Prelude 2: Teasing Him Out

My little brother was the tough one. I never got used to the pale faces pressed against every window but he did.

Even with the shade over my bedroom window I knew they were out there, just a couple of feet from my face. I’d have moved my bed to the middle of the room but it was built into the wall. So, I hauled off the blankets and slept on the floor.

Not Alec. He kept his bed right by the window.

I hated to go into his room at night. He’d tink

his finger on the glass, make faces at the vampires outside and drive them into a frenzy. They’d raise fists to smash the window but of course they couldn’t, so they’d hiss and show fangs and red tongues.

He’d just laugh at all their dire threats.

One night he even nicked his finger with a razor blade. I’d come in to ask him for one of his CDs, and I gasped. He did it to scare me, not to bother them. He held up the finger with the glistening red line, let them see it.

“Jesus, Alec, don’t, oh don’t,” I moaned.

Their bodies shook the walls, they slammed so hard. But never hard enough to break in: we were in our house and we were safe. He walked over and painted a little blood “x” on the glass.

“Come out, bring your flesh to us! Be warned, snipe! We suck you dry if you set one foot out of your house. We will remember you!” Their voices snarled on and on.

Alec grinned at me, then put the cut finger in his mouth and sucked, made a dramatic “yuck!” face as he swallowed. The vampires became silent and their eyes blazed.

Then one of the vampires looked at me. He was older than the others and his face was fatter. With a chill that that crawled through my skin, I heard his thin cold voice whisper, “Open the window and push him out to us.

”

I turned so fast I tripped as I stumbled to my own room. Alec laughed and called after me, “What did he say?”

Shaking in the dark, crying with the fear, I turned on the overhead light and my bedside lamp. I knew they were outside my own window even though I couldn’t see them. The skritching started. I pulled the blankets into the middle of the room and sat alone, shaking and smelling like cold sweat.

Once the idea started, they never dropped it. Night after night they whispered at my window. … send him out to us, young one… we will catch you one day… you can never be careful enough forever… send him out to us and we will spare you…

They never said it while Alec was around. They raged and threatened him, but always a few white faces were on me and the older vampire’s was one of them.

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Days went by and we had our normal lives. Cold cereal for breakfast and fresh mornings with only footprints left. Mom and Dad drove us to school even though it was two and a half blocks.

Where did they all go in the daytime? You never saw a corpse anymore. A year ago, when there were just a few of them (nobody knew where the first one came from), they drained someone every night and if the body didn’t turn into a vampire, there it lay.

But even seventh graders learn about exponential growth now: how multiplying by two just once a day for a month would have made a trillion vampires. They never even got to that many because they got so crowded, they’d fight for blood and anybody caught outside got torn into tiny pieces and eaten to the last scrap. You know, nothing left to be undead with?

When we got home, we could play outside but we had to be inside an hour before sunset, no exceptions, ever. Except Alec would come dancing in the door fifteen minutes before sunset, saying “Chill out dudes,” as Mom and Dad raged at him, weak with relief.

Then the sun went down and the world outside belonged to them, and the whispering at my window started up again.

On my 12th

birthday, Alec gave me a nice card that he made himself. (He wasn’t always a jerk.) We made popcorn and went to the living room to watch old movies. There was this nervous hum in my belly, even though I wasn’t thinking anything in particular.

Mom and Dad had a great movie collection and I picked one that I thought would be too grown-up for him so that he’d whine for a kid movie. But he watched it with me.

It was a French film with subtitles. In one of the first scenes, an uncle at this big family gathering says he’s going to sing. They all say no. So, he says, “Alright then, I’ll show you my ass.” And he does it.

Alec got that mischievous look. “I’m gonna moon those vampires,” he announced.

I felt a jolt of terror. He saw it, his eyes said “Wimp

” and maybe that made him up the ante. “I’ll just open the front door to do it. They can’t come in if I don’t invite them.”

He sprinted to the door. I grabbed at him but oh man, I was thinking, I could give him just that little push…

He snapped open the deadbolt. I shouted, “Nooo, don’t!” From upstairs, Mom screamed, “What are you two doing

???” Slippers and boots clumped down the stairs.

Alec got the door open and there they were. Cold, thin bodies filled the doorway. Alec turned, ripped down his pants and underpants, and mooned them just like he said he would. Three of them looked at me.

I quivered in perfect terror and I twitched

against Alec.

His balance shifted, and his white butt stuck out past the line of the door.

They hooked claws into his behind with a squelch and pulled the rest of him out. The mischief whipped from his face. He gaped in horror as he vanished into the mob.

Snarls and a spray of copper-smelling blood filled the air. Hungry vampires caught even the spraying mist, sucked it up, smacked their lips. I leaned against the door frame. My mouth tasted like vomit. In a minute I would pass out…

Hot hands pulled at me and I knew I was dead. But it was my parents pulling me safely inside. The door slipped from my grip and drifted shut with a click. But not before I saw –

My skin cringed at the familiar sound of Mom’s breathing, her “Tell me exactly what happened.” I wished I could see how they looked at each other. They were both so calm!

But then Mom said, “Where’s Alec?” and I got that they hadn’t seen!

When I told them, Mom sat down and cried like a little girl and Dad, he seemed to get a lot older, looking left and right like somebody would tell him what had really happened.

But there was one thing I didn’t tell anybody. As the door closed, I saw the older vampire one list time, grinning at me.

Just before the door clicked shut, he gave me a wink and a thumbs up.

I could never ask Mom or Dad if they saw it.

I think they were colder to me after that, but how can I know?