Revenant (6 page)

At 10:30, I retire to bed. I don’t bother changing into my pajamas. I bring my iPod up with me and blast music to make sure I don’t accidentally fall asleep. I toss and turn in the sheets, fighting off dark thoughts. A few minutes pass, and my phone buzzes in my pocket. I take it out and see it’s a text from Dodger.

I’ve got your back tonight.

I reply with
and I’ve got yours
, but I really don’t want to think about the showdown looming large ahead of me. I try to calm myself, but I fail to find any soothing thoughts in the cascade of danger.

By chance, while idly scanning my room, my eyes fall upon a book on the floor. I get out of bed and shine my phone’s light on it. It’s
Alice in Wonderland.

It was my favorite book as a kid. My dad would read it to me chapter by chapter each night before I fell asleep. And when we finished, we’d start over again. We even had a little routine before we read. Something like:

“What do you think, Scout? Shall we start at the beginning this time?”

“Start at the beginning. And when we reach the end, stop.”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea to me.”

I turn on my bedroom light and curl up in bed with the book. It’s been years since I last had it read to me, and I suddenly miss those nights with my father. I read it myself, whispering the words. It’s a lot weirder than I remember. I guess that’s one of the perks about being a child. Nothing’s weird and everything’s wonderful. Also, as my father said, much better to be weird than boring.

I find my calm thoughts within the pages of the book. For a while, I’m a kid again. I’m too young to care about the world and not too old to be bored by it. I’d give anything to be like that for real again. The thought crosses my mind that if I was a vampire, I wouldn’t have to age anymore. I think about asking Dodger to turn me for perhaps a split second, and then I remember how she described it as a curse, and the desire burns away completely like a candle in the night.

*****

At 11:30, I sneak into my parents’ bedroom. They’re both downstairs watching TV, so I’m able to head down into the basement undetected. I grab my bow and a quiver of arrows and slip out their bedroom window.

The air outside is cold well past the point of crisp. My face immediately starts to go numb from the cold and I have to shake my hands regularly to keep the feeling in them. A half-moon and city lights guide my way to the auto graveyard, located near my neighborhood. It’s blocked off by a chain link fence about ten feet high, but it’s nothing I can’t handle. In fact, I used to climb it regularly as a kid. My friends and I would have adventures here eight or nine years ago.

I make one final inventory check. I’ve got my bow, the quiver with a dozen arrows, my phone... but I realize too late that there was something missing. I had intended on bringing my dad’s lighter to light my arrows. It slipped my mind amid all the other thoughts that had raced through my head tonight. I curse at myself in my head, but they weren’t vital, I’ll make do without them.  

No sign of any of the vampires. I hesitate to call Dodger, just in case Alex or Meg is actually hiding nearby. Instead I text her. My fingers trembling as they type.

Hide behind school bus near front wall

Ten seconds later, I hear the sound of a phone go off. Dodger’s beaten me here, and as if she had read my mind, she had chosen the school bus as her hiding spot. Except she wasn’t behind it, so much as beneath it.

“It’s almost midnight,” she says in a hushed voice. “They’ll be here any minute now. Are you going to give me a signal or something if you need me?”

“Yes. You’ll know it when you see it,” I say. I take the bow and quiver and lay them down behind the bus, hopefully out of sight for Alex and Meg. My eyes have adjusted to the night as well as they can. I can see mice and other small animals darting around the graveyard. I see a crow alight on top of the school bus and caw at me. Another takes off and blots out the moon for a moment. The creatures of the night have come out to observe the confrontation.

Alex and Meg appear at the far side of the cemetery. They emerge from the dark as small moving patches of black clothes.

“Remember,” Dodger whispers to me. “You can’t kill Meg, or else I’m stuck as a vampire forever. Once you’ve got Alex down, we should have the advantage against Meg.”

“Got it.”

“What’s the signal again to attack?”

“Trust me. You’ll know it.” I keep my head pointed forwards, knowing if I turned to talk to Dodger directly I might give away the fact that she was here with me. Thirty seconds pass. I see Alex and Meg start running over, as if they had just now noticed me.

