Archive of Our Own ^beta

Santa Monica Pier was like a beacon at night. It drew in all kinds of people from the hopeful young lovers to hyperactive children and their tired parents. The twinkling lights of its amusements drew them in like moths to a flame, the worn wooden planks heaving under the weight of Santa Carla natives and tourists alike. Big, permed hair brushed the padded shoulders of its wearers. Oversized shirts caught on the spikes of passing jackets. The Merry-Go-Round spun and spun. Its vibrantly coloured steeds moved with slow, mesmerising hops as they carried their precious cargo round and around.

He walked between them like a kid in a candy store, blue eyes alight at the selection that lay before him. He loomed over the patrons, his gloved hands curling around the gilded poles while he swung effortlessly from horse to horse. His blond hair was short at the sides but spilt across his forehead in golden curls, brushing the strawberry mark that blessed the skin above and across his left eye. The earring that hung on the opposite side of his head caught in the light. His large, black coat seemed out of place amongst the summer looks of his peers.

Though he was not alone. Where he stalked the Merry-Go-Round like a predator seeking prey, the others deliberately goaded those stuck to their horses. A redhead seductress was hot on his tail, her own piercing blue eyes gazing upon the riders hungrily. Her blood red lips stretched into a smile at whoever dared to look back. A younger, almost puppy-like boy trailed eagerly at her feet. Behind him, a brunet turned one of the unsuspecting horses with the weight of his grip and laughed mockingly at the woman sat upon it as she yelped. Their group was completed by another male whose brown eyes never strayed from the man before him.

Commotion erupted when their leader made a pass at a woman in one of the carriages, his gloved hand curling possessively around her jaw. He slipped out of reach from her miffed lover’s grip, turning to watch as the man grabbed at the brunet instead. The sickening crunch of his fingers within the grip of his protector, whose brown eyes now burned with hatred, had their leader flushed with glee. His hand wrapped around the boyfriend’s throat for only a second before his own throat was seized, caught behind the baton of the overweight pier cop who dragged him from the fight

“I told you to stay off the boardwalk,” he grunted with faux authority. Their leader only laughed.

“Okay, guys, let’s go.” He left with one last smirk tossed over his shoulder, far too smug for someone who had been kicked from the social epicentre of the city.

Yet the pier did not notice their absence – loud and bustling until the hours waned late into the night. One by one the rides, the stores and its amusements shut off until it was plunged into near darkness with only a few streetlamps to guide anyone that lingered behind. Content it was empty, the pier cop walked glumly to his car dreaming of the leftovers that awaited him at home. Only he would never get the chance to try reheated lasagne again. Laughter carried on a gust of wind that appeared to come from nowhere and when he turned, he saw something that made his blood run cold. A chubby hand pinned his hat in place while he ran for his life, desperate to reach the perceived safety of his cruiser. The thing that chased him took delight in the tease, swooping down to pluck at his bustling clothes.

He cried out as he reached his car door, desperately pulling at its handle and willing it to let him inside. Only the creature reached him first. It plucked him from the ground and took the door with it, the sound of the metal as it clattered to the ground hardly heard over the pier cop’s screams.

+

Bobby Nash bopped his head in time with the music – a cheery, light song so unlike the mood in the car he has driven across state lines to their new home.

“Keep going,” Eddie, his eldest, barked to the boy in front. Chris did as he’s told. “Keep going” Eddie, again, when the next song was not to his liking. Bobby swatted Chris’ hand from the radio as a song from his youth began to play.

“Hey, that’s from my era,” he declared before bursting into the lyrics. Chris and Eddie shared a look that can only be best described as disdain. It was the same look that had been plastered across their faces since they first entered the car. Even Nanook, the family dog, was over the journey by now. Bobby caught Eddie’s eyes in the rearview mirror and laughed.

“Keep going,” he said in unison with his sons.

The billboard for their new home welcomed them in vibrant colour: Welcome to Santa Carla. It depicted itself against the skyline that Bobby could see now: distant mountains, a large pier and the crystal blue of the ocean. He breathed in the sea air. This was a new start for all of them.

“Hey, what’s that smell?” Chris asked. His nose wrinkled in disgust.

“That’s the ocean air.” Bobby let go of the steering wheel for only a second in order to nudge him.

“Smells like someone died,” Chris retorted. Bobby clicked his tongue.

“Look guys, I know the last year hasn’t been easy for any of us, but I think you’re really going to like it here in Santa Clara.”

Only Eddie wasn’t so sure. His head turned to watch the back of the sign as they passed it, his face contorting when he saw what was written on the back in big, blood red letters: MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD. The declaration seeme to juxtapose to the world that passed through his window: bleach blonde girls in tank tops, punks and goths alike. The pier itself was alive with cheers and peals of laughter, the sounds of the waves crashing against the sand undetectable beneath the chattering of humans enjoying their summer. Though beneath all the fun, Eddie spied the darkness the sign had hinted at. Missing posters. Hundreds and thousands of missing posters. Little children. Women. Men. A man and his wife stood hammering a new one into his fray and Eddie found himself trying to memorise the long, dark hair and brown eyes of the daughter they sought to find. Hardly anyone but Eddie spared them a glance. They were too busy enjoying themselves and soaking up the sun to care.

But it was not the hustle and bustle of the pier that drew Bobby and his family here. No, that would be Gerrard. Gerrard who he was related to in some capacity or the other, a cousin twice removed or an uncle that severed the family tie along the way. It did not matter. Gerrard had opened his home when Bobby had needed it most and though eccentric he was relatively harmless. Bobby waved a hand across his throat to keep a dry comment from slipping past Eddie’s lips at the first sight of taxidermy. It had not been for free, of course. Nothing ever was with Gerrard, but Bobby was sure in a thriving tourist place such as this he would be able to find a job soon enough. It would be better if Eddie did as well, but judging from the excited babbling he endured from Chris as they helped unload the boxes Eddie would spend most of his summer chaperoning the younger around the amusements. Bobby would be mad, of course, but his boys deserved happiness more than most and school would take that from them soon enough.

+

It was not unexpected then when they left him for dust the moment they arrived at the pier that evening. It was the first time in hours he had not had to listen to them bicker or chatter and without a fight to break up or a joke to ask about he had no idea what to do. Searching for a job here seemed futile: all the stalls were manned, the ride operators more Eddie’s age than his own and there were      only dingy restaurants and a haphazard array of stores to look through. They too, he soon discovered, were mostly run      by people miles younger than himself. Bobby shied away from the judging looks of two store managers in particular. They, too, were around Eddie’s age and just as moody. The shorter of the two, a dark-haired boy with a bandana wrapped around his forehead, scowled in Bobby’s direction. His shadow arched a brow in Bobby’s direction and she reached to adjust her funky glasses in order to judge him better. A quick glance upwards at the store’s sign made him smile, though, for he was sure he would find Chris nestled between the rows of comic books later that night.

Bobby was ready to give up and get himself some candy floss when he heard it. The small, frightened whimper of a child. He’d never been able to ignore such a sound – no surprise, really, when he’d immediately jumped to adopting the first two kids he’d met at the group home he once volunteered at – and so he turned toward it. Stood alone within the bustling crowd and being largely ignored was a young boy. Bobby rushed to him and crouched to his level, already cooing soothing words even before he’d taken the boy’s hand.

“Hey, hey – it’s okay. We’ll find your mom,” he reassured the child. Bobby looked around for somewhere he might be able to call from and homed in on a quaint little video store on the corner of the strip. Better yet, in the vibrant and inviting window, it had a help wanted sign.

Thanks to the kindly nature of the woman behind the counter, a mature woman dressed neatly in a suit fit for a businesswoman and whose eyes seemed glued to Bobby, he was able to reunite the child with his mother.

“Good job,” the store manager said to the boy as she handed him a lollipop. Bobby was too busy smiling at the adorable scene to notice that she had offered one to him too. “And you, good job.” Bobby batted the offer away. He was not a child to be rewarded, and yet.

“Thank you.” He took the lollipop and stuck it in his mouth. Bobby may have been quite past the other side of middle-aged, but the woman before him made him feel giddy and ten times younger. He lingered if only to feel her stare on him, too scared to ask about the available position. But as though she could sense all of his thoughts, she spoke up before he could leave.

“Any chance you fancy a job?”

Bobby made a joke about his perceived neediness but she brushed it off, all smiles and warmth. It made it all the easier to trust her when she offered her name, Athena, and there was something about the way she repeated his own back to him that made Bobby’s toes curl. He grinned with her when she gestured to the dog that waited so patiently by her feet, Thorn, and hung from her every word about the requirements of the job. So wrapped up in the woman that was soon to become his boss, Bobby didn’t notice the miscreants that had shuffled into the store. The tall blond watched their exchange from the other side of the counter. He chanced a furtive glance to his group before he made his presence known to Athena with a whistle. The warmth left her eyes instantly when they locked onto him.

“I told you to stay away from here, Buck.” Gone was the kind lilt to her voice and the gentleness with which she’d spoken to Bobby. In its place was ice and authority. Buck’s lips twitched upwards with mischief, but he acquiesced to her warning with a bow. He and his gang flooded from the store. “Kids these days, huh?”

“Oh, they’re just acting their age. You and I were that young once,” Bobby joked. For the first time since Buck had stolen her attention, Athena’s eyes glistened.

Eddie watched the group through the crowd as they left. His mouth parted as he took in the almost otherworldly aura of them all. Chris talked nonsense in his ear, but it was another conversation that piqued his interest.

“Oh look, Buck and his cronies are out again,” the ride operator said with the pop of her gum. “I swear TK and Carlos are a thing.” She nodded toward the two darker haired men of the group. Eddie arched a brow when they leaned into one another and perhaps kissed, though Eddie couldn’t confirm when someone passed across his view.

“Who cares about them? Taylor looked at me the other day,” her fellow operator’s reply dripped with glee. Taylor, Eddie assumed, seemed to sense she was being spoken about. The object of her attention squeaked in response.

“You’d have more of a chance with Ravi than Taylor,” the original speaker said. “Taylor would eat you alive.” Eddie felt his stomach churn at the sick smile that grew across Taylor’s face.

Chris whacked at his side with his crutches. Eddie turned toward him, his eyes the last to fix upon the younger boy’s face. Chris leered up at him.

“Are you going to drool over those guys all night or are we going to play some games?” Chris gestured toward the beanbag toss. But Eddie’s attention had already returned to the mysterious group, and it was as though his feet were tethered to them as he began to follow when they turned to leave. “Eddie.” Chris struggled to keep up through the crowds. It took only one belligerent couple to cross between them before he lost Eddie, left alone in the heart of the pier. He would have been more upset about it had he not noticed the flickering lights of the store beside him. “Suit yourself, Eds. I’ve got better things to do.”

The organisation of the store was abysmal, in Chris’ opinion, and there was nothing he wanted that he did not already own. He watched as the store’s attendants made a mess out of stocking the shelves. Chris pointed out their mistakes and watched them shoot each other looks each time they secretly agreed with his suggestion. On his third tip, the guy turned to him with a serious look.

“Where the hell are you from, Krypton?”

“El Paso, actually. Texas.” Chris forewent telling them what to do and simply began readjusting the comics himself. Chris’ jerked his head out of the way of the guy’s bandana as he turned toward his companion, her arms folded over her open Hawaiian shirt.

“Just passing through Santa Carla?” She probed. Chris blew a raspberry through his lips.

“Nope, I’m a resident as of today. You’ll probably see a lot of me, I’ve been collecting comic books all my life,” Chris explained. He would have offered to let them see his collection but even he knew it was weird to have a couple of near-adults round for a ‘play-date’. The thought lingered, though, if only to see Bobby’s face when he introduced them.

“If you’re going to live around here, then here’s one you don’t wanna be without.” The guy thrust a gaudy comic into his hand. Chris arched a brow at its cover. Vampires Everywhere. The art was tacky and a little garish, even the sight of the fake blood enough to make him wince.

“I don’t like horror comics.”

“This one could save your life,” the bandana wearer pressed.

They were distracted by a group of teenagers who snatched a comic from one of the front-facing displays and ran. Chris watched them with a smirk while they chased after the group. Looking back down at the comic, he noticed that the guy had slipped something else into his hand too. Chris scoffed at the hand printed ‘business card’ declaring Hen and Howie, he assumed his new comic book dealers, professional vampire hunters. Santa Carla was weird.

Eddie wasn’t sure how long he’d been chasing them, exactly, only that he had been chasing them. It was like Buck was beckoning him. Every time Eddie thought it best he turned to leave, to maybe catch up with his brother or try one of the many amusements, he made eye contact with Buck and found himself propelled toward him. They neared the edge of the boardwalk and if Eddie didn’t know any better he was sure he was about to be lured into the dark depths beneath and become one of the many missing posters that littered any notice board in sight. It didn’t help that on occasion he caught Buck licking his lips at him, or that Taylor seemed to pierce a hole into his skin with every pointed stare. The rest of the group paid him no mind, more preoccupied with being a nuisance than anything else. Eddie saw them steal from stalls, or goad couples into fighting with him at any given opportunity. Before they each made a dash for a row of motorcycles Eddie had been too preoccupied with staring at Buck to notice, Ravi stole a woman’s hat and placed it upon Taylor’s head. She cackled at the indignant woman’s scream and held it in place before she peeled away. Buck started the engine of his and with one last glance over his shoulder and wink in Eddie’s direction, he was gone.

+

Make out hill had gotten a little lonely as of late, but that was just how the couple liked it. Isolated, quiet, theirs. Just as they were one another’s, so engrossed in kissing, and licking, and touching, and biting that they did not notice the breeze that was powerful enough to knock their truck to the side.  Only the distinct sound of something clawing at the metal exterior broke through their lustful haze.

“What was that?” The woman broke away, brow furrowed as she tried to listen. “I thought I heard something.” But her lover brushed her concerns aside along with a stray hair that had fallen across her face. He sucked at the spot it had just left, determined not to lose momentum and ruin the mood. Only for the wind to whip that hair around his head when the roof of the car was ripped away with a tooth tingling screech. The lovers were left looking up in confusion, their attacker shielded by its prize. They clung to the seats in fear, hands locked in place out of pure survival. When the creature cast aside the top of the car and descended on them both, her scream was not dissimilar to the sound of the metal ripping.

+

Going to the boardwalk again the following night was a no brainer. Eddie searched the crowds for Buck’s mesmerising face for the better half of an hour before he gave up, finding himself drawn instead to a store that sold leather jackets similar to those worn by Buck and his crew. Eddie traced the coarse material out of pure curiosity. It was the attendant who pushed for him to try it on. He stared at himself in the mirror, hardly hearing the attendant’s compliment and oblivious to the not-so-subtle rub of her hand against his bicep. It did look good. Eddie self-consciously ran a hand through his hair, trying and failing to force a stubborn strand away from his forehead. He parted with a hefty sum of cash to keep the jacket, telling himself it was to keep him warm in the rather mild evening. He wasn’t sure why he found himself at one of the piercing pop-ups next, watching as the piercer stuck a needle into a poor girl’s ear with little pretence, only that he couldn’t keep the image of the earring hanging from Buck’s ear out of his head.

