"...(Y/N)...(Y/N)..."
You woke up with a start, sitting up straight at your desk and taking a deep breath through your nose. Books, papers, and spell ingredients were strewn all around your workspace and there was a deep red imprint on your cheek from where you had been resting your head on your sweater sleeve. The bright yellow light of your desk lamp was pointed down at your head despite the bright midday sun that filtered through the open windows.
It took a moment for your eyes to clear away the haze of sleep, but once you could properly see your surroundings, you weren't any calmer. "Fuck!" you exclaimed mid-yawn, leaning back in your chair and shutting your eyes tightly.
Propped open right in front of your face was a book that you didn't remember opening the night before. It was the first occultist book that Mr. E had ever given you; The Secret History of Vampires.
It was old, bound with flaking red fabric. The pages were deckled and the entire thing looked just one good slam away from falling apart in your hands. It was open to a random page, a morbid depiction of a vampire mid-feed was plastered in black and white.
A newborn vampire's First Hunger is a significant period in their transformation from mortal to immortal, the caption read in faded black lettering. It is the allotted time in which the turned vessel begins to crave the blood of a mortal for the very first time.
"Gross," you sneered, running a hand down your face before gently closing the book and tucking it away into one of the drawers beside you. It wasn't the first thing you expected to see waking up, but you would take it.
With another yawn, you reached your arms up over your head and stretched your limbs like a cat. You've felt weird ever since Michael took you home last night. It was an uncomfortable, anxious feeling. Like you weren't entirely alone.
Like you were being watched.
No matter how hard you worked or how deeply you succumbed to the lull of written Latin phrases, you couldn't shake the piercing stare of the mysterious boy that you had seen right before leaving the boardwalk. His presence even seemed to weave its way into the privacy of your dreams, floating around in your brain like the melody of a long-forgotten song...
You were lost once again, chasing the distant light of the boardwalk. Sand clouded in the wake of your furious footfalls, spilling into clouds of dust behind you. No matter how fast you ran, it seemed like the forever-spinning ferris wheel in the distance was moving back just as quickly.
Sea water lapped at your toes and the smell of the ocean —dead fish and salt— had never seemed so strong before. The brass ring around your neck thudded against the front of your shirt with every step, burning like hot iron against your exposed skin. The ruby glowed red like a halo, painting the beach in front of you in its dim light.
"...(Y/N)...(Y/N)..."
An inhumanly deep voice called out for you, whispering your name like an incantation. It was one that you had heard several times before, but only ever in your dreams that took place in the dead of night, limbs thrashing until you were completely tangled in the fabric of your bedsheets. And in your dreams, you never had a face to tie it to.
"...(Y/N)..."
Another voice joined in, just as clear and guttural. Then another. Each voice called out for you, begging you to turn away from the neon citadel of the boardwalk. But you were afraid to. You couldn't remember exactly why, but you were. Not of the dark, not of the black waters that tugged on your ankles and shifted the wet sands under your feet, but something else.
Something more.
Something that you couldn't see.
And just as you finally gathered the courage to turn and face the music, you were awake once more.
Cujo barked, tail thudding loudly against the worn wooden floors. He was shooting you a dirty look with his round, friendly black eyes, silently scolding you for staying out so late and forgetting to give him his bedtime snack when you finally returned.
You yawned again in unspoken surrender, standing up to unlatch the door. Instantly, Cujo went bounding out into the yard to meet up with his newest playmate, Nanook. You stood there in the doorway for a minute, looking back and forth between your desk and the backyard.
Before falling asleep last night, you'd written down the list of ingredients that you still needed to finish your protection spell. The little slip of paper with your messy handwriting on it fluttered in the breeze, threatening to fly right off of your desk. Reaching back inside, you took the paper in your hand and began walking out to where you could hear the two dogs barking out near the garage.
"Mikey?" You called out, stepping onto the loose gravel driveway. The house was surprisingly quiet. Lucy and Mr. E must've gone out for more groceries — you were very grateful to have someone else around to encourage him to do domestic things like laundry and washing the dishes. You had no idea where Sam might be, but you hoped he was with the Frog brothers. They both needed new friends who weren't totally obsessed with the undead.
The garage was pungent with the smell of gasoline and sawdust. It was where Mr. E did most of his work when he wasn't holed up in his creepy little taxidermy room in the main house. It was also where he stored his prized possession — a baby blue sports car from the early fifties. You've never been allowed to drive it. But to be fair, you didn't think he had ridden in it since he bought it either.
"Michael?" You tried again, struggling to raise your voice over the hand-held radio perched on the workbench. It was currently blasting a song you didn't recognize from this week's top fifty.
"(Y/N)?"
