Chapter 2
Two
The first scream had Ethan jumping from the bathroom door. That was his mother. He knew his mother’s voice. He’d never heard her scream like that, but he knew her voice. Stark terror had him frozen, staring at the back of the bathroom door. He couldn’t go out there. But someone had hurt his mother.
It was late. Middle of the night. He’d woken and stumbled from his bed to the bathroom to relieve his bladder. Been just about to shuffle to his room and warm bed again. It was a school day. He had a spelling test.
His father was shouting. Angry, but also in pain. Heartbroken. What had happened to his mother?
And then his father was screaming too.
Oh God, he had to hide.
Ethan turned toward the bathroom, his eyes skimming over old yellow tile and faded white walls. There was nowhere to hide. The shower curtain over the bathtub was clear, and there was no cabinet under the sink like at Kevin’s house.
His eyes finally hit on the linen closet.
It was tucked behind the bathroom door and was a tiny cupboard, but the back of it was made of boards rather than a regular wall like the rest of the apartment.
One of the boards had come loose; his little sister, Macy, had discovered it and tucked herself into that opening when they’d played hide and seek one time.
It took them over an hour to find her, and his parents had been so worried they’d almost called the cops.
Ethan silently jerked open the door and started shoving aside their various colored towels.
It took a little work, but he managed to crawl into the opening.
He forced his mind away from the fact that he was inside the wall.
Mice and bugs crawled inside the wall. Never in his life had he ever been so grateful to be the smallest kid in his fifth grade class.
It was the only reason he was able to fit in the hole.
Once in place, he pulled the stacks of towels back in front of the hole, further concealing himself. The last thing he did was carefully reach out and grab the edge of the closet door, pulling it closed as much as possible, plunging his little world into darkness.
But he could still hear.
There were sounds of pain from his father and a low gurgling he couldn’t quite place. And laughter. Strangers were in his apartment and laughing.
“Mom?”
No! His older sister’s voice wavered as she called for their mother.
He wanted to shout at her to run, to hide.
To grab Macy and get out of the apartment.
He couldn’t save them. Their father couldn’t save their mother.
What was he supposed to do? The only thing he could think to do was hide.
Lucy and Macy should have been hiding too. Why weren’t they hiding?
A startled scream came from Lucy, and Ethan could hear her feet pounding down the hallway, back to their bedroom. Laughter followed his sister. High-pitched evil laughter from a woman.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the woman sang in her horrible voice.
There was a loud explosion like someone had kicked in a door, and Lucy screamed. But the scream was cut short. Macy was crying, but that too was silenced quickly.
Ethan grabbed a washcloth and shoved the balled-up mass into his mouth to keep from screaming, but there was no stopping the rush of tears down his face.
His family…someone was killing his family.
His sisters. They were gone. Why? Why were they doing this?
His whole body trembled, and he pulled his legs tighter against his chest.
“Where’s the other one?” the woman demanded. She sounded like she was in the hall again.
“What are you talking about?” someone responded.
A man with a thick accent. It reminded Ethan of the time they drove hours and hours south to a family reunion in Kentucky.
His dad had called it the bluegrass state, but he hadn’t seen a darn bit of blue grass.
A lot of the people at the reunion had thick, country accents like this man.
“There are three beds back here, but only two brats. Where’s the third one?”
“No clue.”
“Find him!” she snarled. A second later the bathroom door opened, and Ethan barely managed to stifle his scream.
He could hear her moving around the bathroom for a moment, and then the door to the linen closet was jerked open.
The woman poked her head into the closet for only a second, but for Ethan, it felt like an eternity.
He was sure she could hear his pounding heart.
He got a clear view of the woman through a little opening between the towels, and he knew he’d never forget her.
She had long, stringy brown hair and copperish eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness.
Her pale face was narrow and streaked with blood.
The blood of his family. Her thin lips were parted, revealing a pair of perfect fangs glistening with blood.
Vampire.
She was a vampire.
Oh God. Vampires were real, and they’d killed his family.
She stood at the closet for only a second and then turned to the bathroom. “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she sang again.
She moved into the hall, singing that little refrain over and over again as she walked toward the front of the apartment. Ethan listened to her talking with her companions. He could make out a total of three voices. The woman and two men. They laughed like they were having the best adventure.
Ethan closed his eyes against the darkness and waited, praying for them to finally leave.
Praying that he’d wake up to find this was all a horrible nightmare.
He’d wake up in his warm bed with his superhero bedsheets and Lucy’s soft snores.
He’d wake up to his spelling test and his mom making toast as she got dressed for work at the pediatricians’ office.
When Ethan opened his eyes again, he wasn’t sure how much time had passed. It felt like he’d drifted off to sleep again. The apartment was completely silent. No more laughter or footsteps or unfamiliar voices. The heater kicked on, sending warm air through the apartment.
Hesitantly, Ethan crawled out of his hiding place.
He left the towels pulled aside in case he needed to dive back into his secret spot.
So very slowly, he peeked out the now-open bathroom door, but there was no one in the hall.
Walking on tiptoes, Ethan crept toward the living room.
Cold air brushed against his toes. Before reaching the living room, he glanced toward the open kitchen to find it empty.
In the living room, blood was splashed across everything.
The walls, pictures, a bookcase with their collection of movies, the TV, and furniture.
His mother was sprawled half across the couch, her hand lying limp on the floor.
Her pretty green eyes were staring up at the ceiling and her throat had been torn out.
Ethan barely managed to turn aside before he threw up on the worn living room carpet.
There wasn’t much, but his stomach kept spasming over and over again, as if it could purge the image from his body this way.
When he finally stopped, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and took another step into the living room.
His dad was lying in the middle of the room on the remains of their broken coffee table.
His throat was also torn out. One hand was stretched out toward Ethan’s mother like he’d died trying to reach for her.
Choking on gasping sobs, Ethan turned toward the front door and was only a little surprised to find it open. He needed to locate an adult. An adult would fix this. Make sense of this. Mr. Pompideaux across the hall was nice. He could help. Call the police.
Ethan darted out the door, no longer caring about the attackers. The concrete floor of the breezeway felt icy to his bare feet, but he didn’t care. It was a short distance to that—
Ethan stopped before he reached Mr. Pompideaux’s apartment. The front door was standing open, and there were bloody footprints on the pavement leading from his place, just like at Ethan’s. Slowly turning, Ethan looked at the other two apartments on his floor. The doors were also standing open.
The vampires had killed everyone on his floor.
Probably the entire apartment building.
Shivering in the cold night air, Ethan slowly trudged back to his apartment. He sat down on the blood-soaked carpet, next to his mother and father, his arms wrapped around his knees. Dropping his head down, he tightened his body into a little ball and cried.
He was alone. The vampires killed everyone.