That same earring brushed the side of Eddie’s neck as Buck leaned over him, grinning into the sensitive skin there.

“It’s a scam, I can pierce your ear for you if you want,” Buck whispered. Eddie leapt away from him but didn’t run. He wasn’t sure he could, even if he wanted to.

“Y-yeah,” he said instead. Buck’s returning grin was positively wolfish. He let himself be led away from the relative safety of the bright lights and big crowds, almost bumping into Buck when the other came to a stop next to an isolated streetlight. It should have been even more concerning that Buck produced a needle from seemingly nowhere and maybe Eddie should have asked about his disinfecting practices before he tilted his head to the side and willingly let Buck shove the needle through his ear. Eddie yelped with the sting of it. Buck’s gentle hushing did nothing to soothe the pain.

Buck fastened something within Eddie’s earlobe and though he winced at the thought, Eddie reached up to feel it. His thumb and finger brushed against the unfamiliar object. Buck watched, pleased with himself, while Eddie figured it out. Only when Eddie’s gaze latched onto the earring that swung from Buck’s own ear did he get it. He’d been given the matching one. Buck’s eyes focused on the flush of Eddie’s cheeks. His tongue swiped outwards as though to taste the blood that rushed underneath. Someone shouted from the busier part of the pier and Eddie forced himself to look away from the person he hadn’t been able to not think about. The gentle brush of fingers against his bicep was enough to bring his attention back to Buck. Eddie glanced down at the way they splayed across his jacket almost possessively. Eddie gulped.

“Shall we?” Buck asked, curling his arm within Eddie’s without waiting for an answer. The crowd blurred into a sea of faces as they re-entered, none more distinct than the last, for the only face that mattered to Eddie’s now was Buck’s.

He noticed how his eyes crinkled when he laughed, how his lips glistened with the number of times he licked at them, how he ignored every odd look they received for being so close, so tactile, so defiant in public. The Eddie in El Paso would never have joined arms with another guy, let alone let himself be led by one to his motorcycle. Eddie had ridden one, once or twice, but he’d always been the one in control. Never the passenger. Buck unwound their arms only to hop on and look mischievously over his shoulder at Eddie.

“Wanna go for a ride?” Eddie did not miss the way Buck wriggled his ass upon the seat. Eddie knew that his answer should have been no. He knew that he should have turned and walk away. That he should call a taxi and join his family on a boring night in. Yet Eddie’s leg swung easily over the side of Buck’s bike like it belonged there and maybe there was something to be said at how perfectly Eddie fit nestled against his back.

Eddie heard the others before he saw them. Taylor, Ravi, TK and Carlos came to a halt by Buck’s bike in perfect synchronisation.

“I didn’t know we were picking up strays tonight,” Taylor drawled. She looked Eddie up and down. Eddie stuck his chin out higher. Who was this alley cat calling a stray? Buck looked like he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t. Maybe he had. Now that he thought about it, Eddie knew very little about Buck except for he was very pretty and had very opinionated friends. Perhaps, he thought to himself as he tightened his grip around the other’s waist, he might have accidentally agreed to join a cult. It was the 80s, after all.

“Come off it, Taylor. Eddie’s good,” Buck defended him. Eddie preened at that. Taylor scoffed at the thought.

“We’ll see.” Then she peeled away, the rest of the group following.

“Hold on tight,” was all the warning Buck gave before the motorcycle roared to life beneath them.

At first there was something exhilarating about the feeling of the earth drifting beneath them. Buck weaved easily in and out of his friend’s motorcycles, laughing maniacally while the bike began to pick up speed. Even Eddie found himself laughing, though whether it was out of nerves or pure joy he could not decipher. Only he wasn’t laughing when Buck held position at the head of their group. Taylor inched up beside the pair and with a look in her eyes that could only be described as downright evil, pushed her bike to go even faster. Eddie watched Buck’s jaw stiffen at the challenge. The metal below him shook. His stomach flipped as they lurched forward. Even with Taylor again, Eddie silently begged Buck to keep his eyes on the path before them. But he was too fixated on staring at Taylor. He met her wicked grin with a hardened stare, inching ahead of her every time she dared gain ground. Eddie sucked in a breath that got caught in his throat when he spied the cliff’s edge and heard the angry crash of the sea below it. A lighthouse ominously swung its beam around, occasionally illuminating Eddie’s imminent death in bright yellow.

“Buck,” he choked when he could manage. He pawed aggressively at the other’s chest. Buck pushed the bike to go faster. Taylor’s laugh was near-witchy as she met his speed. “Buck,” Eddie tried again. The edge was near. Too near. There was no way Buck would be able to stop now, surely, they would plummet over the edge and Eddie would leave Chris alone again and Bobby would have to quit his job because he’d be so bereft and Gerrard- well, Gerrard probably wouldn’t notice his absence but the point was someone would. “Buck!” Death was assured now. Eddie closed his eyes against the impact and waited for the brief moment of free-falling that would feel quite nice until he remembered where he would be landing. But it was the sound of tires crunching against gravel that filled his ears and not the wind as the world sailed past him. Eddie’s stomach performed a record-breaking gymnastics routine as he and Buck finally came to a stop. Peeking through one eye, Eddie confirmed that they had halted on the knife’s edge of the cliff face.

He hurled himself from the bike and spat into the laughing face of Buck. Stupid, ridiculous Buck. His laughter cut short when Eddie pushed at him and almost sent him falling into the icy depths below. TK and Carlos were quick to act and before Eddie could shove him again he found himself immobilised between them. Buck seemed unphased by his aggression, more amused than scared or angry. It looked as though he thought Eddie’s outburst cute.

“Fuck you,” Eddie spat. Buck’s smirk and Taylor’s murmur of you wish did nothing to quell his anger. Nor did the frustratingly adorable way Buck cocked his head.

“C’mon, Eddie. Wasn’t it fun?” Eddie could not believe his words. Fun? Fun? They had almost died. And yet they were still here, Buck was still there before him in all his beautiful otherworldly glory. Eddie swallowed what little spit was left in his mouth. He did not deign to give Buck an answer.

Buck hopped off his bike and edged closer to Eddie, who tried his best to fight the fingers that tilted his head upward by the jaw so that he met those damning blue eyes. He jerked in TK and Carlos’ hold, but his efforts were futile. He was going nowhere fast. Buck licked his lips again and Eddie tracked the movement without thinking. He got a front row seat to the way Buck smiled in response; the hint of a pointed canine gone in the blink of an eye. Eddie wanted to punch him. He wanted to headbutt him off the cliff. He wanted, so desperately, to kiss him. The thought drove him forward, a movement TK and Carlos allowed, he distantly noted, and their lips brushed for a mere moment before Buck pulled back with that mischievous twinkle in his eye.

“Are you with us, Eddie?” Eddie bit the inside of his cheek. A metallic taste filled his mouth, and he subconsciously sucked at it. Buck swallowed as he watched.

“Yes,” Eddie rasped. He hardly had time to catch himself before TK and Carlos released him onto the ground, but Buck’s open hand held in a silent offer soothed the sting of the humiliation somewhat.

They took him to a cavernous hole etched deep into the edge of the cliffside. Only it was so much more. Eddie could hardly believe it, even as his hand dragged along the chalky walls and his feet balanced precariously on old wooden stairs that had been condemned, if the litany of signs they passed on their way into the cavern’s depths was anything to go by. It was as though a Victorian hotel lobby had fallen through a crack in the earth. Ornate, beautiful furnishings littered the otherwise earthly hole. Eddie tentatively touched the surface of a hardwood desk, surprised to find it in perfect condition. The chandelier in the far corner had not been so lucky but was just as beautiful. The lobby mural was weathered and faded but the shafts of moonlight that poured in through the cracks in the ceiling brought out its beauty. Eddie held onto the side of the wrought-iron elevator for stability.

All the while, Buck watched. His face lit up as he saw Eddie marvel at his beautiful secret and as Eddie discovered more of it, piece by piece, he couldn’t help but divulge its history.

“This was the hottest resort in Santa Carla about 80 years ago. Too bad they built it right on top of the San Andreas fault.” Buck brought his arms up only to let them fall back to his sides with a slap. “In 1906, when the big one hit San Francisco, the ground opened up and this place took a header into the crack.” Eddie hung onto his every word. Buck grinned back at him.

“You won’t believe some of the cool stuff we’ve found down here.” Ravi offered Eddie an admittedly very pretty glass bottle but he declined it. Buck batted it away when it was offered to him instead, ignoring Ravi’s cry when it tumbled to the ground and smashed. Buck was far more enamoured with his new prize. He wrapped an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and pulled him close, savouring his smell.

“Hungry?”

Eddie shook his head. This place was strange – odd, as otherworldly as the people that stalked around it now. He could feel Taylor’s calculated stare fixed upon him as she seethed in the far corner, was all too aware of the muscles beneath Buck’s coat through the layers of his own clothing. Buck pouted at him from the corner of Eddie’s eye.

“Please, Eddie – we can’t let you go home hungry. How about an appetizer?” The joint appeared before Eddie in seconds. He had not seen who rolled it, or who had given it to Buck to offer. All he knew was that Taylor groaned at its appearance. Eddie fought against the smirk that threatened to pull his lips upward while he wrapped his fingers around Buck’s and took it from him.

“That’s a boy Eddie. TK. We’re hungry.” TK nodded and left through the same rickety staircase they’d come from. “See? That’s the beauty of this place. All you gotta do is ask.” Buck lit the joint that now hung from Eddie’s mouth, so dangerously close that Eddie could feel his breath fan out against his cheeks.

+

“So where are you guys from?” Eddie asked following his latest hit. Buck’s fingers brushed with his as he took it back, savouring the last drag before the joint was stubbed out for good. Music filtered through a boom box propped on the desk.

“We’re from right here,” Ravi chirped. Eddie scoffed in his direction.

“I mean, where do you live?” Eddie’s brows furrowed up at Buck who had shifted closer, his thigh now temptingly close to Eddie’s head. It looked soft, like a pillow, and he only looked half-surprised when Eddie lifted his head to use it as such. It was almost second nature to lean into the hand that carded through his hair moments later. “So, where do you live?” Across the cavern, Carlos and Ravi shared a look Eddie couldn’t decipher. If he weren’t half-paranoid in his high, he might have thought it condescending.

“Right here,” Carlos reiterated. Eddie tried to prop himself up on his elbow but the hand in his hair faltered at the slightest twitch, so he let himself relax back into the touch. Eddie scoffed at the premise. He could not imagine Bobby letting him live anywhere but with him, even if Eddie was technically a legal adult by now.

He told the group as much, only for them to laugh at him. The idea of parents was just as preposterous to them as it had once been to a much younger, much more jaded Eddie. To the boy who had snapped at anyone who dared look at the young child he’d taken under his wing the second Chris had been dropped off at the group home. A parent was someone who abandoned you, who thought you nothing more than an afterthought, or a cheque in the mail if you were one of the unlucky ones to get shipped out to a foster home. It wasn’t until Bobby that Eddie had even remembered that he had longed for such a being, once. Someone who cared, who worried on your behalf and wanted the best for and from you. Bobby was great, but the picture Buck was selling as his fingers wove through Eddie’s silky hair sounded equally as good. Complete freedom. Was that truly achievable?

When Eddie asked after Buck’s own parents, he sighed. His fingers traced idle circles against Eddie’s scalp while he weaved a tale of neglect, how they’d gone mad after his sister went missing and as far as he knew were still searching for her to this day.

“And you? Do they search for you?” He’d only known him a short while, but Eddie knew that if Buck went missing from his life he’d not stop until he found him. Buck shrugged.

“You seen any posters with my face around lately?” Eddie pursed his lips. No, he would have remembered that. “It’s fine though because I’ve got this place, and these guys.” Buck nodded to his crew. “Nobody knows about this place… and nobody knows about us.” Buck looked weird from this angle, but still pretty. Eddie poked at the bottom of his chin. It doubled when Buck looked down and only served to make Eddie giggle. “Freedom, Eddie. No parents. No rules.” Buck smiled down at him. “Hell, we’re free as birds.”

There was a brief second where Eddie was sure that Buck would lean down and kiss him. He even pursed his lips in waiting but before he was rewarded, TK came barrelling down the stairs bearing takeout. The top of Eddie’s head felt strange without Buck’s hand combing through it, cold almost. But Buck’s hands under his armpits helped to sit him up, and it was those same hands that offered him a takeout carton. Eddie took it gratefully. When had his mouth become so dry? His stomach rumbled in response to the smell of food. It was Chinese, one of Eddie’s favourites, and the rice looked good right now. The group around him tucked into their own cartons. Taylor kicked herself from the wall, the carton in her hands bulging around her delicate fingers.

“How do you like those maggots, Eddie?” Her tone was friendly, inquisitive – but her eyes were not. The mouthful Eddie had just shoved inside seemed to squirm along his tongue. He cocked his head and looked to Buck for help. Buck was too preoccupied staring at Taylor in contempt. She giggled. “You’re eating maggots. How do they taste?” Something compelled Eddie to look down. Maybe it was the playful lilt of Taylor’s tone, or the way Buck tensed his jaw. Perhaps it was just the odd sensation of something wriggling in his mouth. But the rice that Eddie had thought oh so delicious was writhing against one another. Thousands of maggots wriggled within their confines just as they wriggled on his tongue. Eddie felt them slither past his lips as he spat them back where they came from. He chucked his carton aside to the sound of Taylor’s laughter, only for rice to spill out on the floor. The room erupted into laughter then. TK fell into Carlos’ side, near crying into the crook of his neck. Ravi slapped at his knee. Even Buck appeared to be rolling his lips inward to keep his humour at bay.

Eddie stumbled to his feet. The room seemed to shift with the movement, but he swatted away Buck’s steadying hand upon his lower back. As Eddie brought a sluggish hand to his head, he caught the look Buck shot Taylor’s way and her responding eyeroll.

“Sorry, Eddie. No hard feelings, huh?” Taylor thrust her carton in his direction. “Here, try these noodles.” Only they weren’t noodles. They were worms – sliding across one another and making Eddie’s skin crawl. He pointed in their direction in disgust and told the group what he saw.

“Worms?” Buck grabbed the carton from Taylor instead. He tipped his head back and Eddie watched as the worms tumbled past the lips he’d only moments ago been yearning to kiss. He grabbed at Buck’s arm to make him stop, urging the other to quit his madness. “Why?” Buck swallowed around the creatures in his mouth. “They’re only noodles.”

