Fatal Bargain (6 page)

Zach counted his breaths, and when he had taken ten lung-restoring heaves, he knew that was sufficient and he had no right to waste time tasting air, when he could be planning an escape.

By now his eyes were used to the dark and that made Zach feel better; time had not been wasted; he had just been acclimating himself to the dark.

He was three very high stories up in the air. If he were to jump, he would certainly break a leg. If not a spine. Zach had no desire to be a paraplegic. On the other hand, he had no desire to be a vampire’s long-awaited dinner.

“Actually,” Lacey was saying, in her methodical way, “we wouldn’t be his dinner. The correct meaning of breakfast is to break the fast, and the vampire has been fasting for a long time now. So we’d be breakfast.”

“Thank you for clearing that up,” said Roxanne sarcastically.

Zach actually grinned. Then he studied the roof. There was a sort of gutter around the base of the tower. If he could wriggle out, he could perhaps use that as a crawl space, and inch his way to the roof beam of the rest of the house, which was, of course, lower than the tower. Perhaps he could slither along the roof beam and find his way down to the roof over the big porch. Then when he dropped to the ground he’d have a much better chance of living through it.

But what if the gutter were as rotten as the shutters? He’d still fall.

Zach was not a physical daredevil.

That was Bobby’s style.

Zach preferred to let others take the risks, while he got the excellent grades, made the brilliant jokes, and led the pack.

But he did not see any way out of this except physical daring.

The thought was exhilarating. Zach had been brought up to conquer the world. This was his moment. Yes. It was time. Now he had to take the world by the shoulders and show it what he could do.

Once I’m down, thought Zach, I’ll get my cell phone out of the car and call the fire department. They have the high ladders. They’ll get the rest out.

Zach knew that he would not call the fire department. He could not dial 911 and tell them to rescue his friends from a vampire. It was too ridiculous. Nobody would believe him. He would be laughed at. Zach could take anything except being laughed at. People would point at him, and chuckle, and call him names.
That’s the kid who thought there was a vampire in that old shack they’re tearing down to build a mall, isn’t that hysterical?

The tower’s exterior shutters banged eagerly, a drumroll for whatever happened next.

His right leg felt the air. His hands gripped the sill tightly. He tried not to think of the great distance to the hard, hard earth. He managed to press his knee against the steeply sloping slates and drag the other leg out.

Good thing I’m not a big guy, thought Zach, who had always before wanted to be a big guy.

His shoes tried to find the gutter he had seen from the window.

But all they found was slick roof, and more slick roof.

His fingers began to ache. He could not grip the sill much longer. He had to put some of his weight on his feet instead of his hands. He kicked, trying to find a footrest.

Something touched his right hand.

Something foul and wet, like a moldy leftover in the refrigerator. He hung on only because his life was in the balance. He could not see what touched his hands. After a few seconds, it did not simply touch his fingers. It applied pressure.

Something was peeling his fingers off the sill.

Somebody had decided to help him fall.

Zach began to scream. He tried to shift his finger grip, but the sill was slick.

He began to fall.

I’m going to die, thought Zach, quite clearly.

He tried to dig his fingernails into the punky wood. He tried to haul himself back into the tower. He screamed for the others to grab him, but nobody came.

With a satisfied little chuckle, the creature peeling him away finished its task, and it leaned forward to watch Zach’s fall.

The last thing he saw was a face neither white nor black, skin neither tanned nor pale — but absolutely clear. A face that went right through to the other side, all its interior on display, like some horrible living laboratory model.

And then he was airborne, and screaming his last scream.

M
ARDEE’S SCREAM COULD HAVE
pulled the rest of the nails out of the plywood.

Kevin could not let go of the wood he had hauled back, or it would snap against her and stab her to the window frame. Mardee was still standing next to him and yet she seemed to be pulled forward, into the house.

Something was pulling her by the hair.

Like taffy, Mardee stretched. Her scream went on and on, as if it, too, were being pulled out of her throat, taut like a rubber band.

