After Dark

After Dark (47)

--chapter 47--

Gina Davies

"How much further?" Julie asked.

I sighed. Humans. It's so hard to do some kind of sport or physical activity with them. It's always "I'm tired", "You throw too hard", "You run too fast".

"We're here." I announced and entered the clearing. It was the perfect place for camping. The attacks had happened close to town so we needed somewhere safer. Anyway, if a mountain lion tried to attack us, I'd go all werewolf on it.

"Finally." Julie collasped onto the dry grass. She raised her eyebrow at me. "This is the so-called 'perfect spot'?"

I put my hands up in protest. "In my defence, it was prettier before."

"There was something burned here." She pointed to the patch of black grass with ashes on it.

"Yeah," I said.

A cool gust of wind breezed through.

"Is everything all right?" Julie asked me.

I sniffed the air again. "Vampire." I said and searched the air again.

Julie looked shocked, scared, I guess she had just remembered the night her dad died.

"It's okay," I said. "They left. But not too long ago. I think they were the ones who burned something." I walked over to the pile of ashes and picked some of the fine, gray dust. I rubbed it against my fingers and smelled it. Julie looked at me with a disgusted look.

"What? It's a wolf thing. I was just making sure." I said and dusted off my hands.

"What were you checking?" She asked.

"Nothing, I just had a hunch, with the vampire smell and the pile of ashes I thought--"

"That one of them had been burned?" Julie gestured to the sun.

I laughed. "No, they don't burn in the sun, they..." I struggled looking for the words. "They... sparkle."

"Uh, okay, way different from the books. So, what's up with the ashes?"

"I thought that they could have killed one of their own."

"How?"

"You have to dismember and then burn a vampire to kill it. I thought that's what the ashes were, but they smell different. Vampires have a sickenly -- well, to werewolves -- sweet scent. The ashes were more, nature-y. Like burned plants I guess."

"I think we should go back, maybe camping wasn't such a good idea." Julie stood up.

"Okay, maybe we could camp on my backyard instead!" I said with a smile.

"Yeah," She agreed.

We picked up our stuff and left.

***

Rain drops drizzled down the window. Trust it to rain once we had made plans. I sat on the comfy dark brown sofa wrapped in a quilted blanket.

"Here," Julie handed me a mug of hot chocolate and sat down next to me.

"Forks weather... I miss living in London." I said still looking outside.

"Why did you move here anyway?" She asked.

I looked down at my mug, and scanned the house. The only ones home were Julie and I.

"There was a couple, Gerrard and Anna Pickett. They were our neighbours. They had just moved in, and that's when the deaths started. One by one, the people in our small neighbourhood started to dissapear. No one suspected Gerrard and Anna, they were the 'good ones'. They created that image by raising funds for charity every three months, welcoming new neighbours, you know, that kind of stuff. My older brother, Marcus, was very superstitious. He believed in the supernatural stuff. So, one day, he sneaked into the Picketts' house and tried to kill them with a wooden stake and a silver chain. He told me that the stake broke into many pieces once he tried to stab Anna in the heart. SIlver didn't work either, in fact, she started wearing the chain from then on. As the killings continued, about a month later, Marcus and I discovered we were werewolves. The Picketts' had forgiven us for the attempt at killing them, but now, they couldn't stand us. And vice versa. The stench they gave out, too horrible for us to bear. And when our dad told us everything about werewolves, we made a plan to kill them once and for all." I paused. "And we succeded. Two months, twenty-three deaths later."

"So, why did you move?" Julie was still confused.

"We had to leave London because Marcus attacked someone. He got him really angry and he phased right there and then. There were two other witnesses. When the three tried to tell others, people thought they were crazy, lying or just plain drunk. But eventually we had to move." I finished explaining.

"Where's Marcus now? I've never seen him before."

"He's in university, in New York."

The pitter-patter of rain drops on the ground decreased.

"Hey! It's stopped raining!" I said and jumped off the couch. I walked to the camping stuff. "You still up for it?"

"I don't know..." Julie said.

"C'mon, forget about the story I told you. I won't hurt you. Anyway, it's Marcus with the temper, not me. Besides, I'll carry a lighter incase we have to kill any vamps!" I put two fingers on the side of my mouth, pretending to have fangs. "I will come to suck your blood!"

Julie laughed and got up from the sofa. "Okay, fine. But we'd better hurry up before the next storm comes in!"

***

"Okay then. I've gotten the fire going pretty strong. Now what we need are the marshmallows." I said.

We had already put up the tent and everything, down to the sleeping bags, and also eaten dinner.

"Here." Julie tossed me the big bag of marshmallows. I opened it and stuck three on the skewers we got from the kitchen. No damp branches thank you very much.

***

"Gina, Gina, wake up. Gina, Gina, get up." Julie shook me.

I sat up sleepily and checked the time on my phone. 02:34AM. I rubbed my eyes. "What now?" I asked.

"D'you hear that?" Julie looked around nervously.

I listened out for anything. Nothing.

"Nope. Now go back to sleep." I said and switched off my torch and went back to sleep. Eventually Julie did the same.

About five minutes later, a heard a moan. It sounded human, like someone was in trouble (vampires don't get into injured trouble and werewolves heal quickly). Julie sat up.

"Okay, now I've heard it." I said.

"What d'you think it could be?" She asked.

"There's only one way to find out..." I got out of my sleeping bag and went outside the tent. Julie followed me. I guess she didn't want to stay in there alone.

We shone our torches around like mad people and eventually we saw who was making all the noise.

*****