Alright. This is a bit of a weird story: I'll admit it. It's basically your classic Babysitters Club with a dash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a pinch of The Lost Boys, and a sprinkling of Scooby Doo. Pretty much, the Babysitters Club deals with the usual social drama by day and fights off supernatural villains by night. Oh, and they babysit too XD
It's set in 1990, so they're now in eleventh grade. I'm going to try to include a lot of the characters mentioned in the series. Any ideas, suggestions, feel free to message me! :)
Enjoy!
Fun Fact: I named the road Hale Street after a famous Connecticut man from the Revolutionary War. Ten bonus points for whoever gets this: it's Nathan Hale! He was a spy and an epic beast, in case you were wondering.
September 8, 1990
Stoneybrook, Connecticut
Midnight
Typical suburban-types. That's what they are. The Newtons are just your average suburbanites. Their comfortable Hale Street house shelters a happy, unbroken family, an organized kitchen, and a cluttered, kaleidoscopic playroom. Two adorable kids with cute, mainstream names, two kindly, hardworking parents. All they've ever inhabited is a world adorned with reasonably priced Persian rugs, quality kitchen appliances, big backyards with rickety, yellow slides, and streets lined with talkative, waving neighbors.
Of course, all of those things don't necessarily make you a suburban dweller.
No.
The Newtons are your average, suburban, professional, charitable, moderate, airheads because they're always leaving the goddamn door unlocked. Their windows ajar: silky curtains constantly rustled by the intruding breeze. Their burglar alarm turned defiantly off.
It's not carelessness. It's not forgetfulness. It's not stupidity, failing to establish the appropriate security measures. It's arrogance. Haughtiness that you only ever see in the suburbs.
"Not in this neighborhood. Nothing bad will happen in this neighborhood," they think, "I paid good money for this neighborhood. I paid good money for these rugs, these appliances, for these yards, for these neighbors. For these kids. I work my ass off all day in the office, hospital, town hall, law firm, boardroom, to pay for the sprawling bills, decent education, crippling taxes, and ubiquitous comforts.
"I pay for this suburb with my time, money, and life," they tell themselves, "It'd better be safe."
They are so hopelessly, arrogantly assured. "Nothing will happen," they tell each other, as they fling open their windows and doors, beckoning in the unknown, "What could happen?"
Well.
I could.
Grotesque mouth dripping with starvation, the creature slips in through the unlocked back door. It has been staking out this particular residence for several nights now. It can wait no longer. Tonight is the perfect opportunity to strike; the household is vulnerable and unguarded. The parents are away, out sipping sparkly glasses and swapping drunken anecdotes at a company cocktail party. The two kids, a little boy and a littler girl, are upstairs in bed.
The creature glances about. It is lurking in some sort of mudroom, a colorful legion of scuffed shoes lines the walls. From this vantage point, it can see directly into the living room, where a rerun of Murder, She Wrote, is playing on the sizable television set. On the couch lies a figure draped in a quilt. Two Converse sneakers poke out from one end of the blanket, a red baseball cap protrudes from the other.
The sleeping form is the babysitter; the creature had watched her arrive several long hours earlier. She had loudly conversed with the Newtons before dashing off to play games with the giddy children. At a reasonable hour, she had put them to bed. After flipping through a magazine for a while, she had reclined on the couch. Big mistake. In a matter of minutes, she was out cold from boredom and inactivity. It smirks, shaking its head at her incompetent slumber.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Alas, her unprofessionalism will only make things easier. And more filling.
Three people in one night. It salivates at the prospect. Things haven't been that good since… well, since Milwaukee.
Movements distinctively inhuman, the creature stalks over to the couch, grasping the blanket that shrouds the soon-to-be-dead babysitter. Tongue drooping in anticipation, it yanks the cover away to rip into….
…Several strategically placed cushions. Not a startled, drowsy girl. The shoes and hat are unoccupied; the whole thing was a decoy. She knows something's wrong, it realizes, She must have heard the backdoor opening. Growling, the hungry beast grins.
Poor dear, she must be frightened.
A crashing sound emits from the next room causing the creature's sensitive ears to prickle. Treading with surprising grace, it slips into the butter-yellow kitchen.
