the opposing quarterback.
Normally, Briony wouldn’t have cared much about football. She had been a cheerleader at her old school, but that was about the occasion and the excitement more than the sport itself. Here though, she found herself getting caught up in the atmosphere, as well as by her new friends’ infectious enthusiasm for the game. Or at least, for those parts involving Bill and Ross.
Half-time came and went, with Pepper and the rest of her squad putting on the kind of acrobatic cheerleading display that left even Briony impressed. It seemed that the other girl had some talents beyond just being unpleasant. Tracey took the time to introduce Briony to a few of the people around her, a bewildering blur of faces and names that she did her best to keep track of, but knew she wouldn’t be able to remember an hour later.
Eventually, the home team won, to the fanatical jubilation of the crowd. Even Briony, who hadn’t been at the school long enough to really care whether it was winning or not, found herself caught up in the excitement of it all. Claire, who was practically jumping up and down by the end of the match, hugged her.
“We won!”
“We did,” Briony agreed.
Claire and Tracey led her down from the bleachers to congratulate Bill and Ross. Claire practically threw herself at Ross, kissing him deeply, while Tracey settled for something a little more restrained with Bill.
“Well done,” Briony said, and the boys nodded their thanks.
“There’s a victory party after this,” Bill said, “are you three coming along?”
Claire and Tracey declared that they were almost instantly. Briony shook her head. “I can’t. I have to get back home.”
Part of her had wanted to give a different answer, but Pepper was looking over, and Briony could see the irritation on her face at the sight of Briony with her friends. She could guess that the other girl would be at the party too, and Briony didn’t want to ruin the evening with another argument. Besides, Aunt Sophie would be expecting her back. Briony didn’t want to worry her great aunt by staying out without asking her, and if she did ask, Briony already had a pretty good idea of what Aunt Sophie would say.
So while the others were still talking about how they planned to celebrate the victory, Briony set off alone for the car park, seeking out the spot where she had left her great aunt’s car. It took a while. One of the minor rules of the universe is that no car, no matter how carefully parked and committed to memory, is ever quite where you thought you left it. As such, Briony had to spend a good ten minutes hunting around the rows of vehicles, probably looki
ng extremely lost in the process.
“Hi, it’s Briony, isn’t it?”
Briony whirled at the sudden voice. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. A young man her own age stood in front of her, wearing Wicked’s team colors over jeans with so many rips they barely counted as being there. Briony vaguely remembered him as one of the many people the other girls had introduced her to at some point in the evening.
“Hi,” Briony said. “It’s… Tom?”
“Tim. No one ever seems to get that right.”
“I’m sorry,” Briony said. “I met a lot of people tonight.”
“And now you’re looking for your car.” Tim took a step closer. “You’re in completely the wrong place, you know. It’s over there.”
He pointed, and just for a second, Briony followed the pointing finger. Then it occurred to her to ask how someone she had met for perhaps five seconds knew which car was hers, and where it was. She turned back towards him, just in time to watch as Tim opened his mouth to reveal fangs.
“Oh, why couldn’t you have made this easy for me?” he demanded. “A nice, pretty girl, on her own, who nobody would miss for a while. We could have had such fun. Well, I could, anyway. Now…” he leapt. At least he tried to, but at that point, Briony had the sense to pull the cross around her neck out from under her sweater, brandishing it at the vampire. She had never seen someone try to change direction in midair before, but the boy somehow managed it, edging away with his hand covering his eyes.
“That won’t protect you! Some stupid girl hiding behind her cross. What are you going to do? Stand there like that all night?”
“If I have to,” Briony said. She started looking around for her car again. She didn’t spot it, but that SUV a couple of rows over looked like the one she had parked beside.
“Oh, you’re going to try running for it,” Tim said. “How sweet.” He edged in a circle around Briony, careful not to get too close, but placing himself firmly between her and the car. “What are you going to do now?”
Briony waved the cross at him again. He flinched. “Why don’t you just get out of my way?” Briony suggested.
“What, like this?”
In an instant, the boy was gone among the cars. Briony knew better than to think that meant he had truly decided to leave her alone. She edged towards her great aunt’s car. Once she was inside it, she would be safe. Well, probably.
“I could be anywhere, couldn’t I?” The vampire’s words seemed to come from all around, bouncing off cars like a hollow echo. “I could be hiding under one of the cars, or waiting behind one. I could be right by your car, or I could be fifty yards away. You won’t know until it’s too late, Briony.”
“Oh, bite me,” Briony snapped back, and then realized that it probably wasn’t the best thing to say to a vampire. She kept her hand on the cross and scanned the area around her for movement.
“That’s the plan, pretty girl. Just come a little closer.”
Briony could hear the anticipation in the vampire’s voice. He was actually enjoying making her squirm like this. Briefly, Briony considered whether she should try making a break for the car. She even dug around in her pocket for the key, clicking on the key fob’s electronic opening system to unlock it. She suspected that she wouldn’t have time to mess around with keys once she got to the car.
“So why me?” Briony demanded, still walking. Maybe if she kept Tim talking, eventually some kind of help would arrive. Though what kind of help might actually be that helpful, when it came to vampires, was the real question. At least if he kept talking, Briony supposed she might get some sense of where Tim was hiding.
