Unfinished Business
Sun is setting, I really did not want to be here, not at night, but mom demanded homework first and by the time I finished the suns going down. Everyone has been less enthusiastic about being out of the house after dark since the summer, mom would have normally protested the thought of me going out with it being so close to sun down, but I guess she figured she can't make me stay in all the time, sides that stuff over the summe is over, gone, maybe we all should just move on.
I pull my bike up onto the walk, mindful of other people, even so a few from school and even one's not from the same school as me move to aviod me. I try to ignore the reactions, i'm just here to see Gale. I leave my bike by the rails and head off looking for the electronics store she mentioned, I rember there being one, mainly because Sam had his face plastered to the window staring longingly at the used T.V.s on the other side of the glass the first time we got to the Boardwalk.
I find it, the Repair shop that sales used refurbished electronics. I walk in a slight grin on my face and look around. Stereos, T.V.s, cameras, even an Atari or two sitting inside. I walked up to look over the Atari and what games it had for it.
" Can I help you?" A deep smooth voice asks from behind me, causing me to jump.
" Uh, uh, I'm alright was just looking." I said putting the joust cartridge back in it's rack.
The man had went a little white when I turned around to look at him, great. He was about average hight and very lea with a mustache, ginger hair. He wore a cheap grey suit and the cologne matched. His hair showed that he was graced with premature baldness as not one hair was on top of his head, only the sides remained. He looks about my moms age.
" I was checking see if Gale was here, I met her during lunch at school, she mentioned your place." I responded as calm and nicely as possible.
" Gale? You're a friend of hers?" The man looked skeptical. " And you go to school?" He still seemed skeptical after I nodded.
" Dad! He's OK, he's normal, walks in the sun, just gots a bad attitude is all." Gale came out rolling her eyes at her father." Micheal right? Man you really aren't to bright. I say don't go to the Boardwalk and especially at night and what do you do?" Gale looks at her dad. " He's a new guy, just moved her over the summer."
" You might want to take the earring out, there's a biker gang around here and they don't like it when someone not one of their own is wearing one like that." The guy doesn't seem convinced I'm OK.
" So Micheal, why you here?" Gale asks me.
"Uh, well I." I ran my hand threw my hair, maybe I was wrong, maybe she really just was being helpful and had zero interest in me. " I just wanted to say hi, so um, hi, better go, it is late." I turn and head out not waiting for a response, I didn't want to embarrass myself farther than I already have.
**** Beach****
I slumped in the sand to watch the ocean waves, the sound ready to lull me to sleep. I don't know what I was thinking, that I would find a normal girl wanting anything to do with me in this hell hole town. I'm marked as damaged goods here. I can't wait for this year to be over and I can just leave this stupid tow with it's wacko superstitious paranoid people. Move back to Phoenix, hell dealing with my psycho ex girlfriend Candy would be better.
After 30 minutes of feeling sorry for myself I lift from the sand and head back, I'll just get back on my bike, head home and deal with the now what's normal everyday routine of avoid the other students and them avoid me. My thoughts are jerked back to the here and now. Something was wrong, very wrong. my bike no longer sat alone near the rail overlooking the beach. Four other bikes had been pulled up around it, like if it sat as part of the rest. except it's more like blocked in. This would have been annoying except I knew the bikes.
I gulped looking over the dark bike I slowly walked up to, the theme on it was skulls and coon tails hung from the handle bars, a glance at the bike sitting directly in front. Black, with a little bit of yellow, dark red bike directly behind and next to mine, another dark painted bike behind that one. The dark one with skulls sat directly behind mine blocking it in.
I knew these bikes and knew what it meant. The owners are no where in sight and hopefully will not return to soon. I move the one behind mines out, just enough i can slip in and push mine from the groups imprisonment.
" Going somewhere Mikey?" A voice I knew right away suddenly fills my ears. So does his breath as it blows against my ear with each word, this close I could smell it, it smelled of something dead.
" ... I'm going home." I answered tensely, I know I'll be all to easy to kill, I'm a dead man, I'll probably not make it home.
" We can all go home latter." Marko chuckles, but no longer standing directly behind me.
The we sent a spike of terror up and down me, the images of them exacting some kind of revenge on my family streaks threw my mind. I choke, someone had hit by back hard, knocking the air out of me.
" We've all been waiting for you to come home Mikey." Marko breaths into my ear. " don't lose your breath now." He must have slapped my back.
