Fright Night (5 page)

And he dreamed.

In his dream, there was music: haunting, sensual music that pulsed and strobed and seemed to go right through him. And voices: whispers that rustled like dry leaves, too quiet to understand. But relentless.

There was a presence in the room. Hot. Pulsing. The air was heavy with a musky odor.

He felt the woman’s touch. Vibrant. Hungry. He groped blindly, found her belly, her breasts, her neck.

Her neck was beautiful.

He wanted her badly.

Brushing her hair back, he kissed her neck, rubbing his teeth along the cords of tight muscle, tasting her salt skin. He felt the need burning in him: to touch, to taste, to kiss . . .

He pulled her body closer. She turned to meet his gaze . . .

. . . and her eyes glowed, bright red and feral, the sockets sunken and shriveled, the flesh of her face puckered and ancient, mouth yawning wide to reveal plaque-encrusted teeth, long teeth, very, very sharp. Her nails dug into the small of his back, and . . .

Charley awoke with a start.

“What a weird dream,” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes, disoriented. Then he heard the music.

It was coming from the window across the driveway. And there was light. He sat up, clutching his binoculars.

The shade was up, offering an unobstructed view of what was going on in the room. Charley’s throat went dry. The music was coming from there.

Haunting, sensual music . . .

The window was open, the night breeze fluttered the curtains. A beautiful young woman stood in front of the window, rocking seductively in time with the music. Her blouse was open, exposing her midriff.

It was a very nice midriff. Charley swallowed hard and glued the binoculars to his eyes.

The woman was swaying even
more
sensually, if such a thing were possible. She stared into the middle distance, as if enthralled by something she saw there. Then, to Charley’s complete amazement, she slid out of her blouse and stood still, torso glistening in the moonlight.

Charley rarely saw so much unabashedly nubile female flesh. He leaned over, slapped off the TV and enveloped himself in darkness, watching.

She was incredible: petite, with shoulder-length hair, full pouting lips and wonderful breasts. Charley bit his lip, hard.
Who is this guy?
he wondered.
How does he get these women?

And what is he doing to them?

He was stumped. Still, she didn’t appear to be in any danger. In fact, she seemed to be quite enjoying herself. She was rocking back and forth now, breasts jiggling languorously in her bra. She turned at one point and faced Charley directly. He ducked, afraid she’d see him.

But she didn’t. He was sure of it. Something in her movements bewildered him; they were too fluid, too dreamy, too . . .

Drugged.
The word came to him.
Or hypnotized. I don’t know.
It scared him, suddenly, and he was half tempted to lean out the window and call to her.

Then Dandrige appeared.

The man was, in his own way, as beautiful as the girl. He crossed the room as if gliding several inches above the floor; and when he reached the girl, he seemed to hover more than stand. He touched her shoulders, and she seemed to stiffen with anticipation.

Dandrige massaged her shoulders tenderly for a moment, then reached around and deftly unhooked her bra with a grace and economy of motion that amazed Charley almost as much as the act itself.

The bra slid to the floor. Her nipples were hard. Dandrige cupped a breast in each hand. She arched back, lips parted.

Charley, meanwhile, was losing his mind. It was too cruel. His girlfriend hated him, he was failing algebra, and the neighbor was threatening him with terminal carpentry. Now
this
guy was rubbing the nubbins off the girl of his dreams.

The girl of his dreams . . .

He salt bolt upright in his chair. The girl in the window, the girl in Dandrige’s arms . . .

. . . was the girl from his dream.

He looked out the window. Dandrige, one hand still cupping a breast, brushed the girl’s hair away from the slope of her neck with the other. He kissed her neck, rubbing his teeth along the cords of taut muscle. Her eyes glazed over. Her lips moved, imperceptibly whispering, soft as the rustle of dry leaves. Dandrige smiled, showing teeth.

“Oh, no,” Charley whimpered. “Oh, God, no . . .”

Dandrige’s teeth were long and very very sharp. Charley gasped and dropped the binoculars. They hit the floor with a clatter.

Dandrige stopped, teeth poised an inch from her neck. Charley sank further into the darkness of his room, unable to look away. Dandrige seemed to be looking right at him. Right
through
him.

With eyes that were red as glowing coals.

Charley felt his bowels turn to water.
“No . . .”
he whispered.

Dandrige smiled. Long, yellow teeth.

He reached up, grasping the shade with long, crooked fingers. Pulled it down slowly, lackadaisically.

And waved bye-bye.

“MOM!!!”
Charley bolted down the hall, hitting his mother’s door loud and hard.
“MOM!!!”

Judy Brewster was down for the count, lost in a Sominex-induced dreamland. A pink satin sleep mask effectively blotted out the entire upper half of her face. Charley’s dramatic entrance barely served to prod her to consciousness. “Charley?” she asked blearily.

“You gotta wake
up,
Mom!” He was hysterical, his arms flying wildly around him. “I don’t
believe
it! Mom! Jesus!”

