I DO MY BEST to focus on driving, but tears keep blurring my eyes, making it hard to see in the already dark night. My mind is racing, and I think I’m hyperventilating. I don’t care if I’m going to get in trouble when my parents see me. Right now, I want nothing more than to see them and to tell them everything that’s been going on. They’ll help me fix it. They always have.
You’re such a child, Tasia.
I bite my lip and cry harder. The makeup Didi worked so hard on is probably dripping down my face, making me look more like a monster than ever; the fake eyelashes have already fallen off because of all my crying. The beautiful kitsune I’m supposed to be dressed up as is long gone. Now I’m sure I look how I feel: a mess.
My breaths start to go back to normal when I turn onto the road that will take me straight to my house. I expect my house to be the only one with the lights on since everyone in town seems to be at that party, but I’m wrong. My house looks just as dark and empty as the ones next to it. Did my parents go out somewhere?
As I pull into the gravel driveway, I check my phone again to make sure I don’t have any new messages. None.
This doesn’t feel right. Nothing has been feeling right.
I get out of my car and lock the door behind me. I can’t see very well in the dark, but since I know this trail like the back of my hand, I manage not to stumble as I walk up to the porch. When the porch light finally decides to turn on, I see that the front door is already open.
I gasp.
Not just open, it’s busted. The door is barely hanging on to its hinges. It’s leaning toward the floor, creaking slightly in the chilly breeze. It looks like someone or something ran into it. Splintered pieces of wood dust the entrance, and some of the pieces are clinging to the carpet as they sit upright, waiting for someone to step on them like a bed of nails.
“Mom… Dad…,” I say carefully.
I can feel my heart racing and my hands trembling as I grip my phone. I turn on my phone’s flashlight, and shine the light in front of me, nervous about taking a step inside. I have shoes on, but if this is what the entrance looks like, I don’t want to know what the rest of the house looks like.
Then I see red. There’s red painted on the floor, running past the living room.
“Mom! Dad!” I scream this time.
My chest is heaving with panicked breaths. “If this is a prank to get back at me for going to that party, it isn’t funny!” I scream, tears burning my eyes.
I keep my phone’s flashlight on as I force myself to walk into my ruined house. All the shelves and containers holding our charms, herbs, crystals, gemstones… everything! It’s all in ruins, scattered across the floor and pushed aside like pieces of garbage.
I’m so scared. I can’t think.
I’m going to pass out. Or maybe I’m dreaming. This is just a nightmare. This is a nightmare, right?
I close my eyes and pinch my arm, but when I open my eyes again, the scene is still there. I whimper when I hear the sound of something drip, drip, dripping. It’s coming from the kitchen. It’s probably just the kitchen sink. It’s always leaking. Dad said he was going to get it fixed, but he hasn’t yet. My parents are just trying to teach me a lesson. They went a little overboard trashing the house like this, but everything’s going to be fine. They’re fine. It’s just a prank… just a…
I follow the bloody trail into the kitchen. I try flipping on the light switch, but it doesn’t work either. I shine my light up to the ceiling and see that the lights have been busted.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
Cautiously, I shine the light on the kitchen sink. But the faucet isn’t dripping. I scan my light over the room and walk farther inside so I can get a look at the kitchen table. I slip on the liquid under my feet and drop my phone onto the tiled floor, shattering my screen and causing the room to turn pitch black except for the dim light of the moon and stars shining in through the kitchen window.
I whimper again, tasting iron in my mouth. I must have bit my lip when I fell. Yeah, that’s it.
Pushing myself up off the ground, I grope in the darkness for my phone. I find it, but it won’t turn on.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
What is that noise?!
I look to my left, where the kitchen table is. The dripping sound is coming from over there. The table… looks weird. Are people sitting at the table?
“Mom? Dad?” I’m desperate for them to answer me.
Inching over, I reach for one of the table’s legs to help pull me up off of the dangerous floor, but I end up moving the table instead, and the figures both crash to the floor simultaneously. I reflexively cover my head with my hands as I curl up into a ball, waiting for the ruckus of falling objects to stop.
My eyes are closed and my head is pounding. I don’t want to look up. This is all just a bad dream. If I just stay here like this, I’ll wake up. I’ll wake up.
The room is dead silent again. I force my eyes open and I slowly unravel myself. I’m greeted by a vacant expression, eyes that hold no light, no life. The chocolate-brown eyes that are my mother’s.
I scream. I scream louder than I’ve ever screamed in my life.