I couldn't handle standing here waiting for him to do something to me, I broke into a run, knocking down one of the bikes in order to get away from Marko who was now laughing at my attempt to flee. I managed to put distance between me and him, but I had no where to go, the boardwalk wasn't going to be open forever, they'll then get me. My sprint slows and I collapse next to a store that has already shut down for the night.
" Shit you know you really know how to freak a girl out?" Gale is standing over me, a smile on her face. " Come on." she holds her hand out. " It's not safe out here as I said." It seems I had ran around right back to her fathers store.
" I, ya I left my bike out near the rails that over looks the beach, some guys blocked it in with their bikes, so I might be here awhile." I sighed, this was going to be a long night, one I may never make it home from.
" Yea it's probably them, they like to do shit like that, good thing they didn't see you." Gale leads me back in the store, her father looks up from his news paper, a hard look on his face. You can tell the distrust the man has for me, but he doesn't say anything as Gale leads me to the back. " Sorry, all we got is kool Aid, hope you don't mind cherry." She pulls a large plastic jug from the Fridge, it looked to much like blood, had to be my mind messing with me, my mind had to been messing with me outside, cause the boys are dead and not coming back, not after me or my family, not looking for revenge.
" Cherry is fine." I didn't want any, but I wasn't going to be rude. I take the cup she offers and drink, it tasted overly sweet, even for me with how everything is bland to me now. It also has a funny after taste, almost metallic, but that had to be my mind fucking with me, like everything else.
" Feeling better Sunshine? You looked like you saw a ghost and ran a marathon out there, what happened?" Gale looked a little amused and interested.
" Thought I saw a dead friend, who is dead." Dead friend.. We only knew each other a week and he was a monster. They weren't really friends, I was after all a meal for Star.
" Oh?" Gale still watched me.
" Not something I want to talk about." I took another drink and felt weird, almost drunk. " What's in this besides kool aid?" I looked at Gale... I did not like the look she was giving me. Her face was twisted now into a sickening malicious grin.
" I put nothing in it... Myself." Her hand comes out and strokes my face and then she suddenly kisses me on the lips. " You're so easy to lure out Sunshine, the promise of a girl and you come out from hiding away in that little room of yours."
" Wha..." I blinked, I felt strange and everything blurred, it felt like back in the cave. Oh god. " You, oh god you.." I knew what she did, but she's human, she goes out in the day, how.. oh god.
" They don't make it their business to come after the locals." She strokes my check with a finger nail. " Your grandpa is a local, they only came to his home because they were attacked, they came for what's theirs and a little reprisal." She continues.
" How, what about you? You're, You're human." I asked I could still think, barely. She cackles.
" Was human, a little gift." She grins, showing her true self now, it doesn't horrify me as it would have before that night a few months ago, to see her morph into something inhuman, monstrous.
" Why?" I guess everyone asks that question.
" Um, immortality?" She runs her now clawed finger against my cheek. " I was diagnosed with cancer, inoperable a month ago." Gale grins, it only adds to the horror of her change. " I'm a fighter, but Not much I could do, I was dieing, he made me an offer." Her voice was now a seductive coo even with the gruff vampiric presence. " And I passed their test, just one last thing I needed to do."
" What.. Was that?" I asked though I think I know. My body starts slumping to the floor, the effects of the blood overwhelming me and seemed like something was different this time.
" Lure you out, oh I'm not fully turned yet anymore than you are, after all Sunshine, I had to be out in the day. Don't look so betrayed." Gale taps my nose. " I actually do like you, and wanted to get close to you, I'm normally shy, but broody ole you would never ask a girl like me out, would you?" She lets out a laugh that chills me. " He spoke to me, gave me what I needed to come forward, to speak to you."
I laugh at the insanity of it, the girl's debating if I liked her while having tricked me into drinking vampire blood, I had debated the same question about her, just it was honest. She must have had a crush on me for a while and drinking Davids blood had changed her, made her lot more bold. This is it, I've fallen off the edge and can't stop laughing. It doesn't last long as I'm suddenly snapped back to reality, or the hazy fog of it. " I didn't think you had interest in me, why I left here earlier.
" Sweet, so you do like me? You do want to date me?" Gales' yellow orange eyes look at me almost hopefully.
I grimace. " I did." The look she gave me at the use of past tense made me back track a bit. " I do, I." She kisses me, fangs cutting my lip.
" I know, don't say anything, it'll be over soon." Her words left me confused, I didn't understand, what would be over.
