by Molly Snow
There was no response and no movement.
“You say she’s a zombie or something?” Damien asked.
“Yeah,” Caleb said. He seemed more confident now, taking out his iPhone and snapping pictures, the flash going off in the dark, every couple seconds. “The slime is what splattered everywhere when Gordon drop-kicked her.”
Damien slowly stepped across the wood floor to the bedside, his shoe making belching noises against the goo.
“Are you going to look at her?” Caleb whispered like he hoped it were true. He came right up behind Damien with his phone ready.
“Sure,” Damien said. He was nervous, but curiosity overrode the feeling. His fingers pinched at the quilt, where he expected Mrs. Partridge’s face to be covered. Caleb was already flashing pictures, like a bunch of lightning strikes in the darkness. The lump suddenly twitched, and Damien dropped the quilt, flinching back a step.
“Hello?” Damien said again. There was no response and no movement this time. “Stay back,” he told Caleb. He was going to have another look. This time he would rip the covers off the thing in one sweeping movement. He reached over, grabbing a fist-full of the quilt, and—woosh—tore it off.
Up sprang a pale face with a flash of white teeth. “Wait,” it said, “don’t hurt me.”
If it weren’t for the desperate plea, Damien would have clocked it in the face. He watched the thing wrap its head with the covers like a shawl, protecting itself. Caleb fell back against a dresser, knocking off a vase of roses.
“What are you? Who are you?” Damien asked, not completely sure of what he should do. His fist was ready to still take him down for the count.
“It’s a vampire,” Caleb shrieked, furiously snapping photo after photo.
It covered its face from the flashing lights. “I’m not a vampire,” he said. “I’m Seth Partridge, Erma’s grandson.”
“What are you doing?” Damien asked, still unsure of the situation. His heart was beating wildly against his chest, and he could feel an adrenaline rush pushing him to fight.
“Nothing, nothing. I have a medical condition that makes me hypersensitive to light.” He shrank further under the covers. “Please don’t hurt me. I’ve lived here for eighteen years while my grandmother cared for me. I’ve only left this room twice in my life: Once when I was four, and again at fifteen. She had to wrap me up in bandages so that only my eyes were visible to the sun. Mine’s been a dejected existence.”
“You’re, uh, grandmother. Tell us about her. My friends say she attacked them in the night.”
Now Seth was completely bundled up, so all they could see was a shivering outline of a body in a fetal position. There was silence for what felt like too long. Then Seth said, “I don’t know what happened. There was a big commotion in the night. I heard screaming and yelling. Then there was silence. I waited here for hours before I went to go check on things. Without a spot of sunlight showing itself yet, I knew I was safe. I went down the hall, and to my horror, found Grandmother dead.”
“My friends say your grandmother was a zombie.”
It was silent again before Seth said, “Grandmother was very old, but she was no zombie.”
Caleb said, “Explain the slime all over the floor!”
“The slime? It’s Jell-o, and by now it has lost its form, making a gooey mess. Grandmother was carrying a bowl of Jell-o for me as a midnight snack. Please leave me be to die.”
Damien eyed the shocked PAA member who was shaking his head in disbelief. Caleb said, “It was her guts! She was a zombie!”
Confused, Damien looked back over to the balled up form on the bed. It shook some more and whimpered. He turned back to Caleb and said, “What did you do? What did you guys do? There’s no such thing as zombies.”
*
“You guys have taken this whole paranormal thing too far.” Damien chastised the group out front of the bed and breakfast. “The lady’s grandson is in there right now crying his eyes out in her bedroom. She was not a zombie.”
Stella couldn’t believe it. She shrank like a child at his commanding voice, sat back on Kit’s hood and dropped her head into her hands. Her mind flipped through last night’s memories: The old woman in the hall, the lamp smashing into her, Maggie falling onto her bony frame, Gordon drop-kicking her, and green chunks flying everywhere. Could her over-active imagination have just connected everything so, so wrong? Did they kill an innocent woman?
Maggie said with defiance, “Damien, I saw her empty skull, and so did Stella. She had no brains.”
