Oh, To Be Young III

Halloway was on the verge of chewing his nails off before he finally heard movement.

Vincent James climbed back up again. 'It's no good. We're trapped.'

'Damn,' Holloway muttered. 'Okay. Keep your head down, but go join your friends.'

Vince nodded and ran from the room. Halloway took a deep breath and closed up the opening to the sewers again. Now, what do we do? They couldn't get out on the surface, and they couldn't get out going underneath. All there was left to do was sit tight and pray for a miracle; pray that the police could find some way to stop these people and get everyone out.

:[

What Halloway didn't see was Vince's skin paling. His canines extended and even the clothes he wore transformed. His sweater and jeans combo transformed into a formal outfit, complete with a popped collared cape. As soon as his heart stopped beating, Vincent James Junior AKA Dracula Junior, transformed his whole body into mist.

Time for a surprise attack!

:[

Dred glared down at the two monsters. They were firmly tied up, back to back, with Mummy-Man's bandages. While they were caught now, they had successfully ruined his ingenious plan. The youth-sucking machine was well and truly smashed. And he couldn't stay here long enough to rebuild one.

'You broke my magnificent machine!' he snapped. 'Do you know what it'll take to rebuild that thing?'

Neither of them said anything.

At least he'd regained enough youth, though.

'Do you have any idea what's going to happen now?' Dred demanded mockingly.

Once more, neither of them said anything. Whether they were scared or just silent, he couldn't tell. There was something almost…human in these non-human creatures.

Toad was the one who asked. 'What are we going to do with them, Dr. Dred?'

'We're going to take them back to Dredquarters,' Dred said, 'where they will be fed to my…little fish.'

Then they definitely looked nervous.

'I don't think so.'

Alarmed, Dred looked around. 'Who said that?'

A cloud of smoke suddenly shot around them and Dred found himself lifted up and thrown through the air. When he landed, he found himself sandwiched between Vampira and Toad. Looking over in alarm, he saw the smoke shoot across and Mummy-Man's bandages were cut away. The two monsters got up.

'Frankie,' the smoke seemed to talk, 'Howler, you all right?'

'Drak!' The wolf jumped up first. 'Glad to see you made it!'

The smoke then swirled around and it manifested into a tall, pale man. Dred heard Vampira make a sound of appreciation. He guessed she must've thought him fit. Oh, well. As long as she didn't do anything. The man – Drak or whatever – pulled a face and turned. He folded his arms and faced them properly. The other two flanked him.

'Frankie,' he said.

Frankie charged at them and, with a start, Dred realised they were all tangled limbs and stuck on the ground, with Toad sitting on top. Trying to move, the evil mastermind found himself pinned. And for such a huge guy, that…whatever Frankie was…could sure run fast. Dred cried out in alarm.

'Get moving! Get off me! Get off me! Get off me!'

But then Frankie lifted them right up over his head. With a grunt he threw them right back up at the Dredgible. Drak turned to the wolf. 'Send them off, Howler.'

Howler took several deep breaths and then, just as they hit the Dredgible, a huge gust of wind picked it up. It was almost supernatural. Like a tornado had hit them, it picked them up and blew them away. Dr. Dred heard more than saw his force-field shatter as they hit it. He yelled out part in protest and part in outrage.

The plan had been perfect. The teenagers had all been trapped inside his barrier. The police had been unable to penetrate the barrier. They scrambled like rats with nowhere to go. They'd hidden, as all rats did. There was just one thing he didn't equate into his brilliant plan: these three. This…Drak Pack.

I'll get those three if it's the last thing I do!

:[

It'd taken hours and hours for Vince, Frank, and Howard to slip away.

The police wanted witness statements, most especially from Vince as Mr. Halloway had told them that he'd come up with the idea to try and get out via the sewers that ran under the school. The portable phone had garnered some interest, right up until the police had found out what address the boys lived at. Given that the house was actually a cliff top mansion just outside the city limits, they reasoned that it made sense that the man responsible for the boys would want to give them a way to contact him at all times, and he'd have the money to have a working telephone put into a car.

When they finally got back, the boys moved into the sitting room.

Vince immediately walked over to the portrait of Big D, hanging over the fireplace, and pushed it aside. Underneath, there was a button, framed with an intricate letter D. Vince pressed the button. Across the room, two walls immediately flipped over and a highly advanced computer system was revealed. Vince walked over and sat on the stool in front of the massive screen.

'Big D?' he asked.

The lid of the coffin shown on the screen flipped up and the vampire sat up. 'Don't call me Big D! I am your Great Uncle Dracula! Now, what took you so long to get home?'

'The police mainly,' Vince said. 'After incidents, they generally like to speak to everyone who might've seen something and I had to talk to the janitor to get under the school.'

Big D grumbled. 'In my day, at the most there'd just be an inquest.' He turned his head, obviously to where Ruthven was, and nodded. At that moment, the computer began spitting out paper. 'Here's what is already known about the group that attacked your school.'

Sighing, Vince stood up. He moved over and took the paper, quickly reading over it before handing it over to Frank and Howard. A moment later, Ruthven entered the house and was walking over to him. While Ruthven checked Vince to ensure he hadn't contracted Vampira's illness, which required Vince to shift into vampire form, the three boys reported the sequence of events to Big D.

When they got to the initial attack, Vince finally was able to let his confusion out. 'The funny thing was, Emily was walking with the new girl when she was hit. What was her name again?'

'I think it was Jess…' Howard paused. '…uh…Jess Brenton, I think our math teacher called her.'