“Shut up. You’ll wake the whole neighborhood if you scream like that. Not that anyone seems to be around.”
I’m curled up on the floor again, holding my hands over my head. Whose voice is that? I don’t know that voice. The tone, the frequencies that make it up sound powerful.
Dark.
Menacing.
“Too afraid to even look at me? That’s no fun.”
The skin on the back of my neck prickles as he speaks again. His voice is deep and sensual in an uncomfortable way. It sounds like he wants to eat me. He must be the one who did this. He must have come back for me. A crazy serial killer has come to Reverie. My parents are just the first of many to come.
My parents. My family. My mom is dead. The other figure at the table was my dad. I just know it. I just know it…
This can’t be happening.
I don’t want to live without my parents. I want them back. Please. Please let me wake up now. Let this all be a bad dream. I’ve learned my lesson, God. I’ll never celebrate Halloween again. I’ll never do anything that has the potential to invite evil. Please.
Just when I feel like I’m going to shatter into a million pieces, never to be put back together again, all feeling leaves my body.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask.
I look at the man, the evil monster, who will kill me—and I don’t feel scared.
It’s hard to see him in the darkness, but I can make out his figure well enough. He’s tall, muscular, and imposing in every way. But that’s not what holds my attention. It’s his eyes. His eyes look like they’re glowing. That isn’t normal. Is he a psychic? But I’ve never heard of a psychic with glowing eyes before. My brain tries to piece together this information to come up with some sort of explanation, but I draw a blank.
I can’t tear my gaze away from his eyes. They’re beautiful, the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my life. They’re a distinct gleam in the dark like vivid stars plucked from the night sky. My first impression of his eye color is green, but they’re too vibrant to simply be green or any variation of it. It’s almost like they’re a color I’ve never seen before.
A flicker of self-awareness finds its way back to me when his teeth flash white in the dark. He’s smiling at me.
“And what exactly are you supposed to be?” he asks, instead of answering my question. “A rejected bride? Just how much crying have you done tonight? Ah, but that tail and those ears…”
His footsteps don’t seem to make a sound. My eyes are glued to him. I wish I could look away, and I wish he’d just kill me quickly, but that doesn’t seem to be the way this is going to go. He stops walking when he’s standing just above me. I have to crane my neck to look at him now. Why don’t I feel afraid anymore? Is it because I looked into his eyes? Did he cast some kind of spell? I feel dazed. My feelings are muffled somehow.
“Yuki would find this laughable,” he says, reaching down and plucking the fox ears from off my head. He does it in such a swift and smooth gesture I don’t even recognize the pressure leaving my head. He runs a finger over the orange fur before discarding the ears to the floor. Then he rests his eyes on mine. “You don’t seem to be afraid of me anymore. Before, you were hysterical.”
I don’t say anything. I only stare at him more intently. Now that he’s closer, I can see his clothes are torn. He’s wearing blood, but that’s not where my eyes rest. His hair is jet black and a little wavy. He has flawless, olive-toned skin. He doesn’t look like he could be any older than 18 or maybe 20. He isn’t clean-cut like Rynne. He has stubble on his face, but it suits him. He looks strong enough to snap my body in two. He’s terrifying, covered in blood, and somehow… gorgeous.
He reaches down and pulls me up by my forearm. I flinch at the pinching sensation his grip sends up my arm and down my spine.
“Scream for me,” he says. “Humans always scream when it comes to this part.”
I’m paralyzed, but not with fear. I’m enraptured by him, and I don’t know why. I don’t mind that his grip on me is rough and painful. I only want to keep looking into his eyes.
My thoughts trail away and echo what he said. He called me a human. Does that mean he isn’t?
A growl rumbles from deep within his chest like he’s some kind of feral animal, a wolf or maybe a bear. Then I can’t even process what’s happening. The room spins around me and pain shoots up my back as he slams me against a wall. He holds me there, level with him, making it so he doesn’t have to lean down to bring his lips to my neck. All of the emotions that were numbed inside of me start coming back. I gasp and struggle, trying to kick him or to do anything at all. But he doesn’t budge an inch. Then I feel it, the smooth, sharp sting of his teeth. He has fangs. They’re pressing against my neck. Is he a vampire? An actual vampire? Or is this some kind of cruel joke?
“Vervain again,” he mutters under his breath, but he doesn’t move away. “You have a silver-chain necklace, too. What else… a crystal?”