“Well look who showed up,” says Alex’s voice in my head.

It takes another ten seconds for them to close the distance. They stop about twenty feet away from me.

The imaginary Meg I’d pictured falling down a hill was about as far off as possible. She’s beautiful. A tall woman with long auburn hair that falls in waves over her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes are bright green flashes of light beneath long eyelashes. Her fingernails are long and painted over in a scarlet red that matches her lips. She’s dressed in a small grey overcoat and skirt. A golden necklace hangs around her neck.

“So, you’re Scout,” says Meg. Her voice is of the low, sultry tone of a forties starlet, only I know her to be much older.

“And you’re Meg.”

“The one and only, darling. Now, you wish to join our family?”

“Y-yes. Not that I have a choice, right? Something about a debt.”

“Ah, yes. Elizabeth’s debt. The bitch who ran away. You wouldn’t do that to us, would you, Scout? I have a feeling you and I could be
great
friends.”

“I don’t see why I would,” I say.

Meg looks me up and down, inspecting me. She takes a step towards me, but Alex puts his arm in front of her.

“She’s up to something,” he says. “She’s Elizabeth’s best friend, after all. I don’t like this.”

“Yes Alex, I am her best friend. And that’s exactly why I’m doing this. I don’t think I’ll mind much being a vampire, and she
really
didn’t want to go back to you guys. So we’re both happy, you know?”

“Oh besides,” says Meg, “I doubt a tiny thing like her could do much of anything to hurt us. Just to be safe, make her freeze in place.”

I allow myself to catch Alex’s glare. He whispers something I can’t hear, though based on what happens next I assume it was “I don’t think you want to move your legs at all, Scout.”

Meg walks up to me, stopping only when she’s half a foot away. She’s easily a foot taller than I am, and she has to bend her face down quite far to meet my gaze. “You’re pretty enough. The process will help brush off the imperfections. I do like your eyes. How about your neck?”

She pushes my hood away and pulls my left arm part way out of the sweatshirt’s sleeve, exposing my neck and shoulder. She kisses my neck lightly. I close my eyes, unable to move or resist her. The kiss gradually turns into a bite. Playful at first, and then a full on vampire bite. Her teeth clamp down full force and blood starts flowing from the wound immediately. She relishes it, lapping up my blood and sucking on the wound. I steal a glance at Dodger. Her face contorted in terror. I mouth the word “wait.”

   Suddenly, Meg starts coughing and spitting out my blood. She falls back, dazed.

“What- what did you do?” She screams.

“Nothing. What’s wrong?”

She keeps coughing. The ground becomes a macabre Pollock painting, splattered with blood. I can’t tell if it’s mine or hers. “Garlic! She’s eaten garlic!” Meg spits.

“Oooh... Yeah. My mother makes the best linguine. forgot to mention that.”

Alex breaks the hypnosis on me and runs over to Meg, trying to help her up. I dash over to my bow and quiver, deftly strapping the quiver around my back with one hand while readying the bow with the other.

“She’s armed!” says Meg. “Kill her!”

Alex comes running at me. His eyes burn red and his fangs seem to elongate. I let an arrow fly at him but he swats it away.

He lunges at me. I leap to the side and roll, drawing a new arrow. He has no time to react, and it strikes him in the chest just above his heart. It slows him down, but he snaps the shaft in half and keeps coming for me. My hand reaches down to my flashlight and I wait for him to get closer.

“That all you got?” I taunt.

Alex labors forward. His eyes keep trying to meet mine, and I keep darting my gaze away. Alex creeps forward until he’s no less than five feet away from me. I sense him about to go for the kill and my hand, purely by reflex, shines the light on him. He stumbles backward, howling in pain, and loses his footing. He’s on his back now. I rush over to him and stab his body with the sharpened ends of my bow over and over. His chest erupts in a geyser of blood that flecks my face with red.

