Note: I do not own or have rights to Twilight or it's characters!!
AN: so like here's a litle trick or treat for you kids, I hope you enjoy it. SPOILER ALERT FOR TNP3 WATER!! Sorry!
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The New Pet: Halloween Edition
Bart's POV
I turned off the main highway and onto the long winding gravel road that lead to my parent's house. It was almost sunrise, my mother's second most favorite time of the day, and she would likely be at the top of the lighthouse tower enjoying it. The thought of my mom made me smile, the thought of my dad, not so much.
It's not that I didn't love him or that we didn't get along, but rather that he held me to an exacting standard of excellence. I standard that I managed to shatter . . . miserably, I thought angrily. I only hoped that when he learned the truth about what I've done, he wouldn't kill me.
I guided my vintage 1942 Indian Scout around one of the larger potholes in the drive. The motorcycle had been a high school graduation present from my Uncle Jasper. In spite of the fact that it was a dusty moth-eaten wreck when I got her, I fell in love with the machine the moment I laid eyes on it. Uncle Jacob and I took all summer to restore her . . . my baby. As a student at Washington State University, it was the perfect vehicle for me, easy to find parking, easy on fuel, and easy on my student sized wallet.
When the winding drive finally broke from the trees I was greeted with a breath taking sight, one that I never grew tired of, our beautiful Victorian lighthouse squatting on a little knoll with the backdrop of the periwinkle pre-dawn sky and the ocean behind it. I loved this place; I'd lived here since I was eleven. I knew ever nook and cranny of the shore below the cliffs. I had explored nearly every inch the endless acres of forest that surrounded our remote home. Mom named this place Hope's Keep, but I called it paradise.
Soon to be Paradise Lost, I thought as I parked my bike in the garage between my Dad's Jaguar and my Mom's '69 Mustang. How could you, I scolded myself as I stored my helmet and grabbed my backpack from the rack behind the seat. After everything Mom and Dad, Grandpa Carlisle and Grandma Esme, and all the rest did for you and this betrayal is how you repay them. 'Et tu Brute?'
I walked toward the front of the house and noticed, for the first time, my Grandpa's black Mercedes parked in the front of our house. I road right past it and hadn't even seen it. My pulse quickened even as my blood turned to ice, did they already know? I was sure uncle Edward wouldn't have picked it up, WSU was well out of range for his gift and I hadn't passed close enough to the reservation on my way here from him to listen to my thoughts.
Alice. The image of my dark haired pixie of an aunt flashed through my mind. I was willing to bet my last twenty that she had one of her visions. She probably knew everything . . . which meant so did Grandpa Carlisle.
"Shit," I grumbled under my breath, "Of all the times for Gramps to be here discussing Council business." My grandfather was the Prolocutor of the High Council of The Vampire Nation and my Dad was the Chief Magistrate. They often discussed official state business at our house because, with only us three here, it was quieter.
I opened and closed the front door as quietly as I could, then I slipped my shoes off in the foyer. It wasn't entirely out of a desire to be stealthy that I did this, rather it was my Mom's rule; no shoes past the front door. I couldn't be sneaky with three vampires in the house anyway, they likely knew I was coming the moment I turned down the drive, my human heart beat and the roar of my bike would thrum in their ears like thunder.
"Triple shit," I muttered as I put down my book bag.
"Bartholomew Xavier Wiseman," my father's voice drifted softly from the parlor. "How often must I remind you about the use of profanity?"
"Sorry, Dad," I muttered as I came to stand in the parlor doorway. My Dad and my Grandpa sat near the fireplace, a chessboard between them. By the look of the board, Grandpa was winning.
"How's school?" Grandpa asked. Carlisle was a firm believer in education and took a keen interest in mine. I was doing pre-med at WSU and my Gramps already had a very convincing letter of recommendation waiting to mail out to which ever medical school I decided to go to.