"Did you really think you could play hide and seek with me, little girl?" it whispers, horrible voice raspy. Lupine eyes flicker to a slightly ajar closet door. "Don't you know what I am?"
"Please. Go away," implores a hysterical voice, from the depths of the closet, "Don't hurt the kids. Please…" The girl begins to weep, panicking.
"Are you afraid, honey?"
"Go away, leave me alone …"
"You're crying. Good. You should be. This is going to hurt." Howling with perverse delight, the creature swings the closet door open. "Peek-a-boo."
"No! Please!" begs the tape-recorder, desperately. The gadget has been carefully placed atop an overturned bucket in the center of the closet. "Stop it! Get away!"
"What the hell?" the creature snatches up the device. Furious, it squeezes the black square, snapping it into a hundred sharp, twisted fragments, silencing the trembling pleas. A deafening blast bursts through the quiet kitchen. The creature freezes, feeling a small twinge in its neck. A small object tears into a box of Cheerios on the shelf, causing the cardboard package to partially explode.
Whirling around, it faces the Converse-less, hatless babysitter, squinting determinedly through the smoke. Her expression is stony; in her hand she expertly aims a large handgun.
"You shot me," it wheezes, in disbelief. Blood spurts from the gaping wound in the creature's thick neck. Ripping into the damaged box of Cheerios, it digs around before procuring the bloody bullet that had traveled through its throat and into the cereal box. "You fucking shot me."
"You broke my tape recorder," she retorts, icily. The creature lunges, swiping the gun from her hands and knocking her to the tiled floor. Vision blurring, it grabs the babysitter by the shirt collar, slamming her into the far wall. Dazed, she slowly slumps to the ground.
"Silly girl, you can't kill me!" the monster roars, menacingly baring its teeth. "I'm immortal! A toy like that won't harm me, you fool, you'd need—""
"Silver bullets?" the smirking girl offers, retrieving a bulging zip-loc baggie from her sweater pocket. Eyes bulging, the creature glances down at the stained bullet in its palm. Flecks of silver sparkle from behind the ruby red coat of blood. The lupine eyes widen, the bullet clatters to the tiled floor.
The beast shudders involuntarily, hurling itself at the babysitter, claws aiming for her throat. She expertly dodges the dying charge, although the mortally wounded creature does succeed in heavily pinning her to the wall with its dead body.
"Shit," the fifteen-year-old hisses, attempting to disentangle herself from the corpse. "Damnit…"
"Ah! Kristy!" a soft voice squeaks. Kristy winces, half-expecting Jamie or Lucy to be standing there at the kitchen door, scarred for life by the traumatizing sight of their babysitter stuck under a bleeding werewolf cadaver. She glances up, fears dispelled. It's only Mary Anne, pale and worried. As usual.
"So much for back up," Kristy huffs, as her friend frees her from the hairy beast's dying embrace. "What took you so long?"
"Blame Stacey, not me," Mary Anne deflects, quietly, "She was supposed to be on auxiliary duty tonight, but she had to go into the city. She called me at the last minute. When you phoned me for backup, my dad had already gone to bed. I had to sneak out the window to get here, he'll kill me if he finds out."
"Kristy?" a child's scared, sleepy voice echoes through the house. The three-year-old Lucy Newton is sitting up in her bed, having been awoken by the fight. "W-what was that?"
"Lucy?" her brother Jamie calls, "What's wrong?"
"Shit, the kids," Kristy hisses, glancing about the bloody kitchen, "I'll be right back." The babysitter scrambles away, sprinting up the stairs to comfort and lie to her distraught, groggy charges.
"I'll start cleaning up," Mary Anne mutters to herself. "As usual…" One bottle of Pine-Sol, two drenched mops, and thirty long minutes later, she and Kristy are standing out in the scraggly patch of woods behind the Newton house. They are hovering over a large metal drum, their faces eerily illuminated by its blazing contents.
"That's the second werewolf I've dealt with this week," Kristy observes, blankly. "What the heck are they all coming here for? I mean, we must get more monsters in Stoneybrook than anywhere else in the country!"
