Danny Trank had always been suicidal. Everyone in town knew about it, and they placed bets on how and when it would eventually happen. I never partook myself, but if I had, I would have won.
Danny hung himself three days ago. His mother found him swinging in the garage. People said you could hear her screams from across the neighborhood. I wouldn’t know. I was out of town when it happened, on a visit with my sorta-girlfriend, Phoebe, over in Clover Haven, about fifty miles south of Raven Bay.
When I got back, my best friend, Jay, told me all about it. What I didn’t know then was that Danny Trank’s death was going to have more of an impact on me than his life ever did. I always felt sorry for the guy, but he wasn’t my friend or anything, just another sad sack with a dark mind.
This whole evil and crazy situation kicked into motion the day after he died, the day I got back into town. It was the same day Isabel called to invite Jay and me to her nineteenth birthday party. Her parents were away on vacation in Fiji, so she had the house all to herself. I realize, now, if I’d declined her invitation, maybe none of this would have happened.
Jay and I pulled up in front of Isabel’s place in his black Ford Mustang. We finished our roach and hopped out of the car, high as kites. On our way across the front lawn, Jay wore a big shit-eating grin while he giggled like a schoolgirl.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I was just remembering something.”
“What?”
“That time you fell down my basement stairs because you were drunk as hell, screaming about how strict your father is.”
I chuckled and shook my head. “I barely remember that.”
“I bet,” Jay said and giggled some more. “You were so hammered.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s see how well you do tonight.”
He huffed.
We arrived at the door, and I knocked three times loudly. A techno beat thumped inside, and a few dozen voices chattered. I made sure my blue striped shirt didn’t have any wrinkles while Jay knocked a few more times.
Finally, the door swung open. There was Isabel in a short pink flowery dress, and she beamed at us with those glistening pearly whites. She looked fine as hell with her shoulder-length curls and those luscious green eyes, which glinted in the moonlight. I would’ve fucked her right then and there with everybody watching. I wouldn’t have given a fuck.
“Hey, thanks for coming, you guys,” she said as she waved us inside. “You’re just in time. The games are about to start.”
“Beer Pong, here I come,” Jay said as we stepped into the dimly lighted house.
Isabel shut the door behind us and bolted the lock.
The party was in full swing, and all the attendees were completely sloshed. A few kids snorted coke off a glass coffee table as we passed through the crowded living room and into the kitchen.
Isabel showed us to the kegs. “Hope you two are thirsty because you have a lot of catching up to do.” She snickered and danced out of the room toward the coffee table.
I recognized almost everyone there. Most were seniors, like Jay and me; Dario and Silvia were the only juniors. Everyone danced and drank, and everything seemed pretty standard for a party in Raven Bay. There was, however, one thing that struck me as peculiar: loud, intermittent bangs that emanated from the basement.
My Dad was a military man. He taught my brothers and me Morse code at an early age, so I recognized it instantly. I got on my knees and pressed my ear against the linoleum, so I could hear it better over the music.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Jay asked and took a swig of beer.
I shushed him and focused my attention on the bangs, which were more like clangs, now that I heard them better. The message was simple, and I translated it fast. Whoever was down there was saying: Help me, please.
I stood up and scanned the area. I spotted a door across the dining room with a sign that read: BASEMENT OFF LIMITS. I chugged my beer and set the empty cup on a counter next to a kitchen knife with a wooden handle.
“I’ll be right back,” I told Jay.
He probably thought I had to take a piss because he just nodded, sipped his drink, and bobbed his head to the music.
I made my way through the crowd over to the door. I checked around to make sure no one was watching, then I quickly slipped inside and gently closed it shut.
The wooden steps creaked as I descended into the darkness. The clangs had stopped, so I assumed whoever was down here had heard me coming.
I found a light switch and flicked it on. At the center of the cluttered room was a black metal cage. Inside, a person lay concealed in the shadows beneath its solid top. They clasped a wrench, which I assumed was what they had used to bang out the Morse code.
I inched toward the cage. A flashlight sat on a nearby shelf, so I grabbed it and turned it on. I shined it at the captive and gasped.
It was Danny Trank, alive and well. The scrawny, freckle-faced ginger had had the hell beaten out of him, but other than that, he seemed all right.
“You’re supposed to be dead,” I murmured.
“Thanks for the update,” he said and coughed.
“What are you doing down here?” I asked as I approached the cage with caution.
Danny chuckled agitatedly. “You know why. It was you and your friends that did this to me.”
“My friends?”
“Isabel and Dario and the others,” he grumbled as he picked at dry blood on his chin.
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Trank. All I heard was you hung yourself in your garage.”
Danny nodded. “I did. I tried to, anyway. This thing wouldn’t let me die, though.”
“What thing?” I asked as I moved the light over the bruises on his arms.
“The thing they infected me with,” he said. “If you’re not already one of them, you will be soon.”
I glanced back at the stairs to check if anyone had followed me down. The coast was clear, so I turned back to Danny and shined the light in his eyes, and he winced.
“If you don’t start making sense,” I said, “then I’m out of here.”
Danny stood up and leaned toward the bars with the wrench still in hand. “How’s this for making sense: Isabel and all her friends… they’re vampires.”
I squinted and laughed. “Vampires? What are you fucking nuts?”
Danny tilted his head to reveal two small puncture wounds on the side of his neck.
I shined the light on them. “Is that supposed to be where they bit you with their Dracula fangs?”
Danny nodded solemnly. “They infected me with a virus. It’s ancient. They tried to turn me into one of them, so I tried to kill myself and be rid of it, this… curse. Instead, I woke up here. Isabel told me everything, including how they stole my body from the morgue and replaced it with some young homeless guy they killed.”