"Good, I guess," I answered hesitantly. Good . . . except you screwed up, I yelled inside my head. Didn't Uncle Edward warn you, like a million times, about those frat parties?
I watched as my Dad and Grandpa turned to look at each other briefly before fixing me with their combined stair. If you've never tried to lie to a vampire, or even keep a secret from one . . . don't bother it's pretty much impossible. They can read humans like the one of those 'See Dick and Jane' books that you remember from kindergarten. And then if the vamp your trying to keep things from happens to be my mind reading Uncle Edward, well . . . screwed quickly moves into the realm of freaked up.
Fortunately for me, Edward wasn't here. 'Your ass is still toast Bartman,' my mind grumbled, and I felt my cheeks grow flush under my family's scrutiny. 'You'll be lucky if Grandpa stops your Dad form ripping you to shreds . . . or maybe he'll want the pleasure of doing that himself?'
I dropped my gaze, suddenly finding the gray scuff on the right toe of my biker boots extremely interesting.
"Perhaps you'd better come in and have a seat." Grandpa insisted. I knew that voice all to well, it was velvet soft and as gentle as a mother's cress, yet my grandfather could chastise someone with that voice to the point of tears. Thankfully, I had only been disciplined a handful of times by my grandfather and I would have preferred a physical beating to it any day. Of course, I was never beaten. While I remembered spankings by my birth parents, in the twelve years I'd spent with my new family, no one ever laid a hand on me.
"What's on your mind son?" my Dad added as I took my place of the sofa. It was the furthest seat from Dad and Carlisle, and while it wouldn't really do me much good, the thought of escaping with a running start made me feel a little better.
"Well, uhm . . . you see, I, uhm . . ."
"Bart." Grandpa Carlisle called softly causing me to look up from my fidgeting. "Relax my boy." He smiled warmly at me and I watched as his hand ghost over the chess board; his bishop took my Dad's rook. "Check mate." He announced casually.
I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts. If push came to shove, I could always teleport myself to my fiancé, Abby's house. "Last weekend," I began slowly. "My buddy, Scott, invited me to this frat party. It was a pre-Halloween party, and I guess I tried on a few more than I should have."
"You shouldn't drink at all, it's bad for you." My Grandpa interrupted. "Have you any idea what alcohol does to the human body over time? Trust me; cirrhosis of the liver is not a very nice way to die."
"Yeah, Grandpa, I know," I answered as I rubbed the back of my neck. Dr. Cullen strikes again, I thought as I prepared to continue. Unsolicited medical advice was going to be the least of my worries in just a few short minuets. "Well anyway, at around midnight, the guys thought it would be cool to have a contest to see who could tell the spookiest story. It was a lot of bull and I hoped things would die down before they got to me, but it didn't happen that way."
My Grandpa's eyebrows shot up, "Just what story did you tell, one of your sci-fi fabrications I hope."
"Not exactly," I was beginning to breathe heavy and the room felt like a furnace. "I told them, well . . . I mean, you have to understand, I was really wasted . . . I told them that I knew where a real coven of vampires lived."
I looked up to find two sets of honey gold eyes glaring back at me. I could read the hurt, anger, and deep disappointment in both of them. These were the men I looked up to, the men I wanted to be like, the men whose life ethics I tried to emulate. In a single ill spent evening, I'd ruined everything . . . I may as well have killed someone and come home with blood on my hands.
"Bart, how could you?" It was my grandfather who broke the awkward silence. He pinched the bridge of his nose in an effort to calm himself, I'd seen him do this before and it usually indicated he was really upset. "Did I not make it abundantly clear to you, on numerous occasions, the importance of our secret remaining just that, a secret."
"Yes Grandpa," I tried not to sound whinny as I sought to apologies. "It was stupid of me and I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to happen, but it just slipped out." I swallowed hard; the next part was really going to freak them out. "There's more . . . I guess I was a real convincing story teller, because tonight at midnight, David and Scott and some of the others want to have an old fashioned vampire hunt. They want me to lead them."
