Fatal Bargain (8 page)

The other laugh was deep and mucky as oil wells.

Both were evil.

On both their heads, the hair shivered. Kevin’s hair shifted position as if fingers were going through it, as if the laugh possessed hands to examine his scalp. Mardee’s hair blew around as if some tiny private tornado had settled in it.

Kevin was terrified.

It made him furious. Terror was for girls. What was with this panic seizing him?

He wanted to wet his lips but could not bring himself to open his mouth. Something would fly into his mouth if he parted his lips. From behind the protection of his own palm he whispered to Mardee, “Let’s go sit in the Land Rover.”

Roxanne had six floorboards lifted.

It was like war, fighting the nails, but the way Lacey was riling up the vampire, he was going to quit the original option of choice and just hurl himself on somebody’s throat. Roxanne wanted to be gone.

Needing more leverage, Roxanne stood up.

Ignoring the stares of the others, she yanked on the boards, taking immense pride in her strength.

The nails screamed as they were ripped out. Or was it the vampire screaming?

Roxanne could not spare the time to look up.

She had the misfortune to be looking down, therefore, when she finished opening up the floor. She had found the vampire’s sleeping place.

His coffin.

She fainted, falling directly into the rotting nest she had exposed.

T
HE VAMPIRE WAS GONE
.

It was so strange. The fetid atmosphere of the tower was simply air. The overwhelming slimy horror of the place had vanished. The murmuring of the past, those victims whose souls lay under the mansion, ceased.

Lacey walked in a slow circle around the tower room. She touched the walls.

It was just a house.

Plaster.

Glass.

Wood.

Nothing more.

“
He left
,” whispered Sherree. She stood up from her crouch and dusted herself off, as if she had been sitting on the sand at the beach and was ready to go in the water now. Immediately Sherree began worrying again what she looked like, and whether her hair still looked good, and if she needed to reapply her lip gloss, and if she’d wrecked her clothes from the dust and ickies that floated around this horrible place. She wanted a mirror so she could do a proper inspection of her face. Sherree dug deep into her pocketbook, searching for her mirror.

Bobby came out of his trance. When he was still pinned in the air, he had been forced to stare into the ruined lives of the humans the vampire had taken over the decades. The horror of their destruction had turned his mind to ice. His screams had tightened in his throat and turned solid, and his heart seemed to thud in a vacuum, keeping him alive, but giving him no warmth, no pulse.

When he had come down, he was a blank.

It was truly like being half dead. Bobby had been able to investigate himself: He had seen that his flesh continued to function in its earthly way, taking in the air it needed, circulating the blood it required. And yet he was not all there. His mind — his soul — his very self — whatever those things were composed of: They hung suspended.

He had thoughts, but they were distant. His thoughts seemed to have traveled out of state. Or out of body. His thoughts floated around him without meaning anything to him.

Bobby, the consummate athlete, had never before had no grip on himself. No possession of his abilities.

But now the vampire was gone. Bobby looked around, confused and disoriented, but was himself again. He felt his personality come back, as if it lay in puddles around the room, and was now tilting, sliding, coming back into the jar of his mind. I’m me again, he thought. The vampire didn’t take me after all. He just showed me what he can do.

Zachary’s body had not slowed like Bobby’s. While Bobby had seemed to enter a mental hibernation, Zach had entered a horrible trembling, a constant vibration. Even when he could not see his muscles quiver, even when he could not observe his joints shivering, he could feel his corpuscles and cells shuddering. His complete interior, everything under his skin, was shaken by the fall. Shaken by being caught. Shaken by the taste and flavor and stench and feel of the vampire’s cloak.

That cloak that had draped itself over his body. Truly it had been the lining from thousands of coffins. It was not moss, yet it was wet and green and growing. Every centimeter of his skin had recoiled in horror at its touch.

The vampire himself had never touched Zach.

He had been caught and picked up and removed to the tower by the cloak. Zach had not even been able to feel the vampire’s arms supporting him, although they must have. What strength could a cloak have?

But now the vampire was gone.

The vampire’s departure was so complete that Zach’s body knew it right down into the depths of his gut, and he ceased to shake from his fall.