He was right, of course. Eddie snatched the half-full carton from his hands and inspected it. No worms, only noodles. No maggots, only rice scattered across the cavern floor. Buck openly chuckled at his expense now, wiping away the remnants of the noodle sauce. Eddie shook his head and immediately came to regret it. He pressed a hand to the heated skin there. A song Eddie has never heard before but was loud, preppy and upbeat begun to blare from the boombox. TK howled in delight and turned it up, the room growing ever hazy as he pulled Carlos to his feet. Even Taylor let Ravi take her hand and spin her around, though her eyes never left Eddie and Buck. Buck who had snuck up on Eddie yet again and whose chin hooked over his shoulder. Eddie found himself lifting his own arms to better accommodate Buck’s as they snaked around his waist. An interesting looking bottle was tapped against his chest. TK was there in an instant, taking the wine from Buck’s hand before he poured a glass into a plastic cup and set it aside. The cup wasn’t handed back to Buck, though. It was offered to Eddie.

“Don’t,” Taylor warned just as Eddie’s fingers closed around it. It was hard to care about her and her grating voice when Buck’s lips had found the sensitive skin of his neck and begun kissing. “You don’t have to. It’s blood.” Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes. More of this, really?

“Good joke. Blood.” Eddie held the cup up in a mock toast before he tipped his head back and took a sip. The taste was familiar, though Eddie had never had wine before. It was metallic yet not unpleasant and he couldn’t help but chase the remainder of the cup. Some of it spilled down his jaw and his tongue sought to gather it. The room had truly began to spin now, but Eddie felt grounded by the arms around his waist and the lips that pressed chaste kisses to his cheeks. If he turned, he could finally have what he oh so wanted upon his own lips. So he did, and the reward was much sweeter than the indignant huff that escaped Taylor’s lips.

He didn’t know why they were back out in the cold again when the cavern had been so warm and cozy, but Eddie was comforted by the warmth of Buck as they drove onto the grand, steel train bridge. His head bounced rhythmically against Buck’s back with every crosstie they ran over. Eddie murmured his disagreement when they finally came to a stop, somewhere near the centre of the bridge. His whole body felt heavy when Buck urged him from his perch, the hand that the other offered the only reason Eddie was sure he was still upright.

“What’s going on?” Eddie blinked at the fog around them. When had it grown so foggy?

“Eddie wants to know what’s going on. Carlos, what’s going on?” Buck called.

“I don’t know, what’s going on TK?” Carlos wrapped his arm around TK’s shoulders and pulled him into a sideward embrace. Ravi echoed their mocking joke. Taylor rolled her eyes at them all.

Eddie was about to protest the lack of Buck’s hand as he un-entwined their fingers, only to be soothed by Buck’s arm around his shoulders and a quick kiss to his lips.

“I think we should let Eddie know what’s going on,” Buck smiled almost cruelly back at him. Eddie mirrored it. It was hard to concentrate or to care when Buck was looking at him like that. But Buck turned him toward the bridge’s edge where Carlos waited. “Carlos?” Carlos grinned and waved goodbye with his fingers before he jumped straight off the edge. Eddie could feel Buck watch him as his stomach dropped out, the dopey grin falling from his face. Buck laughed at his expression.

“Bombs away,” cried TK before he followed Carlos into the dark, misty depths below. Then Ravi with his finger guns followed by Taylor who did not even spare Eddie a parting look. Buck patted Eddie’s shoulder before he pried himself from his side.

“Come with us, Eddie,” Buck said with one last kiss to Eddie’s forehead like it might have been his last. Then he dropped over the bridge’s edge.

It was like Buck had pulled the strings from Eddie’s puppet-like limbs for he fell to the ground almost instantly, while his fingers scrambled to find purchase on the bridge’s edge. When he peered over he found all of them, including Buck, dangling from the beams that stuck out at the side. They were all hollering and hooting as they swung back and forth, TK and Carlos in the midst of a game of footsies. Eddie clung even more desperately to the bridge’s edge at the sight.

“Hey, Eddie – come on down,” Buck goaded. Eddie jerked his head in the negative. Not a chance. It was a bridge above a gap that was God knows how high and Eddie had a family to go home for, unlike these guys and Chris was probably waiting up for him and- “Eddie.”

Buck’s voice had to be studied for its narcotic tendencies. Eddie found himself tumbling down to join them, not so bold as to jump but he took more of a gradual climb down. All the while Buck beamed at him like he was his greatest achievement. It was an odd sensation to have one’s feet dangle over nothingness. Eddie dared look down only to feel almost disappointed at the view or lack thereof. It was just grey. Endless, swirling, suffocating grey. The group was laughing around him, cheering him on.

“Fun, huh?” Buck asked. Eddie wasn’t so sure of that. Not yet. Just as he wasn’t so sure of his grip on the cold bars, his nerves only frayed further when the telltale sound of a train’s horn washed over him. Buck looked up at it in gleeful anticipation. Eddie clung for dear life when the bridge began to shake under the train’s weight. Ravi began to headbang. TK was so close to winning his game of footsie against Carlos. Taylor was holding with only one hand, glancing tiredly at her nails. Buck only had eyes for Eddie. “Hold on,” was the only advice he could offer Eddie when the train finally rolled directly above them.

The curses that rolled from Eddie’s lips were not English. He shook alongside the others as the train rattled on. He was sure that his grip would fail soon, but he stayed put – locked underneath Buck’s watchful gaze. Then Ravi let go and sunk into the depths. Eddie called his name in alarm.

“Don’t be scared Eddie,” Carlos told him before he too let go and disappeared into the mist below. Buck’s laugh vibrated with the movement of the train. Taylor went without a sound, though Ravi did yelp when he followed shortly after.

“Eddie, you’re one of us.” Buck’s smile split his face in half. “Let go,” he insisted. But Eddie’s fingers only clenched tighter around the pole. Eddie shook his head. “You’re one of us, Eddie.” And then he was gone. Eddie watched in horror as Buck sailed through the air and disappeared through the unforgiving mist.

“Buck,” he cried after what he was sure was a rapidly dropping corpse.

He was left alone, clinging to the bars and shaking as the train rattled onward. When it had passed, he tried desperately to pull himself back up to safer ground. But his arms were weak and his will even weaker, for he only got as far as an inch before his hands took the brunt of his weight. But in the silence of the train’s departure, Eddie swore he could hear someone call his name. He tried to get upright again only for the movement to make his fingers slip further.

“Eddie.” Buck’s voice was clearer now. “Eddie,” he repeated with a playful lilt. Eddie would like to have said that he slipped, but he knew he let go willingly to follow Buck’s siren call. He fell into the misty depths like the others before him. His scream ripped through the fog along with his body which twisted and turned in a desperate attempt to save himself from a fate he knew he could no longer escape.

+

Eddie awoke in his bed, still in the clothes he wore the night before. He squinted down at his body in the overbearing light of the sun. Slightly torn and muddy but otherwise intact. Just as he was. Eddie scoffed to himself and allowed himself the reprieve of letting his eyes flutter closed. Yet the sun irritated even his outer eyelids. Eddie slung an arm across his face to shield himself from the sun. He could not shield himself from the telltale click of Chris’ crutches, however. The younger boy chuckled at the sight before him before he did the worst thing imaginable and opened the curtains even further.

“Eddie, get up – Bobby is on the phone, he wants to talk to you.” The phone was thrust toward him before he could argue. Gerrard had no TV but he didn’t cheap out on their landline options.

“What time is it?” Eddie pawed at the receiver.

“One o’clock,” Bobby told him with just a hint of disappointment. “Were you still in bed, Eddie?” Eddie only grunted in response. “Well, I’m calling to let you know I’m going out with Athena tonight and I’d like it if you stayed home with Chris, it can’t be good for him spending all that time at home with those comics. Plus, Gerrard is going out tonight and I’d feel better if you were there.”

“Chris isn’t a baby,” Eddie huffed though he already knew he’d stay behind. At fourteen Chris was no baby, sure, but he was disabled and still in his eyes the fragile, scared little thing Eddie first saw at the group home. Chris snatched the receiver from his hand.

“Yeah, I’m not a baby,” Chris repeated to Bobby. Whatever was said afterward had him muttering his agreement regardless. The phone was handed back to Eddie.

“So, you’ll stay in?”

“Yeah, sure. Have fun on your date.” Bobby squawked with indignation down the line. “Tell Athena I said hi,” Eddie said before he hung up.

“Do you really think it’s a date?” Chris scrunched his nose up at the thought. Eddie shrugged. It could be a business meeting for all he cared. He shooed Chris from his room, desperate to catch more sleep.

He dragged himself downstairs hours later when Gerrard was on the brink of leaving. Eddie’s eyes widened at the monstrosity underneath Gerrard’s arm. He sniffed at the distinct smell of Windex, watching with some alarm the way Gerrard slapped it onto his neck. Chris pointed to his glasses in question of the shades that Eddie had put on before descending the stairs. Eddie waved him off.

“Big date, Gerrard?” Apparently, all the family was getting lucky instead of him. Gerrard smiled at the thought but shook it off.

“Just dropping off some of my handiwork to the ‘Widow’ Johnson,” he said with a wink.

“Oh yeah. What’d you stuff for her? Mr. Johnson?” Gerrard scowled back at him. The cavalier underneath his arm watched Eddie with his unblinking stare as Gerrard left them alone.

“Not funny, Eddie,” Chris chided despite his grin. “Fancy a sandwich?”

“Nah, don’t bother.”

Only then Chris noticed the earring hanging from Eddie’s ear. He grunted his displeasure and shook his head at the ridiculous man before him.

“Lose the earring, Eddie. It’s not you.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie retorted. He played with it self-consciously. His own touch made him wince but the sting made him think of Buck. He wondered what Buck was doing right now.

“Real nice, you should open a charm school,” Chris sassed. Eddie clicked his tongue and whacked the other on the head as he passed him. He jerked his foot from Chris’ reach when the other made to hit him with his crutch. Nanook bullied his way between them, tail wagging as though it were a peace flag. It did its job, at least, for both of them couldn’t help but reach down and ruffle the dog’s thick fur.

Though Nanook’s fur stood upright at the incoming sound of motorcycles. Eddie shielded his still covered eyes from the bright lights that spilled into the kitchen, the oh-so-familiar hoots and hollers of Buck and his crew more menacing than it had been the night before. Worse yet, the whole house seemed to shake in tandem with the rumbles of their engines. The windows began to rattle. Chris clung to Eddie desperately.

“Go to your room,” Eddie pushed him backward. Nanook barked against the chaos. Eddie rushed into the room Gerrard had dedicated to his taxidermy and instantly shuddered. His hideous creatures danced with the vibrations, the lights of the group’s motorcycles even brighter in here. Eddie ran back to the front door. Chris had gone no further than the steps that led up to the second floor and he turned when Eddie reached for the handle.

“Eddie, no-” But Eddie had already flung the door open to reveal… nothing.

Not a garden ornament out of place. Not even the whispers of the wind. No Buck. No crew. Just the open driveway and the darkness before them. A low fog sprawled lazily close to the ground. Eddie swallowed; his throat suddenly dry.

“Weird,” Chris whispered more to himself than Eddie. Eddie forced himself to close the door. He needed to sit down. He needed a stiff drink. He needed to get high. He needed to see Buck.

“Go take your bath,” he waved the other up the stairs. “You stink.” Chris’ responding laugh was more nervous than happy, but Eddie was far too preoccupied with dragging himself to the kitchen. He listened to Chris and Nanook’s footsteps as they ascended. It felt as though his limbs weighed a thousand pounds. No matter how much saliva he tried to suck into his mouth, it was never enough. His eyes stung despite the otherwise darkness. He opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk, ignoring Bobby’s voice in his head as it told him to get a glass, you’re not an animal, Eddie.

But he felt like one as he guzzled the milk down only for it to go straight to his gut. Pulsing, infinitely painful cramps attacked his abdomen in a flurry of punches. The pain was so intense Eddie found himself hunched over, the milk carton forgotten and spilt across the floor. Yet what was most disturbing was the heart that beat ever so loudly in his ears. He knew that it was not his own for when he lay a hand over his chest it beat out of synch. Ba bum. Ba bum. Ba bum. Eddie found himself licking at his lips hungrily. He eyed the milk but it looked like a lake of pus to him now. It smelled awful too. Ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum. The rhythm of the heart grew ever more enticing. Eddie could almost taste it. His mind swirled with thoughts of the wine he’d been offered the night before, of all things, but Eddie found that he craved it. Needed that metallic taste that he swore he would find at the centre of that heart. He fought against his instinct but still his feet dragged forward, his brain locked into that delicious ba dum. Ba dum. Ba dum.

Upstairs, Chris had fashioned himself a rather impressive bubble beard. Nanook whined at his off key singing as he danced in the tub. They’d not had a tub at their last place and Chris lapped up every second of it. He’d poured far too much bubble bath in so that they threatened to spill over. He reached across his bubble mountain to turn up the small handheld radio he’d brought with him, attributing Nanook’s growl to the high-pitched ‘note’ he’d let out. Chris slipped under the water just as Eddie threw open the bathroom door. Nanook’s growls grew more feral, more protective, before he launched himself at the being that shook with the menacing beast that stood in the skin of Eddie. The door slammed shut just as Nanook collided with the thing that stood within its doorframe. It was that sound that brought Chris up and out from the tub. But by the time he’d wiped the suds from his eyes, both Nanook and Eddie were gone.

Chris rushed to redress and grew ever more impatient with his uncooperating limbs when he heard Nanook’s yelp from down below. He slung on a bathrobe and threw a towel over his shoulder, bullying his way through the bathroom door and out into the hallway which had grown ever silent.

“Eddie?” Chris made his way slowly down the stairs in the dark. Why had Eddie turned out the lights? He clung tightly to the banister on his descent. His only guide was the light that spilled from the kitchen, illuminating part of the hallway and casting an eerie shadow into the room in which Gerrard had hung his most prized taxidermy possessions. Chris swallowed. “Eddie?”

One more step and there he was. Eddie kneeled at Chris’ feet in the hallway, his body hunched over his hand as it bled profusely. He looked awful: pasty white and eyes bloodshot.

“Your dog bit me,” Eddie hissed, his voice gravel. Chris could hardly see his hand beneath the pool of blood. He continued his descent more cautiously.

“Well, what did you do?” Nanook had never bit anything in his life, even as a puppy he’d been too afraid of his chew toys to do more than give them a tentative nip. “What did you do Eddie?”

“Nothing,” Eddie bit back. He hissed as more blood bubbled out from his palm. “I didn’t hurt him. He attacked me.” Yet the so-called ferocious attacker came docilly to Chris’ side and whined into the gentle touch of its master.

It was Eddie who looked feral now. The bags under his eyes hung with the shadows from the kitchen light, his face contorted with pain as he forced himself to stand and stare Chris directly in the eye. The care beneath his own brown pupils fought for the limelight with the hunger that had drool pooling from his lips.

“He was protecting you,” Eddie confessed. Chris would have asked from what but he spied over Eddie’s shoulder his reflection in the mirror. He tapped at his brother’s shoulder to make him turn and saw through the reflective glass the look of mute horror that blossomed upon his face. While Chris was as he always had been -a solid outline of a boy with tousled, wet curls and slightly steamed glasses held aloft by the crutches that pushed into his side – Eddie’s reflection was practically see through. Chris held a hand out to Eddie’s back and saw his own fingers wave through Eddie’s body.