"How many persons constitute 'some of the others'?" My Dad asked gravely.
"About twenty kids." I replied, before it dawned on me why he was asking. "Oh no, Dad, please, you can't. If twenty students from WSU go missing suddenly . . . and what would you do with, you know . . . the bodies?"
"Don't be ridicules." Grandpa Carlisle snapped. "That stupid story of yours can be dismissed as the ranting of a drunken collage student, twenty murders wouldn't go unnoticed. We must come up with a better solution . . . maybe leave for a while." He shook his head. "Your Aunt Rose is going to kill you, or at least make you wish you were dead."
A slow devilish grin spread across my dad's face. Whenever he looked like that, I tended to worry because things happened when he got that look. When he started chuckling to himself I got down right scared, maybe the shock of my betrayal had pushed him past the brink of insanity.
"I have a plan," He finally said softly. "Go meet up with your fraternity friends and lead them on their little vampier hunt tonight. Make sure you have them here at the lighthouse at exactly midnight."
"What are you going to do Dad?" I asked nervously.
"Never you mind," he answered as if I were just a child and wouldn't understand anyway. "Suffice it to say . . . it will be a night your friends will never forget."
*****
David, Scott, and I agreed to meet at a little all night dinner about fifty miles north of the Quileute reservation. One of Scott's cousins owned the place; it was cool, a real piece of 1950's Americana. I arrived around nine thirty to find the whole posse there already . . . the pre game party so to speak. I parked my bike next to Scott's Chevy Tahoe and made my way inside. 'Dead man walking' I thought to myself as I pushed open the door and entered the dinner.
Inside, a festive air permeated the place, Scott meet me at the door and escorted me to the back corner booth near the juke box. I stopped dead in my tracks when my eyes caught sight of the arrangement of items laid out on the table, A pile of wooden stakes that looked, for all intense and porous, like used tent pegs from the Army/Navy store, several homemade crosses, a couple of dozen ropes of garlic that someone fashioned into necklaces. It was a laughable array of junk that I personally knew would do them absolutely no good against a real, died in the wool, vampire.
Then David showed me his ultimate weapon, and I almost lost it. He pulled two Coke bottles filled with a mysterious clear liquid from his backpack. At first I thought it was gasoline and that maybe he might be on the right track after all, then he told me what it was and I almost ran for my bike.
"George snagged this from St Pious before Father Prichard ran him out," David told me proudly. "It's Holy Water, man, one drop of this on a vamp and he'll melt like the wicked witch from the Wizard of Oz."
"Oh no, I'm melting, melting . . . melting." One of the others mocked in a pathetic imitation of the doomed witch.
"I'm going to put this in my Super Soaker," he went on, "Those vamps won't stand a chance."
'No, you wouldn't stand a chance, crap for brains!' I thought angrily. If I didn't know my family like the back of my hand, if I didn't trust my Dad and Grandpa not to hurt these retards, if I was leading this little misadventure against any other coven, I would be riding my bike at top speed in the opposite direction from here right now. Damn Chief Swan and his speed traps straight to hell, he could send me the ticket in the mail.
"Ok gang, let get this party really rocking." Scott called. Everyone cheered loudly before spilling from the dinner and climbing into the vehicles outside. I was riding with Scott and David in the Tahoe. A sick sinking feeling made my stomach turn as we drove off into the night.
At fifteen minutes to midnight, we pulled off the main highway and onto the drive to Hope's Keep. The procession of cars snaked its way along the twisting gravel road, darkness shrouded the landscape all around us. The scene was creepy, even to me. When we broke from the trees in the clearing where the house stood, a thick blanket of fog hung just above the ground. It devoured the gravel drive, like flood waters washing out a road. Scott turned to me and for the first time I saw fear in his eyes. With a nod from me, he continued.
