The Darkness Within

Chapter 1

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Disclaimer: The Lost Boys, sadly, do not belong to me. All rights go to their respective owners.

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It wasn't that Paul hated people. He simply didn't care about them. As far as he was concerned, they could live or die, it was all the same to him.

Things hadn't always been like this. But now they were, and, frankly, he didn't bother trying to change his perception or anything. Why should he? Living without caring was painless – well, almost. At least it was better than constantly hurting.

Paul wasn't a runaway kid. In fact, he had made it his purpose in life to stay with his family, or what was left of it, for as long as was humanely possible. But even with him trying mightily hard, there had come a point when he just couldn't take it anymore. He had left the small Midwestern town were he had grown up and made his way to California. He was twenty-three by then – technically a man.

Paul had missed out on many things in his childhood and youth though, so as soon as he decided to pack his things and go, he also decided that he would make it his goal in life to make good on that with a vengeance. So when he arrived at a certain Californian town in the summer of 1985, he lost no time at all and dove right in, headfirst into that neon-bright, fevered madness that was Santa Carla.

'If we are to fall in the abyss, then let's jump into it dancing and laughing!' was his new motto. And he certainly lived up to it. The very first night, he got so drunk and stoned that he barely remembered his own name. Alternating between drifting about on cloud no. 9 and the creepy feeling that something dark was lurking in each corner, something evil living in every shadow he passed on unsteady feet, he made his way from the Boardwalk down to the beach. There were bonfires burning everywhere, music from portable stereos intermingling with raucous laughter, people dancing in the red light, weaving in and out of the shadows, their edges blurring till Paul had to close his eyes and shake his head repeatedly in a vain attempt to clear it.

He made a few more stumbling steps in the direction of the shoreline. 'Onwards, Christian soldiers,' he thought, and laughed out loud at the absurdity of it.

But, no, it wasn't an absurdity, was it? He had actually done some time in the troops, and he had hated it, hated it, hated it with all his heart and his entire guts. In hindsight, he couldn't even say for sure why he had joined the forces for two years in the first place. Maybe because of his father … or maybe not.

And he had been raised Christian, right? Even if it all, if everything they had told him, had been revealed to be one big, fat, fucking lie … in the end, when everything had unraveled.

'But we don't wanna go there, do we?' Paul thought, anger welling up inside him like bubbling milk, tinged with the red shine of the bonfires. 'No, we don't!'

Instead, he continued on his way to the shore, away from the beach parties, out into the dark, to where the waves licked at the sand, black and gray in the night. As he reached the water, a chill ran up his spine, or rather crept from the small of his back up to his neck like a ghostly finger traversing over his skin.

"Man, it is cold here," he mumbled to himself. In spite of the chill, he sat down in the sand, then realized it was wet, but somehow didn't find it in him to rise again.

"Ah, fuck," he whined. All of a sudden, he felt like crying. He shouldn't have thought of his freaking family. No, he really shouldn't have. And, ah, what freaks they were … Real, freaking freaks, the whole lot of them …

"You look lonely."

Paul nearly jumped out of his skin. The voice had spoken directly into his ear, yet he had heard no one approaching. He whipped his head around – but no one was there. Yet he heard something that sounded like taunting laughter on the wind.

'I had way too much,' Paul thought. 'I have to get back to my bike and find a place to crash, before I fall asleep on the beach and get carried away by the tide or robbed or worse …'

"Too late my friend, too late, but never mind …" the voice from before said. Its tone was quite mocking.

"Yeah … All your trials, love, will soon be over …" another voice chimed in, before it changed into a cackling, evil laughter.

Quickly, Paul turned his head this way and that. He was close to panicking now. Where were these guys hiding? What did they want with him? How could he –

Then something grabbed him from above. Paul yelped in shock, but a hand came up over his mouth and cut him off before he could start screaming in earnest. Its fingers were cold and clammy and unyielding like a vice. They didn't feel human at all – or maybe like a corpse's fingers in rigor mortis might feel. Paul's heart was literally dropping to … well, maybe down to the beach far below, damn, very far below!

'Oh God, what's happening …!'

Then there was a nasty, tearing pain at the side of his neck. Something was ripping him open, and it hurt! Paul tried to free his head from the vice-like grip. But as he moved, another wave of pain shot through his neck and down his spine through his whole body, so he immediately ceased his struggling, crying out in both agony and fear against the clammy hand that was still placed firmly over his mouth.

'Please, God, no …' His thoughts were rambling. 'Don't, please don't … God, what's happening? Fuck, it hurts … What is that thing? Fuck, I'm going to die. No … no, no, no! Please, don't …'

Abruptly, the hold the … the thing had on his face loosened a little.

"Don't be so scared …" Ice-cold breath ghosted over his cheek. It probably felt even colder than it really was since Paul's skin was wet with his blood.

"I'm actually saving you, you know … from a shitty, boring, frustrating, meaningless life. Aren't you glad that your death at least is meaningful – meaning that it keeps me going?" It cackled again, but it sounded a little less evil than before. Actually, the thing seemed to be in a quite content mood.

All of a sudden, Paul felt very sleepy. He had to fight to keep his eyes open. The pain had lessened, drumming like a fluttering heartbeat in the back of his mind. "But I don't wanna die …" he argued feebly.

"Of course you don't," the thing answered, good-natured. "Who ever does?"

Paul felt cold lips on his neck, then a wet tongue that was equally cold. The thing was licking up his blood.

"Hmmm … you taste good."

More licking. Paul was too tired to feel disgusted by it.