Thoughts of the comic book that lay haphazardly between his sheets had Chris darting for the stairs.

“You’re a creature of the night Eddie,” he declared as Nanook raced him up the stairs. He was lucky that Eddie was still wrapped up in his own eerie reflection for on any given day he would have been easily caught. “My own brother – a goddamn shit-sucking vampire!” Chris had reached the top of the landing now. His breath rattled through his ribs. “Just wait until Bobby finds out!” He got a hand on the wall at the top of the stairs before Eddie even thought to chase him, unable to help himself from forming a cross with his fingers and urging his brother back. But Eddie could hardly drag himself up the stairs. Chris heard as he slammed into the wall with the weight of his step, the sound echoed by his door when he knocked it closed.

Eddie held a palm against Chris’ closed door before deciding better of forcing himself in. He could still hear the bad um, ba dum, bad um of his heart. Or maybe that was just his head. Eddie pushed a palm against the searing skin there and used the walls to pull his way into his own room. Despite his late start, his bed looked oh so inviting. Eddie flopped onto it and prayed that when he awoke this nightmare would all be over.

+

“You did the right thing by calling us. Does you brother sleep a lot?” Came Hen’s voice through the speakerphone.

“All day,” Chris was sure that Eddie was even sleeping now.

“Can’t stand light?”

“He started wearing sunglasses in the house.” Chris heard the receiver shift on the other end, Hen’s voice gone in place of Howie’s.

“Bad breath? Long fingernails?”

“His fingernails are longer, but he always has had bad breath,” Chris shrugged. There were distant murmurings on the other end of the line.

“He’s a vampire all right,” Hen concluded. “Get yourself a good sharp stake and drive it through his heart.”

“I can’t do that!”

The idea was absurd. Eddie had been the one constant thing in Chris’ life. He had always protected Chris, even now, even if he wanted to suck his blood. Howie and Hen weren’t so impressed by his emotions, their tone almost mocking as they told him that he best get a garlic t-shirt or it was his funeral. Chris sighed as the receiver clicked and ended their call. He couldn’t believe it. Eddie. A vampire. Chris grabbed at the magazine and began to read, determined to find Eddie a way out of his predicament without killing him. Chris would miss him too much. Although, he guessed, his room would make great comic book storage.

In the next room over, Eddie felt weightless. Where his limbs had felt like bricks before now they were feathers. For the first time since this nightmare had begun, he felt free. Floaty. Lightweight. Eddie frowned when his head bumped something. His hands came up to feel a cool, smooth surface. When he opened his eyes he found himself pressed against the ceiling. He scrambled for purchase on the otherwise smooth surface, trying his best to manoeuvre himself back toward the bed. His fingers snagged the blind cord before it slipped back through. Another swipe and he had it, using the string to pull himself back to solid ground. Only the slight chill of the evening tickles at his ankles and all of a sudden Eddie found himself sliding through the open window. One last futile swipe at the window’s ledge only served to push him further out into the night.

The phone’s shrill ring startled Chris from his research.

“Hello?” His voice is uneven, ragged. In the warmth of a restaurant on the strip, Bobby immediately caught onto his distress. He placed a hand on the host’s table.

“Chris? Is everything alright?” He wasn’t sure what made him ring in the first place, only that his stomach had twisted and he couldn’t blame the food because they had not yet had any.

“Bobby, I think we’ve got to have a long talk about something.” Bobby’s brows furrowed and he urged the boy to tell him more, but Chris refused. Though alarm bells rang shrilly in his head when Chris shrieked down the receiver. “Oh no, oh god! Bobby, he’s coming to get me – Bobby!”

Bobby did not think before he dropped the phone and raced from the restaurant, dodging waiters and patrons alike.

Athena held her hand upright to stop the waiter that had arrived at their table. She blinked owlishly through the large windows that afforded the restaurant’s patrons a view of the beautiful ocean. Only it also showed her date fleeing the scene, wrenching open the door to their car and racing away from the lovely food that the poor waiter just holds tantalisingly underneath her nose. Athena sniffed.

Meanwhile, Eddie held onto the cord for his life. That familiar tug and pull, the oh-so-tantalising beckoning of Buck’s voice urged him to let go. But Eddie gripped harder onto the string. He looked through the window into Chris’ room and hated what he saw. His brother, pressed deep against the wall with Nanook spread out across him in protection.

“Help me, Chris. Help me,” Eddie can feel his fingers twitch. Any longer and he knew that he would let go, would let the wind carry him straight back into the devil’s arms. For that was what Buck had to be – the devil. No angel could have made Eddie this. Relief flooded through his veins which felt as though they were on fire now as Chris pushed Nanook aside and scrambled to save Eddie from being pulled toward the sweet, delicious hell.

Yet the devil had never been a fair player. Eddie heard the slight tear to the cord when Chris opened the window, a dark and hungry wind swelling from seemingly nowhere that tugged even harder at Eddie’s body and his will. Chris fought against it to grab at Eddie’s arms, using the combined power of the wall, his crutches and his determination to pull his brother back through into safety. Together they slammed the window shut. The wind threw a tantrum against its panes. Eddie gaped in deep breaths of air, inhaling the familiar scent of his brother while he fought against the urge to bite. He wrapped his arms around his saviour, the only angel left in Santa Clara, and squeezed. Chris clung back to him equally as tight.

“We’ve got to stick together, Chris. You’ve got to help me.”

“What about Bobby?” Chris hiccupped into his chest.

“No, we can’t tell Bobby.” Eddie jerked away from their embrace. “Please, Chris. Don’t tell him.”

“I don’t know, Eddie. This isn’t like breaking a lamp or getting a D,” Chris sighed.

Yet by the time Bobby had come crashing through the front door, desperately calling their names, Eddie had convinced Chris to be quiet. Chris walked calmly down the stairs to greet him. Bobby rushed toward his son and cupped his face in his hands.

“Chris! What happened? You had me scared to death. Are you alright?” Chris shrugged and blew him off with a tale of reading a horror comic and the mistake of thinking he had seen something outside his window. Bobby frowned down at him. There was no way – he was sure that Chris had sounded terrified. But there are more pressing concerns – where was Eddie in all of this?” “He’s already gone to bed,” Chris insisted. Bobby sighed. Was Eddie planning to sleep away his summer?

He left Chris to get ready for bed himself and hurried to the phone, desperate to reach Athena and apologise for his ditching but the waiter informed him that she had gone. Bobby sighed and resigned himself to clearing up the milk that had been left for him to find. He reminisced on the date, trying to squash down the feeling that he had ruined it all. Athena had been so great, so kind. She was a lovely lady – so unlike the women of El Paso. She was successful, bold, she listened. Where many of Bobby’s previous dates had scoffed at his desire to work with teenagers, Athena had beamed. She pointed out that he was in the right place – Santa Carla was full of them, after all, and most of them runaways. She’d assured Bobby that he was much needed, yet managed to make the sentiment even sweeter still when she acted put out at the fact he was thinking of leaving her to work elsewhere. Bobby laughed at the memory. He brushed his fingers over where she had touched, the phantom feeling of her soft skin marred by the rough callouses of his own.

Bobby had already prepared his apology in his head by the time he snuggled into his bed. He reached for the lamp to plunge himself in darkness when Chris burst through his door. Bobby shot up, far too attuned to the scared look on Chris’ face.

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Chris begged. Bobby blinked. Chris had not slept in his bed for years, and even then it had only been because Eddie had been elsewhere.

“In here? Sure.” Bobby had hardly finished talking before Chris was sat at the edge. “You sure you’re okay, kid?”

“Y-yeah, it was just a scary comic, that’s all.” Bobby hummed in response, not quite believing him but not up for a challenge tonight either. Though his nose wrinkled at an offensive smell as Chris began to undo his dressing gown.

“Jesus, have you been eating pizza? It smells like garlic.” Chris quickly wrapped himself up with a nervous chuckle.

The garlic bulbs dug in a little around his neck as he lay beside Bobby. He kept his back to him to avoid an awkward conversation and tried his best to fall into easy sleep. Only the sound of a motorcycle revving had his eyes shooting wide open again.

Eddie had found the old, rusted thing behind Gerrard’s prized car that he never took out of the garage. He was surprised that it had worked and even more surprised to find it had gas, but it would do. It would carry him where he needed to go. The wind still pulled at his limbs though it seemed satisfied when he wheeled his steed down the driveway. Eddie had to duck into some bushes to avoid the beady eyes of Gerrard as he returned back from his not-date, whistling like a man who had got lucky. Eddie’s face crumpled at the thought. He pushed onwards. He had to talk to Buck. He had to know what was going on.

+

Athena felt every step on the path toward her house. It sucked to have been thwarted on a date she had so looked forward to, but she understood. Kids came first. It was what she had so admired in Bobby – his dedication to the youth and his big, loving heart. If only there was room inside it for her. Athena quirked a brow when the wind began to pick up. Familiar laughter echoed on the wind that carried something to her feet. She paused to regard it. Smiling up at her with a big, goofy smile was a kite fashioned in the shape of a vampire bat. Athena scoffed and kicked it aside. Kids indeed.

+

By the time Eddie had abandoned the bike at the mouth of their cavern, his concern and panic had bled into a feeling he was well acquainted with. Rage. Eddie swore the planks cracked beneath his feet as he hurled himself into their so-called home, fists clenched and tongue dripping with poison. Only something just as deadly waited for him below, shrouded in the shadows of the ornate curtains that gave the illusion of walls in the otherwise open-ended space.

“Buck,” Eddie barked into the silent room. His voice echoed off the chalky walls.

“Not here, dumbass,” Taylor drawled from the darkness. Eddie spun on his heels to face her. She took one look at the fist he held upwards, ready to strike, and laughed.

“Where is he? What the fuck is going on with me?”

Taylor’s nails scratched against the surface of the bottle Eddie had drank from the night before. She smirked and brought the bottle to her nose and gave it an appreciative sniff.

“I told you. It’s blood.” The joke was not quite so funny now. Taylor offered the top of the bottle for him to sniff. Eddie swallowed and leaned toward it. Blood. It was definitely blood. His tongue felt fuzzy with the thought. Taylor set the bottle down and watched in fascinated delight as Eddie stumbled and fell onto one of the padded beds that they’d never even used for sleeping. Still, it must have been fate that had him tumbling onto the one that Buck favoured. She ground her jaw as she watched the realisation flourish across his features. She opened her mouth to taunt him further, always eager to find a new toy to play with, but there was a woosh and they were no longer alone.

Buck looked between them both. It irked Taylor even further when his gaze settled and stayed upon Eddie. Eddie who had stood and found his strength. His fist pummelled into the hardened chest of Buck. Buck hardly flinched. Nor did he notice when Taylor slipped away.

“You, you, you asshole,” Eddie spat. He grabbed at Buck’s coat to push him away but found himself pulling him closer. Those lips were in his direct view now, his wicked tongue slipping through again. Eddie wondered if he wanted to taste him or taste him. It didn’t matter, for Eddie found the same hunger growled from within. His fingers tightened on Buck’s coat.

“Eddie.” Buck whispered his name like it was a prayer, and who was Eddie to ignore it? If Buck was the devil, then he was God granting salvation to even the most wicked sinners.

Salvation tasted of blood and torture and mischief. Salvation marked its claim against Eddie’s lips, inside his mouth, against his tongue. Salvation came with the brush of Buck’s hands up the side of Eddie’s waist. It pooled deep in the pits of his stomach and sparked to life even lower still. It came in the sharp sting of Buck’s teeth as they caught on Eddie’s lip, lapped up by his tongue in apology. Eddie tasted his own blood in their next kiss and he understood why Buck had been so desperate to share his. He hardly noticed the chill of the ocean air as Buck shucked his jacket for him. That same air that felt suffocating when Buck pulled away to rid him of his shirt too. Eddie longed for the pass of Buck’s lips. He slammed himself back up against them the second he was free to do so, whining when they had to break apart once more to rid themselves of Buck’s clothing too.

But it was all worth it when Buck lowered him onto the bed that Eddie had crumbled into earlier. He was sure that he was going to break apart again, but this time it did not feel so crushing for it would be by Buck’s hand. The hand that cradled his face as though it was as precious as the chandelier that reflected soft, twinkling light onto their bodies. Eddie cupped it beneath his own and turned to press a kiss into the palm that waited for him there. Buck sighed, the softest Eddie had ever seen him, and he knew that if the blood didn’t kill him soon enough then its owner would finish the job through gentle caresses and whispered affirmations of love.

A gust of wind awoke Eddie the next morning. He listened, eyes tightly closed, to the woosh of the other vampires returning to their lair. He did not wish to open his eyes just yet. He let himself linger in the fantasy of his predicament: Buck, pressed hotly behind him and sticking slightly to the exposed skin of his back. His arms both a prison and a cradle around Eddie’s body. The sheet pooled around their hips only an illusion of modesty for its age had made it quite transparent. Eddie’s fingers traced Buck’s knuckles idly. The fabric of the bandage he had wrapped around his hand last night caught on Buck’s soft skin. Eddie opened his eyes to watch as he tugged the material free. His lips parted in silent shock when he saw the bite, which had been an open and pulsing wound last night, had disappeared.

He forced himself to truly look at the area around him. It was beautiful, yes, but flawed. It was full of dust and was a far cry from the home he shared with his brother, Bobby and Gerrard. Buck nuzzled into the crook of Eddie’s neck in his sleep. Eddie sighed. He tugged at the other’s wrist and gently eased himself from his grip. Buck’s arms tightened in the space where Eddie had once occupied. With one last self-indulgent kiss to the birthmark he’d worshipped the night before, Eddie slipped from the lair with renewed determination to break himself of the curse Buck had bequeathed him like a gift.

+

Eddie felt as though he carried with him the weight of the world when he finally slugged his way onto Gerrard’s porch. The bike had given up midway through his journey home and public transport was a bitch on a good day, let alone when the sun felt like it would burn him to a crisp. He hardly spared a glance at Bobby when the man greeted him from his perch on of the chairs tucked neatly in the port’s shade. Bobby frowned at him over his mug.

“What’s the matter, Eddie? Aren’t we friends anymore?” Eddie came to a halt before the door. Bobby seemed determined to find the root cause of sickness that had overtaken his son. Eddie had not exactly been peachy prior to their move, but he had never shut Bobby out like this. Eddie sighed heavily.

“Sure.” It was all he could muster. Sweat seemed to slide into places Eddie had never sweat before. Bobby hummed his disapproval.

“Does that mean we are, or we aren’t?” Bobby questioned. Eddie rolled his eyes from beneath his sunglasses.

“We are.”

Bobby leaned forward, more determined than ever.