We pulled up in front of the house and everyone got out of their cars. The mood among the group was tense, as thick as the fog that swirled around our knees. Some wore garlic strands around their necks, others clutched wooden stakes like their lives depended on them. Suddenly the silence was broken by the howling of several wolves. Obviously, whatever the plan was, Grandpa had the pack involved.
"Dude," Scott whispered in my ear as he tugged at my jacket sleeve. "Don't tell anyone, but I just wet my pants."
I was going to assure him that my lips were forever sealed when a loud explosion and a blinding flash filled the night. When the smoke cleared and we could all see and hear again, I noticed the front door of our house was standing wide open. I couldn't make out anything beyond the door; there wasn't a single light on inside.
Next we heard mad cackling that seemed to be everywhere at once. I recognized the sound of Aunt Alice's voice; she seemed to be enjoying herself. I took an opportunity to look around me, shock and awe danced on every face and I saw more than one wet crotch. Scott had nothing to be ashamed of.
That's when things took an odd turn . . . odd even for the Cullen family. Music filled the night air. I was so stunned by the selection that, at first I didn't recognize it.
'They're creepy and they're kooky,
Mysterious and skooky.
They're all together ooky, the Addams family . . . .
My parent's appeared then, stepping lightly from the darkened doorway to stop at the top of the steps and snap their fingers twice. Dad was all smiles as he emerged dressed as Gomez Addams and my Mom was dressed as Morticia Addams . . . they looked fantastic.
'They're house is a museum,
And when you come to see 'um,
They really are a screa'um, the Adams family . . .
Next out the door was my Aunt Alice and Uncle Emmett as Wednesday and Pugsley followed closely by Uncle Edward as Fester and Aunt Bella as cousin Itt. They lined up across the front porch, snapped twice, and then joined my folks on the lawn.
'So gather with your shawl on,
A broomstick you can crawl on,
We're going to pay a call on, the Addams family . . .
Next out the door was Aunt Rose dressed a Grandma Frump, I could tell even at this distance she was pissed. Right beside her was Uncle Jasper dressed as Lurch. I would have actually picked Em to be Lurch, but I couldn't see Jasper as Pugsley.
The sound track looped back to the beginning again but without the lyrics, and the final couple appeared at the door. I nearly fainted dead away when I saw them. Grandpa Carlisle dressed as the prince of the undead himself . . . Dracula. Grandma Esme was right beside him divinely attired as Dracula's bride. They ghosted to the steps, stopped, and snapped twice on cue, before joining the rest of the family on the lawn.
The music stopped, but only briefly. As if their entrance wasn't ridicules enough, what came next could only be described as . . . well, ludicrous. The strains of Michael Jackson's Thriller echoed through the night air and my family did the entire dance number, flawlessly. Each one took the dance lead on a verse, and Grandpa acted out the Vincent Price monologue at the end. That must have been one of Alice's contributions to my Dad's plan.
At the end of the performance, my Dad stepped forward and addressed the flabbergasted group of collage kids. "I bid you welcome, one and all! This is the Cullen/Wiseman Halloween blow out and you won't find a more magnificent All Hallows Eve party anywhere on the planet. You're all our honored guests, of course. I hope you're not too angry about the little ruse my son employed to get you all out here." He paused and then added. "Now, if you'd care to trade in you tent stakes for refreshments, you may retire to the side yard where you'll find libations a plenty."
"In other words," Alice added in her usually overly excited tone as she pointed to the side of the house. "Free food over there."
There were several long silent minutes before laughter and happy murmuring broke out. Scott, David, and the rest filed toward the party area in good humor. I was relieved, no one got killed and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
Later, after the last party guest left, I was warned by Dad and Carlisle that if I ever let the family secret slip again, I would find myself explaining the situation to Uncel Aro and Aunt Suplicia. In that instance, I swore an oath never to touch alcohol, in any form or amount, ever again.
Happy Holloween!!
Enjoy the holiday kids, but be safe!!
Blue