“Why not you?” the vampire countered. “You’ll make a nice enough snack. And an easy one too. Alone. Easy to pick off, and it’s not like anyone will care if the new girl disappears.”
That made Briony’s jaw clench. She clutched the cross tighter.
“Oh, angry, are we?” Tim taunted. “Like you could do anything. You can’t even spot me sneaking up right behind you.”
Briony spun, but she wasn’t quick enough. The vampire barreled into her, bearing her to the ground with him atop her, his fangs wide in anticipation of the blood to come. His hand balled in her hair, drawing her head back to expose the line of her throat. Briony couldn’t help screaming, but the sound travelled into the night in a way that suggested that there wouldn’t be anyone there to hear it, certainly not over all the excitement in the stadium.
She did the only thing she could think of. Putting the base of the cross to the vampire’s chest, and hoping that she could remember where the heart was, Briony pressed the secret catch to extend it.
There was a sharp snick from the cross, and the vampire pinning Briony gave a kind of gasp before rolling clear of her. Fire seemed to play across him in the dark, blue with a heat that wasn’t there as it consumed him. In just seconds, all that was left was a small pile of burnt cinders that no one could ever have recognized as human.
Briony stared at it for a full thirty seconds. Had she just… had she really… She scrambled to her feet, sprinting for her great aunt’s car. Diving inside, Briony locked the doors behind her, shoved the key into the ignition, and backed out of the parking lot so fast that she nearly ran over a couple of passing football fans. Right then, Briony didn’t care.
Chapter 6
Briony had always been very careful when she had been driving. She had listened carefully to the various warnings that went with it, and had tried to make sure she followed them. You shouldn’t drink and drive, they said, or drive when you were tired, or angry, or using your cell phone.
To that list, Briony suspected that they should add “don’t drive when you have just killed one of your classmates who have turned out to be a vampire.” Just because it probably wouldn’t come up that often, didn’t mean that it wasn’t important. At the moment, for example, she was bumping along the roads through the wood with an almost complete disregard for the speed limits, bouncing around in the car every time it hit a pothole and trying to remember the way back to Aunt Sophie’s house at the same time.
That wasn’t easy. It looked different in the dark, and Briony had to admit to herself that she hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention anyway. She was used to places with plenty of signposts, not to mention where there were enough street lights that you could see more than twenty feet in front of yourself at night.
Should she have turned right at that last fork in the road, or was it further on? Briony wasn’t sure. She was too busy replaying everything that had happened in the parking lot. The cat and mouse before the vampire had leapt. Being pinned to the ground. Placing the cross over his heart and pressing the hidden catch.
She had just killed one of her classmates. Oh.My.God. But if she hadn’t, she would’ve become his meal. Just the thought of that was enough to make Briony swerve slightly across the road. She tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t that easy when the thought of what she had done kept coming back. She had killed him, just like that. Yes, he would probably have killed her if she hadn’t, but that didn’t really make things much better.
Briony glanced down, and saw that she was doing almost twice the speed she should be. She braked, pulling the car back to a reasonable speed.
The first thing Briony felt was the car’s wheels jerking through another pothole. It lost traction on the road as it did so, and Briony panicked, trying to slam on the brakes. She knew she had done the wrong thing when the wheels locked, and the car kept going, off towards the trees.
The crash wasn’t a bad one. Had she still been travelling as fast as she’d been going before, for example, it could have been a lot worse. As it was, the car skidded, bumping into a large elm hard enough to bring things to a jolting stop. The world flashed white for a few seconds as the air bag opened then deflated.
Briony sat very still for a second, wide-eyed. She couldn’t believe she had crashed…that she had crashed Aunt Sophie’s car, and that the air bag went off, but deflated. B
riony spent a few more seconds assessing her situation and making sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere, and then clambered out of the car to inspect the damage. The front was dented, obviously. As for the rest of it, Briony didn’t really know enough about cars to judge whether she should try driving home with it as it was.
A howl cut through the darkness.
Briony scrambled for her cell phone, hoping that she would at least be able to call her great aunt and get help soon. She didn’t want to be out in this forest a minute longer than she had to. That feeling intensified when more howls answered the first, and Briony heard the sound of footsteps in the trees beyond the car. The trouble was, a glance down confirmed that there wasn’t any reception for her phone so deep among the trees.
It was at that point that things got a lot worse. Briony wasn’t sure where the first wolf came from. It had to have come out of the trees while she was still looking down at her phone, because by the time she looked back up, it was already sitting in the road, staring at her. It was a large, brown-coated thing, with intelligent eyes.
Other wolves moved out of the forest to join it, padding out one by one until they sat almost a dozen strong around the car. Around Briony. She fumbled for the cross, taking it out and pressing the hidden catch so that its sharp blade extended. There was still blood on it from where she had stabbed the vampire.
“Who wants to be first?” Briony demanded. She had had enough of things wanting to eat her for one day. She let anger fill her up, nearly spilling over the fear as she stood waiting for one of the creatures to make a move. For a moment, at least, the sight of the silver blade seemed to give them pause.
A smaller wolf with pale fur leapt first. Briony’s old cheerleading training immediately kicked in, and she ducked, bringing the sharp point up like a lance so that it jabbed into the creature’s side. The thing’s teeth were only inches from her face, and Briony had to use one arm to keep its scrabbling claws from scratching her. She drove the knife in deeper, and it stilled.