“Then let’s act like it – I know this is a new place, and-” Eddie cut him off with another, pained sigh. “If there’s a girl, we could talk about her.” In all Bobby’s time knowing Eddie he had not once talked to Bobby about a girl. It was a reach and he knew it, but Bobby’s arm was growing tired from holding out the olive branch. Eddie shook his head at the notion.

“I’m tired now,” he said instead of answering. There was no way to answer that question – Bobby was a kind man, sure, and an accepting one too – but how far did that acceptance go? Eddie wasn’t so sure it extended to potentially supernatural boyfriends. Bobby called after him but Eddie had already crossed the threshold. He heard Bobby’s hurrying steps behind him and jumped when the other’s hand stopped him from going any further than the hallway.

“We haven’t even gotten around to this yet.” Bobby pulled at his own earlobe in indication of Eddie’s own. Eddie shook him off and left him stood, helpless, in the doorway.

In the kitchen, Chris lifted his head from his comic book to observe Eddie. He looked no better than he did yesterday, but no worse. They shared a tense look. Gerrard dropped his coffee mug noisily into the sink.

“Ah,” Gerrard said when he caught him out of the corner of his eye. “Guess I wasn’t the only one to get lucky last night.”

Eddie grimaced in response and leaned over to see what Chris had been reading. His stomach churned at the image it depicted: a vampire in all its bloody glory with snarling teeth and wild, animalistic eyes, howling in pain as a stake drove through its heart. He cupped a hand to his mouth and fought back his bile before he headed upstairs to the bed that called his name.

+

Chris didn’t know why Bobby was so bothered about apologising to Athena. It seemed a moot point given he’d practically ran out on what he’d since learnt was indeed a date. Chris shivered at the idea. Bobby didn’t date, at least not successfully. In all the time Chris had known him Bobby had never bought a bottle of wine, either, and yet there he was letting himself through Athena’s gate. Remembering Thorn, Bobby made sure to close it. He hummed a hopeful tune to himself, a slight pep in his step on his way down. Bobby could fix this. There was nothing wine could not fix – except broken marriages and grief, but that was all in his past now. He hoped that Athena would appreciate his apologetic card as well, all smiles as he approached her house. Though that smile faltered a little when he caught sight of a vampire bat kite, crumpled in the corner of her yard. Why would anyone want a kite so menacing?

Bobby jumped when Thorn barked with alarm at his presence. He gave an awkward wave, sure that Thorn’s aggravation was born from the lingering scent of Nanook upon Bobby’s being.

“Hi Thorn,” he greeted cheerily. Only Thorn snarled back. His hair stood on end. Bobby held a tentative hand out to soothe the dog but Thorn took it as a threat. Bobby’s scream was quite unmanly as he fled from the snarling beast, scrambling for the safety of his car where Chris waited for him.

“Chris,” he called in between haggard breaths. “Chris!”

Chris looked up from the page he had been reading where his thumb traced the image of the hellhound idly. He tried to shake the lingering image from his mind when he saw Bobby running toward him chased by Athena’s dog, sure that he was imagining the ferocious look on its face.

Only when Bobby screamed his name with more panic did Chris jump to action. His crutches almost took out the wing mirror in his rush. Yet in the time it took him to reach the gate, Bobby had leapt over it and fallen to a heap in the ground. The wine he’d meant to gift to Athena spread out across the pristine white of her pathway. Still, Thorn seemed determined to get a bite of Bobby. His muzzle thrust through the slats of the gate. Chunks of wood flew from his mouth as Thorn created a gap for his nose to push through.Bobby scrambled backwards into Chris and insisted that his son run back to the car. He’d let the dog tear him limb from limb if it meant it spared Chris. Yet Thorn did not break through, at least not before both he and Chris made it back to the car.

“Jesus Christ,” Chris whispered from the passenger seat while Bobby started the engine.

“Indeed,” Bobby said instead of scolding him for using Christ’s name in vain.

+

Chris had practically begged Bobby to drop him off at the boardwalk. He had to talk to Hen and Howie. He had to save his brother from becoming one of the most eternally damned. He had to breathe, damn it. Hen and Howie regarded him with confusion as he panted in the vicinity. Hen’s hands fluttered to his shoulders to check he was not having a panic attack.

“I. Need. Your. Help.” It was all Chris could get out for some time. Hen and Howie closed the store while he recovered, a ‘we’ll be back’ notice hung from the shutter before the three of them made their way to the beach. They sat on a wall that bordered its edge. Chris took a deep breath and told them the grave news: not only was Eddie potentially a vampire, but so was Athena. Hen and Howie shared another, unreadable look with one another.

“Could be,” Howie nodded. “What’s your reasoning?” And so Chris told them of his theory. How Athena only ever showed up to her own store until after dark, how Thorn had gone so viciously after his father – that point backed by the very comic they had handed to him upon their first meeting. They both nodded along as Chris read the page on vampire’s daytime protectors, dogs usually.

“I told you that comic would save your life,” Howie insisted.

The comic was snatched cruelly from Chris’ hand by the same group of ruffians who had stolen from Hen and Howie’s shop days before. The three of them watched in despair as their leader, a buff man with more brawn than brain, ripped into shreds and scattered it over their heads and into the sand. The group left them behind with an evil cackle.

“I wish they were vampires so I had a moral excuse to kill them,” Hen sighed.

“How’d you know they’re not?” Chris questioned, though none of them looked pretty bloodthirsty to him either.

“They wouldn’t be out in the daytime,” Howie supplied.

“Exactly how many vampires have you actually destroyed?”

“All together?” Howie asked. Chris nodded. “Zero.”

Chris threw his hands up. Why was he putting his, and by extension his brother’s, life in their hands again? Hen placed a not-so-reassuring hand upon his raised shoulder.

“Hey, just because a marine hasn’t seen combat, doesn’t mean he still isn’t a marine. Let’s go check out your dad’s girlfriend.” Chris fought the urge to remind them that Bobby wasn’t his dad, not really. He was just Bobby. Kind, trusting Bobby who did not deserve to become dinner for a monster. Speaking of, Chris hoped Bobby wouldn’t be too miffed at the prospect of more guests. He’d always loved cooking and what was a couple more mouths to feed?

+

Eddie toyed with the earring that hung from his ear. He’d bought himself a new jacket – one that matched Buck’s just as his earring did. He’d put more effort into his hair, too. It fluffed up with a hint of gel – not too much, he wouldn’t have wanted Buck’s hand to get caught. Though he’d swore to himself he wouldn’t go back, there was still something niggling at his psyche that begged him to. He liked to think it was his own morbid curiosity to discover what exactly was going on with him but he knew it was more likely Buck’s unnatural pull that had him shunning Bobby’s offer to join them for dinner. Bobby pursed his lips at him from over the stove.

“What time we eating again?” Gerrard barked from his favourite chair.

“I told Athena eight o’clock,” Bobby said, though his eyes remained on Eddie.

“Athena? You mean we’re having company again.” Bobby clicked his tongue at him. Gerrard hadn’t had company since the Vietnam War. “I’ll take mine to go,” Gerrard insisted.

“Are you sure you can’t stay, Eddie?” Bobby tried again. “I’d like for you to meet Athena.”

But Eddie had already left the kitchen. He opened it and almost barrelled straight into the women of the hour.

“Hey,” Athena’s eyes raked over him approvingly. “How are you doing? Eddie, right?”

“Yeah. Athena… right?” Eddie’s gaze was not quite so appreciative. Silence befell the two of them as Athena waited for more. Eddie gave her nothing.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” Eddie pursed his lips at her. Who needed to be invited in these days? Still, he stepped to the side.

“Come in, I’m inviting you.” Eddie gestured toward the hallway. Athena beamed and crossed the threshold, only to find that Eddie had swapped places with her.

“See ya,” he called over his shoulder. Athena frowned but took a moment to appreciate her surroundings. The house was quaint, but nothing like hers. She cringed at the ample mounted heads in the room to her left, shivering particularly at the mounted Buck.

+

Athena was mesmerised by the way in which Bobby worked. He set his table like a 1950s housewife and scolded Athena whenever she tried to help. The most he’d allowed was for her to fold the napkins. So she could be forgiven for how she wrapped arms around the man’s waist as he bent to fix her handiwork and nuzzled into the sensitive skin at his neck. Bobby chuckled and turned to face her, lips pursed for a kiss when Chris barrelled through the door with Hen and Howie in tow.

“These are my dinner guests, Hen and Howie.” Chris gestured toward them. Bobby clung to Athena’s hand around his waist and squinted at the pair. They seemed much too old to be hanging with his son.

“I didn’t know you were having guests…” Or that the friends Chris had been babbling over were more Eddie’s age.

“Well, if we’re in your way we can just eat peanut butter out of the jar in the kitchen.”

But Bobby would never dream of seeing a guest go unfed and within minutes he’d readjusted the dinner table. He took the head with Athena to his right and Chris to his left, Chris’ guests sat opposite one another beside them. Chris barely watched as he forked mouthfuls of Bobby’s delicious spaghetti between his lips, far too preoccupied with minute movement Athena made.

“This looks terrific, Bobby,” Athena complimented. Bobby smiled at the praise before his face crumpled.

“Boy, someone around here sure has bad breath!” Chris, Hen and Howie pointedly looked to Athena. But it was Nanook who had sidled his way up beside Bobby that was the source of the smell. He was shoved aside and called back to Chris’ feet. Hen and Howie looked disappointedly to one another.

Chris gestured toward Athena’s generous serving of spaghetti.

“Fancy some parmesan on that, ‘thena?” He offered. Athena beamed at his manners.

“Sure, thank you Chris.” She reached for the container and sprinkled some of it onto her spaghetti. Her next mouthful is almost spat out across the table. Hen, Howie and Chris sat up straighter in their seats. Bobby rushed to her aid and patted Athena’s back to help calm her sputtering. He questioned the issue.

“It’s garlic, I like garlic but-” Athena choked on her next word. Chris reached for his glass of water.

“Quick, drink some water.” Chris intentionally spilt it down Athena’s shirt. He waited for the sizzle, the scream, something. But Athena only sputtered and jumped from her seat, mopping at her chest with the napkins she’d oh so carefully folded earlier. “Does it burn?”

“Burn?” Athena shrieked. “Are you kidding? It’s freezing.”

While Bobby babbled apologies to his dinner guest, Howie swung backward in his chair. He reached for the light switch and plunged them all into darkness.

“What on earth?” Bobby cried from somewhere in the room.

“Must be a circuit breaker,” Chris said far too casually. Footsteps scuffled within the darkness. Hen hissed when Chris bumped into her.

“He’s not glowing,” Howie whispered. Chris asked him to turn the lights back on. The room burst into light again just as Athena screamed. Hen and Chris held a mirror underneath her chin. Disappointingly, Athena’s startled face is reflected back at them.

“Chris, what has gotten into you tonight?”

Athena sighed and shook the last of the water from her fingers. She fixed Chris with a look of understanding.

“I think I know what’s going on here,” she said in a sickly sweet voice.

“You do?” Howie chimed in.

“Sure, I understand what you’re thinking, Chris. But you’re wrong.”

“I am?” Chris looked to Hen and Howie for help.

“Yeah, I’m not trying to come in and steal Bobby from you. I just want to be your friend.” Athena looks so earnest, so sincere, that Chris feels the shame burn at his ears. Hen and Howie looked merely miffed.

Bobby continued to apologise for Chris all the way to the front door. It was so out of character for him – Chris had never so much as tried to skip school before.

“It’s okay, Bobby. Boys Chris’ age need a good deal of discipline, or they walk all over you,” Athena said. Bobby scoffed defensively.

“Chris doesn’t walk all over me.” Athena nodded condescendingly. Bobby stiffened underneath her touch when she placed a soothing hand to his shoulder.

“I don’t want to fight, Bobby. C’mon. One last try?” Bobby frowned back at him. “Dinner at my house, tomorrow night. I’m cooking.”

+

Eddie found Buck where he always found Buck: on the boardwalk, surrounded by his cronies. The man looked positively victorious as Eddie walked toward him, arms outstretched in a hug he assumed Eddie could not deny. It took a lot of willpower for Eddie to stop dead in his tracks. He crossed his arm against his chest and huffed. Buck pouted but dropped his arms.

“C’mon Eddie, you’re one of us now, right?” Mischief danced behind his blue eyes, or was that just the reflection of the boardwalk lights? Eddie bit at his lip and managed to puncture it. Everyone’s eyes narrowed at the pearl of blood that bubbled through the broken skin. Eddie licked it away from himself. Buck slumped into the seat of his bike.

“Ugh, can we just go already?” Taylor revved her engine. Even Carlos and TK shifted impatiently. Ravi had become preoccupied with watching a couple sloppily make out on a bench further down.

Buck entwined his fingers and clutched his hand to his chest in a mockery of begging.

“Please, Eddie.” He made his blue eyes impossibly wider. Eddie remembered the taste of the pout that whittled at his resolve. He sighed like it was the last thing he wanted to do but walked toward Buck’s bike anyway. Buck let out a happy little noise. He kept Eddie from getting as he wrapped his arms around his waist, pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. Eddie would have given him nothing else, determined to keep his morals and wits about him, but he had to turn his head to climb onto the bike and the angle was perfect for a proper kiss. It would have been rude not to kiss back and even ruder still if he didn’t grab at Buck as hungrily as Buck grabbed at him.

“Alright,” TK, of all people, called out. “Knock it off, I’m hungry.” Buck broke away from Eddie with a laugh. He kissed the tip of Eddie’s nose before he let the other climb behind him. Eddie’s fingers splayed out across the thin material of his t-shirt.

Eddie had expected them to rock up outside a pizza place, or a burger joint, or to go back to the lair and have Chinese once more. Though perhaps a little part of him had begun to understand that that wasn’t what satiated Buck and his crew’s true hunger. Still, he hesitated at the foot of the tree that the others had climbed so easily. Buck stood beside him, all smiles, and waited for Eddie to climb ahead of him. When Eddie made no move to do so, his infamous pout came out.

“It’ll fun Eddie, and I’ll be right there with ya.” Buck held out his hand. Eddie wasn’t sure how they were going to climb one handed but he grabbed at it anyway. There was something about tonight that felt like a goodbye, almost. It had settled uneasily in his stomach. Buck seemed oblivious to it, laughing as he pulled Eddie up to almost the very top. Eddie remembered the last time he’d been faced with such a height and reached desperately for something stable to hold onto. Buck let go of his hand only to wrap an arm around him and keep him steady.

Below them a group of teenagers danced around a fire pit. Eddie was almost in awe of them. How carefree they seemed; how normal they were. He could smell the weed that they smoked and longed for the obliviousness he’d felt that first night in the cavern. There was booze too, real booze, being drunk from store-bought cans. Buck’s grip on Eddie loosened. Eddie leaned into the kiss Buck pressed to his temple. And then Buck was gone – TK too, and Carlos, and Taylor and Ravi. Eddie glanced around the empty tree. But then he heard a scream and found them flying above the other teenagers’ heads. TK plucked a passed-out girl from her makeshift bed of jackets as Carlos ripped at the back of her boyfriend. Taylor toyed with one of the buffest men within the group, giggling maniacally as she chased him around the fire pit. Ravi had sunk his teeth into the neck of another. Buck had latched himself onto the back of their leader. Gone was the pretty face Eddie had fallen in love with and instead there lay a monster: inhuman orange eyes with feline-like pupils widened with his bite which punctured further than any human could due to the canines that extended deep from the root.

