A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters - Martin Harry Greenberg [29]
She shut up. I stared at the toothmarks on my bruised arm. The crease along my leg where the bullet had burned throbbed dully as well.
Hammering a dowel through Edgar’s chest was one thing. But Ms. Cooke . . . that was another thing entirely. I couldn’t count on Kate for that. It was her mother, for Chrissake.
And if Edgar wasn’t dead, maybe Kate’s mother would keep him busy for long enough to . . .
... to what?
“Do you want to . . . to do the same thing to her?” Kate whispered finally.
I took a good look at her. She was shaking, and there were big bruised circles under her eyes. Decided. “We’ll get cleaned up. Go back to my house.” I swallowed so hard my throat clicked, dry despite the tepid water. “Spend the night. In the morning we come back and see if either of them have moved. If they have we know how it works, how it happens. If they haven’t we go out, call the cops from a phone booth, and lie like hell. Say we were never here.”
She chewed at her lower lip. “What about the gun?”
“I don’t know.” I shifted back and forth on the stool, stared out the kitchen window at the overgrown back yard. Shadows ran over long grass and the window, the pines soughing as the evening breeze picked up. “I’d better take it home and put it back. If Dad swears it was in the safe . . .”
“They have ballistics.” But she subsided when I stared at her. “Sorry.”
Why was she fixated on that? We’d have bigger problems either way. “Dad will get a lawyer if he has to.” I stared at my arm. “I need something long-sleeved to cover this up. And a pair of jeans. If we can get into the house without my parents noticing us . . . we’ll just say we were walking around or something.”
As plans went, it sucked. But Jesus. What else could we do?
That night we lay in my bed, stiff as boards. I knew she was still awake, she knew I was, and we just . . . lay there. And sweated in the air-conditioned coolness of my house, while outside the night breathed.
In the darkest, deadest time of night, right around three AM, I heard a faint scratching, scrabbling noise. My arm gave a heavy, heated throb, and my head turned on the pillow.
The shadow in the window bobbed. Twin red sparks winked out, came back up.
“Sweetheart.” A soft, sibilant whisper, audible even through the glass. “Sweetheart, it’s Mommy.”
My heart gave a leap like it intended to jump out of my chest. Now we knew how it worked. Mostly.
I clapped my hand over Kate’s mouth before she could scream. “Shut up,” I whispered fiercely. “Shush.”
“It’s so warm and soft,” Mrs. Cooke crooned. “It is. Let me in.”
More scratches. Kate’s eyes rolled. She was no longer a board, she had turned to hot frantic flesh that hugged me tight. Her spit slicked my palm.
“You’ll be like us soon, sweetheart. Mommy will help you. Let me in.”
Waves of heat slid down my body. The bite on my forearm was hot and hard. Kate’s hair brushed it, and a scorch slid through me.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “It’s okay, Katie. It’s okay.”
She moaned against my palm. We held each other while her mother prowled outside, and after a little while the sounds went away. Kate hugged me, twitching.
I peeled my hand away from her mouth.
“Becca . . .” She shook, and we were both sweating again.
“Don’t worry.” My voice dropped into the dark. “It’s okay.” The punctures on my arm beat an invisible tattoo in the dark, nerves pulling on the bones. I could almost feel the infection spreading.
Maybe I should have let her pour peroxide on it. But then I’d miss how my teeth were tingling. And I’d miss Kate nuzzling at my throat. She made a little mewling sound as her fangs scraped my skin, and I jumped a little. She froze.
I wondered how long she’d be able to go out in the sunlight.
Probably just long enough.
“I’m so thirsty,” she whispered apologetically. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Katie.” My arms tightened around her. I tipped my chin up, cupped my hand at the back of her head. Guided her face into my throat again. “Don’t worry. I know what to do.”
“Good morning, sleepyhead!