A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [19]
It was too hard to think. Time passed; I drifted; and then a penetrating cold spread through my body, like someone injecting ice into my veins. I was so cold I hurt; and I thought I might be dying.
Trembling, I lay as still as I could; then I heard a little sigh, and someone whispering, “Hush.”
I forced my eyes open. A strangely glowing, bluish mist wafted around me, illuminating the room. Shadows were thrown against the ceiling, and there was nothing on top of me. Ever so cautiously, I raised my head and looked across the room.
Two figures in white gowns were bent over the bed to the left of Annabelle’s. The feet of the person lying in the bed kneaded the sheets, as if she were struggling. As if the two were hurting her.
Before I knew what I was doing, I sat up and half-crawled, half-fell out of my bed. Swaying, I crossed the room, advancing as quietly as I could, aware that I could barely stay on my feet.
“It’s done,” whispered one of the girls—for they were girls—in the white gowns. I saw now that the fabric of the one who spoke was tattered and moldy; spider webs and moss clung to the long sleeves. The dress of the girl beside her was lovely and fresh.
The tattered one straightened and turned around.
Her eyes were large and very blue; her face was a pale oval. Her blond hair, coiled in a braided chignon, was covered with cobwebs. And her mouth was painted with fresh blood.
I gasped; she held up a warning hand and the second girl—the one in the nicer dress—looked at me. Her mouth was bloody, too. She wore her black hair pulled from her face; her dark eyes widened as she stared at me, then at the blond girl—the vampire—at her side.
I tried to scream but I was too stunned. The two advanced; and as I backed away, they both stopped and held up their hands, as if shading their eyes from a light that was too bright. Then the blonde grabbed my arm and covered my mouth with her hand. Her skin was so cold it burned me, and I nearly fainted.
She dragged me out of the room. No one else stirred. The sleepers were drugged. I was certain of it. There had been something in the gruel, and I hadn’t drunk enough.
And I was about to die.
The moon shone overhead as the vampire pulled me down corridors and out into the chill night air. The little brunette followed behind, silent.
My bare feet sank into moist earth. I couldn’t see where I was going; the vampire in the tattered gown had clamped a hand over my mouth, and her hair was hanging across my face. She smelled like wet earth and rose petals.
I whimpered once and she said, “Shut up or we’ll rip your throat out.”
Then she jerked me to a stop. “Listen, you. You know what we are, Annabelle and me. And what you are. Food, see? So if you scream we’ll eat you up.”
“Sarah, please, don’t be so mean,” the dark- haired vampire protested. I knew she was Annabelle. Newly risen from her grave, and taken by the older vampire to our room, to drink blood.
“Why were you awake?” Sarah demanded of me. “Did Father Mark put you up to something? Did he tell you to attack us?”
I was at a loss. I began to cry.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Annabelle said, smiling kindly at me. “He’s a good man.”
Sarah laughed. “There are no good men. He gave you to me, Annabelle. And picked out Maria for you to kill.”
I remembered the cloth over the crucifix. It had been a signal . . . for murder.
“No,” I gasped. They both turned to look at me, almost as if they’d forgotten I was there. I arranged my fingers in the shape of a cross, and Sarah’s lip curled. Annabelle looked stricken, and kept her distance.
“Maria was a horrible little troll. A beast,” Sarah said.
I kept my fingers in the cross-shape, backing into something cold and hard. It was a gravestone, but the cross that had been atop it had been broken off, and lay half-buried in mud. There were no crosses anywhere in the graveyard.
I glanced to my right and saw a newly turned mound of earth. Roses were placed upon it.