That’s right! Vervain. It makes sense my black diamond wouldn’t be able to protect me from this monster when none of the other charms in the house stopped him, but I drink vervain tea every morning. My parents told me people drank it to protect themselves from vampires and other creatures of the dark, from darkness in general. According to stories, vervain will poison and even kill a vampire if they try to drink blood infused with it.
Vampires.
My parents made me drink vervain tea because vampires are real? What other monsters are out there then? Are all the stories they told me true down to every last detail? I thought… I thought they were fables! I thought they were stories to show people the dangers of evil. I didn’t think the monsters in those stories could be real. Even ghosts are nothing but deceased humans. So what are monsters?
I suck in a breath of the gross, stagnant air permeating my home. If everything my parents taught me is true, at least this monster won’t have my blood.
I cringe as I feel his teeth rake across the tender skin at the front of my neck like he’s an animal that’s going to go straight for my jugular instead. Then, without warning, he drops me. I hit the ground hard and feel my body scream in pain upon impact.
“You don’t seem all that dangerous to me,” he says.
I have no idea what those words mean, but I dare to look up at him again. No. I have to look up at him again. There’s something compelling me to do it. To stare into his eyes. I need him to make eye contact with me. I need him to really look. Without knowing why, I follow through with the strange urge.
The vampire avoids my gaze at first. He shifts his eyes back and forth. It seems like he wants to look back at me, but at the same time, he doesn’t. The next time his eyes make contact with mine, he doesn’t look away. The smug look on his face holds only for a moment before his expression goes completely blank.
It’s like time stops for a moment. Everything stands still. We’re the only two beings in the world and our eyes are locked onto each other, and neither one of us can look away. There’s something in his eyes I’m trying to find. I’m looking for something, but I have no idea what it is.
Then he blinks.
His face contorts, his gaze wavers, and then he can’t hold it anymore. He can’t meet my eyes any longer.
“Arsen!” a woman screams.
The vampire reacts sluggishly as he looks over at the woman who enters the room. She’s beautiful, slender, and elegant with dark hair that flows freely behind her like she’s in one of those hair commercials. I don’t know what’s going on, but her face suddenly pales. I glance back at the vampire and see why. He shivers and sways, like he’s about to pass out. She rushes over to support him.
“You killed my parents,” I whisper. My dead feelings are coming back to life in a rush of emotion. Anger and disbelief bubble inside of my gut. “You killed my parents!” I scream. I need a wood stake. What kind of wood did my parents say was most effective against vampires? Golden ash. But wood from any ash tree will be effective.
I look around wildly, wondering if we keep wood stakes anywhere—but when I look back at the space where the vampire and his vampire girlfriend stood, I see nothing. I feel only air rush past. There’s no indication they were ever here aside from the mess they left behind.
They got away. He got away. I couldn’t do anything. I…
I turn my attention back to my parents. They’re dead. They’re really dead. They’re looking at me, asking me why I couldn’t do something. They’re asking me why I let him get away. They’re asking me why I’m so weak. I feel like I’m going to break. This time I am going to shatter and the pieces will never be put back together.
“I’m so sorry,” I whimper as I crawl over to them.
I try to bring their lifeless bodies closer to me. I want them back. I want their warmth. I want their comfort.
“I’m so sorry. Please don’t leave me. I don’t want you to leave.”
Please.
Then an idea hits me. Maybe I can bring them back. They haven’t been dead that long. What was it my parents always told me about zombies? If vampires are real, zombies must be real too. They said zombies are created when a spirit tries to return from the dead by taking over a corpse. But my parents haven’t been dead that long. They haven’t. Their bodies should still be able to function if I just…
I look back at their lifeless forms and the blood coating their bodies. I don’t know how deep their wounds run, but I have to try. I need them back. If there’s even the slightest possibility, I have to take it.
I have the ability to feel spirits. They’re able to reach out to me when I’m not blocking them with my black diamond. If I take it off, will I be able to find my parents’ souls? Can I do that? Or will evil just try to consume me? I tremble and shake as I grab my necklace. Maybe this is a bad idea, but what do I have to lose?
I tear off my necklace and toss it into the living room, where every other charm and resource has been cast away.
At first, nothing changes. But then I start to feel it. This darkness creeping around me, consuming me. My vision goes dark and my ears start ringing. I try to block out the sounds, the unfamiliar voices.
“Help me.”
“Help me.”
“He…me…”
“Me…”
I curl up into a ball and scream.