"Maybe I've changed my mind … Maybe I won't kill you … yet. – David? Can't I keep him for a while? Pretty pleeease? At least for another night? Ah, man, come on … you know I'm bored out of my skull …"

The voice that had first spoken to Paul answered something to the thing's plea, but Paul couldn't make out the words. Everything was blurring – sound, vision … A warm and fuzzy feeling came over him. All at once, he was no longer afraid.

Then everything went black.

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"Wakey, wakey …"

"Gah …"

Paul's head felt like a brewing watermelon that was ready to burst. It took him a huge effort to force his eyelids open – and he immediately wished he hadn't bothered. There was a … a … well, it wasn't a man, and it wasn't a boy, and it most definitely wasn't even human. The thing was perched over him, balancing on the backrest of an old, moldy-looking leather-couch on which Paul himself was lying, and it was sporting a set of shining white teeth with insanely sharp and dangerous looking canines and second front teeth, grinning down at him … hungrily, Paul dared say.

"I'm not a thing," the thing complained. It sounded whiny. "I'm a vampire."

Ah, so that was it, right?

'A vampire. Sure.'

The only problem Paul saw with this was that vampires didn't exist. Period. So, naturally, he would treat this as a bad trip – even though he never had experienced anything remotely like this from weed or booze.

'I really, really, really shouldn't smoke that much.'

The vampire snickered in amusement. Wait, could it read his thoughts?

The answer was still more snickering.

"And I'm not an it. I'm male. Shall I prove it to you?" It made an obscene movement with its hips. Okay, his hips. Paul certainly didn't want it … him … to prove anything along those lines.

"I even have a name. I'm Marko. Marko with a k."

Marko with a k? Didn't his parents know how to spell? Wait – did vampires even have parents?

The vampire … Marko … growled at him. "It's Slovenian, dipshit. The Slavic version of the Latin name Marcus. Just so you know, Paulie-boy. – You know what, David? If we turned him, we could go as the two Evangelists …"

"There usually are four of them, Marko. And Paul's an Apostle, not an Evangelist. And he isn't even one of the Twelve." The voice that came from somewhere in the dark sounded cold and disinterested. It was the one that had spoken to Paul first, back on the beach. As he looked for the source of it, the enormity of the room they were in registered with Paul for the first time. Actually, the place looked more like a cave than a building, although there were building-like structures in it – support beams, for one. It was almost completely dark, but a dim light fell in through a hole in the roof, and there was a fire burning in an old oil-barrel close to the couch.

"I know that there are four of them! – We didn't want you to freeze, Paulie-boy," Marko said, at the exact same time Paul felt the vampire descend on him. For a surreal moment, it was almost as if a bird had landed on him. Marko seemed completely weightless as he straddled Paul's thigh. Wait – straddled his thigh?! He should never have taken his eyes off the creature in the first place! What did it … Marko … want now? Paul hoped that this trip would end very soon.

'In fact, it should end right here and now …'

"I hate to shatter your illusions," Marko said in a silky voice, "but this is not a trip." Then he leaned forward and licked over Paul's face once, like a dog – only that he didn't seem to mean it in an affectionate way.

"Oh, but I am quite affectionate with you – otherwise you would already be very dead indeed."

This was probably meant to be comforting, but Paul felt anything but soothed by it. And he still refused to believe that this was not a trip. The thought was just too scary.

Marko made an exasperated sound. "You humans are so damn complicated … Look at me."

Paul obeyed, if unwillingly.

"Am I hurting you right now?"

To that, Paul could honestly say no. He was disquieted and a little scared, even if this was only some sort of trip, but he wasn't hurting. Well, apart from his head, that was. And shouldn't there be a freaking, gaping hole in his neck? That sure must hurt like hell?

Someone leaned over him and Marko. It was a young man, and he looked quite normal, not monster-like at all. He had dark eyes and dark hair, and he held a bottle of water in his hand. "Let him up, Marko. – Here, you should empty this. You've lost a lot of blood. It's no wonder your head's hurting like a bitch."

Marko actually leaned back and moved a little to the side, so that Paul could sit up and take the bottle. He felt quite dizzy when doing so. And, man, he was thirsty. He screwed off the lid and drank in big gulps. It tasted wonderful.

"If I'm not hurting you, why are you so edgy?" Marko whined. "I mean, can't you just stay in the moment? It's really not that complicated, is it? As long as you're not hurting and you're watered and fed, you should be content, right?"

"Stop being obnoxious, Marko, and give the guy some space to breathe. You were scared too, even if you choose not to remember."

Finally, Paul laid eyes on the source of the cold voice. It belonged to an imposing guy clad all in black with a bleach-blond mullet. Just like the others, he had sneaked up on Paul without making any sound at all. Paul instantly knew that this was the leader of the pack.

"That's right," the guy said. "I'm David. And you really have nothing to worry about. The ones who make it as far as the cave are always treated much nicer – especially if they have drunk the blood."

Paul was confused. He couldn't remember drinking anything but the water, not for the life of him – and certainly he hadn't drunk blood!

"You were barely conscious then," David explained. "In fact, you were barely alive." And just like that, he strolled out of Paul's line of sight again.

Paul gulped. If this was real …

"Hey … hey, David, wait …? Please?" he croaked. By and by, the reality of the situation was sinking in. He was in real deep shit that he hadn't even began to grasp. Something icy was traveling through his body, gripping his stomach and clenching it.

"Yeah?" David asked dispassionately.

"What … what exactly do you mean by 'treated much nicer'?" Paul's voice was barely above a frightened whisper.

There was a pause. Then David answered from out of the shadows: "Don't worry." Maybe he had intended on a calming tone, but Paul still only heard disinterest and coldness in it.

"When it happens, it won't be too bad," David said. "You have my word on it."

Paul really couldn't care less.