Judy looked at her son as if he were an emissary from the planet Zontar. “What?” she asked sleepily. “What are you talking about?”

“He has
fangs,
Mom! The guy who bought the house has
fangs!”

“Charley . . .”

“I’m SERIOUS!” His voice squeaked into dog-annoying frequencies. He made an effort to bring it back down. “I saw him through the window with my binoculars, Mom! He’s got
fangs,
I tell you!”

“Binoculars? Charley, that’s
spying!
That’s not nice.”

“FANGS, Mother! LONG ones!”

“Oh, Charley.” She yawned heavily and rolled over. “I have to be at work at seven tomorrow.”

Charley stared at his mother, incredulous. He was about to try a more subtle approach, like throttling her, when a car door slammed outside. Leaping to the window, he saw the handyman walking away from a shiny black Cherokee Jeep. Its gate was down, as if in anticipation of a heavy load.

“Argh!”
Charley was out of his mother’s bedroom as quickly as he’d entered. Judy sat up in bed.

“Charley?” she said.

Charley slipped out the back door and scuttled across the driveway toward the hedge. The rear door of the Dandrige house was wide open, the porch light providing the only illumination.

His heart was pounding, sending blood surging into his temples. Fatigue, exertion and terror mingled inside him, making him light-headed. He crouched down in the bushes, feeling ill.

The handyman came out the back door, carrying a large bundle wrapped in plastic and trussed with heavy twine. A gaping hole opened in the pit of his stomach as Charley guessed its nature.

The handyman tossed the bag unceremoniously into the cargo hold of the Jeep. He was about to climb in, and Charley was about to get sick, when the flutter of leathery wings froze them both.

Charley looked around, afraid to move, afraid to breathe.

The beating wings ended in a flurry of motion to his left. He scanned the darkened façade of the Dandrige house, searching for its source.

Less than ten feet away, the night air seemed to darken, to condense, into the shape of a man. The specter solidified and moved across the lawn. Toward the Jeep.

“Here. You forgot something.”

It was Dandrige. He tossed his servant a purse.

The bundle’s purse.

The man caught it one-handed, turned back to the Jeep with a nod.

Charley was stifling a scream in the bushes when a shaft of light cut through the darkness behind him. He hunkered down, fearing the inevitable.

“Charley? Char-ley?”

Thanks, Mom.

He was terrified. The man and the shadow froze. They wheeled around, searching the blackness for his presence. Dandrige actually took a couple of steps in his direction.

Charley jumped up and ran for his life, back to Mom, apple pie and anything else he could pile in the way. He disappeared into the relative safety of his kitchen.

“Little bastard,” hissed the handyman, starting after him. He was restrained by Dandrige, who held his other hand up in a gesture of patience.

“Billy,” said the master with a gracious smile. “There’ll be plenty of time for that later.

“Plenty of time.”

Judy busied herself around the kitchen, more out of habit than anything else. She looked at her son.
Poor baby. He’s been studying too much.

“Here, honey. Have some cocoa.”

“Mom, I don’t
need
any cocoa! I didn’t
have
a nightmare! I’m telling you those guys
killed
a girl tonight!”

Judy felt his forehead, checking for fever. He was cool to the touch.
Maybe something he ate?

“MOM! I’m
not
sick!” Charley pushed her hand away. “The guy
did
have fangs! A bat
did
fly over my head! Dandrige
did
step out of the shadows!” He was pissed. “You know what that means, don’t you?”

Judy stared at him worriedly. “What, dear?”

“He’s a VAMPIRE!”

SEVEN

“A
what?”
Amy’s face, at that moment, looked an awful lot like his mother’s.

“A
vampire,
dammit! Haven’t you listened to anything I said?”

“Charley,” she said. Her voice was flat and slightly forlorn. “This is really childish, do you know that? This is a really dumb way to try and get me back.”

“Forget it,” Charley fumed, turning for the door. “I’m going to the police.”

They were in Amy’s kitchen, on a sunny and cheerful afternoon. The room was spacious and clean, brightly painted, flooded with light from the huge bay windows. It was an unlikely spot for a major confrontation, but that didn’t make a bit of difference.

“Charley, this is crazy!”

“Tell me about it.” His voice was blunt as a truncheon.

Amy ran in front of him and blocked the door. Her expression had turned desperate. Her hands clamped onto his shoulders as she looked him straight in the eye.

“Charley. Stop. Listen,” she said. He stopped and listened, but the expression on his face said that he wasn’t really hearing. “You can’t go to the police with a story like that,” she continued. “They’ll lock you up. I’m serious.”

“All right, all right. I won’t say anything about a vampire. But I sure as hell am gonna tell ’em about those girls!”

She started to say something, and he shrugged out of her grasp, then stormed around her and threw open the door. “Charley! . . .” she began, but he refused to acknowledge her.

The door slammed shut behind him.

Leaving Amy sick with fear of something nameless. The term “paranoid psychotic” was not an active part of her vocabulary.