"What's going on?" I had to know, know what it was they are up to.
" Oh David's impatient and he doesn't want you getting bright ideas, oh don't worry if he wanted to play with your family, he wouldn't have waited to get you out of that house." She was very found of me, she was good at hiding it before, playing the just friendly wanting to help the new guy. Now she was running her finger over my face constantly. " Vampire blood can heal so much, I lost my hair, gotten pale, Chemo is evil you know. A guy like you wouldn't give me a second look, you get the pretty little cheerleaders, never mind little Gale sitting on her own. To taunt, to tease and make fun of, Gale, why don't you just go blow on out the window, blow away Gale."
I hiss a little, feeling her claws starting to tear my cheek. " Gale, I'm not like that." I mean yea I dated the cheerleaders, but I didn't ignore girls just because they aren't popular and I never tormented and bullied them. Where ever her mind went, it wouldn't be good for me if it stayed there. " Come on, please, I'm not like that."
" You're not? You don't taunt, don't laugh at girls like me? You don't date the cheerleaders and walk off with your cool hip friends? I guess you don't think you deserved a taste of what it's like to be an outcast?" She stopped digging her claws in. " Do you want me?"
Oh god, at this moment hell no, but it's because you're psycho and nearly ripping my face off right now. " Yea, just, not like this. You're hurting me Gale." I near plead.
" When you change fully and you will, you will still want me. No you. Will want me." She seemed a bit obsessed with this idea that I'd be with her, like she was going to own me. Candy back in Phoenix sounds a lot more sane right now.
" That's because Micheal, that poor little Gale here has always been knocked aside and laughed at by the popular people." Davids' voice, a voice I thought I'd never have to hear again. " He's actually truthful about that he never bullied. You can let him go now." David grins as Gale stood and leaned against him, he takes his hand and strokes it over the top of her head. " She's a good girl, even now, only being half, my blood has taken strong root in her veins. She only fought it a little, but with so much to gain, that was short lived. She was more than willing to help me draw you out, a perfect find I'd say. She didn't want to die a horrible slow death. Immortality." Davids words come to a halt as I interrupt.
"For a price." I say, this got me a laugh from him.
" Everything has a price, Gale wanted to live and she wanted to have what all those superficial bitches have, someone, a man, a good looking guy who's captain of the football team, the guy every girl wants, but she could never have... Perfect don't you think? I promised you to her, after all, you were that guy once, dated the cheerleaders, had any girl you wanted and was captain of the football team and the wrestling team and all she had to do was get you in, bring you back to us. Where. You. Belong. Micheal." David kisses the top of Gales' head. " I don't make the same mistake twice."
I didn't know what he meant buy that, but it sounded ominous.
" Star, she was a mistake." David lets out a cold laugh, a cold sickness grows in the pit of my stomach to go along with the developing blood hunger...
I now knew Star was dead. We had a falling out, but it was just hard to think of her as dead or even her being hurt.
" Feeling hungry? I bet you are, it's the second time you're going threw this, the change will be a bit more quicker since your body has already been threw it before, you could feed tonight, no need to wait." David smirks. " Tonight, you will come with us and and you will feed, Gale will make sure of that wont you lovely?" David leans over and kisses her on the lips. " You know what to do." David then looks at me. " It'll be her first, you both will join us together, nothing like sealing a mate bond threw sharing a first kill don't you think?"
" Wait what?!" I near yell out in shock. Mate bond? What the hell was he talking about?
" You will find out soon enough." David laughs, wrapping his arm around Gales' shoulders, then turns and walks out with her. " You will come home tonight Micheal as one of us, where you belong. You won't resist tonight, there will be nothing to hold you back when you true self emerges."
I sit in stun silence on the floor, I don't understand what's going on, I expected my death, not to yet again be drawn in by a girl, this time the girl doesn't want out. Used twice, once for escape, this time to be kept. I don't know how I'd escape it this time, I don't want to find out what he'll do. Star pops into my mind. I have no doubts She's dead, that David killed her. Gale has replaced Star, a willing follower loyal to David. I just don't understand why me, why he wants me to become one of them.
We failed the first time, a second attempt could mean death not just for me, but my family too. I can't tell Sam, I can't tell any of them, they will try and another attempt and this time the boys would be ready, they would be killed and David's not giving me a choice, I do this tonight or it'll cost me more than my humanity. I wont be allowed the chance to say anything to Sam anyway.