Retaining Manners

Retaining Manners

Katherine stuffed her arms into her jacket as she ran down the stairs. She tripped on a pile of clothes and fell down the last three steps. She ignored the sharp pain in her knees and jumped up. Should she bring anything with her? She had never gone anywhere knowing to expect the worst, knowing what might happen. She could not just leave her aunt out there though. What if something really terrible happened? She had a good idea where she had gone tonight. Right in the middle of all the action.

Cat rushed outside to the back shed. Her aunt had been married once, a long time ago. He had been some what of a dare devil and liked doing movie stunts for extra cash. He kept a lot of bikes and ATVs around and when he died her aunt had sold all of them. All of them except for one dirt bike. It was the first one he bought when they were married, a light weight bright green thing. Cat had ridden it once but when her aunt found out she became furious and locked it in the shed.

Now more than ever Cat needed the bike. She found a heavy rock and smashed it again the rusty pad lock. It broke off at once and she swung the doors open.

Little bugs and some bats flew out of the shed. Katherine shrieked as one of them bumped against her head. She rushed into the shed and pushed out the bike.

"Thank God!" she practically yelled.

The keys were sitting in the ignition.

She gave them a quick turn and the bike roared to life. She hopped on and squeezed the handles as she shot off down the street.

Katherine prayed for no traffic but it was 5:30 and just because a crisis was going on did not mean everyone knew. So the roads were neatly lined with cars. She knew it was illegal to ride on the side walk or weave between cars, but it was also illegal to be driving without a license. So Cat gently leaned to the side and raced up the road, keeping the front wheel centered on the broken white line.

As she made her way to downtown she tried to think of what she would do once she got there. She supposed she should just try and find her aunt and get her to leave with her. But knowing Aunt Marie she would already be trashed and she would not understand why she needed to go. Katherine would have to make up some sort of plan to get her to leave. Maybe she would tell her that someone her aunt had not seen in awhile was at the house. She might even be able to trick her into thinking Rowan was there. Rowan of course had been dead for ten years. She was Cat's mother, and had died along with her father in some sort of accident. Katherine was not sure what type it had been, no one ever saw it fit to tell her. They said it was just a car accident, but she had heard someone else say something about a helicopter. It didn't matter really, they were dead no matter what kind of accident it had been.

The street lights began to blur. Cat lifted her arm to her eyes and wiped away the tears. She hadn't cried in years, why should she now.

"You could lose everything tonight you know," a sickening voice inside of her hummed.

"Ugh, I can never get good advice or anything, its always cynical facts," she hated the voice she had created when she was little to help her through things. It never had anything helpful to say anymore.

Katherine finally reached the little square downtown. She screeched the bikes brakes and skidded to the side.

The square was completely empty. She couldn't hear anything, not even crying. It was like a scene from some awful movie. The wind blew some garbage across the square and little whirl winds blew dirt and leaves in comical circles.

Cat set down the bike and slowly walked towards the bar her aunt usually went to. The door was standing opened and a record could be heard skipping over and over again. She pushed the door and it swung inside the bar and hit the wall. The noise echoed and Cat felt sick and hopeless. She stepped in as quiet as she could and looked around. People were laying on the floor and tables. They were horribly bloody and chewed looking. Cat covered her nose and mouth and squinted so the bodies looked more like blobs. She could pretend they were something else, not humans who would never see the sun rise.

There was a small smacking noise coming from the left corner of the bar, by the juke box. Cat walked towards it, careful to step over a bloody severed arm. She could see someone hunched over in a little ball. It looked like a man, his clothes torn and he was missing a shoe.

"Sir! Are you alright?" Cat jumped back as he stood up.

The mans face was twisted into an awful grimace. His eyes were sunken in and blood dripped from his mouth. He let go of the thing he had been sucking on and it made a wet splat as it hit the floor and rolled a couple times.