“Did you really see that?” he asked Stella, skeptical.
Stella shook her head in her hands. She couldn’t really be sure, could she? No, she couldn’t. It was dark. Maggie was hysterical. It all went so fast. She looked up to Maggie, feeling heat across her face. “You compulsive freaking liar! What have you done? What have we all done? There’s no such thing as paranormal monsters. Every single monster is made up. It’s just some people are stupid enough to actually believe in it all. Even to the point of murdering an innocent life!” She rubbed her eyes in frustration, feeling her heart beat up in her throat. “To think I actually fell for it. To think I believed for even a moment that zombies were real.” She looked each of her PAA members in the eyes, one at a time. “It’s all fake, you fools. It’s a load of crap. C-R-A-P. Crap!”
Gordon shifted his eyes away in meekness, wiping his nose. “Bigfoot is crap,” she said sternly to him, then looked at Caleb. “Zombies are crap.” Then to Damien. “And werewolves, too! To think you got suckered into this PAA mess, too, is ridiculous. We’re fools. Fools!”
Kit went to affectionately rub Stella’s upper arm, but Stella snapped back, “You are a fool, too, Kit. For believing it with me. For believing Mrs. Partridge was a monster. We were supposed to be the non-believers.” Stella sucked in a breath and added, “We all need to do something about this situation. We need to confess.”
Damien cut in, “I need to go head out of town. Something came up, and it can’t wait.”
Even though Stella knew he had absolutely nothing to do with what happened last night, that made her angry. The way he wanted to just flee the situation like that… “Then just go then, Damien. I’m sure you have other pressing matters, like getting back to your regular friends.”
“Hey,” Damien said. “I have to meet my father. If you, or anyone else here has a problem with it, then oh well. I have to go.” With those words said, he hopped into his jeep, turned on the ignition and tore out of the parking lot with the blare of his rock music.
“Fine!” Stella yelled.
Everyone silently avoided looking at each other for a while. Stella could hear Maggie blubbering on the porch steps. Soon a station wagon, which wasn’t Mrs. Partridge’s, pulled into the lot, startling everyone. Maggie stopped her crying right away and said, “Act cool, guys. Act cool.”
A portly man exited the driver’s side, followed by a woman of equal size with a bouffant hairdo. She said, “Oh, doesn’t this just look so charming, Ted? This will be perfect.” She clapped and squealed. Ted nodded and tipped an imaginary hat to Stella and the others still gathered out front.
Maggie stood up straight and introduced herself to them, before they could ascend the steps. “Good afternoon. My name is Maggie Partridge, granddaughter to the Mrs. Partridge, who is off on sick leave. How do you do? How do you do?” She shook their hands with ease. “You two looking for a place to stay?”
“Yes,” the man said.
“Oh, look at this porch,” the woman cooed some more.
Maggie put her arms out to her sides, as if to gently tell them to stop in their tracks. “I’m afraid there is no vacancy tonight.”
“No vacancy?” the woman repeated, disappointed. “Well, by golly. Where are we going to stay tonight?”
Maggie offered, “There’s a Comfort Inn about thirty miles north of here. I hear it too comes with a continental breakfast. Some of the best donuts around, and coffee too! Did I say we do
n’t have Cable, because we don’t. Nope, not even a swimming pool. We’re just your ordinary old home.” She picked at some peeling pink paint on a porch beam. “Termites and all. See that?” She flicked the piece away and laughed.
“Oh, that’s okay. We don’t need all that. We went on vacation to get away from those things. The Comfort Inn just won’t be the same,” she retorted. “Don’t you have one room left? What is your asking price? We’ll offer double whatever it is.”
“Double whatever it is?” Maggie repeated, as if that would make a difference. Stella pulled her sunglasses back over her hair like a headband and shot her a warning look. The rest of the group made frantic, private gestures as well. “I’m afraid double won’t be enough. Perhaps triple?”
Stella cut in before things would get anymore out of hand. “Triple won’t even be enough. I’m afraid there just isn’t any room. I’m sorry.”
“Who are you?” Ted asked Stella.
