20. HUNGRY VAMPIRES
KRISTI BROLEN WAS GLAD to be home. This past semester, the first of her junior year at UConn, had been her most difficult by far. Upper level courses were much tougher than those she had taken her freshman and sophomore years. She had done okay, but it had required a lot of work. All she wanted to do now, at the beginning of her three week holiday break, was relax.
So that was exactly what she was doing, sitting and reading in the backyard of her parents’ Ledyard home. She had dragged one of the heavy, dark green Adirondack chairs close to the edge of the yard—not an easy task for the five-foot five-inch, blue-eyed brunette—onto a small cement patio her dad had built a few years back to hold their propane gas grill and a wooden picnic table. She could have read at the table, but the Adirondack was so much more comfortable.
She loved it back here. Every breath she drew was tinged with fresh pine fragrance from a row of slender Blue Spruce a few feet behind her. The trees separated the yard from the woods and hills that stretched for almost a mile behind the house. The yard was quiet and peaceful, especially compared to the inside of the house, where her nine-year old twin brothers romped and raced about the place with little regard for the sanity of the other members of the family.
Sure, it was cold out here, and growing steadily colder now that the sun had set, but her purple L.L Bean jacket and matching ski cap pulled down over her ears shielded her from the chill. A pair of gray knit gloves kept her hands warm, yet still allowed her to turn the pages of her book without trouble. The dark was not a problem, either. Kristi’s dad had run an electric cable to the patio last year so they could use it after dark. The covered brass lamp attached to a wooden pole behind her provided plenty of light to read by.
Kristi’s attention was riveted upon her book. She loved to read, but had spent so much time studying and doing homework the last few months she’d had almost no chance to read just for pure, mindless fun. Over the next few weeks, she planned to make up for that. Anomaly by Scott Prussing had her off to a great start.
She had sworn off post-apocalyptic stories—they were all starting to feel too much the same—but her best friend had recommended this one so she had decided to give it a try. She was glad she had. Anomaly was proving to be a fast-paced read with lots of new and interesting twists. She found it easy to escape into the story, which was exactly what she wanted after the long, difficult semester.
She was so immersed in the book that she almost missed the soft sound from behind the spruce trees the first time it happened. The noise registered in her consciousness just enough to pull her eyes from her reading. She looked quizzically around the yard. She was pretty sure she had heard something, but had absolutely no idea what it might have been. Putting her finger in the book to mark her place, she pushed herself up to the front edge of her chair and listened.
After a few seconds, she heard it again, this time more clearly. It was a soft, mewling sound, the kind a wounded animal might make. She thought it might be a dog. It was definitely coming from behind the trees, and not very far behind them, either. She put her bookmark into Anomaly and laid the book on her chair behind her, then pushed herself to her feet.
The mewling sounded again, longer and lower this time. Whatever it was, the poor creature seemed to be weak and in great pain. Kristi moved toward the row of spruce, separating the boughs with her hands and getting ready to step to between them.
Three shadowy figures moved easily through the dark woods, heading south and east. There were few paths here, but they weaved their way effortlessly among the leafless trees, making almost no sound. They could have moved faster—much faster—but they had no need for haste.
The leader was a woman, short in stature, with full lips and black hair cut just below her chin. She looked to be in her twenties, but she was older, much older. Her name was Victoria, and she was nearly four hundred years old. She was a vampire. Victoria had been turned by an eccentric Austrian nobleman in the early 1700’s, but had the good fortune to encounter Ricard soon after. When the vampire leader decided to journey to the New World, Victoria joined him, sensing her existence would be far safer and more rewarding than life with the Count. She had been with Ricard ever since.
Her two companions were also vampires, following the Council’s decree that they leave the caverns only in groups of three or four. Behind Victoria came Wallace, a tall, stocky, vampire of English descent who still maintained the vestiges of his upper class London accent, despite having left the city almost three hundred years before. The final member of the trio was another female, Candice, a slender, aristocratic blonde who like to call herself Countessa, despite having been born to a poor Massachusetts silversmith and his wife nearly two hundred years ago.
The three vampires had no specific destination in mind, wanting only to get far enough from their lair to be safe, in a direction different from those taken by other hunting parties. They skirted the edges of several southeastern Connecticut towns, seeking a lone human in some isolated place where there would be no witnesses.
As with many of the younger, weaker vampires, Candice’s hunger was becoming increasingly difficult to deny. She needed blood, and she needed it soon. Victoria and Wallace were there to make sure she did nothing foolish. The two older vampires were still in near complete control of their urges. Wallace kept a feeder back in the vampire lair, and Victoria had long grown accustomed to satisfying her needs with the blood of animals, taking a human only rarely.
Candice sensed the human first. Her keen hunger sharpened her senses, bringing the scent of the human female to her a moment before her companions noticed it. The human was not far away, behind a row of evergreens. She laid a hand on the shoulders of her companions to bring them to a halt. Her fangs were already dropping into place, but a harsh look from Victoria made her pull them back up.
“Patience, Candice,” Victoria cautioned.
“But she’s alone,” Candice protested. “Can you not sense that?”
Wallace sniffed the air. “Yes, she’s alone,” he agreed. “But alone does not mean unwatched or unseen by others.”
Candice’s thirst was spiking from the nearness of the potential prey. She could almost taste the hot blood pouring down her throat.
“I can take her before anyone can stop me.”
“But can you take her without anyone seeing you?” Victoria asked. “When we don’t know who might be watching?”
“I don’t care,” Candice said. She inhaled deeply through her nose. “She smells so young and sweet.”
“But we care,” Victoria said. “You know we must draw as little attention to our kind as possible.”
“I want her,” Candice said determinedly. “I need her.”
Victoria studied her younger friend. Candice’s need radiated from her in such strength Victoria knew Candice would not be able to deny it much longer.
“Perhaps you shall have her,” she said.
Silently, Victoria crept closer to the line of pine trees. She motioned her companions to join her. Through tiny openings in the thick branches, they saw a girl, reading.
“Watch,” Victoria whispered to Candice. “And learn.”
She squatted low, bringing her face but a few feet from the ground. A low mewling sound issued from her throat, the perfect imitation of a wounded animal.
The vampires sensed movement on the other side of the hedge. Victoria waited a few seconds and repeated the sound, longer and lower this time. They watched the girl rise to her feet and move toward the trees. Her hands appeared first, parting the branches, and then she stepped through the opening.
Candice was on her in a flash, her fangs sinking into the girl’s throat.
Kristi Brolen barely felt the strong hands that gripped her shoulders. A burning pain erupted in her neck, and then everything turned black.