Thirst (15 page)

“But—uh—not like a date. Just as friends,” Andrew said, chickening out. Andrew’s hands were trembling with nerves as he thought of what to say next. He took a deep breath.

“No—Like a date. I’d like to go out on a date with you,” he said, finally manning-up. “So, um—call me back and let me know. I really like you, Brittany.”

Andrew hung up the phone.

“Holy shit,” Andrew said to himself, realizing what he had just done.

Every single second that followed that phone call lasted an entire lifetime as Andrew stared at his phone, waiting for a reply. Every single passing minute burned, worsening Andrew’s trembling nerves.

Unable to relax and unable to bare the crippling anxiety, Andrew stood up from his bed and retrieved his coat. He quickly put on his boots, and flipped his hood up onto his head. He needed to see Brittany,
face-to-face.

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

—OSCAR WILDE, LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

THE MOST EVIL OF MEMORIES

As Andrew began to walk down the snowy late night streets, he was unaware of the pair of eyes watching him from afar.

Kane sat in his rusty old black mustang, a block away from Andrew’s house. Keeping his headlights turned off, Kane fired up his engine and began to quietly follow his classmate from afar.

Kane liked Andrew. Never before had he had any moral dilemma killing a vampire—but he had never befriended one either. Andrew was a nice person—sympathetic and funny. Kane had never stopped to think that vampires were essentially humans—they still had emotions, personalities, and lives like anyone else.

But, if Andrew was the vampire responsible for killing over a dozen local townspeople, then he had to be stopped. No matter how funny, nice, or sympathetic he was, his life was not worth more than the lives of the more than a dozen killed.

Kane did not enjoy killing. He did not get any pleasure out of it—not as some twisted freaks did. But Kane could not bare the idea of innocent people being victimized.

Kane hated the victimization of the innocent because he was once the innocent one being victimized. He was the victim of a monster worse than any vampire.

Kane was just fifteen years old when it happened—a foolish, naïve child.

When Kane was put into juvy, he was still runty looking, fresh faced kid—not a wrinkle or a facial hair on his innocent looking face. The other kids in the youth correction facility on the other hand, were anything but “innocent” or “fresh-faced.” It also did not help that Kane was half the size of the other kids.

Kane’s arrival was met with glaring eyes—an easy target for the kids looking to display their dominance.

Kids who went to juvy were not like Kane. Kane was an introvert—he was independent. He was a victim of naivety. When Kane took his father’s car out onto the street, he never stopped to think he was breaking any rules—at least, not any serious ones that would get him locked away.

Kane quickly learned that juvy had a hierarchy. There was an unwritten leader-board, and Kane was at the very bottom of it. The unspoken point system was misguided at best. Physical fights were as regular as mealtime, and usually served no real purpose—like a pack of rabid, misguided wolves.

Within hours of arriving, Kane’s nose was broken, and he had received two black eyes, as well as a split lip. The reason: a group of older kids wanted to make sure Kane knew that they were above him in the cruel micro-society. The next day, Kane’s face was pushed into a cement wall—re-breaking his nose, re-splitting his lip, and scraping the skin off one of his cheeks. The reason: one of the kids “hated his boyish face.”

The staff at the facility ignored the youthful violence. They were all jaded from years of unsuccessful rehabilitation. Whenever someone was released from juvy, they found themselves in prison within a year. Liberal pressure from activists forced a change of regulations on the youth correctional facility. The staff was no longer allowed to put kids into isolation cells, or even use force in self-defense. As a result, they had zero respect. Kids knew that they could walk all over them, and the staff could not do jack-shit about it.

After a few days in the facility, Kane had lost count of how many times he had been beaten. On a number of occasions, he was beaten so badly that he should have been sent to the hospital. However, the facility staff did not let him go. Sending someone to the hospital almost certainly would have gotten the activist’s attention—which meant more protesting and more negative media.

Instead, Kane received medical attention from the facility’s medical supervisor—an old woman with absolutely no formal medical training.

Kane was a strong kid—but daily beatings would get to anyone. One afternoon, during a recess, Kane found a spot far away from the other kids—behind a back stairwell, near the facility’s dumpster. He sat down, planted his face into his hands, and he cried.

