Fright Night (7 page)

“Yeah,
tell
me about being treated like you’re crazy!” Ed roared back.
“Tell
me about everybody treating you like an asshole! You don’t think I know what that’s like? You don’t think people treat me like that every day of my life?

“Well, think again, Brewster! and then think about dragging your tail out the door! You can’t treat me like shit for three months and then just barge in here, demanding that I drop everything and run off to hunt a stupid fucking vampire with you!”

Tense silence. The two boys stared at each other. Evil Ed Thompson, surprised by his own fury, took a deep breath before continuing in a level, weary voice.

“You got a vampire, Charley? Go hunt it yourself. You know what to do, right? Unless you’ve forgotten
everything
about the last four years.”

Charley mutely shook his head.

“Fantastic. If you kill it, I’d be thrilled to check out the moldering bones. If it kills you . . . well, I guess I’ll just have to keep my wood stakes handy, right?”

Silence.

“You’d
like
to put a stake through my heart, wouldn’t you?” Charley said softly. “It would make you feel better, right?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” Evil Ed turned back to his desk, dipped his paintbrush in the murky green liquid, started dabbing at The Ghoul’s face again. “Get lost.”

Charley didn’t bother to close the door behind him.

NINE

A
ll the way home, Charley couldn’t stop thinking about what Evil Ed had said. It hurt on so many levels, in so many different ways.
You know what to do, right?
was the phrase that kept ringing in his ears. Followed by
unless you’ve forgotten
everything
about the last four years . . .

“Four years,” he said aloud to the empty car. It was funny to count down the days like that, look back over a quarter of his total lifespan and think,
Yeah, Eddie and I have been best friends since seventh grade. We used to hang out constantly: playing crazy games, reading comics, watching
Fright Night
together . . .

His mental processes stopped with that name.
Fright Night.
It conjured up images of a million vampire sieges, in glorious color or somber black and white. It conjured up pictures of Peter Vincent, standing tall against the undead hordes that slavered for the blood of the innocent.

It conjured up scenes of bloody horror, substituting Charley himself for every bloodless victim ever flashed across the screen.

And it conjured up a battle plan: his only hope of salvation.

Charley veered left on Rathbone Avenue, whipped sharply into the parking lot of the Super-Saver shopping center. The Mustang screeched into the first available space and died promptly at a twisting of the key. He threw open the door, not bothering to lock it, and slammed it shut as he ran toward the complex of stores.

He hoped that they had what he needed.

Darkness had already fallen when the last nail was slammed home. The darkness hung outside the window, chill and bloated as the corpse of a drowned man. Charley stared out into it for a moment, then stepped back to appraise his handiwork.

The window had been secured with ten-penny nails he’d acquired from Carradine Hardware. Garlic from the Super-Saver was strung around it in garlands, using thread from Reisinger’s. There hadn’t been any holy water, but plastic crucifixes were cheap and plentiful; he’d picked up three, kept one constantly at his side. The hammer and the needle were household property; he’d put them back in a minute, once he was satisfied with the job.

Other pieces of vampire lore were floating around in his mind. He hadn’t gotten around to whittling stakes yet, though there were some good slats of grape fence out in the garage that made prime candidates. No
way
was he going out of the house until morning. That was certain. If Jerry Dandrige wanted him, Jerry Dandrige would have to come and get him.

That was the other thing that made him feel reasonably secure. If everything he’d ever seen about vampires held true, they couldn’t come into your house without being invited. He knew that
he
sure as hell wouldn’t be sending out invitations.

His mother’s voice cut through the clamor of his thoughts. “Charley?” it called. “Come down here for a moment, would you, please?”

“Just a second, Mom!” he called back, feigning cheerfulness. “I just gotta finish something!”

Quickly he pushed a heavy chest of drawers in front of the window. It probably wouldn’t help, if worse came to worst, but it sure didn’t hurt.

Then he trotted down the hall, hit the stairs and rapidly descended. The physical work had invigorated him, made him feel more confident. He was almost in a good mood when he entered the living room and said “What?”

His mother was standing in the living room, a drink in her hand. She was beaming.

“Honey?” she said. “There’s somebody I’d like you to meet.”

That was when he glanced at the old quilted chair. His father’s chair, high-backed and nearly heart-shaped, which only special guests had used in the seven years since . . .

There was somebody sitting in the chair. Charley couldn’t see his face, hidden by the chairback’s curving wings. But the hand that protruded from the man’s tweed jacket was long-fingered, almost feminine. There was an expensive diamond ring glimmering brightly on one pale-white finger.

Charley’s breath caught in his throat.
This can’t be happening.

His mother’s guest leaned forward, smiled and skewered him with its eyes.

“Hi, Charley,” the vampire said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Charley’s jaw dangled slackly. If all the saliva in his mouth hadn’t dried up in terror, he might have drooled. All the muscles in his body were jammed. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He could only stare at the monster before him with moist and bulging eyes.

Jerry Dandrige was beautiful. There was no way around it. Jerry Dandrige was quite possibly the best-looking man that Rancho Corvallis had ever seen. His smile was impish, and infinitely amused. His dark eyes sparkled with intimate knowledge. Up close, his charisma was overwhelming. Charley could see why the girl in the window had danced with him.