“But if you were dead—”
“Ah, but I wasn’t. Not really. The virus wouldn’t let it happen. It has a will of its own or something. It made me appear dead until I was reunited with the others. See, it’s not exactly how they portray it in the movies. For instance, sunlight doesn’t kill them, and they say they’re not allergic to garlic either. I don’t know; maybe if you stab them in the heart, it might do the trick. I can’t say for sure.”
“What a crock of shit,” I said.
“Go upstairs and find out for yourself,” Danny said with a wicked grin. “Just do me a favor first and let me outa here.”
“Why, so you can bite me?” I snickered.
Danny shook his head. “No. I just want to get out of Raven Bay. There’s something different about me, something they didn’t expect. It didn’t work the way it was supposed to when they bit me. I didn’t grow fangs and crave blood. I’m not one of them, not fully. Isabel said I was immune before she clocked me in the head with this wrench.” He dropped it on the floor of the cage. “I don’t know why they’re holding me in here, but I suspect it’s because they’re going to kill me. I just want my freedom.”
I shrugged. “The way I see it, vampire or no, you don’t deserve to be locked in here calling for help.”
I grabbed a ball-peen hammer off a shelf and smashed the padlock. It was apparent to me this whole thing was some kind of prank. They weren’t vampires, and neither was Danny, I just didn’t have the heart to tell him.
“Good luck,” he said as he exited the cage and dipped out through the backdoor.
“Yeah, right,” I muttered as I headed back upstairs toward the thumps of an electric beat.
All I could think about was that I wanted to get drunk and try to fuck Isabel. So what if she was into kinky vampire shit? I was game. I never figured her for a freak, but then, I suppose everyone has secrets. Strange though, how Danny hung himself but didn’t die. Strange how he ended up here. Maybe Isabel was a little too freaky for my taste, but then again, there was only one way to find out.
I opened the door and stepped into the dining room when the music cut out. The house was empty, but something hissed above me, so I gazed up.
Isabel and the others were on the ceiling with their wet, naked bodies intertwined. They were engaged in some kind of orgy. Their sweat wreaked of sulfur, and it seemed to be what made their writhing bodies stick to the ceiling.
Jesus Christ, Danny was telling the truth!
I scanned around for Jay, but he was nowhere in sight. I dashed through the living room toward the front door. Droplets of sweat dripped on me as the people above moaned.
I reached the door and tried to unbolt the lock, but it wouldn’t budge. Someone had covered it with some kind of slime, which had hardened like glue.
Isabel leaped off the ceiling and landed at the center of the living room, ten feet away. It was a treat to see her naked, but her fangs and her ink-black eyes spoiled it a little.
“What’s the matter, Ed?” she asked in a croaky voice. “You look scared. Don’t you want to play with me?”
I backed away down the hall toward the kitchen as she crept toward me. My heart pounded in my chest, and my breath quickened.
“Where’s Jay?” I asked as I moved into the kitchen.
“He’s one of us, now,” she said and motioned to the floor by the refrigerator.
There he lay, unconscious with two small puncture wounds in his neck.
Isabel sneered. “Or, at least, he will be soon.” She cackled.
“You mean, once the virus turns him?”
Isabel nodded.
I indicated the basement door as I continued to back away slowly toward the kitchen counter. “I let Danny go.”
Isabel shrugged as she edged forward. “No bother. He thinks he’s immune to the virus, but really it just takes longer for some people. I forgot to mention that to him. He should be turning any minute now, by my calculations. Don’t worry, though, Ed; I’m willing to bet your transformation will be much quicker. And, once you’re like us, you and I will be able to be together in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine.”
I reached the counter, and my hand grazed the wooden handle of a knife.
“Don’t worry, baby,” Isabel said as she halted, “it’s only going to be extremely painful.” She opened her mouth wide. Her fangs stretched, and she lunged for me!
I gripped the handle tight and raised the knife in a flash. I plunged it deep into her heart. Isabel screamed and stumbled backward as she collapsed onto the floor in rapid convulsions.
The other vampires hissed vilely as they dropped off the ceiling and landed with thuds.
I opened a few drawers and grabbed another knife before they swarmed me. I stabbed as many as I could, but Dario tackled me to the ground. I sliced his face, and he screeched before he backhanded me across the jaw, and I thought a train had struck me. He lurched down to my neck, and his fangs pierced my skin. An acid-like substance swirled through my veins, and my whole body burned as though I were on fire from the inside out. I screamed as my vision turned kaleidoscopic, then everything went dark and silent.
“So?” Isabel asked me.
“So what?”
She giggled from the passenger seat of the Mustang. “How are you liking it?”
I grinned. “I’m not liking it; I’m loving it!”
Jay chuckled from the driver seat as we drove through the center of town in the daylight.
“Hey,” I said to Isabel, “sorry again for stabbing you last night.”
She glanced back at me with those luscious green eyes of hers. “I told you, it’s no big deal. I mean, it hurt, but I’m fine. We heal incredibly fast.”
“Man, I thought I’d killed you.”
She snickered. “We’re much harder to kill than that, Ed, I assure you.”
We pulled into the parking lot of an EZ Mart. The doors of the store flew open, and Danny Trank strode out with a red slushy. He wore sunglasses and his hood up to hide his face.
Jay opened his door, and Danny hopped into the backseat next to me.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said to Isabel, “where to?”
She lit a cigarette and puffed out smoke before she answered, “Time to go hunting.”
We all snickered as Jay peeled out of the parking lot and back onto the road. I tongued at my fangs as Isabel rolled down the windows. The scent of fresh blood was everywhere, and I was deadly thirsty.
—
K.N. George is a lifelong lover of the arts. He attended the Art Institute of Washington for animation but found his creative writing classes more rewarding. His passion for storytelling stems from his time as an award-winning actor during his youth.