"I don't know about that," Mary Anne says, gently, "Dawn seems to think that there's a large enclave of warlocks in Palo City…"
"Dawn's on drugs," Kristy mutters, dismissive of Mary Anne's sometimes spacey, "individualistic" step sister.
"Kristy!"
"What? She is!"
"Lay off Dawn!" Mary Anne demands. "She is not!"
"Fine."
"Ugg. Someone's gonna see or hear us and call the cops," Mary Anne insists, glancing about nervously.
"We'll just tell them we're having a bonfire," Kristy suggests, beginning to roast marshmallows over the roaring flames. "Besides, this is a necessary precaution. I read somewhere that dead werewolves can be resurrected as vampires if you don't cremate them. And we gotta get rid of the evidence."
"I think we did a pretty good job cleaning up the kitchen," Mary Anne notes, proudly. "The Newtons will never know that a Type Two Werewolf broke in and tried to eat their kids."
"That's the idea," Kristy agrees. The two friends share a knowing look and begin to laugh hysterically.
"We are getting way too old for this," Mary Anne giggles. Kristy's expression hardens at this statement.
"Don't say that." Frowning, she watches the flames. "We can't be too old for this, Mary Anne. We're not just baby—"
"—sitters, we're protectors. Stoneybrook needs us," Mary Anne finishes, quietly. "I know, I know. I was just joking, Kris." The two best friends share an uncertain pause. Mary Anne wrinkles her nose, disgusted as Kristy produces a Hershey's bar and some graham crackers from her pocket. "Kristy Thomas. Are you making smores over… over a burning werewolf corpse?"
"Want one?" Kristy offers, obnoxiously munching the sticky snack.
"Ew, no! That is gross. Ugg. So what's the deal with Jamie and Lucy? Did they hear anything? Are they okay?"
"Lucy heard the gunshot," Kristy explains, casually. "Jamie heard Lucy wake up. I just told them that it was from a Western movie I was watching when I accidentally turned the volume up really loud."
"Good save."
"Thank you. They bought it, they were too sleepy to be skeptical." Kristy blinks at the blazing werewolf body burning in the drum. "How long did the AP English homework take you?"
"Not long. You just had to do the first five pages of that questions packet. You didn't do it yet?"
"Naw, I'll just finish it during lunch."
"Oh man," Mary Anne checks her wristwatch, "It's one o'clock… I'd better get back home or I'll fall asleep first block!"
"Alright," Kristy waves as her nervous friend rushes away, sprinting home, "See ya tomorrow!"
"See ya!"
After the roaring fire sputters out, Kristy scatters the ashes about the patch of trees. Then, discarding the metal drum, she hurries back inside. It is superb timing. The Newtons are just pulling into the driveway. By the time Kristy has hopped back on the couch, they are entering the house.
"Hello!" Slightly tipsy, Mrs. Newton totters into the living room. Keys jingling in her hand, she hurries over to Kristy "How was everything?"
"Sorry we're late!" Mr. Newton apologizes, wryly. Mr. Newton was clearly the night's designated driver, the babysitter reasons, for he is significantly more sober than his wife.
"Wonderful, Mrs. Newton," Kristy beams, "And no problem at all, Mr. Newton, I hadn't even noticed."
"Ooh, we have to pay you!" Mrs. Newton remembers, dizzily, "Follow me!" Giggling, she stumbles into the kitchen.
"The kids are in bed?" Mr. Newton asks, hopefully.
"Yes," Kristy assures him.
"Did they eat their dinners?"
"Yep. They finished off the whole pizza!"
"Here you are. There's a little extra in there, because we were late. And because the kids just adore you. Jamie especially." Winking, Mrs. Newton thrusts an envelope containing the appropriate payment into Kristy's hands. As the woman is speaking, Kristy notices the silver bullet, encrusted in red, lying where the werewolf had dropped it. On the floor. Right next to Mr. Newton's shoe. The babysitter's eyes widen. Oh shit. How the hell did we miss that during the clean up?
"Oops!" Kristy purposefully drops the envelope, quickly bending over to scoop it (and the bullet) up off the tiles.
"There was no major trouble, I trust?" Mr. Newton inquires, yawning.
"No, Mr. Newton." The babysitter smiles, knowingly. Discreetly, she slips the silver bullet into her pocket. "No trouble at all."
