Dark Energy

Before the Lucifractor exploded, Sarah, Benny, Ethan, and Jesse had run for it. Why Sarah didn't use her super-speed to run ahead was simple. Sarah wasn't going to leave Ethan and Benny to die.

Jesse's reasons were more complicated. If there was anything he had cultivated in his hundreds of years of unnatural life, it was a devious, selfish cunning. And that was why he didn't rush ahead of Sarah and her geek friends.

It was obvious that Stern was intent on overpowering the lucifractor. And that meant an explosion that would destroy the vampire-killing vigilante. But it would only mean a local explosion. It was too bad for Sarah's geek friends who'd be crushed by the rubble; but not so bad for Jesse and not so bad for Sarah.

Jesse still wanted Sarah. But Jesse didn't want to actually mesmerize her. Hypnotism took the challenge out of romancing her; besides, Sarah wasn't the one who'd stay in hypnosis for long. And what better way to win Sarh over than to stay by her side, and comfort her, as she cried over the bodies of her two dork friends.

So, Jesse not only didn't run ahead, but tried to slow them down. Jesse purposely acted confused whenever the group hit a place where stairs or corridors branched off. But there weren't all too many places where this happened. Besides, Jesse was held in sufficiently low esteem by his allies that they weren't inclined to do more than shout "This way!"

"Don't tell the guy the way out!" Benny yelled to Ethan. "Let that luci-thingy kill him, for good this time."

"We're not like him" said Ethan, gasping as they ran. "Would Adama leave Baltar to die?"

"He did" said Benny. "On Kobol."

"What the frack?" said Ethan, confused for a second. "Wait. That's the original Battlestar Galactica series with Lorne Greene, not the re-imagined series.

"Yeah, well" Benny retorted, "The original was a better show. Lorne Green was Canadian."

"Guys" said Sarah, who being a vampire wasn't breaking a sweat. "Forget it. Focus on running for our lives!"

"Run on ahead!" said Ethan. "There's no reason for you to stay here."

"I'm not leaving you and Benny behind" Sarah said.

The group made it outside Vampire HQ, barely. Benny and Ethan were heading for the edge of the grounds at a full sprint. And intuitively, Ethan knew the explosion was seconds away.

"Dive" he said.

"Huh?" said Benny.

"Dive, dive, hit the dirt" said Ethan.

They did. Sarah, Ethan and Benny dived right into the thornbushes in front of them. Ethan swore a Battlestar Galactica "frack." Benny didn't even bother using "frack."

Jesse didn't trouble to dive. He looked down at the three of them, with a mocking smile. But even Jesse was knocked off his feet when Vampire HQ exploded and emitted the green energy-destroying wave.

Ethan figured there was no description for the sound of the explosion. You would think, all the T.V., movie and video game explosions he'd heard over the years, he'd have an idea. But no. It was too intense for him to describe.

Not so for Benny.

"It's like the death star blowing up in New Hope" yelled Benny in the din. "Only not in space, not in a galaxy far, far, away but right here."

Far too late, Benny wondered what kind of magical shield he could have used to protect them. If only his grandmother hadn't waited until just under two years ago to tell him he was a spell-caster. It still sometimes slipped his mind there was such a thing as magic, and he actually knew how to do it.

Those thoughts disappeared as the energy wave from the lucifractor hit. Even Benny couldn't think of anything to compare to that. First came nausea that made him want to throw up his entire intestinal tract, or so Benny figured. Then came a feeling of exhilaration, as if he had drank ten cups of espresso within five minutes time.

But that wave went on what seemed like forever. Enough for Ethan to wonder if his vision earlier that day had been correct. Had everybody in town died? Were they all rotting corpses? What was it like to be dead? Would he be moving on to a better place? What would happen to Sarah?

The energy wave finally evaporated. The painful feel of the thorns scratching their hands told Ethan and Benny that they were very much alive.

The two teenagers turned around and glimpsed the ruins of Vampire HQ.

"And once again, Benny and the Ethanator are victorious!" said Benny

"SARAH!" said Ethan.

Ethan had again turned and now noticed Sarah was out cold, her eyes closed and her face tinged blue.

"I'll start CPR!" said Ethan, trying to feel her pulse.

"I don't think you do CPR on a vampire" Benny observed quietly.

But Benny too dropped beside Sarah and tried to warm her hands. If only he had the magic book his grandmother gave him! There must be something he could do?

"Maybe an electric shock" said Benny, remembering his lightning spell.

"You try that you'll kill her" said Ethan brusquely.

