Mr. Lewis' Power Zone

#SAVEDERRICK Part One

FrostedNoodles
"What the heck?" Hailey asked softly.

Keira gently poked the blood, then looked at her finger. It was stained red. "Ew! It's fresh, though. And it's real blood, not paint."

We looked at the cabinet. "Should we?" I asked hesitantly.

Ashley nodded, and I grasped the cabinet handle and pulled. It was locked. I tried the other handle. It was also locked.

Hailey's face suddenly turned very pale.

"He's coming back!" she whispered. We plastered most of the Fritos bags back onto the door and crowded behind some boxes. Sure enough, a moment later, the door opened and Mr. Lewis came in with-

"Ew!" Keira whispered. "Why does it smell like metal?"

I peered out of the side of the box. Oh no. Oh no no no. Mr. Lewis was sitting at his desk, with a slab of raw meat and a glass full of thick, dark red liquid. It looked exactly like the stuff that was all over his cabinet. Blood.

"It has iron in it." I muttered. "The glass of blood. And the raw meat."

Ashley, Hailey, and Keira all looked at me as if I was crazy.

"Are you okay?" Keira asked.

"I'm fine!" I whisper-screamed. "You haven't seen it."

Ashley peered over the box and paled as well. Then the door opened again, and someone wearing a long black cape strolled in.

"Lewis. How do you do?"

Mr Lewis gasped. "You're back already?"

"Of course I am. Nice meal, by the way."

"Thanks, this is fresh cat blood. The meat is from one of my Fritos cats."

"Haha, I forgot you were breeding those things for the endless supply of Fritos. How is the mission going?"

"Which mission?"

The vampire dude threw his head back and laughed. "Oh, you do make me laugh. The mission, of course." He glanced around, making sure nobody could listen to them. "The one where you torture 7th graders and bring their joy to me, of course."

"Of course I've been doing that, Drac."

Drac??? Was that Drac, as in Dracula?

"But what's the other mission? You asked which one."

Mr. Lewis sipped his blood as if it was tea. "It's the cats. All cats must be punished!" he said, gesturing towards the Fritos cabinet. I looked at Hailey with wide eyes. We were both cat people. "Just like 7th graders. Oh, those terrible things. Their tears of misery are my tears of joy."

"We really need to get out of here. If he's really a vampire, we're doomed." I said. Hailey and Ashley agreed, but Keira stopped us.

"I see a key ring hanging from his belt," she said quietly. "We can snatch it and run away, then come back later to see what's inside the cabinet."

We stared at her, wide eyed. "You're genius!" Ashley and I said together, while Hailey said "You're effing crazy!"

Soon after, the Drac dude left and we were alone in the room with Mr. Lewis. Ashley made a move to jump out, but Keira held her back.

"Sis, if we want to steal, we need to look the part. Put on hoods!"

I laughed as I dug my hoodie out of my backpack. "We're hoodlums now!"