The vampire was gone.

Zach was afraid to look around. In his shuddering self-oriented existence, had he missed the “event”? Had the vampire taken a victim while Zach was busy trembling? Was Zach going to count heads and find there were now only five teenagers in the tower? Who would the sixth be? Which of this group was missing now? Missing forever? Missing into that unspeakable horror that had scraped Zach’s skin? Peeled Zach’s fingers from the window and yet caught him at the bottom?

And where? Where would that sixth one be right now? Swallowed in that cloak? Feeling the jaws of —

Zach wrenched his mind away, and counted.

He saw Bobby. He saw Lacey. He saw Randy. He saw Sherree. For one long, hideous, ghastly moment, he could not see Roxanne. And then his eyes lit on her: half fallen right through the floor.

Zach’s body heaved itself in one last final shudder, more of a convulsion, really, and he stumbled forward to try to get Roxanne out of whatever pit she had slid into.

Their fingers met, and Roxanne’s were surprisingly warm and calm.

Roxanne was rather proud of herself. She was actually lying in the dreadful cavity of the vampire’s hibernation, and yet she was no longer afraid. For several fine moments she congratulated herself on her courage; awarded herself prizes for being the bravest on earth. Then she realized that the vampire had disappeared. Her own bravery — or lack of it — had nothing to do with the situation. There was no longer anything to be afraid of. The vampire had left.

But where? thought Roxanne. Where does he go when he’s not here? He can’t get into this nest. I’m in it. And if he were here, visible or invisible, I would know.

So where is he?

“He’s gone!” repeated Sherree cheerfully. Sherree did a little dance. She tapped both toes and heels in a happy pattern on the wooden floor of the tower. She rocked a little, swayed a little, giggled a little. “Let’s get a move on, guys! Time to roll. Time to close the curtain on this little show.” Sherree headed for the door.

But Lacey frowned. She preferred to have an understanding of events. “What could have made him leave?” said Lacey. She was suspicious. What was going on here?

“Roxanne invaded his nest,” said Zach. “I think he had to flee.”

Zach, Bobby, Randy, and Lacey stared down into the ghastly little coffinlike space between the floors.

Sherree stomped her feet. “What is with you idiots?” she shouted. “Stop worrying about the vampire’s housing situation!”

Lacey and Roxanne giggled in spite of themselves.

Sherree said, “Come on, you guys. The night is still young. We can party some place intelligent instead of this dump.”

Roxanne said, “You know, Sherree, I’m starting to like you.” Lacey, Roxanne, and Sherree giggled together, not quite sure what was funny, but finding themselves together in some girlish emotion.

Roxanne started to get out.

“Stop!” shouted Randy. He actually pushed her back in.

“What am I supposed to do?” Roxanne shouted right back. “Set up housekeeping? Of course I’m getting out of here. Help me.” She stuck out one hand to Randy and Zach took the other.

“Listen to me!” said Randy fiercely. “Zach is right. The vampire left because you invaded his nest. And that means,” said Randy, “he’ll come back the minute you’re out of it.”

Roxanne shook Randy’s hand free. Then feeling stronger still, she shook Zach’s off, also. She was very pleased with herself, getting out of the opening with help from nobody. I’m tough, she thought. I’m strong. I’m proud. “You are such a loser, Randy,” she said.

Lacey tested the open doorway.

There was nothing in the door space but air.

The vampire no longer possessed the door. Nothing at all possessed the door. It was just a door.

“We can leave,” she said briefly. “Come on, everybody. There’s no time to waste.”

Sherree giggled again, and danced her way over the floor. “Wow, Randy, I mean — like — you told us this would be a night to remember. How did you do it? Did you hire an actor or something?” The vampire had been gone only minutes, and yet he was sliding from Sherree’s mind. Already she wondered if this was some weird combination of hologram and costume. Sherree caught Randy’s rejected hand and swung it happily. Randy had indeed given them a night to remember. In Sherree’s mind, Randy had gained points.

Roxanne discovered that she had physical proof of the vampire’s existence. The vampire’s leavings clung to her skin. It was as if she’d coated herself with suntan lotion: Vampire oil was all over her flesh.

