Chapter One: Blood
Standing next to the Vampire Eradication Vehicle in the harsh sunlight, Danny only half paid attention, his eyes starting to glaze over, as his parents continued to plow through their pre-trek checklist.
"You packed the Fenton Blood-zooka?" Maddie asked, squinting at a crumpled piece of paper in her gloved hand. Her red goggles – which were perched atop her auburn-haired head – gleamed, casting her face in a red shadow… which did nothing to lessen the overall mad-scientist vibe.
"Got it, Mads!" Jack beamed as he unloaded a gray-and-red cylindrical weapon from the V.E.V.'s Weapons Vault. The Blood-zooka apparently launched a compound that paralyzed vamps when it touched their skin. (If vampires existed, Danny amended mentally, which they don't.)
"Sandwiches?" Maddie looked up from her list.
"A whole cooler of turkey and garlic – with extra garlic! And chips!" Jack grinned, gesturing toward the gray-and-red cooler with – what else? – a sticker with the word 'Fenton' slapped onto the side. On the sticker, which adorned pretty much everything in the V.E.V., the word 'Fenton' was written in black with red shadowing, with a single droplet of blood dripping off the final letter. If nothing else, the Fentons were all about subtlety.
"Aw, honey, these chips are Salt and Vinegar," Jack realized, sounding dejected. Everyone in the family knew that Jack Fenton's favorite flavor was Sour Cream and Onion, so this was clearly a disappointment. (Although not garlic, Jack claimed that Sour Cream and Onion chips were garlic-adjacent in their ability to ward off vampires. His family chose not to argue with him at this time.)
"It'll be alright, sweetie. So. What about the Fenton H2-OH Launcher?" Maddie's gaze shifted expectantly toward Weapons Vault, also known as the trunk of the V.E.V.
"The supply of holy water is steady, and this baby is ready for live testing," Jack boomed, successfully distracted. He met his wife's calculating lilac eyes with a bold smile.
"Nicely done, Jack!" Maddie looked up at him through her eyelashes in a borderline suggestive way. Danny gagged.
Danny's phone suddenly vibrated from the side pocket in his U.R.A. Welcoming the interruption, he pulled it out and hastily focused on the stream of texts from – who else? – his best friend, Tucker Foley.
Dude, Tucker had started, earlier, when Danny must've been distracted by his parents' nonsense. Ur not going to believe this! He then stopped texting for a period of about fifteen minutes, as if waiting for Danny's natural pause and reaction.
The local news is actually reporting on some vampire shit! Tucker revealed next. Danny knew that at this point, Tuck expected a pretty incredulous response. Tuck's text had just come through on Danny's iPhone, though, potentially delayed by the spotty New Hampshire service. Danny groaned. He didn't want to discount Tucker… but still, he doubted that this was anything earth-shattering.
Yeah Tuck? U sure? What r they saying? Danny drunk in his current surroundings, noting that nothing major seemed to be out of place. As a side note, Danny hoped his text went through without any sort of technological mishap. He was in the middle of nowhere, after all.
Well OK, no one has said vamps yet, Tuck conceded. But this 1 guy was found totally drained of blood, with a weird bite mark on his neck. At that, Danny blinked furiously, re-reading Tuck's latest message, glad that service in this area of the White Mountains seemed to hold (for now).
As Danny considered his friend's message, he reluctantly had to agree that Tucker's news was, in fact, super strange. His parents had been keeping an eye out for similar cases in the area for years, to no avail.
That's… kinda crazy. Uh, anything else? Danny wrote back, fingers shaking.
Yeah. From what my PDA's telling me, ur really close to where this maybe victim was found. Danny gasped audibly, unaware that he had inadvertently caught Jazz's attention.
Wait… Tuck, r u tracking my location right now? Danny wasn't sure how to feel about that, but he had to know regardless. He supposed he was impressed… yet simultaneously creeped out by his friend's ability to know where he was, likely at all times.
Uh, yeah. Ur family takes off way too often, dude. Danny looked up at the trees, shaking his head with amusement.
Of course, Tuck would admit to it just like that, Danny thought.
As the bright sun filtered through the leaves, and the muted sounds of birds and insects hummed in the distance, Danny couldn't help but think it would be impossible for a creature as evil as a vampire to be in these woods too.
"Everything alright, Danny?" Jazz asked. Danny probably jumped five feet into the air.
"Jeez! Jazz, what's your deal?" Once a bit calmer, Danny took a deep breath and glared at his, well, truly overbearing sister.
Jazz's eyes narrowed. "Well, excuse me for caring about my little brother, who looks like he's seen a ghost, by the way."
"Very funny, Jazz," Danny over-enunciated his sister's name in an exasperated tone. "Ghosts, like vampires, don't exist."
Danny noticed belatedly that he had refrained from swearing and was strangely proud of himself. Jazz always launched into some psychological babble about how Danny was "lashing out" as an "ignored, unacknowledged child" whenever he slipped up on the swearing front – which wasn't at all often. (The frequency didn't matter to Jazz, though.)
"Obviously, Danny. It's an expression. Why are you so edgy, anyway?" Jazz was openly scrutinizing him, looking down at Danny's phone with a frown, clearly trying to figure out what had upset him.
"Danny, are you alright?" Maddie asked sweetly as she tore herself away from her checklist momentarily, glancing at Danny with a worried expression.
"Mads! What's next on that list of yours, the Fenton Extra-Rare Stake Longbow?" Danny stared at his dad, who was, characteristically, completely and totally oblivious to the turmoil that his son was feeling.
"Jack, not now," Maddie scolded lightly, her eyes still focused on Danny.