Maggie answered with an arm quickly around Stella’s back. “This is… my sister, Stella Partridge. She’s a pretty one, she is. Anyway, she’s right; not even double the amount will do. So sorry, and better luck somewhere else.”
Another car suddenly pulled into the lot behind them. Ted turned to eye them and grunted, but his wife continued to coo. “Oh, that will be fine! Won’t it, honey? We’ll pay quadruple. What will that be then? Four hundred for tonight?” She then said quieter to her husband, “That terrible rock slide is going to hole everyone up in this town. We better take this.”
“Rock slide?” Stella repeated.
“Well, yes,” the woman said, and Ted added gruffly, “You aren’t going to raise the price on us again, are you? Four hundred should be more than enough, otherwise we might as well just sleep in our car tonight. We aren’t going any higher. As it is, it’s already highway robbery. Four hundred, take it or leave it.”
People stepped out of the black sedan behind them. “Got vacancy?” they asked with a hopeful tone.
Maggie stepped back inside the house and motioned for Stella and the others to have a quick meeting. “It will just be a moment,” she said to the husband and wife, before shutting the door.
Gordon flicked the formal room’s lights on beside the foyer, and they each argued about whether or not they should let the couple stay. Maggie argued, “All we have to do is clean up the mess on the floors and cook them breakfast. They don’t have to know a thing. You heard Damien—the young man in the master bedroom keeps to himself.”
“We do not need the money,” Kit said. “This is crazy. Tell them to go away while we figure all this stuff out, for Pete’s sake.”
Others interjected their disapproval before Maggie advised, “It would be good to have the money just in case. We have to stay out here until all this is resolved. Plus, I am all for having a couple more warm bodies staying the night with us. I don’t know about you, but I am still scared out of my wits, whether or not Mrs. Partridge was a zombie. I would rather not have us stay here alone as a bunch of bumbling teenagers. Besides, you heard them—it’s just for one night!”
“How do we keep this all a secret?” Gordon asked.
“Don’t say anything, genius! We all just keep our mouths shut. Deal?”
Stella had to admit, Maggie made some good points. Now that Damien drove off with nothing left but a cloud of dust, she felt extremely vulnerable. This was a very scary situation. “They said there’s a rock slide, right?”
“Yes,” Maggie said.
“Ding Dong!” the doorbell rang. Stella moved the lace curtains to peek outside. The man and woman were now on the porch, expecting to be let in. Behind them, in the lot, were now several other hopefuls parking and getting out. “It’s them,” she said.
The next moment, Maggie whipped open the door and plastered the most cheesy smile on her face. “Good news! We’ve made room!”
EIGHTEEN
Another half-hour passed before Damien’s jeep reached the men with orange flags. They motioned for him to turn around and go back the other way. He had a clear view of the piles of stony rocks that littered the two-way road, telling him there was no way he could meet his estranged father; not tonight anyway. This was just perfect.
There was an answer on the first ring. “Uncle…? Hi, no I’m actually stuck…”
When Damien finally got turned around, he drove slowly while passing the bed and breakfast, not intending to stop. A couple drops of rain against his windshield told him he better close the jeep’s roof, and the sky was getting darker as clouds gathered together.
Static took over his radio station, and he flipped the channel until it cleared. Of all the songs it would land on, it just happened to be a Deathheads’ ballad. He was about to angrily change it, placing his fingertips on the knob, but decided to leave it there. It had been quite a while since he listened to one of their songs, and he had to admit to himself he still liked it. In fact, it was a bit nostalgic. He pulled into the next turn-out of the road, switched the engine off and kept the music playing.
“It’s a long road,” he sang along with passion, “till you make it to the eeeend. When you find yourself there, you don’t have to preteeeend. Whoa oh ohhhh.” His index fingers rattled against his steering wheel to the drum solo that followed. “You don’t have to preteeeend!”
When the song ended with the last warbling guitar chord, the DJ came on. “You’re listening to Wild 101.3, where we play all classic rock all the time. The Deathheads reunion tour is kicked off, and to celebrate these gods of rock, we’re playing all their songs from their greatest hits album back-to-back, all night long. That’s right, it’s a Deathheads’ marathon all night loooong.