Dodger takes the moment as her sign. I hear her run out from beneath the bus and start fighting with Meg. I take one last look at Alex to make sure he’s dead. His skin looks like stone now. White and cracked and cold to the touch.

I take that as a yes.

I turn around and see Meg and Dodger rolling around on the ground grappling with each other. They’re tangled up so badly I can’t tell who’s who. One of them tries to bite the other and gets slapped across the cheek. I draw an arrow back in my bow and walk towards them slowly.

They separate. I see Meg and Dodger break out of the grapple and rise to their feet. Meg’s positioned Dodger so that she’s sandwiched between Meg and the side of the bus. No room to run.

I let loose an arrow at Meg’s side, but she’s moving too fast and it  misses. I’m not sure if Meg even noticed the shot. Her eyes bore down on Dodger, who looks terribly small now compared to her. Meg runs forward and tries to grab Dodger’s throat. She catches Meg’s arm and twists it back the wrong direction. Meg reaches her free hand over and plunges her nails into Dodger’s neck. Dodger slinks down, trying with all her strength not to fall on her back.

Another shot. This arrow flies true and lodges itself in Meg’s spine. She lets out a shriek and whirls around to face me. Dodger takes the moment to tackle her and smashes her elbow into Meg’s head. It horrifies me to see Dodger fight like this. It’s even worse than when she killed my own murderer the other day. She looks subhuman, more killer than girl.

I run over with an arrow at the ready. I keep at aimed at Meg’s head, careful to avoid her heart.

Meg squirms out of Dodger’s attack and I let the arrow fly.

Meg catches it.

My heart sinks. I just gave her the perfect weapon to use against Dodger. She rises to her feet, grabs Dodger by the hair and pulls her so that she blocks Meg’s chest from me. She holds the tip of my arrow to Dodger’s heart.

“Looks like we’re at a stalemate,” she says.

“Let her go! Let her go or I shoot,” I say. It sounds like a threat, but the words are empty.

For a moment, I can see Meg honestly mull it over. But then she gasps, and my heart sinks even further as it becomes clear just what epiphany has struck her. “But you won’t. Of course you wouldn’t...
you’re
not trying to kill me...”

I fumble for a good response, but she’s right. I can’t kill her. It has to be Dodger.

“Ooooh. Looks like you’re out of luck, Scout. I win.”

“You kill her, I shoot. You haven’t won anything.”

“Why would I kill her? I’m going to take her with me. She and I, we’re going to be a family again. Just like the old days. And you. Can’t. Stop. Me.”

“No...”

Dodger struggles against Meg, who puts a stop to it by pressing the arrow against her a little tighter. Meg starts to back away, keeping Dodger at her chest. I follow for a few steps waiting for a chance to shoot. Dodger wrests her arm free of Meg’s grasp and slams her elbow into Meg’s nose. She tries to make a break for safety but Meg recovers from the blow. She grabs Dodger by the neck and readies the arrow.

“On the other hand, I might just kill you anyway,” Meg warns her.

“We’ve been over this. This means you die too.”

Meg bites her lip, looking unsure for the first time all night. It’s at this pause when I realize Dodger’s hands are still free.

“Dodger!” I call out.

“Yeah?”

“Catch!” I fire an arrow right at her heart, and hope beyond all hope she’s got enough focus to catch it.

Her hand moves too fast for me to even see. She was right, it looked as if her body had taken control of itself for a moment as she snatches the arrow six inches in front of her chest and without slowing her motion, stabs Meg in the shoulder before the bitch can react. Meg shrieks, Dodger escapes. I try to draw another arrow, but Meg throws her bloodied one at me. It spirals like a football right at my head. I duck under it, and it whistles three inches high. I hop to my feet, ready to loose another arrow at her, but Meg’s run off into the night before I can.

I run over to Dodger and hug her. With Meg gone, my adrenaline runs out and I’m left a sobbing mess in her arms. In my mind, I keep seeing myself kill Alex. I can see every speck of blood on him, but what’s worse is I remember grinning as I stabbed his heart. The image in my mind is not of a necessary kill. It’s of someone who took pleasure in killing another.