Eddie swallowed back bile. It felt like a car crash on the highway in the way that he couldn’t help but stare, couldn’t force his head away from the horror happening in front of him. Sweat dripped incessantly down his face which had drained of all colour. He could hardly breathe for his heart pounded relentlessly in his chest. It almost overpowered the call of his name over the carnage. “Eddie,” Taylor hissed while his eyes burnt. “Eddie,” Ravi giggled as Eddie’s lips stretched to accommodate his canines as they grew and sharpened to a point. “Eddie,” Carlos and TK called before they kissed and swapped the flavour of the blood they’d each tasted. “Eddie,” Buck cooed as he watched it all from mid-air. Eddie stared up at him. Blood dripped freely from his mouth and smeared across his lower jaw. He looked hideous, terrifying, enticing. Eddie brought a hand to his own face and knew he must look just like him.

Horrified at the thought, Eddie tried to escape down the tree. But he lost his footing and tumbled down its side, rolling and rolling across the floor as the sounds of the carnage he’d left behind grew ever more distant. He knew he had to get up and run. Get away from this mess. Away from Buck. But Eddie just laid there, desperate to get his breathing back to normal. The silence engulfed him when the attack was finally over. Eddie closed his eyes against the approaching footsteps. A twig snapped. Eddie no longer had control of his limbs. It took everything in him to turn his head. Buck led his crew into the clearing Eddie had ended up in. The light of the bonfire glowed around them like a blasphemous halo. Each of them looked satiated with their kill. Taylor licked the remnants of blood from her finger. Their faces had returned back to the ones he knew. Buck, his lover, his devil, his condemner, looked even more ethereal.

“Now you know who we are, Eddie… and who you are, too,” Buck said. He seemed so serene, so at peace with the monster he was and who was trying to make Eddie become. “You’ll never grow old and you’ll never die.” Buck grinned to himself. “But you must feed.” Eddie’s eyes widened with the acknowledgement. That was feeding? The devastation and the disaster and the inevitable death was a feed to Buck? A mere meal. The others had begun to walk off but Buck paused as he passed Eddie’s prone body. He kneeled down and brushed from his forehead a strand of hair that had come loose from the gel Eddie had worked into it. He leaned forward and left a kiss upon Eddie’s forehead. Eddie closed his eyes against the sensation, no longer able to find comfort in the kiss of a killer.

“Buck,” Taylor yelled from a distance. “Leave your stray alone.”

+

Sleep had been a difficult thing to harness when the person you shared an adjoined bathroom with had become one of the creatures of the night. Chris tossed and he turned before a creak made his eyes shoot open. His breath caught in his chest when he caught the glint of an evil eye in the darkness, though when his hands scrambled for the lamp and switched it on it revealed only another of Gerrard’s ‘creations’. Chris glared at its hideous, lifeless face. He threw the sheet from his legs and manhandled the creature – a bird of prey of some sort, this time – into his wardrobe with some difficulty. He wasn’t sure if Gerrard was being nice or had cottoned on to the fact he hated them and delighted in gifting them to him for his sick pleasure, but Chris had acquired quite a few in the short time they had been living with him. He closed the door with a sigh of relief and prayed that sleep would take him the second his head hit the pillow.

Only it might be death that took him instead, for behind the door Eddie waited. He looked worse than ever – paper white, haggard and terrified.

“I know everything,” he half-whispered to his brother. Chris swallowed.

Before Chris could question what everything meant, exactly, something knocked upon his window. A stone hit the pane before it fell backwards, followed by another and another.

“Eddie,” hissed the voice that had entwined itself within Eddie’s inner thoughts. “Eddie,” Buck pleaded. Eddie did not want to go to the window, but curiosity spurred Chris as he raced toward it and opened it.

“It’s that guy from the boardwalk. Is he one of ‘em?” Eddie’s silence answered for him. Chris took a heavy step back from the window’s ledge.

“Eddie.” Buck’s voice strained with his plea. Eddie’s feet moved on their own as he trudged toward the window. Buck looked haggard below, like he’d ran all the way here. “Please, I want to talk to you. Can I come up?”

“Okay,” Eddie muttered despite Chris’ immediate rejection.

Buck was climbing over the window’s ledge in seconds. Instinct made Eddie’s arms shoot out to steady him, the touch electric despite the mix of fear, loathing and anger that swirled within.

“Are you okay?” Buck’s hand moved to cup Eddie’s cheek, but he jerked it away. Buck’s eyes narrowed at the closet door behind him as it squeaked shut. Chris cursed when the beak of Gerrard’s newest creation nudged him in the back. “Eddie, please.”

“You made me a fucking monster,” Eddie snarled. Buck’s face blossomed into shock like he’d never considered what he’d done to be a negative. His hand fluttered awkwardly near Eddie’s face, desperate to touch but scared of the rejection if he tried.

“Y-you’re not, not yet,” Buck insisted. “You can’t be a full vampire until you feed.” Eddie tore his gaze away from him to take in the new information. There was a chance he could be saved.

But Buck had not come here to offer him that. He was determined to drag Eddie to hell alongside him. He gave into his desire to touch, reassured when Eddie did not yank his head away. His thumb rubbed soothing circles into the side of Eddie’s face.

“C’mon, Eddie – come with me. Feed with me, tonight.” Hope blossomed on his face when Eddie looked directly into his eyes.

“Why didn’t you do that with me?” Buck frowned, ready to protest that he wanted to, wasn't Eddie listening? “Feed on me, I mean.” Buck swallowed. He almost laughed at the absurdity. Feed on Eddie? His Eddie? Buck shook his head.

“Because you’re different – you’re you. I saw you and I knew, I couldn’t live without you. Like TK and Carlos, like Ath-” Buck cut himself off. “You’re special. I love you.”

Eddie wasn’t sure monsters were capable of love. Buck made a great show of it though. His eyes misted over as he regarded Eddie. His hands held him like he was fragile, something to be treasured. His voice wobbled as he tried, again, desperately to have Eddie join him.

“Please, Eddie. We can be together forever. Feed with me tonight – it’s not that bad, it’s kind of fun actually. We’ll pick an asshole. There’s loads of them ‘round here.” Buck’s grip tightened around Eddie. Eddie pried his fingers from his face and stepped out of Buck’s reach. Buck sighed, exasperated. “The longer you resist, Eddie, the harder it will get. You can feel it, can’t you?” Buck swept forward and brushed his fingers delicately across Eddie’s neck. “The thirst? Soon you won’t be able to resist. You’ll eat anything, maybe even him.” Buck gestured to where Chris hid.

“No,” Eddie rasped out. “No, I’d never hurt him.”

“You might, if you don’t feed soon,” Buck shrugged. Eddie let out a little whine. Chris had heard enough. He burst from the closet and jammed his crutch into Buck’s chest. Buck stumbled in his surprise. Chris pushed harder, gaining ground with every jab.

“Eddie,” Buck reached for the crutch but yanked his hand away as though it had been burnt when Eddie glowered back at him. “Eddie, please.” Buck supported himself against the windowpane. Chris leaned all his weight on his left crutch and shoved. Eddie knew Buck could have held himself upright but still he let himself fall. Eddie’s chest jerked forward as the string that seemed to have bound them together pulled taught. Eddie brushed a hand over his heart in an effort to sever it. Chris slammed the window shut and reached for the landline.

“Who you calling?” Eddie’s hand balled into a fist against his chest.

“The Marines.”

+

Back up didn’t arrive until the morning to avoid suspicion. Bobby had already left for work and Gerrard was too preoccupied with something in the yard to notice Hen and Howie as they approached the front door.

“Alright, where’s your bloodsuckin’ brother?” Hen threw and then caught the stake in her hand. Chris clicked his tongue but let them in all the same.

“Eddie, they’re here,” he called up the stairs. Hen raised her stake higher when Eddie came into view. He practically fell down each step, the wall likely the only thing that kept him upright.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t stab him right here.” Hen adopted a battle pose, feet wide apart and stake firm in her hand.

“Because he hasn’t killed anyone yet, have you Eddie?” Chris turned to him. Eddie had come to a halt at the bottom of the stairs and sagged to sit upon the last one. “Eddie.”

“Of course not,” Eddie ground out. He’d drank several litres of water last night and still his throat felt sandpaper dry.

Howie and Hen nodded their approval. Chris wrapped an arm around his brother and held him close. Howie clapped his hands together.

“Good, we can still save you. We just need to kill the head vampire. You got any idea who that is?” Eddie thought of the coven he had been introduced to: Ravi seemed as fresh as he was. TK and Carlos all to eager to do another’s bidding. Taylor, though catty, also seemed content to defer to one person. Eddie’s heart seized. He shut his eyes against the idea and saw him in technicolour. Buck. Magnificent, mesmerising, maddening Buck. Leader of the vampires. The one who brought him to life and yet sentenced him to death. Howie coughed.

“Buck.” It hurt to say it out loud, but Eddie couldn’t blame the roughness of his throat for that. It was all in the crushing of his heart.

“Perfect,” Howie said, too cheerily for someone about to kill another for sport. “Where is he?” Eddie pushed himself out of Chris’ grip and to his feet.

“I’ll take you,” he offered. Hen scoffed and shook her head, stake still raised.

“No – you’re one of them. It could be a trick.”

“I said, I’ll take you.” Hen and Howie looked to Chris who only shrugged. “If Buck has to die, then I’m gonna be the one to do it.” He’d make it swift. Painless. Respectful.

+

Gerrard had not been too happy to see them barrel down his driveway in his prized car, but they had peeled onto the road before he could catch up with them. Eddie struggled to keep his eyes open on the drive there, but he did not trust the two tweakers in his backseat to drive anywhere. Hen and Howie had opened their backpacks, or killing kits as they called them, across their laps for Chris to see. He twisted in his seat and nodded along to all the things they deemed necessary for the job: a wooden stake, whittled by Hen herself; a jar of holy water; a flashlight; some silver, just in case. Eddie scoffed at it all. Yet he held the wooden stake that had been reluctantly handed to him after they’d pulled up the cavern’s entrance all the same. How else was he going to do it? He could hardly lift his hands let alone use them to strangle his beloved.

“Listen, if you try to stop us or vamp out in any way I will not hesitate to kill you.” Howie pointed his stake in Eddie’s direction to prove his point. Eddie awkwardly raised his thumb to him. Chris made to follow them but Eddie held him at bay by his shoulder.

“Chris, I don’t want you going down there. It’s too dangerous,” Eddie said.

“I’m going,” Chris insisted but Eddie caught the fearful bob of his throat.

“No, stay here – be lookout. Please, Chris.” He couldn’t bear having to watch out for his baby brother while he attempted to kill his boyfriend at the same time. Chris huffed.

“C’mon,” Hen urged as she and Howie lingered by the cavern’s entrance. Chris pulled Eddie into an unexpected hug.

“Stay safe, then and Eddie.” Chris pulled away and looked him directly in his eyes. “Kill that son of a bitch.”

Hen and Howie made Eddie lead the way. He felt the threat of their stake at his back. His own stake weighed his hand down while they descended, almost dragging him along the way. Despite their hatred for vampire kind – his kind? – even Hen and Howie were impressed by their digs.

“Holy shit,” Howie said. “Vampire hotel!” He jumped into the open space, momentarily forgetting that they were attempting a sneak attack. Hen pressed a finger to her lips and shushed him. Eddie smiled sadly at the room around him. There were no vampires sleeping in the plush beds that littered the ground, but there hadn’t been last time.

“There has to be sleeping quarters somewhere,” Hen whispered while she poked around. She jerked her head in the direction of Howie’s shout as he pointed to a gap in the chalk wall. “That’ll be it. Eddie.”

Eddie dragged himself up to the gap with some difficulty. Neither Hen nor Howie waited for him, though he knew they must have picked the right spot for their horrified gasps echoed down the chamber back to him. When he emerged on the other side, he found them stood back-to-back, stakes and flashlights pointed upward at the ceiling. Eddie picked the cobwebs from his clothing. From the metal bars that had once been the hotel’s foundations, Buck and his crew hung upside down high above them. Eddie reached for the orange flame that was Taylor’s hair but his arm was not long enough to reach it.

“Well, which one is it?” Howie hissed into Eddie’s ear. Eddie looked at them all: Taylor, Ravi, TK, Carlos and Buck. Right in the centre of it all. Eddie swallowed and nodded toward him. “C’mon then, up you go.” Hen shone the flashlight on a rickety ladder propped against the cave wall.

Rocks must have fallen into Eddie’s pocket. Every rung of the ladder felt like it was a thousand feet from the last. He groaned with the effort it took. A clang from across the room made him pause. Howie had found another ladder and had begun to climb.

“What are you doing?” Eddie stage-whispered. Howie narrowed his eyes at him.

“Providing back up, man. You look like you couldn’t swat a fly right now.” Eddie glared back at him and, in an attempt to disprove his point, made a swipe for one of the many flies that buzzed around the room. He missed. Hen and Howie scoffed. Eddie clicked his tongue – no matter, it was not a fly that they’d come here to kill.

When he’d reached as far as the ladder could go, Eddie found that there was still a vast distance between he and Buck. Taylor hung much closer and he wrapped a hand around her arm to close some of the gap. Eddie locked his legs around the rungs of the ladder and used his grip to support his weight as he leaned forward. The tip of the stake brushed Buck’s chest. Eddie’s hand shook around the wood. One big swing of the arm, it was all it would take. Straight through the heart. Eddie’s chest shuddered with a silent sob.

“Eddie,” Hen urged impatiently. Eddie pushed the stake further into Buck’s chest. Another silent sob raked through his body. Eddie shook his head.

“I can’t,” he said. He meant it. Even if it weren’t for the awkward angle and the space between them, he couldn’t. Eddie couldn’t kill Buck. “It’s too far,” he lied. He let his arm drop and he leaned back into the safety of the ladder.

Hen and Howie huffed as one. They shared a look. Eddie frowned when Hen nodded up to Howie.

“Okay then, guess we’ll just have to get them all.” Howie raised his stake against TK, who hung much closer to his ladder than Buck was to Eddie’s. “First served, first staked. Goodnight, bloodsucker.” Eddie yelped as Howie drove the stake directly through TK’s heart. From this angle he could see how it stuck out the other side of his body. TK awoke with a bloodcurdling scream, his face contorting in that inhuman shape that had struck fear through Eddie once before. Blood poured in streams from his chest and rained down over Howie and Hen. TK’s scream alerted the coven to his distress. Eddie froze in fear when Buck roared to life, every bit the beast Eddie was desperate not to become. He stumbled down the ladder as fast as he could, barely escaping a swipe from Taylor’s perfectly manicured claws on his descent.