Ethan was starting with mouth-to-mouth respiration.

"It took you a year to ask her out and now you're practically kissing her, just like that" said Benny, angry at the crack about his magic.

Benny looked to his side. There too was Jesse, looking like a corpse. Well, an honestly, entirely, completely and sincerely dead corpse.

No fracking way was Benny going to try CPR on Jesse.

"Dudes" said Rory. "How is she?"

Benny and Ethan had been too absorbed with Sarah to see Rory, Erica and Anastasia appear behind them. But Ethan now turned, and begged with Anastasia:

"Can you save her?"

"No" said Anastasia brusquely. "Nor can I save him" she added, pointing to Jesse. "The person you should be concerned about saving is you, Ethan. It appears you've decided to subvert the council's order banishing Jesse."

"You think I like the guy?" said Ethan, noticing the prone Jesse for the first time. "I needed him to stop Stern. And I did! You vampires have your town back."

"At the cost of my building and all my possessions" observed Anastasia icily. "At the cost of a major disruption of our community and the destruction of several of my guards. And it's you Ethan, and you Benny, who will have to pay the price. Bringing back Reverend Black after he's been banished. Letting Stern get the lucifractor because he confiscated it when you were late for class."

"That wasn't exactly how it happened" said Benny

"Quiet" said Anastastia, showing her fangs."Sarah isn't around to protect you now, Ethan. And I can easily overpower your incompetent carnival magician friend."

"Who are you calling a carnival magician?" said Benny, bringing himself to his full height. "Lightning lummite nummow!" he said.

A lightning bolt hit Anastasia, but it seemed to do little besides put her hair on end.

"You!" said Anastasia, as quick as the bolt herself, she bent Benny's arm almost to the breaking point. Benny fell to the ground groaning in pain.

Anastasia rearranged her hair with a frown.

"Now, what would be better?" mused Anastasia. "For me to drain the two of you dead, or for me to order your erstwhile friends to do it on my behalf."

Erica was opposite Ethan, Erica now cradling Sarah's senseless head, muttering "best friends forever." As for Rory, he had taken over Benny's job of trying to revive Sarah by rubbing her hands.

"GET AWAY, ANASTASIA"

The person who had spoken was Jesse, and he had an unexplained tinge of panic in his voice. Jesse staggered to his feet, looking haggard beyond his years. Or haggard beyond his teenaged appearance, one or the other.

"You're trying to banish me!" said Anastasia, going to him.

She flew him up several feet in the air and dropped him. In his grief, Ethan barely registered how funny it was to see a little girl pull what looked like a man of nineteen or twenty into the air and just drop him!

"I haven't any energy" gasped Jesse. "It's not coming back. You've just about used yours up."

"Silence, you upstart!" said Anastasia. "Your threats mean nothing to me. You've never had any respect or understanding for tradition. Your career involved ring-leading a vampire church and even a vampire high school drama club. You're even worse than this deranged Dusk girl over here."

"Yet you wanted an autograph from Dirk Baddison" objected Erica, though she was still holding up Sarah's head.

"Stay out of this" said Anastasia, as she looked at Erica with glowing eyes.

And quick as a light, Erica fell asleep on the grass.

"Whoa" said Benny, still nursing his arm. "She's a snorer. Keep that in mind, Rory."

"I am running things in Whitechapel, Jesse" said Anastasia.

"None of us will for some time" said Jesse. "I don't have enough energy. Get out while you can."

"Then I can banish you a . . . ." started Anastasia, but that's as far as she got. The usually composed Anastasia screamed at the top of her lungs.

Benny and Rory were the closest to Jesse when it began to happen. Jesse slowly leant against a nearby tree, doubling over in pain. Jesse's skin starting sagging and wrinkling. The black of his hair became shot with grey and eventually white. It started to fall out in clumps. His body shrunk and fell in on itself, as his skin became peppered with liver sports. Crows feet multiplied around his eyes. His teeth fell out, rotted.

Ethan realized what had happened.

"He's aging! His immortality's gone."

"It's gone" gasped Jesse.

And those were Jesse's last words. He fell backwards dead. But his body wasn't even going to be given the dignity of lying in peace. Nor was it going to burn up as most vampires' bodies did. It oozed.

When it oozed, it oozed. Neither Benny nor Rory could get back away from the putrescent mess fast enough. The vampire's body immediately began to turn yellow, then green and black with rot. The flesh lost its shape and became misshapen, seeping and blob-like. It oozed and leaked into liquid as bacteria long denied their lunch did their work. Jesse's clothes sunk into the pus and Jesse's stomach exploded under his jacket. The blood and yellow and green rot sunk out of the collapsing body. The bones began to show on his hands and his face, and the nose sunk in and the rotting eyes collapsed into the decomposing flesh. Soon, all that was left was a skeleton of yellowed bones in a pool of slime.