While Lacey, ever cautious, crept toward the tower opening, and Sherree danced, and Randy worried, and Zach and Bobby gathered momentum and courage, Roxanne was forced to look down at her very own body, which had lain in a vampire’s nest.

Roxanne came very close to throwing up.

When she got home, Roxanne thought, she would take a shower several hours long. She would use Clorox and Ajax instead of Ivory soap. By the time she was done, it would be daylight and she would dry herself in the yellow sun, soaking up safety and light. She would revel in those precious hours in which vampires could not function.

And if they ever did build that new mall here, on this very site, she, Roxanne, would never shop in it. Because who knew? Who knew where else a vampire could dig in? Who knew what cracks in new buildings his stinking spirit might find?

“Hurry up,” said Lacey. Her voice was taut with urgency.

Roxanne moved to the center of the group. Let Sherree and Randy go first. Let the vampire grab their ankles and yank on their hair. Roxanne hung on to Lacey’s waist.

The group was going too slowly for Roxanne. She began herding her friends along, as if she were a sheepdog. “Go on, go on,” she said, practically nipping them. “We don’t have all night!”

Randy and Sherree reached the small landing at the top of the stairs.

Sherree took the first step down.

Nothing happened.

She took a second step.

Roxanne could almost hear six separate hearts whacking chest walls, pumping furiously. Her own heart was going insane with the need to move, to run, to race, to get out of here while there was time! “What are you waiting for?” shouted Roxanne. “Get going!”

Nobody was in the tower now. Three of them were on the stairs, three were crowded onto the little landing.

Don’t look back! thought Bobby. Whatever I saw when I was pinned in the air, it’s back there! I must not look back. I must not look down. I just have to get out! Out! Out!

Bobby caught the nearest hand. It was Lacey’s. He had never held anything so gratefully.

Bobby would have shoved the rest forward, used all his athlete’s strength and just pushed them all down the stairs, except what if somebody fell and broke a leg? They had enough problems as it was. “Hurry up,” Bobby whispered. “Get going. What is taking so long?”

He could not tell whether he was talking out loud or not.

Outside, he thought, all I want is to be outside.

Sherree, incredibly, began taunting the vanished vampire. “You did-n’t get us,” she called, singsong. “We’re go-ing ho-ome. Nan-ny nan-ny boo-boo.”

Why, Roxanne asked herself, were people like Sherree allowed on the planet? Enough of this, thought Roxanne. I have to get home and scrub off an entire layer of skin.

Roxanne shoved through the silly delaying pack and plunged forward.

Her brain turned into a mental map of the mansion. Nothing mattered but exits and speed.

First set of stairs, she thought. Turn right in upper hall. Go down second set of stairs. Turn at bottom. Enter abandoned dining room. Go through window. Reach porch. Run like the very —

But she could no longer run.

She could no longer move at all.

She had collided with the vampire.

Or his cloak.

It was not like running into a wet sheet hanging out to dry on a clothesline. It was more like sinking into the mud of low tide. The stench and vapor of the vampire hit Roxanne’s face, filling her open mouth and her nostrils as if she had fallen into pudding.

I refuse to let this happen! thought Roxanne. She shoved both hands forward, with all her might, to push him out of her escape route.

Her hands went right through his body.

“I’m not entirely here yet,” the vampire explained. “It’s because I need a meal. I’m becoming extremely hungry, you know. It’s all this time you are wasting. All this running around you’re forcing me to do.”

The vampire had begun walking up the stairs.

Bobby, Zach, Sherree, Randy, and Roxanne were forced to back up, also.

Roxanne, coughing and spitting, tried to wipe the vampire off her face.

Sherree was sobbing and beating on Randy with her fists. “Tell him to stop this!” she said. “He’s earned his money. Fire him, Randy!”

The vampire continued to sweep them up the stairs.

Sherree thinks it’s an act, thought Lacey. How astonishing. All this evidence and she still does not believe in vampires.

Lacey stood her ground. She hung on to the railing and dug her sneakers into the stair treads. “We are not going back in your tower,” she said. “It does not matter how hard you shove. We are not moving back up those stairs.”