"But Mads, you get the joke, right? It's a play on 'steak' versus 'stake…'" Jack clammed up as Maddie took a moment to gawk at him openly.
Jack shook his head and took off to the V.E.V. Weapons Vault, muttering under his breath. "No one appreciates a good pun anymore."
-xxx-
"Mom, I'm fine," Danny repeated for what felt like the millionth time.
"Well, okay, hun. But if you want to go back and wait in the V.E.V., you just let us know, alright?"
Danny scowled, but still trudged along behind his parents. The terrain was getting a bit more difficult to maneuver, sure, but he hated when his mom acted as if he was super fragile. He had one little accident when he was younger, and ever since then – every so often – his mom went on high-alert about his safety.
Danny had been entrusted with carrying the cooler and none of the Fenton weapons. Part of him resented that.
Though decidedly not a huge nature lover, Danny still was enjoying the scenery as he and his family travelled away from the Swift River and moved farther into the White Mountain National Forest. Too bad that it happened to be one of the hottest days of the summer. Danny even heard on the news before leaving FentonWorks that New Hampshire was actually supposed to be hotter than parts of Florida today, which was absolutely against the natural law of the universe. (August in New England could be weird like that, though.)
Suddenly, something caught Danny's eye. Close to the ground, it glistened in the daylight, webbing nearly iridescent. In the middle of the web was an enormous spider: black with a tiny flash of red on its abdomen. Danny gasped, somehow recognizing it as a black widow, which was unusual but not impossible to find in his home state. But the actual type of spider wasn't the scariest part. No, the arachnid's eyes were what terrified Danny the most. Not the number of them, either – Danny knew spiders had eight eyes, he wasn't stupid – but the way in which they seemed to shine with calculating intelligence.
Then, several things happened all at once.
First, Danny instinctively backed away, cooler forgotten, eyes fixated on the spider. Immediately, he stopped paying attention to his parents and Jazz up ahead and was only concentrating on what he recognized as – somehow – a nearby predator.
Second, in his haste to back away from the poisonous arachnid, he tripped. Unluckily for Danny, he edged backward in a spot of forest where the ground sloped downward. All it took was one misplaced step before Danny was falling backward – tumbling – over dirt, leaves, sticks, and roots. It happened so quickly that he didn't even have time to curse his inherit clumsiness. Moments later, Danny felt acute embarrassment as he scanned his surroundings, realizing that he could no longer see his mom, dad, or Jazz.
Third, Danny felt the temperature around him drop unexpectedly.
At first, it was like a wave of air conditioning after being trapped outside in the extreme heat for hours: refreshing and welcome. Then, as the iciness lingered, Danny felt fear. There was a prickling sensation at the base of his neck as he noticed that the abnormal coldness refused to dissipate. He heard growling, faint but intimidating.
A tense male voice rang out. "Well…what have we here?" Behind the speaker, there were other dark, person-shaped shadows. Danny registered bright crimson eyes, somehow glowing with vengeance.
Danny's body shut down.
-xxx-
Hours later, Danny knew one thing for certain. He was dying.
His wounds continued to bleed, and he felt detached, almost. It was like a part of him was just suspended in midair, watching his body fail. Danny felt as though it was necessary to remind himself of the most basic facts. It's me. I'm Danny. Danny Fenton. I'm here, right now. I'm bleeding.
He wasn't sure if it was shock or a complete out-of-body experience.
He had no baseline, that much was clear.
-xxx-
Danny's awareness was fuzzy. Shapes and colors filtered in and out of his sight. He tried to focus on something, anything, but then his chest seized up. Eventually, maroon-colored eyes solidified in his line of vision.
"Drink this," the distinctly female voice urged. "You're dying."
Danny identified that this was true, but some part of him refused to drink whatever was being forced his way.
"Stranger… danger… no…" Danny was surprised that he could even form words.
"Listen, we're not all like… what you must've seen. I don't want you to die," the mysterious female's voice sounded urgent, searching. "You seem… important. Well, there's this legend, actually," the woman seemed to bite her lip with sharp canine teeth. Danny registered the apparent fangs a beat too late and laughed halfheartedly as his reply. Hah, he felt amused, I'm hallucinating vampires as I die. Cool.
"Listen, it's simple: either you drink this, or you die," the woman said bluntly. She had mahogany-colored hair braided down to the small of her back – and seemed genuinely alarmed, too.
"Die, then, 'kay," Danny didn't register that he had moved or spoken, but he somehow knew that his parents would never forgive him if he drank… whatever that was.
He knew he was fourteen, and that he wanted to do much more with his life than he had up until this point, but a small sphere of fear inside him whispered that sometimes, dying was better.
"I… I can't. I can't let you go." The woman's maroon-brown eyes filled with moisture, but no tears fell, and she gazed off into the distance. "If you're who I think you are… then… I need you." She squished her eyes closed, looking ashamed. "All of us do."
Overall, Danny felt intense confusion. To be honest, everything seemed to move way too fast, yet way too slow at the same time. There were a few things that he understood, despite it all: (1) he was in so, so much pain, radiating out of every single bleeding pore; (2) reality was slipping from his grasp.
Unceremoniously, he lost consciousness.
-xxx-
Author's Note: Hello, it's ViandDash, and I am… an extreme perfectionist. ("Hi, ViandDash." *The rest of the support group patrons nod in solidarity…*) I'm fully aware of my condition (ha), but sometimes it can't be helped. I'm trying to force myself not to tweak things too much once posted, but sometimes I can't resist and/or it seems important. I edited this again in 2021 – I'm sorry. Nothing changed plot-wise, I simply tweaked the writing.