Rory inched away, terrified at what was about to happen to him. Benny couldn't even think that far ahead at the moment. The smell was so bad, Benny just threw up.

By the time Jesse had rotted away, Ethan noticed that Anastasia had screamed herself hoarse. And in the interval, Anastasia had become a very old lady. If a man rotting away before their eyes was bad, the same thing happening to what outwardly appeared to be a little girl was something neither Benny nor Ethan could bear to see.

Ethan grasped Sarah in his arms, all nervousness, shyness and deference forgotten in his fear that Sarah was next to rot away. Ethan was even glad that he seemed too nervous to even get a vision.

Benny was gulping and looking at the two skeletons panicked.

Rory, for his part, was shaking but now resigned to the end. His thoughts became un-muddled. Rory was grateful that neither Erica and Sarah were awake to see their doom. Hopefully, that was how the girls would die. In their sleep.

"So long guys" Rory said, to Benny and Ethan. Rory felt a terrible pain in all his joints. This was it, he thought. The rot was coming. The oozing.

Both Ethan and Benny felt guilty. They'd been so worried about Sarah, so horrified about the decay of Jesse and Anastasia, they hadn't thought much about Rory.

"You're a real friend, Rory" said Benny. "We'll always keep that last picture we had to remember you be. You know, from back when you were human. In Science class. When we were making swear words from the element symbols in the periodic table."

"Thanks guys" said Rory, closing his eyes in dread of what was about to happen.

Rory didn't rot, didn't ooze, didn't do much of anything. Leastways as far as either Benny or Ethan could see. At least at first.

"What the heck!" said Rory. "My clothes are all tight."

When Rory stood up, he looked more ridiculous than usual. His clothes looked like they had shrunk while he was wearing them.

"What's up with that?" asked Benny.

"Yeah" said Rory. "Whazzzzz up?"

A lightbulb went on in Ethan's head.

"Two years of growth, Rory. Two years, buddy!"

"Huh?" said Rory.

"The two years of height you were robbed of since you became a vampire."

"I like being a vampire" Rory objected. "How else can I be prank-Z, or vampire ninja or super vampire Rory?"

Benny and Ethan looked at one another incredulously.

"The vampire curse enforces a non-aging immortality" said Ethan. "When the lucifractor was concentrated on an individual bloodsucker, that bloodsucker was instantly destroyed. When the shockwaves from the exploding lucifractor went out, they weren't concentrated on an individual vampire. They simply removed the dark energy vampires feed upon. No dark energy means the vampire curse can't operate. It's wiped out. The immortality is removed."

"Anastasia and Jesse were too old" said Benny with realization. "They couldn't live without their immortality. They aged, died and rotted when they ran out of negative energy. But Rory's just gotten two years older. Practically nothing."

"I'm still a vampire, I think" insisted Rory.

"Try to fly" said Benny.

Rory couldn't. He jumped in the air and fell flat on his face.

"Wait, I've got a better idea" said Benny.

He flashed a picture of Rory with his smart phone.

"Here, Rory" Benny showed him. "Your first photo in two years."

"I guess" said Rory, squinting at the screen none too happily. "But if this keeps up, I think I might need my glasses back. Or get contacts"

In the meantime, Ethan's attention had turned to Sarah.

"What happened?" she asked, as she sat up. "WHY are you holding me? And WHAT is with Rory's clothes?"

Ethan explained. All the dark energy in Whitechapel was gone. Jesse and Anastasia had been killed. And it seemed as if . . . .

"Wait" said Sarah. "I feel different."

"You might not be a vampire anymore" said Ethan.

Sarah took out a compact with an old photo of herself pasted on the long-useless mirror. She took off the photo, and admired her reflection.

"Ethan" she said.

She kissed him, and Ethan fell into it like a natural.

"What I wanted to say about our first date" said Ethan, "was it sucked. What with the restaurant full of vampires, the lucifractor, that ghost dog and everything. But, uh, you're great, and this is great."

"And you're a geek" said Sarah, "But I love you for it."

"And you're my sister's babysitter, and an ex-vampire" said Ethan. "But I love you for it."

The two kissed again.

"Score!" said Benny, giving Ethan a high-five off to the side.

Rory was flat on his face several yards away. He had been trying to run at super speed but failing miserably.