The Night the Vampires Came

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Around 1:00 a.m., I heard the sound of glass shattering. The worst-case scenario, the one we were all fearing — was happening. The front doors had been breached. Somewhere outside, there was the sound of distant sirens, but they were too far away. They weren't heading towards us. Even if they were, they would never get here on time.

I sat up in my sleeping bag and took some deep breathes. I winced as I heard the sound of boxes being thrown off shelves. A packet of beads or candy slammed into the floor, and I heard all the pellets bouncing off the tile floor. There was no denying it — we weren't alone in Walmart anymore. I prayed that that intruder was human. A human could be reasoned with, could be communicated with.

But, even that small sliver of hope was dashed. There was the thunderous sound of metal shelves being knocked over and then an inhuman snarling.

"T-they're here," Jack stuttered. Even in the darkness, I could see him bringing his finger to his lips. The gesture was futile. At this point in our adventure into Dystopian Vampire World, we all knew we had to stay silent. "They can smell us, but if we're very quiet, maybe they'll go after one of the others first."

"Stop," I hissed back as quietly as I could despite my immense revulsion at his suggestion. "We're not going to offer them the family on aisle four."

"Those folks should have known four is not a lucky number," Holly muttered sleepily.

"What she said," Jack as he crept along the ground tapping the floor, looking for something. Momentarily, he appeared beside us, crouching like a leopard about to pounce. I saw the laughable reason for his newfound confidence. He now sported a baseball bat in one hand. I doubted that Jack Fayer had played a day of baseball in his life. He would probably trip over that thing and break his neck if a vampire came after him.

"Stop it; I know what you're thinking," Holly whispered to me. "We are not going to go save them. Stop acting like you're some bleeding-heart asshole."

"Actually," I said as a pair of yellow, glowing eyes appeared in the distance and lumbered toward us. "I'm not. Maybe we should hope they'll come to save us."

I reached for my flashlight as Holly sneaked her poker from under her polyester fleece blanket.

A dream or a memory flashed through my mind as I stared at the clumsy, skeletal, alien-like creature that approached us: I saw the flower gardens again and then another pair of glowing eyes, small diminutive ones. A sense of déjà vu washed over me, and all the hair on the back of my neck seemed to stand up at once. A cold sweat broke out along my spine.

No. I didn't want to remember — not that memory, not that place.

Then as quickly as it came on, it was gone. I was back in Walmart armed only with a flashlight - not even one of those heavy metal ones you see in army movies. It was just a cheap plastic one, in a firetruck red, like it belonged in a first-grade science fair.

The vampire was coming closer. It stumbled along, its misshapen, decayed lips unleashing soft guttural moans. Its skeletal fingers poked every box on the shelves as though it longed for a time when it could still eat boxes of uncooked pasta. Yet despite the vampire's nasty, mangled form, it was its eyes that haunted me. They glowed softly, unnaturally — like a startled cat.

I don't want to go outside. The sunlight. It burns.

Only for a little while, my heart. Come with me to the lake today.

Who was it? Who was it that I said those words to? Was it Grace? Were these my memories or a prophecy of things to come?

No.

It was someone else. I couldn't remember. It was just a dream, one I had back when my heart nearly stopped beating. Who could tell what the dreams we have on the verge of death meant?

There wasn't time to delve deeper into my thoughts. The monster was coming closer. There was no hope now that it might wander back the way it came, and maybe to the family on aisle four. It was close enough to smell us now. Despite Jack's instructions for us to stay quiet, my rapid panicked breathing was starting to sound overwhelming loud. I didn't know how the vampire could have ignored it. Perhaps, it already had long since heard our fearful whispers, and it was just stalling to play with us.

It was within an arm's length of our sleeping bags now. Its limbs moved choppily. Its bare feet were slopping wet. Maybe it was my imagination, but I could swear I heard droplets of water hit the tiles as it walked. I could sense its unbeating heart as it took another step toward me. There was something deep and instinctive about the fear this monster inspired in me. Every pore in my body, every single hair standing up in the back of my neck were all screaming one message to my animal brain.

Not human.

Run.

It was everything I could do not to scream. What use was there to delay the inevitable? It could smell our flesh, hear the beating of our human hearts, and practically taste the rush of red blood in our veins. The vampire hungered — like Grace back in South Beach. It knew only the growling in its stomach, the coldness in its bones.

As it started to sniff at our sleeping bags, its nose just inches from my trembling toes — I saw both of my friends readying their weapons. The creature chose me. It reached for me. I felt its wet fingers fumbling around on my legs. I didn't know why I did what I did then. Yet, perhaps it was an act of desperation, but I flicked the flashlight on. Then I pointed it at the vampire's face.

Briefly, I saw a glimpse of the monster's shrunken cheeks, at the holes in its skin where black goo had started to leak out. The flesh on its face looked as though it was melting off its bones. Despite the horror with which I stared into its face, the vampire was more horrified by me.

It shrieked. Its skeletal hands reached out to block the light from my little plastic flashlight.

I couldn't believe my luck!

The monster thought the flashlight was sunlight.

It wouldn't stay fooled for long. Jack and Holly saw their chance. They jumped into action, beating and plummeting the vampire into a pile of broken bones and thick, bloody goo on the ground. Wet, black, undead fluid covered the blankets we were sleeping in.

I jumped up and backed away. The instinct in me to run finally took over. I escaped from the battlefield and into the safety of a pile of empty cardboard boxes.

Glancing back, I saw Jack standing triumphantly over the body of the vampire with his baseball bat over his shoulder. As Jack met my eyes and smiled at me, the vampire's detached arm jerked and sent him skidding across the litter-strewn floor. Jack slammed into the empty shelves next to me, barely missing banging his head into the metal.

Jack was lucky there was a pile of cardboard boxes with leftover toilet paper sitting next to the aisle. He scrambled to his feet and screamed at Holly to keep hitting the vampire; it was dead.

Holly didn't need to be told what to do. She had gone into beast-mode, pulverizing the vampire into mincemeat with her poker. It didn't matter one bit to her that the vampire was in a million little pieces now. She kept hitting it with her poker as though she had to destroy every fiber, every cell of its being.

"Wow, she has a lot of anger in her," I mumbled.

A wail came from across the room. It sounded like a child. I looked around for a weapon, but all I could find was Jack's cell phone that had fallen out of his pocket during his fall. It would have to do. As a last resort, I could shine the cellphone flashlight at the vampire.

I shoved the cellphone into my jean pocket and ran in the direction of the child's scream.

"Where are you going, Ailith?" Jack yelled, blocking my path. "We need to barricade the front door!"

"No," Holly screamed and threw the bent poker aside. "Both of you — stay away from the front door."

"Are you out of your mind?" Jack asked and stormed over to her. "And let them just come in and eat us?"

"Shut up and listen," Holly hissed and pointed at the ceiling with one blood-smeared finger. Sure enough, I heard the tapping of droplets against the roof. "Stay inside guys, because it's raining again."