Howie had leapt from his own ladder and now screamed alongside the shocked vampires for TK had fallen after him. His body hit the ground with a sickening crunch though he still screamed and writhed while the blood gushed from the open wound in his body. Hen helped Howie to his feet and dragged him up and out of the cavern. Eddie was left to fend for himself as he scrambled for escape. He couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder one last time and found himself locked within Buck’s eyes.

“You’re dead,” Buck screamed at him. “Dead, Eddie.” Eddie watched as he descended from his perch with effortless grace. His body hurtled into action the second Buck’s feet hit the ground. Eddie felt more than he heard Buck’s roar while he scrambled back out into the main cavern. The ferocity of it had shaken some of the wall hangings free and Eddie had to dodge them in his escape.

Just as he edged out into the sunlight, a cruel hand wrapped around his ankle. Eddie fruitlessly tried to kick it away. But Buck was stronger by miles. Eddie’s hand lost purchase in the crumbling ground before Hen’s hand shot out to save him. He gripped onto it like a lifeline and looked up to find Howie locked around her back, dragging Hen and by extension him out into the sun.

“Eddie, you son of a bitch,” Buck growled from behind him. Eddie kicked his leg and heard the satisfying crunch of it connecting with Buck’s face. Buck’s grip never faltered. The hit seemed to enrage him even further for Eddie felt his claws dig into his skin. Hen and Howie fell deeper into the cave with him for a moment before Howie found purchase and tugged them back toward safety. Another pull and Eddie’s foot and Buck’s hand was exposed to the sunlight. Eddie looked back and saw Buck’s hand burst into flame, the heat licking at the boot of his shoe before Buck let go. His monstrous face contorted in pain before smoke billowed up and hid him from Eddie’s view.

Buck looked to his hand in horror. The flame had singed out moments after he’d retreated back into darkness, and he knew his supernatural blood would right the burn mark that was already fading but the pain ran deeper still. He pictured Eddie’s face: twisted with repulsion. Buck heard Carlos’ wails from deep inside their cave and felt the moment TK was lost from them forever. The loss was nothing compared to the grief Eddie had planted in Buck’s very soul with his reaction. A lone tear spilled from his left eye and ran rivulets down his cheek. Buck rasped out a laugh at the absurdity of it all. Eddie had to die.

+

“We blew it, Hen. We lost it!” Howie commiserated from behind the wheel. Eddie was in no condition to be the one driving this time. He slumped in the back with Chris pressed close to his side. Chris rummaged through Hen and Howie’s kits for something to help his brother but remembered quite quickly that they were killing kits and not med kits.

“It’s not our fault; they pulled a mind-scramble on us. They opened their eyes and talked.” Hen mimicked her brain exploding with her hand. She shook her head as they pulled into Gerrard’s driveway. Chris winced when Howie backed the car a little too far into the garage and dinked its fresh exterior against the back wall. He could only pray that Gerrard didn’t notice. They rushed inside and for once Chris was grateful for Gerrard’s hobby for it meant he did not seem to realise they had come home. Though Nanook was desperate to change that. He barked at their group incessantly.

“Take him outside, Chris,” Eddie ordered before he slunk off to his bedroom and hid from the draining effects of the sun.

So Plan A was a total bust. There was always Plan B… which didn’t exist. Yet. Hen unhelpfully reminded them all that they only had roughly two and a half hours to come up with one for once the sun went down, there was no doubt that Buck and his crew were going to come for them. One thing was clear, they were going to need a whole lot more than what Hen and Howie had in their killing kits. Their first stop was the local church. Nobody noticed the three of them sneaking in in the midst of a christening, nor did they seem to care that they were filling up several flasks and water bottles with the holy water in the cistern at the back of the building. Their next stop was the boardwalk, where Bobby was still on shift.

“Bobby,” Chris slipped up against the counter. “Bobby, listen – there’s vampires in Santa Carla. It’s crawling with them.” Bobby smiled apologetically to the customer he’d been serving and pulled Chris aside.

“What are you on about?”

“Vampires, Bobby! They’re everywhere. You’ve got to tell the police, the newspapers, the TV stations! They’ll listen to you. They’ll believe you… you’re a dad.” Bobby’s mouth parted in disbelief. Chris had never insinuated he was his dad before. “Please, Bobby – you have to tell them.” Bobby shook the thought aside and clocked onto what Chris was really doing.

“This isn’t funny, Chris,” Bobby set a reassuring hand upon Chris’ arm.

“I’m not joking. Please, Bobby. They know we know about them, they’re coming to the house as soon as it gets dark.”

“Not another word, Chris. I can’t believe you – I have another date with Athena tonight and you’re trying to ruin it again.”

“I’m not-”

“There’s nothing wrong with Athena, she’s lovely. I don’t know you don’t-”

“I’m not talking about Athena. To hell with Athena!” Chris yelled. Bobby gasped.

“I’ll deal with you later, Chris. Go home.”

Chris hung his head and departed the store where Hen and Howie waited for him. He shook his head to indicate that Bobby had been a no go. Neither of them seemed too bothered about it. Hen even made a comment that they preferred it that way. But Chris didn’t feel so confident. They’d already tried it their way and look where that had got them? One dead vampire, the rest of them on their way to take their revenge and his brother was still half-Dracula.

It was easy to lure Gerrard from the house, the enticement of the Widow Johnson all too much. He was halfway down the drive just as the sun began its descent. That left them plenty of time to fortify. Eddie went from window to window, door to door, locking them all and boarding some up. Chris used some of the cooking tips he’d gained from Bobby to prepare some bowls of garlic. Meanwhile, Hen and Chim blessed the bathtub with the holy water they had collected earlier. They sprinkled their supply into a mostly filled tub of normal water, then whipped out a copy of Soldier of Fortune to use as a guide for their camouflage.

“Is this really necessary?” He pulled away from the face paint Chris had smeared across his cheek. Hen and Howie nodded.

“Got to dress for success, Eddie. Do you wanna live or not?” Howie questioned. Eddie spied the stake he’d tucked into his belt. He rolled his eyes but turned his cheek up for Chris to continue to paint.

By the time the sun had fully set, they looked ready for war. Howie tightened the bandana wrapped around his head, while Hen checked that her stake was secure. Chris snapped his crutches together to test their force. The bow and arrow they’d found hidden in the back of Gerrard’s closet balanced precariously on the coffee table. Eddie looked mournfully out of the window. They would be coming for them soon. He knew it. He could feel it. Eddie rubbed at his chest, the beginnings of heartburn burning beneath his skin.

+

It was nice to go to Athena’s house and not be attacked. It was even nicer still to be welcomed in with a chaste kiss to the cheek.

“Maybe tonight will finally be our night?” Athena joked. Bobby tried to laugh with her but found that he couldn’t.

“I hope so,” he sighed. Athena pursed her lips at him. She waited for him to elaborate further. Bobby sighed. “It’s just the boys, I can’t help but worry about them. As usual.” Athena hummed in sympathy and guided him deeper into her house. A pitcher of lemonade awaited them on the table that she had already set out.

“Let me tell you something about boys. They’re like weeds. They grow best when they’re ignored,” Athena said. She handed Bobby a glass of the ice cold lemonade. Bobby frowned.

“I thought you said they needed discipline?”

“Well, what do I know? I’m just a video store owner.” Athena clinked her glass against Bobby’s. “C’mon, this’ll be a very special night. I promise.” Athena made to take her seat but Bobby stopped her. Confusion spread across her face, only to melt into understanding when Bobby pulled her into a long-awaited kiss. Athena hummed into the sensation. The lemonade was largely forgotten in lieu of their kiss. Bobby planted his hands upon Athena’s waist and spun her around, seating her on the table she’d spent so long decorating. Athena could care less for her perfectly placed napkins and cutlery. She grasped at Bobby’s face and hungrily lapped at his lips. Who needed dinner when she could have dessert? At their feet, Thorn began to howl.

+

The four of them crowded in the hallway as Howie delivered his final instructions. Eddie tried his best to look interested but it was quite obvious Howie knew no more about vampires than he did. Yet Howie rattled on regardless of how much truth there was behind his statements.

“I should warn you – it’s never pretty when a vampire bites it. No two bloodsuckers ever go out the same way. Some scream and yell.” Eddie winced as he thought of TK bleeding out on the cavern floor. “Some go quietly. Some explode. Some implode. But all will try to take you with them.” Eddie felt the phantom hold of Buck’s fingers around his ankle. From outside, Nanook began to bark.

“Nanook, I left him tied up in the yard.” Chris rushed to the front door. The others tried to call him back but Chris was not allowed to let his best friend get eaten by a bunch of leeches.

He could hear them as they soared through the air and narrowed in on their house, but Chris raced to Nanook anyway. He fumbled with the knot, ever aware of their beady eyes on homed in on him. Finally, he freed the dog and together they rushed back toward the house. Eddie stumbled out toward them. Nanook dragged Chris forward by his leash. All the while Chris felt and heard the wretched creatures as they nipped at his heels. Just when a gnarled claw snagged at the back of his shirt, Eddie snagged Chris by his shoulder and together they burst through the front door and slammed it shut on the nightwalker’s face.

“Get upstairs,” Eddie barked to the rest of his group. The higher ground felt safer somehow, though he knew from experience that their attackers could fly. Hen and Howie had just about cleared the landing when Taylor burst through the fireplace in the den. She soared past Gerrard’s myriad of taxidermy creations and attached themselves to the pauper’s chandelier in the centre of the room. Taylor used this to kick at Eddie and Chris, sending the pair flying. The chandelier broke under their weight and topped to the ground, sparking as it fell and eliciting a fire.

Meanwhile Hen and Howie searched for more intruders. They opened closet doors and looked under beds, rushing into Chris’ room after they heard a noise. It looked fine. Quiet. Hen and Howie inched toward the open door side by side. Hen nodded to the shadow past the door’s own. Her hand curled around the knob and pulled. Carlos hissed at them as he was revealed.

“You’re mine,” he snarled at the pair as he approached. Hen and Howie’s stakes were ripped cruelly from their hands while Carlos stalked them. “You killed TK.”

“Y-yeah,” Howie jerked his chin up in defiance. “You’re next.” Carlos cornered them into the adjoining bathroom.

“No. You’re next.” He surged toward them both and easily engulfed their necks between each hand. Carlos’ claws dug into the delicate skin. He saw their eyes flicker to their right. Lazily, Carlos turned to see what had got them so frantic.

He let out a wicked laugh and sneered at the sight before him: a bathtub filled to the brim with garlic floating on the water’s surface.

“Garlic don’t work, guys.” His fingers tightened around their puny, pathetic necks. Hen and Howie struggled within his grip. Carlos listened to the rattle of their breath, felt their throats constrict as they fought to keep themselves alive. He eased up his fingers a little. He wanted to savour this. He stumbled a little toward the tub as they wriggled.

“Try holy water, death breath,” Hen snarled. She reached into the tub and splashed Carlos with the liquid. It sizzled the second it connected with his skin. Carlos let go of the pair to cradle his face. Hen shoved Howie to the ground. All the while Carlos screamed, steam billowing from his burning skin. When he brought his hands away his face was grotesque and contorted, his skin speckled with burns from where he’d been hit. Still, he towered above them. His jaw set in a hardened, straight line. They were done for.

But Nanook leapt over the pair and hit Carlos straight in the chest. He fell backwards directly into the tub, his whole body submerged in the water that stripped away his skin like acid would tear at a normal human’s flesh. He howled and writhed in pain while smoke came up in puffs from his body. It blew in waves around Hen and Howie as they clung to one another and watched Carlos succumb to his fate. Nanook stretched lazily in the corner while his tongue lapped at his maw. Hen and Howie scrambled to look into the tub to confirm the kill only for Carlos to rise once more. Hen and Howie fell back onto their asses. Chunks of his skin had been burnt away. He roared but could do nothing but give into the pain. They watched as his hand one last desperate grab at the tub’s edge before it slipped beneath the surface, his claws scraping against the ceramic.

The water inside the tub swirled with supernatural prowess. It had become tinged red with Carlos’ blood. The sink beside it began to shake. Hen and Howie clung to one another in fear. The red water churned angrily before Carlos rose one last time. Only it was no longer Carlos. His skin had melted completely from his flesh, nothing left but his skeleton with his sinister fangs still protruding. The jaw of its skull clicked open and let out an otherworldly hiss before it disappeared behind the smoke. Blood bubbled from the sinkhole and shot powerfully toward the ceiling. Hen and Howie shielded themselves from its spray. Downstairs, the kitchen sink shook too before it burst, and blood shot free like a geyser. The nearby pipes burst with the pressure of the blood water. Hen and Howie rushed to escape the madness of the upstairs bathroom; their war markings washed away by streams of red. The toilet exploded before they slammed the door shut.

Downstairs, Gerrard’s taxidermy den had been plunged into darkness. Chris blinked against the impenetrable black. He’d fallen atop Eddie who seemed like dead weight beneath him.

“Eddie,” Chris whispered as he tried to shake him awake. “Eddie.” But Eddie did not stir. Chris looked upwards to try and find the vampire that had knocked them astray but saw nothing. He reached blindly for his crutches and was glad to find at least one still by his side. He used it to drag himself across the room and get to a lamp though when he turned it on it hardly did anything. Chris still could not see their assailant. He searched the rafters and used the lamp as an impromptu flashlight. Nothing. Chris inched back to Eddie. He whispered his name over and over again, desperate to wake him.

Taylor descended upon him. Chris dropped the lamp as he was suddenly pulled up toward the ceiling by his head. Her sharpened nails dug into the skin of his cheeks while she laughed maniacally in his face. Chris kicked his legs and reached for his pocket. He fumbled with the bright green water gun he had stored inside. Taylor didn’t notice. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders in a fiery embrace as she relished in Chris’ fear. His fingers finally wrapped around the gun and he brought it upwards and aimed right between her pretty blue eyes. The holy water sizzled as it made impact and the shock forced her to drop him. Chris screamed while he plummeted toward the ground, thankful to have landed on Gerrard’s couch. Water streamed down his own cheeks but it was only his tears. Taylor yowled from above and clawed at her face to soothe the sting.

Chris reached blindly for the bow and arrows. His arms shook as he fought to nock the arrow in place. Taylor shook the holy water from her eyes and dove toward him. This was it. Chris had one shot. He loosened the arrow and watched it soar through the air and in Taylor’s general direction. She slumped onto the floor. Chris caught his breath but watched her warily. He rose and used the furniture around him to approach. His bow smacked as it hit various surfaces. He had only one more shot, one more arrow. The others had been knocked somewhere in the carnage. Taylor looked dead. But she was not dead, only waiting. Taylor dragged herself upward from the floor and grinned predatorily.

