After about ten minutes I stop trying to get free, the person pulls me out the front door and to my car. I start mumbling protests but then I realize who was pulling me. James. How could I have not known by his converse? I open the door and slide into the passenger seat, I watch him stagger to the driver’s seat. He closes the door and examines the bite wound that I caused.
"You made me bleed." He says, jokingly angry.
"I’m not the only one," I say pointing to the gun wound in the middle of his chest. "We need to go back inside to bandage it."
"Not here," he replies "they’re still in there, and won’t hesitate to attack anyone."
"Who’s ‘they’?" I ask
"Vampires. We’re lucky they didn’t bite one of us." He says examining his neck in the rearview mirror.
Now I’m freaked out. He never mentioned anything about vampires.
"We need to get you to a hospital." I say "Let me drive you’re in no condition to drive."
We get out of the car and switch sides, like when me and my friends used to play Mexican Fire drill at red lights. I’m about to get in the car when I feel a pang of panic and misery. Where do my friends think I am? Do they think I’m dead? I open the car door and slip into the seat absent minded and numb, me closing the car door brings me back to reality.
"You know where to go?" James asks.
I look over at him, he was slumped in his seat, his head thrown back against the headrest with his eyes tightly closed, his mouth making quick and shallow breaths. He looked like he was trying to be brave but I knew he was in a lot of pain. He looked like he was about pass out from the pain and blood loss. I sling open the car door and run back towards the building. I hear James calling my name but I have to keep running. I can’t let him die when I could save him. I open the door to the headquarters and decide it wasn’t a good decision. I don’t know my way around here, but luck was on my side in this moment.
I turn left and find a closet with stacks of cloth in it. This must be the fabric they use to make their own clothes. "Good enough" I say under my breath. I take out a long strip of black cloth hoping they won’t miss it.
I turn to leave, right when I’m at the door I feel a body jump onto my back. It hisses in my ear, the same hiss from when James room was ambushed, the hiss sends chills down my spine. I throw myself on my back, knocking the air out of the vampire. I flip around so that I’m sitting on his stomach. He flails underneath me trying to get free. I reach for the gun in his holster that is right under his armpit. I grab it and hold it, pointing at its head. I pull the trigger just to hear a click. Great it’s out of ammo. There’s only one other choice I have. I face the vampire, looking him straight in the eyes, I even smiled a little bit and then smash the butt of the gun into his head. Once it makes contact I look away and repeatedly smash its head with the gun. Finally I feel him stop moving and decide he’s dead. I killed him. I look at the final sight of him. A smashed in skull and a pool of blood, the kind of thing that will haunt you for the rest of your life. I pick up the black cloth and run out the door refusing to accept that I did that.
I pull the car door open, I sling myself into the car and slam the door shut and lock it, hoping to lock out the memories of the lifeless vampire. I turn to James; he’s sitting in a pool of his own blood, barely holding onto consciousness. I put my hand behind his back, with the cloth in my hands, as I start to pull the cloth tighter I ignore his moans of pain. The bullet went straight through him so I have to make sure the cloth is tight. I finish tying the knot tight, trying to remember knots from my one year of Girl Scouts. I turn facing the steering wheel to turn the car on; when I notice we don’t have the keys. I bend down and start hotwiring the car. I went through a time where I was with the wrong crowd so don’t ask how I know all this stuff; don’t get me wrong I love the tattoos I got while hanging out with those kids. Finally the car starts. I take the emergency break off and shift into drive. I turn onto the main road and realize where we were. On top of the mountain, the mountain on the outskirts of my town. The building that kids in my town would make scary stories about. I guess we weren’t too wrong about all the stories. I turn and look at James as his eyes flutter close. I drive two times faster. This was going to be the longest drive of my life.