Kevin put all his strength into the plywood and actually tore it the rest of the way off the house. He flung it down onto the porch floor. He grabbed Mardee and yanked her back against himself. She did not come easily. It felt as if she had been stuck with adhesive. He whipped her around to face him.

The scream stopped. Mardee’s face, whiter than any moon or star, was twisted in such horror that Kevin could only imagine she had looked into the scene of a mass murder.

“What happened?” he whispered. His heart was racing double-time, working so hard he felt crazed with its speed.

Mardee was as close to him as another skin. “Didn’t you feel it, Kevin?” she whispered. She wet her lips, gasping for breath. “Didn’t you see it?”

“See what?” He had been busy prying the plywood back from the window. He had not seen much except wood. Why were they whispering? What was happening? What had —

“A vampire,” said Mardee.

He was technically rather young, the car thief.

He had dropped out of school before he was sixteen and spent time in prison before he was twenty, and that had aged him. He was older and more cruel than his actual years.

There was nothing nice about him. He did not have a heart of gold, he did not feel neighborly love. He did not mind injuring people who got in his way. People often got in his way, and he often injured them. He never thought about them when he hurt them, and he never thought about them afterward. He did not have a conscience.

What he mostly had was a great need for money.

It had been a difficult summer. Things kept going wrong. In spite of the people he had hurt, the car thief had not acquired any cash.

He had no particular destination in mind as he roamed the streets. He had no particular plan in mind. All he had in mind was greed.

He was panting with it.

He could think only of money and what he would do with it; what he would buy with it; how much better life would be once he had some.

He did not normally walk down the valley road. Of course, he did not normally walk anywhere, but he had lost his various forms of transportation, and so he was reduced to this pathetic, loser style of going someplace.

He had to walk.

It outraged him that he was on foot. People like him did not deserve this humiliation. Somebody would pay for this, he would see to that.

The car thief walked onto the site where the shopping mall would soon begin to rise. In the dark, it was a shambles. Piles of dirt and trash. Ruts from immense tires. Metal barrels, old railroad ties, and discarded junk. A few scattered, white-painted barriers making a feeble attempt to close off a huge area.

He crossed the acreage hoping to find something — anything — that he could steal and sell. Perhaps a backhoe worth tens of thousands of dollars that he could somehow start up, drive off in the night.

There was nothing.

He walked toward a huge shapeless stack. It had no shadows because there was no light to cast them. It was not until he was very, very close that he realized the stack had no theft potential; it was a bunch of huge old dead trees bulldozed down and left to rot.

He was furious.

He kicked a tree.

But it was not satisfying to kick a tree. It didn’t whimper, or cry out, try to run, or hand over its wallet. He wanted a human to kick. Something where you could laugh when it cried out.

He kicked the tree again, and felt no better that time, either.

But he saw something.

Something…something large and glossy glittered faintly within the trees.

He began to work his way around the branches to get at the thing within them.

It was, thought Roxanne, a vampire without its cloak.

A vampire without its skin.

Nothing but the interior: the silhouette of its bones and its organs.

It seemed to come out from between the shutters, first as flat as a pane of glass, and then thickening, and becoming more visible. It was grinning, its teeth exposed like a dentist’s drawing. It peeled Zach off the windowsill and grinned even more widely as Zach screamed and fell.

Zach’s screams came from everywhere.

Then they ceased.

He could not have lived.

Well, thought Roxanne, that’s one way to escape being the vampire’s victim. Die first. Poor Zach. Poor, poor Zach! He had so many plans.

Roxanne found that she was weeping. Her face was covered with tears for Zach. Or was it for herself?

How selfish am I? thought Roxanne. I will know tonight. We will all know tonight.

She thought of the vampire’s requirement. Oh, it was truly evil! Not only did they have to witness the “event” — they would have to participate in it; they would have to choose and live with that choice.

She found that while Zach was falling and her eyes were weeping, her hand and her hammer had continued prying up floorboards.

“What are you doing?” hissed Randy, hearing the creaks and snaps.