“You missed, sucker,” she delighted in telling him. Chris brought the bow upwards, confident in the lack of space between them to make up for his lack of stability.

“Only once.” The arrow shot from the bow and straight into her heart. Taylor shrieked as the force of it knocked her back. Her hands clawed at the offending object that had pierced her skin and gone straight through to the power socket connected to the stereo behind her.

Sparks erupted from the damaged power source and vibrated through Taylor’s body. The shock flung her arms wide open while she shook violently. Chris stumbled his way back to Eddie and shielded both of their eyes from the electric shower. The chaos must have woken Eddie, for he pushed himself upward to watch. He smirked as he watched Taylor fry through the gaps in his fingers. Taylor’s scream grew higher and higher in pitch until all the pressure caused her head to explode. Chunks of skin and muscle and brain were flung across the room alongside the sparks. Her lifeless body fell to the floor with a thunk. Eddie couldn’t help but chuckle. Chris looked to him in disbelief. Eddie shrugged.

“What? Death by stereo is a pretty funny way to go,” he said. Though he wanted to linger and watch Taylor’s body truly fry, Eddie knew better.

He yanked Chris to his feet and began to drag him up the stairs. Though they both paused when they saw through the kitchen doorframe the shower of blood Carlos’ death had incited.

“Come on,” Chris urged. He’d lost both his crutches in the madness but he dragged himself up the stairs with surprising speed. Eddie remained mesmerised by the blood that seeped out into the hallway. He stayed there a few seconds longer before he jerked himself into action, only to be thwarted halfway up the stairs by Buck. Buck hung upside down from the ceiling and had let his true vampire nature shine through. Eddie cringed at the sight of his fangs and bloodshot eyes. The hesitation proved his downfall, quite literally, when Buck shoved him down the stairs. Eddie’s body bounced on ever odd step while his hands flailed for purchase, he never found before he crumpled at the bottom. Buck laughed at the sight of it.

Eddie huffed and righted himself. He spun on his heel to face his lover turned nemesis only to find him gone. He wasn’t in the kitchen, where the blood had finally stopped, nor in the room where Taylor’s corpse lay. He wasn’t on the ceiling, either, as Eddie discovered when Buck delivered a blow to his jaw. His claws caught on Eddie’s cheeks and ripped rivulets of red down its surface. Eddie held a hand to the sting it left behind. He sought Buck out again. He knew he was here. He could sense him. Yet he still came from nowhere when he charged at Eddie once more. Another dirty punch. Another mark to bruise to add to the roster.

“Seriously, Buck? Fighting from the shadows. You coward.”

Buck’s responding laugh was hollow and bitter. Eddie spied his shadow rise on the upper ceiling. He locked in on it.

“Coward? Me? You were the one that snuck into my place and tried to kill me in my sleep.”

“You tried to make me a killer,” Eddie spat. Buck chuckled humourlessly.

“You are a killer, Eddie.” He rushed for Eddie and knocked him off his feet once more before he swooped back to the safety of the rafters. “I tried to make you immortal, Eddie. I wanted to spend eternity with you.” His voice wavered a little as he watched Eddie get up from the floor. It was almost bittersweet to see his own monstrous nature reflected onto Eddie’s sweet face. Those big brown eyes turned bloodshot and cruel, his mouth stretched in a sneer around the fangs that only needed one victim, one bite, before Buck could kiss and lick them forever.

Eddie licked his own blood off his elongated canine. He snarled and leapt for Buck and was only half-surprised when the air became as easy to wade through as water. He got his hands on the other’s shoulders just as Buck grabbed for him and together they span through the air. Eddie pushed his weight against Buck and sent them both sailing for the far wall that was littered with taxidermy heads. Eddie saw a brief moment of fear flash within Buck’s eyes as they soared directly for the one with the biggest antlers. At the last second, Eddie pivoted them slightly to land in a space in the wall Gerrard had not found something to hang in yet. The laugh it ripped from Buck was mostly relief. He looked to Eddie and contorted his lip into a snarl. But his eyes were wide and weepy, and his voice barely there when he declared it was his turn. Eddie grabbed at the other’s shoulders as they began to sail in the other direction. One glance over his shoulder and he spied the array of unused antlers there were about to descend upon. At the last second Eddie reached upwards and halted their flight before it became fatal.

Relief once again flushed Buck’s features, still infuriatingly beautiful despite the villainous twist of his browbone and sharp edge of his fatal canine. Eddie tried to look past the red rim of Buck’s irises to the hauntingly clear blue he knew lay beneath. Eddie writhed in Buck’s gasp to try and shake the memory of their beauty.

“Stop fighting me Eddie,” Buck pleaded. “I don’t want to kill you, please. I want to be with you forever, like I said. I love you, Eddie. Join me.” Eddie could see it. He could picture them side by side in that cavern Buck called home. Endless dates on the boardwalk as the decades changed and their dinner came packaged in a new style. Nightime rides across the beach, Buck’s laughter ripping through the wind. Years and years of Buck. His Buck. The one whose earring dangled through Eddie’s lobe and whose blood pulsed through his veins. But he knew it was just a fantasy. Being with Buck meant leaving behind Chris, and Bobby, and even Gerrard.

“Never.”

Buck choked on the pain it brought. His grip on Eddie loosened a little as he struggled with definite nature of Eddie’s statement. Eddie’s fingers started to slip upon the rafter. Buck’s face contorted into rage. Eddie couldn’t leave him. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t his choice.

“Too late,” Buck spat back. “My blood is in your veins.” Eddie’s face hardened.

“So. Is. Mine.” Buck hadn’t expected him to drop from the rafter and Eddie used it to his advantage. He wrapped his arms around Buck in a mockery of the embraces they’d once shared so lovingly and hurled them toward the opposite wall. Buck weakly fought against his hold, torn between cuddling or maiming the one he swore he would love for all eternity. Only eternity was lost to him now. Eddie shoved Buck away from him and straight into the largest male deer head mounted upon the wall. Its antlers pierced through his flesh with a sickening squelch. Together they tumbled to the ground.

Eddie fumbled in mid-air while Buck writhed on his namesake. His hands wrapped around the antlers and clung to them as he fought to stay alive. Eddie slowly lowered himself to the ground where Buck lay, the mist that escaped from his fatal wound illuminated his face as it morphed back into its original form. Eddie fell onto his knees and worshipped before the creature he could now confidently call an angel. Buck’s eyelids fluttered and Eddie found himself caught within his gaze for the last time.

“I love you too,” Eddie whispered. Those devastatingly blue eyes widened before they fluttered closed and he left Eddie forever. Eddie’s sobs fought their way through his body just as he fought his way up Buck’s, hands shaking before they cradled his face. The marks Eddie had bequeathed Buck during their fight faded beneath his fingertips. The mist dispersed and Eddie saw Buck for what he truly was: just a boy on the cusp of manhood that he would never reach. Eddie leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the only mark death had not taken from Buck.

When his canine caught on Buck’s eyebrow, Eddie realised their mistake. His hands flew to his own face and found it still grotesque, still monstrous, still vampire. He choked on his next sob and scrambled backwards into the darkness. Upstairs, he could hear the commotion of one last fight. Hen, Howie and Chris cheered when Ravi took his final breath. Soon enough he could hear them clambering downstairs to tell him of their victory, but Eddie knew he could not let them see him like this. This broken husk of a man, half dead in more ways than one. He flattened himself against the wall and watched from the shadows while his brother and his friends surveyed the scene before them. The three-way high five they shared at their perceived win cut Eddie directly through his heart. The shattered breath he let out in response alerted them of his presence.

“Eddie?” Chris called to the darkness.

“Get away,” Eddie ground out, but it was too late. Hen had shone a flashlight in his face.

“You’re still one of them.” She stole her stake from where she’d stashed it in her belt loop. Eddie let out a shaky breath. Chris’ eyes widened and he took a moment between Eddie and Buck’s corpse.

“Oh, Eddie.” What else could he say? Buck lay lifeless at his feet while his brother was a dead man walking.

“That means there’s one more,” Howie let out an exasperated sigh. Vampire hunting was hard work.

Their heads jerked when they heard Bobby call their names from outside. Chris looked to Eddie in alarm. Was it that late already? How were they going to explain all of… this. Hen and Chim helped him shuffle to the front door just as Bobby burst through with Athena in tow.

“What the hell is this? What’s going on?” Athena surveyed the scene with dismay. Bobby had eyes only for Chris. He zeroed in on every cut and bruise, not a care for the furniture dripping with the blood that pooled at his feet.

“What happened?” His thumbs grazed Chris’ face and he murmured his apology as Chris flinched under the touch. Bobby exploded with a thousand more questions: where was Eddie? What was going on? Why was Chris all cut up? Chris and his friends herded her toward the room with the least damage – the kitchen, which was more aesthetically ruined than physically.

Meanwhile, Athena had zeroed in on the body that lay on display in the main room. She marched toward it. Eddie pressed himself tighter against the wall to keep from being seen. Athena came to a halt before Buck’s body. She reached tenderly for his face and slowly turned his jaw to look at him properly. A sad noise escaped from the back of her throat. She ran her knuckles across his cheek and closed her eyes in mourning for a moment before she turned upon her heel and headed toward the commotion of Bobby trying to understand what exactly had happened in his house.

“I don’t want to hear another word from you before I talk to Eddie,” Bobby snapped, overwhelmed with the information that was coming from three different directions. He marched back toward the main area and bumped into Athena all the way.

“I’m sorry, Bobby. This is all my fault.” Bobby’s nose wrinkled at the thought. What had Athena got to do with the carnage his sons had brought upon this house? “Buck and the rest of my kids misbehaved. I told you. Kids need a father.” Athena advanced upon Bobby. Bobby slowly began to retreat. He didn’t understand at all. Buck? The kid from the video store? Eddie’s Buck? The one Chris had told him about? Athena paused her advance beside a taxidermy lion and let her head fall back. Chris’ eyes widened.

“I knew it. I knew it was you. You’re the head vampire!” Bobby groaned. Not this again.

“Chris, please – don’t start.” Bobby hadn’t drunk in years but suddenly a whiskey sounded so appetising. He jumped when Eddie he heard Eddie’s voice drift from the shadows, but he could not see him through the darkness.

“You. You’re the secret Buck was protecting,” Eddie recalled Buck’s slip of the tongue. Athena shrugged with a sick smile.

“But you passed the test,” Howie said. He ran at Athena with his stake in hand. Athena scoffed.

“Don’t ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy.” Bobby blinked in shock. “It renders you powerless.” Chris threw his hands up in despair and turned to Hen.

“Did you know that?” Hen blew a raspberry between her lips.

“’Course, everyone knows that.” Though the way her eyes darted to the ground told Chris that no, no she didn’t. Bobby felt like he was in the twilight zone.

“Has everyone gone crazy? What’s the matter with all of you?”

The flicker of the flames from the fireplace cast Athena in an eerie glow. She turned to face Bobby more fully, a sad smile upon her face.

“It was you I was after all along, Bobby. Buck falling in love with Eddie.” Athena chuckled. “Well, that was just a bonus. Your boys, my kids – it was all going to be so perfect. Just like one big happy family.”

“Great, the bloodsucking brady bunch,” Howie scoffed. He hung from Bobby’s right side while she cradled Chris on her left, Hen guarded all three from behind. Slowly they began to back away from Athena, whose face had contorted in a familial resemblance to her so-called children.

“I still want you, Bobby. I haven’t changed my mind about that.”

Eddie had seen enough. Athena may have brushed him off as a non-threat, but Eddie knew otherwise. He surged toward her with the power of all the grief and rage and frustration that had bottled up within him over the evening’s events. Bobby first gasped at the sight of Eddie’s grotesque face but it evolved into a full-on scream as he watched Athena toss his son aside as though he was nothing more than a ragdoll. Eddie’s head collided with one of the rafters and Bobby knew he’d gone unconscious the second he’d dropped limply to the ground. Hen and Howie charged after Athena themselves. She knocked aside the taxidermy crow threw at her and then him too, before she snatched the metal fireplace poker Hen jabbed at her with and used it to shove her to the ground. Bobby found himself lurching toward Athena on instinct with nothing to attack with but his fists. Athena’s eyes gleamed with the prospect of having Bobby closer. But Chris jumped between them both, face hard with fury.

“Don’t you touch my father.”

He stumbled forward in his own feeble attack and practically offered himself into Athena’s arms. She swung him under her elbow with ease and kept him in a headlock out of Bobby’s reach. Athena slowly extended her hand toward him.

“Don’t fight, Bobby. It’s so much better if you don’t fight.” All the while Chris begged Bobby to not give in. Eddie fluttered in and out of consciousness on the floor. In his haze he spied Buck’s body and reached for it, their pinkies barely brushing against one another. Bobby closed his eyes and lifted his hand tentatively toward Athena. If this was the only way to protect his boys, then he had no choice. Athena tugged him forward and opened her jaw wide, sharpened canines at the ready to bite.

Before her teeth could graze the skin she’d dreamed of tasting for nights, a funky horn sounded from outside. The noise startled Eddie awake. Athena turned, dragging Chris and Bobby with her, to face the headlights that rapidly approached the window. Athena eased her hold on her captives in order to shield her eyes from the light. Bobby used the moment to seize Chris’ hand and pull him out of harm’s way. He glanced over to where Eddie had been prone on the floor to find that he had stood and had now seized Athena’s shoulders to keep her in place as Gerrard’s truck, adorned with the cast off antlers of projects past, pierced through her skin. Eddie leapt to the side as the momentum sent Athena flying toward the fireplace. As though struck from the God her very existence defied, she burst into flames. Bobby cradled Chris against his chest to protect him from the inferno. Eddie shuffled backwards out of its reach; his eyes glued to where the flames licked at Buck’s body. Hen and Chim pulled goggles from their pockets and used those to protect themselves, while Gerrard ducked into the seat of his truck.

The fireplaced collapsed in on itself in a plume of black smoke, taking with it both Athena and Buck’s bodies. The force of the universe righting itself shook the whole house. Its occupants coughed against the ash that clogged up their lungs. Covered in the ash, Bobby checked in on his youngest. Chris assured him that he was okay with a hug. Gerrard climbed down from his truck, seemingly unaffected by the carnage all around him. Eddie could not tear his eyes away from where Buck had been. His hand shook on the way to his face. His fingers traced the dull points of his human canines. They trailed over the softness of his cheeks where the cuts that Buck had imposed upon him had already healed. He closed his eyes and listened to the jingle of the earring that still hung from his ear. The only reminder that what he had with Buck was a real, tangible thing outside of the dull pang of his heart.

Bobby watched Gerrard as he navigated the house like it was normal. Like the refrigerator didn’t leave a smear of blood on his fingertips as he grabbed a root beer to drink.

“Gerrard?” Bobby asked while he watched the man half in awe and half in fear. Gerrard looked up, popped the top of bottle and offered a non-committal noise.

“That’s one thing about livin’ in Santa Carla I could never stomach.” Gerrard sighed. “All the damn vampires.”