You jumped, spinning around to see Michael standing on the threshold of the garage. He had a dirty rag slung over the shoulder of his equally grease-stained wife beater. His hair was wet with both sweat and gasoline and you held back from offering him one of the hair ties from your shorts pocket.
His lips were barely parted as he waited for you to say something. For what felt like an eternity, you just stood there blinking up at him in awe. You didn't talk to many boys on the ranch and when you did, they were never as cute as Michael was.
"I-uh," you gulped, stepping sideways around him so that you were standing between him and the car. "Are-Are you busy?"
"That depends," he smiled, exposing his sharp white canines. "You need something?"
"Just a ride into town," you explained, eyeing his red motorcycle that was still parked in the driveway. It looked like he had been working on it and most of the red-painted paneling had been removed and set aside in the dry grass. Tools were scattered in the gravel, glinting in the sun and making you put a protective hand over your eyes. "Your grandpa needs some stuff for a project. Are you up for it?"
Michael looked between you and the bike before crossing his arms over his chest, even more of his unruly brown hair falling into his face. "About that..." he said, his voice resembling a sigh. "I didn't think you were serious when you said the weirdos would strip my bike for parts."
"Oh no," you gasped, reaching up to cup a hand over your mouth. "How bad is it?"
He shrugged and stepped out of the garage. You followed after him, watching as he inspected the machine with an unphased expression. "Nothing I can't fix with the stuff grandpa has lying around here. But it won't be ready to go until later this afternoon. I can take you then if you want."
Your hopeful smile faltered and you looked up at the low-hanging sun. It would be dark in a few hours. You didn't think you could stomach another after-dark trip into town at the risk of running into that sketchy biker gang again. But then again, you really needed these ingredients.
Biting your lip, you looked down at the crumpled piece of paper in your hand and back up at the motorcycle. "That's fine," you agreed without giving it the proper thought. "Will you let me know when it's ready to go?"
"I'll come grab you," he said, flashing you one of those blindingly perfect movie-star smiles that you didn't think you could ever get enough of. "I've been meaning to check out your crib for awhile now. Sammy says it's badass."
You laughed, folding your arms around your middle. Sam visited you last night before you all left for the boardwalk. You let him look around a bit, showed him your own comic book collection that was significantly smaller than his, and let him sift through your record set up before he started to look deeper at your overflowing bookshelf and you had to start ushering both of you out of there before he stumbled upon some of your magic paraphernalia.
"Thanks. I really appreciate it."
"Don't thank me just yet," Michael said with the shake of his head. He was still beaming with a boyish smile when he leaned back against the bike, now wringing the greasy cloth in his hands. "You can pay me back by letting me buy you dinner."
You blinked slowly at his offer. Was he...asking you out?
Micheal's smile seemed to widen even further as your lips parted to answer the question that he hadn't asked. "I-I mean yeah, sure! That sounds great."
Not thinking you could stand there any longer without bursting into flames, you waved at Michael before spinning on your heels and making a beeline back to your A-frame. It was still a good few hours before sundown, but you still had a day's worth of chores to get done with before you could even think about leaving the ranch.
In the back of your head, you could hear Mr. Emerson warning you about venturing off of the property after dark. "You watch yourself," he would say, wagging his finger. "Dangerous folks find their homes in Santa Carla. I don't need you getting caught up with the wrong sort."
"Yeah, okay," you mumbled softly with the roll of your eyes. You'd be fine as long as Michael was there to protect you.
A distant crash grabbed your attention and you looked up from the garden hose you were re-coiling. A few birds cried out, flapping noisily away in a messy V-formation in an attempt to escape the treeline that bordered the property to the right. You stood up straight, eyebrows furrowed, but the only thing you could see was the roof of the large white house that shouldered the ranch.
On top of every rule that Mr. Emerson had put in place for you, the one at the very top of the list was simple: Don't ever find yourself near that house.
No matter how curious you were in your youth, the thick woods that encased the white-painted building were practically impenetrable. Sometimes you swore you could hear growling coming from that direction, like a rabid dog, but you never had any real reason to investigate.
You waited a few moments, frozen in an attempt to hear over the faraway hum from the radio that still blasted tunes from the open garage. But the crash was never heard again. "Weird," you sighed, bending over to scoop up the rest of the green rubber hose.
If you weren't so occupied with your work and thinking about what was going to happen later that night, maybe you would have noticed the return of that weird feeling, or the set of amber-colored eyes that watched your every move from the shadows of the treeline.
(A/N: I only read through this three times so let me know if you see any mistakes. I don't touch on this ever again, so I think it's safe to tell you now. It's Max's dog watching you. This playlist is so difficult because I can't decide between edgy vampire-y songs and classic 80's bangers. I'll try and find a middle ground, but this is my formal warning that this playlist is a clusterfuck. Hope you enjoyed! Bet you can guess what happens in the next chapter).