Katherine screamed louder than she had ever screamed in her life. She looked down at her feet as her aunts head settled there face up. The look on her face would have been funny if it had been in a movie and not so incredibly real. Her eyes were so wide they were almost popping out of her head and her mouth was stuck opened in an eternal scream.

Katherine choked as her throat started to rip from the strain of her scream. The zombie in front of her yelled as well and lunged for her. Cat snapped out of her fear and ran. She forgot about the dead bodies on the floor and ran right over them. When she made it outside the bar she paused, leaning down and putting her hands on her knees. She inhaled deep and tried to get a hold of herself. Was she really seeing this? It was unbelievable that something like this could actually happen. It went against all realities that children were taught. Monsters were not real. Everything they put in the movies is fake. Children were taught not to be afraid of things like zombies, werewolves, and dare she think it, vampires. Grownups instilled this in their heads and after awhile children grew and learned that there was nothing to be afraid of. Perhaps it was some kind of crazy plan the monsters thought up to get every ones guard down.

Cat heard a noise behind her and didn't bother to look. She ran to the bike and sped down the street. She let the tires run over the bits of people lying around. She didn't know where to go. She couldn't go back home what if the zombies made it there. She didn't think the police could help, she saw on the news they were being turned into zombies as well.

Cat looked up from her thoughts just in time to see a man standing on the side of the road on a little hill. She stopped her bike and starred up at him. A hill, it seemed so familiar. She thought of her dream and how she had wanted so bad to make it to the top of that hill. She looked behind her and saw that zombies were starting to come out of the different shops and wobble down the street.

It was now or never. Cat got off the bike and started making her way to the top of the hill. For a moment she thought the man would not notice her, he was just staring up at the sky with a dreamy look on his face. She was almost close enough to touch him when he jerked his head away from the sky and looked at her. Katherine stopped dead as she saw his eyes. They were a deep crimson, and he was not wearing glasses. She changed her mind right away about getting to the top of the hill and tried to turn around to run. The man grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and laughed.

"Well well well, how did you manage to escape all my ghouls?" the man leered at her.

"Your ghouls? You made all of those people like that?" Katherine thought if she kept him talking maybe she would have a chance.

"Of course I did silly girl, who else would have done it," his eyes grew dark as he starred at her.

Katherine remembered the vampire movies her aunt watched. If you looked the vampire in the eye it was the end for you.

It was tough, but Cat managed to focus on the menacing teeth so close to her face. She laughed a little to make herself feel more at ease. It didn't help much.

"So what are you supposed to be? Some kind of vampire or something?" just keep him talking and someone will come along, they have to.

"Ha, you think if you have a conversation with me I'll forget why I caught you in the first place. Well you won't be that lucky my dear. All these adults were filling enough but you, you will be simply delicious," he grabbed the back of Cats head and tipped it.

"Please don't, I swear I'll do anything," it was the last thing Cat could think of.

The man let out an insane laugh, "Yes, you will do anything I want after I drain you of your blood, but don't worry dear I wont drink you dry just yet."

Cat became a little hopeful, anything that would stall this guy would help.

"Oh really? Well what were you planning? I could show you where all the good banks are, you could use me as a hostage to rob them," Cat didn't really know what vampires wanted, money seemed like a good thing to bribe anyone with.

Her heart sank when he began laughing at her with too much joy for someone so sinister.

"Vampires aren't interested in money you silly child. I plan to defile you in every way possible before I kill you."

Cat thought to herself, "Well I guess I had an okay life, it really could have been better though." She sighed deeply and shut her eyes.

"Giving up already girl?" an all too familiar voice reached her ears. She craned her neck to see behind the vampire holding her.

There standing just fifteen feet away was the dark silhouetted man she had seen twice tonight. She wasn't sure if she should be happy or afraid. After all she had seen tonight she had decided that this man she ran into in the rain was no more human than the mad holding her now.

"What! Who are you?" the man turned around dragging Cat with him. Cat noticed he looked a bit frightened.

"I am your death you disgusting vermin," the man with the big read had lifted his gun and pointed it at the other monsters head. Cat gasped as her pulled her in front of him like a human shield.

