Author: Chaos

Note: This story just struck me one day while I was in class and should have been taking notes. It's meant as more of a humor piece, but hopefully you can figure that out from how I wrote it.



The brush of lips against my throat, the slight scrape of teeth, and warm hot breath tickling the small hairs on the back of my neck. This is not how it begins, but rather how it ends, with the sharp stab of tapered fangs and the rush of hot blood across my skin.

I suppose it's my just desserts. Gran and gramps, Mom and Dad, even my sister Alane, they all told me I'd come to a bad end. They'd even begun setting out garlic ropes, sharpening stakes, and collecting holy water against the day it would happen.

I told them it was perfectly safe with the new methods and modern weapons that are in use now. I told them that all new trainees get over a hundred hours of instruction and supervised training before being sent out on solo missions.

Nothing swayed them.

"You'll end up one of them, Justin," my mother declared often, one hand on my arm as she looked up at me with worried eyes. "Can't you take up a nice respectable job? I hear Mr. Jenkins has a sales position open at his used car lot."

But I wasn't cut out to sell used cars, no matter how safe and respectable a job it may be. There was no action, no adrenaline, and no real sense of accomplishment at the end of the day. Signs and Indication for Basic Stalking was a breeze, everyone said I was a natural. Advanced Stalking was a walk in the graveyard. Weapons and Tactics required some study time and the hand to hand combat classes took a lot of work, but I finally got the hang of it.

My heart was full to bursting when I graduated to solo missions. My mom gave me a hug and a quick peck on the cheek. Dad shook my hand and grinned proudly, or so I told myself. Only Alane managed to put into words what they all must have felt.

Hands fisted on hips, head tilted and eyes snapping, she faced me. "You're an idiot, Justin. We all warned you. We obviously can't change your mind. Do Mom and Dad a favor and just stop calling and visiting now."

"But I love them," I protested.

"Prove it." Alane stood firm. "Prove it by saving them the anguish and constant worry. Say goodbye now and get it over with."

I sputtered, too upset, too astonished to formulate a suitable reply. She wrapped me in a quick hug, dropped a peck of a kiss on my cheek, and then walked away. I watched for a long time, but she never looked back.

A week later I went home for a visit. It was Gran who opened the door. She stared hard at me through the screen door, her eyes raking me up and down.

"You walk in if you can, but I'm not going to invite you in."

After that I only visited when the sun was up and shining hotly down on the porch. I also bought myself a large silver cross on a chain that I wore around my neck. It made things easier at home.

Alane wouldn't talk to me. Every time I came to visit she rose from whatever she was doing and walked quietly up the stairs to her room. Even over the joyful exclamations of my mother I could hear the door to her room close and the heavy lock click shut. It was like listening to a coffin lid boom shut over my heart.

"Don't mind her, son," Dad would say. "She's just..."

He never finished the sentence, always trailing off, leaving the rest unsaid. I didn't blame him. I understood. After all, no one likes to speak an unhappy truth.

Alane was just mad, just sad, just ignoring me. She was just distancing herself from me before the inevitable, as she saw it. She was just right. I'm not mad at her. She was right, but she would never have rubbed my face in it even if she got the chance.

And now the silver cross glitters at me from the dusty corner of the dark room, my weapons scattered and well out of reach, and weakness steals through my limbs as my blood drains from my body. My eyes, squeezed shut in fearful anticipation, slowly relax. Popping and zinging behind my eyelids, colored lights sprang into being and fizzled off into the velvety dark that now was calling me into its numbing embrace. All that remained was the darkness closing over me, and the sure certainty that if this vampire didn't kill me my sister would.