That afternoon, Kane learned a lesson no child should ever have to learn.

A pair of brothers—Peter Riley and Kyle Riley found the crying Kane. Out of every kid in that facility, the Riley brothers were the most brutal, and the most unsympathetic. They were also the most feared—the top of the twisted juvenile food chain.

Peter and Kyle were the twin sons of bank manager, Philip Riley. They were the vilest, most disgusting children to ever grace the planet earth.

When they were born, they were seemingly normal. Philip and his wife Deborah were both very loving people. They would read every single book on parenting, and they would attend every single parenting class. Philip, who was an incredibly successful day trader at the time, even quit his lucrative job for something more casual—so he could spend more time at home, being a parent.

Philip was the way every rich person should be. He gave what he did not need to charities, and he did not weigh the quality of his life with dollar bills. He was happy taking a step back for a chance to spend more time with his family, even though he did keep a chunk of his fortune to keep the things he enjoyed in life, like a good cigar, or a nice steak.

Philip grew up in a poor, but happy family. When he first moved out, he worked his ass off to make a career for himself. After a few years of hard work, he made his first million dollars. The day he looked at his bank balance and saw that seventh digit was the same day he realized he was a happier person when there were only a mere four digits on the screen.

Philip was blessed with intelligence—the real kind of intelligence—not the textbook kind. He never actually finished high school, but he knew his way around life—and he knew his way around the economy. When he started giving to charities, he cleverly involved major corporations—gaining public support and urging the companies to match his donations. He knew exactly what to say to big-shot CEOs to get their interest, and their money. When Philip Riley donated one hundred thousand dollars to a charity, his persuasive influence turned it into a million.

Philip and Deborah were happy, wealthy, and kind people. When the baby twins, Peter and Kyle turned two, Deborah gave birth to their third child—Vanessa.

Then, the recession hit.

Half of Snowbrooke lost their jobs. The bank Philip worked at was hit hard—but managed to stay open. The CEO of Philip’s bank pressured him to let a few employees go. Instead, Philip hired three more, including my father. He kept the hires secret, and he paid them under the table with money he made trading stocks from his personal computer—and money from his savings.

Philip and Deborah assumed they would be fine—but the recession was worse than they had expected, and it did not seem to end.

When Peter and Kyle turned five, the Rileys found themselves pinching every penny they could—using coupons to buy cheap food. Deborah wanted to tell Philip to let his secret hires go, but she knew that Philip would have rather gone himself than to have to fire good, hard-working people.

So he did.

Philip quit his bank manager job and decided to return to trading. With technological advancements, he did not have to spend entire days and nights in an office—instead he could stay at home. It seemed perfect.

But the recession continued to worsen. Soon enough, Philip was actually losing money with his trading.

Somehow, things only continued to get worse.

Peter and Kyle had grown out of their cute kid stage, and were old enough to go to school. They did not talk much—except when they spoke with one another. Philip and Deborah started getting weekly phone calls from the school about the twins’ misbehaving.

At first, it was things like, “Hello Mrs. Riley. Peter and Kyle drew all over the desks today,” or, “Mr. Riley? How are you doing today? I’m calling to let you know that Peter and Kyle were sent to the office today because they kept disturbing the class. Every time I tried to speak, they would make this loud, annoying sound.”

What seemed like innocent childish behavior got worse every year—and it became more frequent. The weekly phone calls became daily phone calls.

“Hi, Mrs. Riley. I’m going to need you to sign your sons’ office slips before school tomorrow. They were caught urinating on another student’s school bag.”

Philip and Deborah were noticing the strange behavior at home as well. By the time the boys were eight, they would not even speak to their parents. They had no friends at school, and they had no interest in making any. Philip and Deborah’s friends stopped coming over because the little twins “freaked them out.”

On the other hand, Vanessa was a very normal girl, whom everyone loved.

They started to exhibit strange, sociopathic behavior. After they killed and mutilated the family cat, their parents brought them in for a psychiatric evaluation. There was no question that something was wrong with them.