Roxanne shook her head, but, of course, he couldn’t see her. She had managed to lift a whole length of board and now she shifted her hammer to start on the adjacent strip of wood.

She had no idea what she was doing, or why. Perhaps since they could not go out the windows, and they could not go out the door, they could just descend right through the floor.

“What are you doing?” hissed Randy again. Louder.

Randy’s such a stupid person, thought Roxanne. The vampire hadn’t noticed yet. Roxanne certainly didn’t want him to notice
her
now — let alone the possible escape route she was uncovering.

Ten miles away, in an isolated subdivision of only nine houses, a mother and father were furious because their sixteen-year-old son had not brought the family car home. “He was told to be here now, or else!” said the father.

“Now, Dad,” said their other child. She was eighteen and sympathetic to lateness. “He’ll be home in a minute. Don’t panic.”

“I am not panicking, Ginny. I am furious. Your brother is dead.”

“No, he’s not,” said Ginny reassuringly. “He’s fine.”

“I don’t mean he’s lying dead in a road somewhere,” shouted the father. “I mean, I’m gonna kill him! I told him to get that car home by nine or die. So he’s dead.” The father stormed back and forth in the tiny front hall. “I should never have let him get his driver’s license. I’m taking it away the minute he walks in the door. He’s dead.”

“Now, Dad,” said Ginny. “You and Mom haven’t missed much of the party. The Kramers will party till dawn, you know that. If you don’t get there for another few minutes, it won’t be the end of the world.”

“It’ll be the end of your brother’s world,” said the father. “He was told he could take the car for the first half of the evening but we had to have it for the second half. If he ruins our weekend, I’m ruining his
year
.”

Ginny thought she saw a way to get something good out of this situation. “The moral of the story,” she said cheerfully, “is that our family should have a second car.” She smiled hopefully.

Her parents gave her a tight-lipped glare.

Oh, well, thought Ginny. Worth a try.

Out in the driveway a car appeared. But it was not her missing brother. It was Ginny’s date. “Jordan and I could drop you at your party, if you want, Dad.”

Her father refused to be mollified. “Your mother and I will wait, thank you, until your worthless brother gets here.”

Her date bounded up to the door. Jordan was one of these courteous-to-adults types, who wanted to hear the whole story. “Are you worried about your son’s safety?” asked Jordan, getting deeply concerned and worried himself.

“The time to worry about my brother’s safety,” said Ginny dryly, “will be when he gets home.”

“Yes, of course, we’re worried!” said Ginny’s mother. “This just is not like him! He’s a very responsible boy!”

Ginny rolled her eyes. There was no such thing as a very responsible boy.

Jordan said, “Hey, no problem. Ginny and I will cruise around and find him.”

Ginny, who had been looking forward to something else entirely, was quite irritated. “Really,” she said, “I’m sure he’s fine. He’ll be here in a minute.”

“I’d like that, Jordan,” said Ginny’s mother. “I am genuinely worried. He knows what his father would do to him if he’s late tonight. He knows how important it is. So why isn’t he here? Anything could have happened! He could have had an accident! He could be bleeding somewhere!” Ginny’s mother had worked herself up into tears. “He could have been stolen away! We’ll never see him again.”

Ginny tried to bring a little reality to the situation. “Mom. He’s six-two. He lifts weights. He could bench press an SUV. Nobody stole him away. We’re going to see him again. Probably in five minutes.”

But Ginny’s date loved this kind of thing. He loved action and heroism. Jordan would much rather cruise the entire city and all its suburbs tracking down a lost child than go to a party where somebody had rented a movie he had probably already seen, and then order pizza, which, after all, he had just eaten for lunch. The fact that the lost child was bigger and stronger than Jordan was did not matter.

“We’ll find him,” Jordan promised. “Don’t worry! We’ll look everywhere!” He took Ginny’s hand and bounded with her back to the car. Full of enthusiasm, he switched on the engine, revved the motor, crammed the gearshift into first, and left a patch on the street. “Where do we start?” he said happily. He was already looking left and right, peering behind shrubs and picket fences.