Now the vampire was doing the same thing to his mother.

Judy Brewster looked like a teenage girl on the Beatles’ first American tour; all she needed was a mob around her to start screaming and crying and tearing at Dandrige’s clothes. As it was, her basic perkiness had accelerated to fever pitch. She was falling all over herself, giggling and fawning and oozing desire.

It was disgusting. Worse yet, it was terrifying. Charley had a nightmare feeling that Jerry could drain his blood right there and Mom would ask him if he wanted another drink.
And she’d giggle while she said it,
he added sickly.

Jerry Dandrige stood. He was only a little bit taller than Charley, but he might as well have been Goliath. “I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said, moving closer.

Charley still couldn’t move, but he was dangerously close to soiling his underwear.
Omigod,
his mind silently intoned,
I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die . . .

. . . as the vampire closed to within a foot of him.

Stopped.

And extended a hand in greeting.

“Well, say
‘hello’
to Mr. Dandrige, honey!” his mother piped. She turned, as if confidentially, to Jerry and added, “I don’t know what’s
wrong
with him sometimes! Honest to goodness, we didn’t raise him like that!”

(Say “hello,” Charley.)

“Hi,” Charley said. He had no choice in the matter. Nor could he stop his right hand from coming up and engaging with Dandrige’s in what looked like a hearty handshake.

(That’s right.)

The vampire was controlling him. Charley’s mind was fully conscious of the fact; but his will was gone, his bodily motion out of his hands.

(Fun, isn’t it? Now let go.)

The handshake ended. The connection did not. Jerry Dandrige had him; his ears and mind picked up two different conversations at once.

“Your mother was kind enough to invite me over,” the vampire said. His voice was thick with honeyed sexuality, sweet and musky all at once. “I might never have made it over here

(But you knew that, didn’t you?)

otherwise. But now she tells me that I’m welcome any old time. Like

(In the middle of the night . . .)

tomorrow, for lunch . . . which, unfortunately, I won’t be able to make. But I told her that I’ll be having friends over in the weeks to come, and she offered to bring the refreshments

(Like everybody she knows . . .)

over. Isn’t that great?”

(Say “yes.”)

“You bet!” Charley enthused with an emotion that was not his own. He could feel his lips twisting themselves into a smile. It was like being force-fed slime, but he couldn’t even crinkle his nose with disgust.

Then Mom stepped between them, starry-eyed and beaming. “It’s so
marvelous
that you’re getting along so well!” she crowed.

And the connection was broken . . .

. . . and Charley staggered backward, mewling faintly, his flesh gone so white that he looked like he’d been bitten. His mother stared after him, stunned, as he hit an end table and sent it clattering to the floor. The vampire just smiled and smiled.

“CHARLES ALAN BREWSTER!” his mom shouted imperiously. “What on earth is
wrong
with you?”

Keep it together,
Charley’s mind informed him.
He’ll kill us both right now if I don’t keep it together.
He stopped, stooped and righted the table with jittering hands. “Sorry, Mom,” he chirped in a falsetto of terror. “I just gotta get back to my homework, that’s all.”

“Well, be
careful!”
she advised cheerfully. “I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my baby boy!”

“No,” the vampire echoed, grinning. “We certainly wouldn’t want
that!”

Dandrige’s good-bye was the last thing Charley saw before turning to race up the stairs.

And into the safety of his room.

He
hoped.

TEN

T
he shadows.

Charley sat, mesmerized by the oblong fingers of blackness that curled around the window.

Shadows. No big deal. Same damn shadows that had been there for the last twelve years. Same tree, same streetlight, same simple gradations of light and dark.

So why are they making my flesh crawl?
he thought.

He sat, as he’d been sitting for the past five hours, staring fixedly out his bedroom window. The cheap plastic crucifix was threatening to come apart in his hands, the gold leaf staining his fingers. He’d been rubbing it like a prize Labrador retriever for the better part of the evening.

Ever since the light came on.

Just as he’d begun to recover from Dandrige’s visit, the vampire’s bedroom light had blinked on. Charley ducked reflexively, his heart doing Tito Puente in his chest, and crouched there a good three minutes before daring to venture a peek.

The light was still on, but the shade was down. No discernible movement, no furtive displays. Nothing. It just sat there, throbbing like a beacon.

Or a lure.

Charley watched, and waited. For what, he was too frightened to think. His room, dark but for his flickering Coors sign, strobed incessantly. The light in the window of the Dandrige house pulsed, ever so slightly out of sync. The tree threw its long, black fingers across the yard, rustling softly in the night air.

Eventually, Charley slept.

In his dream, he flew. He soared through the night, high above Rancho Corvallis on leathery wings, the wind rushing past and filling his ears with whispers, many many voices that melded together to form one all-encompassing howl, a night cry, harsh and sweet.

He arched, tiny jaws yawning to reveal tiny sharp teeth, and screamed, a high, chittering song. He swooped and caught a moth, rolling in mid-flight, and crunched it in his mouth, savoring the juice.