'Yeah,' Vince said. 'Anyway, when Mummy-Man and Vampira walked in, a ring of fire appeared around her. She hardly seemed aware of it, but it looked like it came from her.'

Big D leaned an elbow on the side of his coffin and looked thoughtful. 'She's most likely to be a witch.'

'But unaware of it?' Ruthven asked even as he continued working. 'That doesn't sound good.'

'Why not?' Frank asked.

'Because if she's unaware of her own magic, it means she's not trained,' Big D said. 'An untrained witch is even more dangerous than a malicious one. At least a malicious witch is in control of their powers and it doesn't just explode out of them when they have an emotional outburst, or when the need to survive kicks in.'

'So, she's dangerous?' Vince asked, frowning.

'Until she can be trained, yes,' Big D said. 'But the last witch in these parts died of cancer a few years ago.'

Ruthven nodded. 'When I'm done here, I'll head out and ask around. The trick isn't going to be finding a witch to train her. It'll be finding a witch that those fanatics haven't scooped up.'

Vince frowned.

:[

Jess growled and slammed her copy of Frankenstein on the bedside table.

After what'd happened today, she just couldn't focus.

'Oh, well,' her mother had said when she told her about Emily. 'That's terrible, but these things do happen.'

A girl was dead! How could anyone be so insensitive?

Jess rolled off of her bed and began pacing her floor. That was the worst first day of school she'd ever had! The first friend she'd made had been killed a few seconds later, in a truly bizarre and horrifying way. Then, she was hidden in the school gymnasium with the rest of the student body. No one had any idea what was happening, or why those people left.

As she'd been the first one over to Emily, though, she was questioned. Jess had tried to remain calm as she answered the questions. That had been very difficult, though, given that she had no understanding of how what had happened to Emily…had happened. In fact, the police were the nicest people about it.

And they were just gathering witness statements.

Angry, Jess slammed her fist into the wall.

The wall moved.

'Huh?' Jess turned to the wall properly. She hadn't put a dent in the wall. There was a panel there that'd just moved.

Curiosity overtaking her anger, Jess pushed against the panel. It went from the floor to the ceiling. Knocking on it, it sounded like the wall was hollow. Jess knocked on the part of the wall next to the panel. That sounded hollow too. She pushed in the door again and, at the same time, slid it across. The panel moved right into the space in the wall, revealing a concealed stone staircase.

'A door? How long's that been there?' Jess darted back to lock her bedroom door. Far better for her mother to think she was sulking than it was to think she'd found something.

Jess made a mental note to buy a flashlight at some point. She walked back to the doorway and stepped through. She moved up the stairs, walking carefully. She could barely see the nose in front of her face. The staircase seemed to wind. It was almost like it went through all the walls. Jess found herself using the wall around it – which was made of stone – to navigate her way up the darkened passage. She walked up, moving slowly and carefully.

Then, after what seemed forever, she came to another door.

Grasping the handle, which glinted even in the dim light, Jess pushed open the door and found herself surfacing into a room. It was a room she hadn't seen before. She stepped in and walking into what seemed a thin rope. Yanking it out of the way, she discovered it was one of those old fashioned ropes that you tugged to turn the light on.

A single light bulb flicked on, illuminating the entire room.

Looking up at it, Jess noted the slanted ceiling.

We have an attic?

Looking around, Jess was suddenly fascinated. The walls were lined with bookshelves that were filled with old books. There was a fire pit on the edge of the room with an old cauldron sitting over it, and all sort of utensils hanging around it. On the other side of the room, there was a long table that had a single cardboard box sitting on it. Once again, her curiosity got the better of her and she crossed over to it.

In the dim light, she could see there were words written across the top of the box, but she couldn't quite make out what they were.

Caw-caw!

The call of a crow made Jess look up. There was a ringed handle in the ceiling above her head. Looking around again, Jess saw a short ladder next to the table. It led right up to what she suspected was a hatch in the roof. Crossing over to it, Jess climbed up and pushed on the ceiling. The hatch lifted right up.

There was a crow perched on the roof next to the hatch.

'Okay,' Jess said. 'Apparently, I can climb right out onto the roof.' At the moment, it didn't seem appealing to her. She looked down again. This time, with moonlight streaming in, she found that she could read the words on the box perfectly well.

To Jessie

:[

'Everybody here?'

Several government agents sat around a large table.

'All right, then. The point of discussion today is the events that occurred yesterday at the City Central High School. At the end of the first period of the day, the student body was attacked by the Organisation of Generally Rotten Enterprises, or OGRE.'

Several of the men around snorted.

The man leading the meeting shook his head. 'I should like to point out that most, if not all members are certifiably insane. Moving on, OGRE consists of six known members. The leader is commonly referred to as Dr. Dred. He's a mad scientist and inventor who has had no steady employment since shortly after finishing his doctorate.'

'So he is an actual doctor?'

'He was. It is believed that he was always a little fantastical, but one of his experiments sent him into full-blown madness. Toad and Fly are something of an enigma, but are believed to be experiments gone wrong. Mummy-Man is assumed to be a large, strong, and severely scarred or otherwise malformed man and the only woman of the group is Vampira. Not much is known about her except for the fact that she is from somewhere in Eastern Europe.'

'I presume those are all code names.'

'Of course they are.'

'And the three that stopped them?'

'Nothing is known about them. They've never been seen before, and their identities are completely unknown. As far as they're concerned, we need to get that information.'

'Well, they disappeared pretty quickly after they saved the school.'

'I'm more interested in how they got into the school grounds in the first place when no one else could get in or out.'

'And that is what we need to learn: who are they? Where did they come from?'

'And, most importantly, are they a threat to national security?'