"You wouldn't shoot through an innocent girl would you? You work for the humans do you not? I'm sure they wouldn't be pleased if they found out you went around killing little girls," the man spoke all of this very fast with a quiver in his voice.

"Don't be so sure you worthless pile of trash," he pulled back the hammer to his gun.

The vampire tightened his grip on Cat, she did not think monsters actually feared things. She supposed it made sense though that they were afraid of bigger monsters.

The vampire stuttered, "Please wait! You can have her! You can join me! Together we could conquer the world!"

"Scum like you is not worthy to walk on this earth, now die," and Cat watched as the mans finger moved towards the trigger.

She had had enough of this and anger began to well up inside of her.

"Now wait just one second!" she yelled. Both the men stopped and looked at her. The first one loosened his grip slightly and the latter dropped the barrel of his gun, if only a few millimeters.

"You can not possibly be thinking of shooting through me. Are you in so much of a hurry that you can't even wrestle this guy to the ground or something like that," she tried thinking of something else to say. She hoped the man with the gun would understand what she was doing and play along.

He raised his gun again and smiled. Katherine hoped this meant he was onto her plan and not just a crazed lunatic ready to shoot right through her.

"I mean com'on! Everyone in the town is dead you should at least TRY and save one person. You could at least wait until the guy behind us grab him and shoot him then," Cat waited for the response.

"Huh..," the vampire turned around to see who cat was talking about. Of course no one was there and he had loosened his grip enough for Cat to wiggle free.

As soon as he turned she gave him a sharp elbow to the gut and dove out of the way. The man in red did not even wait for her to hit the ground before he shot his gun and hit the other vampire right between the eyes. As Cat landed on her stomach with her hands over her head she was showered with the powdery ashes of the deceased vampire. She supposed calling him deceased was a bit redundant but oh well. It had been a long evening.

She peaked out from under her arms to make sure everything was clear. As she got to her feet the man in red walked over to her.

"That was quick thinking, I guess you really didn't want to die," he put his gun away as he said it without looking at her.

"Well of course I didn't want to die! What kind of stupid thing is that to say!" all her fear had left her now, all that was left was anger and annoyance.

The man looked down at her and smirked. She wondered who he worked for and if he really was a vampire why would he be killing his own kind. She guessed it might be the same as people killing people, but there were more of them. Killing off vampires seemed like killing off an endangered species. Bald eagles killing other bald eagles, but they didn't know they were endangered. They only thought about territory and protecting their babies, maybe it was like that with vampires. Who knows?

The man laughed at her. It seemed he could see what she was thinking. If Katherine had been in a better mood she may have laughed with him. It was very silly to be thinking about bald eagles at a time like this. Everything that just happened started to settle in. Her aunt was dead and she had no one left in the world. What was she supposed to do for money? She guessed she would have to get a job, but how would she get enough hours with school?

"You can worry about all of those things later," the man spoke solemnly.

"So you're a vampire as well then," Cat gave up being cautious and looked him straight in the face.

"Indeed I am," he seemed to consider her for a moment and then spoke again, "You should run along home, it looks like it may start raining again."

"What about the rest of those zombies? Are you going to get rid of them?" cat did not want to be followed home by a bunch of walking dead.

"They were taken care of when I shot their master, have a look for yourself," he pointed down the slope of the little hill.

Cat walked over to the edge and looked down. Where all the zombies had been there was now a street full of dust that was being blown quickly away by the wind. Cat gave a sigh of relief and started to speak as she turned around, "thank yo…" She stopped when she saw the man was gone. She looked left and right but he was no where in site.

Cat shrugged and looked at her feet, "Thanks anyway."

She started walking down the hill back to her bike.

"You are welcome."

Cat whisked around, but no one was there. She had probably just imagined it. After everything that happened tonight she wouldn't be surprised if she started having nightmares for weeks. But who knows, maybe she really did hear it.

Knowing monsters, she had.