“And stay tuned, because Rock will be in our studio at eleven-thirty. That’s right; Rock will be talking with us live in our studio at eleven-thirty, answering your questions.”
Damien leaned his seat all the way back and put his hands behind his neck. Rather than fight it, he’d let himself enjoy the band whose symbol was now mysteriously tattooed onto his back, the band that Stella made clear was her favorite of all-time. And soon he was drifting away into dreamland.
~~~~
Damien blinked and lifted off the headrest. The lead singer, Rick the Rock, of The Deathheads sat beside him in the passenger seat. “Rise and shine, bud,” the man said, hair big and wild, wearing a leather vest with matching black eyeliner.
Surprised, Damien flinched back against his door. In doing so, he saw the two other members of the band sitting in his back seat. “What’s going on? Am I still dreaming?”
“Something like that,” Rock said. “It’s been a long time since you’ve listened to our music. Why is that, bud?”
“Um.” Damien rubbed his forehead, and couldn’t believe how real it all felt. “I changed, I guess, and got interested in other things.”
“Other things?” Rock had a mischievous twinkle to his eye, like he knew. “Like surfing and girls. And I can’t forget video games, right? And girls…”
Damien nodded, but stopped himself. “I still like the surfing and my X-Box, but I’m done with girls for a while.”
There was a cynical smile in return. “Girls ain’t the problem. Take it from me, a bona fide rock star, that when you think you are done with girls, it really means you are done playing with the wrong girls.” He patted Damien’s shoulder. “That Stella girl is a huge fan of us.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Smart girl, that one.”
Damien shook his head. “Yeah, well, it’s not like I can be with her, or anyone for that matter… until I can solve my problem.” He knew his dream-mates would automatically know his predicament. It felt good mentioning it to someone else, even if they were all just in his head.
“You’re looking at it all the wrong way, bud. What you think is a curse is pretty rad, if I do say so myself.” The guys in the backseat nodded their heads in agreement and offered their affirmatives. Damien couldn’t take it seriously, though. They had no idea wha
t it felt like to be a werewolf.
Rock went on. “And about all that nonsense on changing and growing up—I remember when you were just a child, dancing all crazy in your undies, pretending you were one of us. Those were the days, weren’t they?”
Damien chuckled at that. “Ma liked you guys a lot.”
“Well so did you. We were sorta like super heroes to you, weren’t we? You even had our dolls.”
Damien cocked an eyebrow.
“Excuse me, I meant action figures. You even played with our action figures. Yes, those were the days.” Rock smiled and suddenly that nostalgic feeling that came over Damien while listening to the marathon swept through him again. “In your heart,” Rock poked Damien’s chest, “you are still a Deathheads’ fan. You can try and forget, try to pretend, but there ain’t nothing you can do about it. The music is imprinted in your heart.”
It felt true, all of it. The music was in his heart, for sure, just like as a child. This dream had to be the best he’d had in a long time. For once, he was proud of the tattoo on his back. The next moment, the Deathheads transformed into werewolves, each one of them, still wearing their leather. They laughed and laughed in joy before howling in harmony and fading away.…
~~~~
“Buzzzzz.” The cell in Damien’s pocket vibrated. “Buzzzzz.” It went off again. He wiped his eyes and felt for the thing through his sleepiness, surprised that it was already dark out. What a weird dream that was.
“Hello?” Damien answered groggily. It was his Uncle Leo again. “What? He says he’s coming down here to meet me…? He says he’ll be here as soon as possible? Did he say why he couldn’t wait…? No? And he knows where I am…? Okay, but the rockslide I told you about is still there.” He looked at the row of red brake lights as far as his eyes could see. “Maybe it will be cleared by then, I don’t know… Thanks, Uncle. I guess I’ll stay put.”
The news actually made Damien feel better. He wouldn’t have to wait any longer to meet up with his dad, because his dad would come to him. But when he caught sight through his rain-splattered windshield, of the moon hovering above the hillside, panic struck.
NINETEEN