Day: June 29, 2016

“Mom? Dad?”

This was strange. Usually she woke to the sounds of way-too-loud talking and sizzling bacon. Today, silence rose like a thick, dark cloud from the kitchen. And on top of that, all the lights were off, and all the windows were closed.

Something was wrong.

“Mooom? Daaad?”

Olli opened the door—already not a good sign—and peered into the empty, shadowy kitchen. Some light peeked in through the window. Olli went to open it, desperate for more. More light, more outside, more normal.

The window wouldn’t budge.

Something was really wrong.

“Mom!? Dad!?”

She heard a noise in the basement. What? What would they be doing down there, this early in the morning? Mom was afraid of the basement. Maybe they were looking through old belongings and morning was the only time she felt comfortable doing it? But, it was still pretty dark out.

“You’ll never catch me in that basement when it’s dark.”

Maybe that’s why Dad was down there, too?

She turned the knob. For some reason, her hand was shaking. Her whole being screamed, “Don’t go down there!” She tried to reason with herself. It was probably just her mom’s silly old stories messing with her already-terrified brain.

The need to see her parents safe and sound won out.

She opened the door. It creaked. Warm, humid air billowed out and shoved its way past her. Weird.

Another thump. Louder. As if something had been knocked over.

“Mom! Dad!”

She started down the steps. An almost-organic groan froze her solid. “Just the steps,” she told herself. “Just the steps.”

She touched down on the linoleum floor. The room smelled of death.

“Mom? Dad?” Her voice had grown unintentionally quiet and tentative.

Another groan. As she was standing still. It wasn’t the floor. And it wasn’t human.

“O Lord,” she squeaked inwardly. She decided it would be best to stop making so much noise… Not that anything was down there. Nothing could’ve gotten into this house while they were living there. It was just to make herself more comfortable. Because there hadn’t been any broken windows or busted-down doors, like in the news reports. She tiptoed about, desperately hoping to find her parents among the endless stacks of boxes, bags, and scattered miscellaneous items, yet knowing that she wouldn’t.

The hair on her arms and neck rose like needles stabbing into her skin. Her heart crashed against her ribcage. Adrenaline torrented through her muscles.

A large pile of toys shifted. “Waaaaahhhhh…” It sounded almost like creaking wood, but more animal-like.

“O GOD…”

“You’ll never catch me in that basement when it’s dark…”

“Waaaaahhhh…?”

Some kind of… brown, fleshy dome became visible.

“O Jesus…”

“WAAAAaaaahhhh…”

“…because the last time I did that…”

It moved.

“O my Lord…”

“…I think I saw what moves everything around down there.”

Dead, grey eyes peered at her.

“WAAAAAHHHHH…”

“O my God…”

It raised a long, thin arm. Its fingers were impossibly long, like a bat’s, tipped with short, hooked claws.

“O GOD help me!”

She turned and bolted up the steps. She could hear whatever that thing was shuffling after her with slow, lurching footsteps. She turned to look. It was clearly trying to move quickly, its movements sporadic and angry. But it was slow.

Mom was right. She’d seen it herself. The random misplaced objects. The basement door being open in the morning. Felt something looking at her when she slept, then waking with strange cuts on her arm. She’d convinced herself it was the cats. It dawned on her.

Vampire.

It was a monster. Not an angsty, human-like creature with superpowers. A monster. She’d heard of nosferatus before—feral beasts that live in caves, sewers, and sometimes the basements of human homes. At night they would scratch the arms of sleeping humans with their claws and lick up the blood with their tendril-like tongues. Or, if the human was awake, visciously mutilate them and suck the blood from the carcass, provided they could catch them. The way it looked made her think of that old silent movie, Nosferatu. Except, it was more horrifying, more appalling.

She barricaded the door behind her.

Vampire. Sunlight. She worked on the windows.

They still weren’t budging. The vampire started working on the door, slamming it hard.

Suddenly, something else dawned on her. She grabbed some garlic from the fridge and stuck it under the door. She heard a defeaningly high-pitched squeal, followed by a horrifyingly loud and viscious hiss, like a ferile cat on steroids. It actually worked.

Olli went back to the window. She tried punching it, slamming a frying pan against it—it wouldn’t give!

She desperately thought back to what those medieval writings said about killing vampires. There was garlic, sunlight, stakes… Wait. Where were her parents!? How could she have forgotten them!?

Olli tore upstairs to their bedroom, trying to open the door, but finding it locked. She threw herself against the door, kicked it—finally, she thought to pick the lock. But in order to do that, she would need a bobby pin, and those were downstairs. The banging on the basement door began again, louder, more furious.

“O GOD…,” she called, flying down the steps and flinging herself into the random little side-room they kept random stuff in.

CRASH. CRASH. BOOM!

Instinctively, she shut the door behind her and hid under the great big piles of ancient sweaters and winter coats. Ugh, what was she thinking? She should have brought some garlic with her. Its shuffling, lurching footsteps were somewhat quicker, now, about the speed of a human walking.

The cats. What were the cats doing? Were they hiding? What if they weren’t even in the house? What if her parents weren’t in the house? This thought sent a shockwave of electric panic surging through Olli’s muscles.

“My daughter’s in there!” Jessica roared, with shockingly masculine force.

“Ma’am, the area has already been partitioned—“

“Don’t talk to me like that. Like this is some kind of… professional situation. This is a human life—my daughter’s—a child’s… my baby’s… life…”

The policeman continued to act indifferently, though inside, his stomach twisted. He couldn’t stand seeing women cry. It was his weakness.

“Ma’am, I’m very sorry. I know your daughter is in danger. But until they arrive, there’s nothing we can do.”

Peter charged in like a raging bull, unflinchingly shoving past armed FBI agents, aiming their military-grade weapons at him and demanding he stop. “Nothing that you can do!? You have an assault rifle! AN AUTO. MATIC. ASSAULT RIFLE!”

“Sir…”

“Don’t you ‘sir’ me! If none of you pansies want to do it, give me that gun. I’ll do it myself.”

“Sir, these guns cannot—“

“THEN OPEN A WINDOW!”

“Unfortunately, while this would be the first measure in most cases like this, it would only make matters worse. The sky’s thickly overcasted, and wouldn’t completely kill the nosferatu. It would only make it angrier, and stronger.”

Peter stomped around in circles. Jessica wept and screamed on the ground.

“I can assure you, the CEU is hurrying as quickly as it can.”

“Hello, this is Andrew Sales reporting live from Marysville, Maryland. This morning at around 5:38 am, an unfortunate family’s home was forcibly evacuated by the FBI after definitive reports that the house was being inhabited by a nosferatu vampire. It has been alleged that the beast may have been living in the house since before the family moved in. Just minutes ago, I also received information that the family’s daughter, 14-year-old Olli Wordsworth, a freshman at Brookhaven High, was accidentally left behind during the evac, and is now trapped within the house. CEU units are still on the way, but are having trouble with traffic due to a wreck on I-81 and heavy amounts of vehicles on the road due to holiday travel. Fortunately, however, the husband and wife, and their three cats, have been safely relocated. This is Andrew Sales from INA-USA. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.”