First Staked (Alan Frog/The Lost Boys)

Chapter #26: Resolve

All of us had different emotions on our faces. Lucy looked on with the biggest "are you serious" expression I'd ever seen. Michael and Sam's eyes widened. Edgar and Alan did the same but stared at each other completely gobsmacked. Finally, my jaw fell open in shock. Grandpa Emerson just shrugged his shoulders.

    "Careful now, you're all going to start catching flies." He cracked upon seeing our faces.

    "I don't understand..." Sam squeaked.

    "All the damn vampires..." Edgar mumbled back to himself.

Alan pointed at Mr. Emerson, his eyes narrowing slightly.
    "You mean...you knew all this time?!"

The elderly man nodded, taking another sip of his drink.
    "I've lived here all my life, did you really think that I hadn't caught on?"

Michael set Sam down now, not taking his eyes off of his grandfather.
    "How come you never said anything?"

Grandpa Emerson chuckled.
    "Well at first I figured you guys wouldn't of believed me even if I did tell you. And by the time I realized you had become one of them, the rest of you were already onto it anyway."

I raised my hand up to him.
    "Wait, so did you know that Max was the head?"

Mr. Emerson shook his head.
    "Not till he came for dinner last night. I overheard him ask Micahel if he was invited in and that's when it hit me."
He sipped another swig of his root beer.
    "Then tonight when I came home I saw the broken lights from the outside and his car in the driveway. I knew something must've been going on, so, I took my chances with crashing in here. I've been wondering who the head vampire was for years now and what do you know? I ended up killing the guy."

The rest of us went silent again, until Sam started smiling from next to me. He took a step forward.
    "Well, you definitely saved us, grandpa...Thanks!"

    "And thank you for freeing us too. We would've been stuck as halfs forever if you hadn't done what you did." Star, who had come up behind us with Laddie, spoke up.

This made me smile at Grandpa Emerson and nod to him as my way of thanking him as well. The Frogs followed suit and so did Michael, Laddie and finally Lucy, who also went over and hugged her father tightly. However, seeing this sweet moment between daughter and father made me think of someone else.

My mother!

My eyes widened as I realized that she was probably worried sick about me! Thinking, I tried to make an excuse for myself to leave, but all it came out as was:
    "Shit! Mom!"

Without another word, I darted away from the group and out the front door of the Emerson house. Not slowing down for a second, I ran all the way home and practically burst through the front door. My eyes searched all around for my mother, remembering what Alan had told me. He said that he had put her on the couch, but upon a quick inspection, I could see that she wasn't there now. This made me worry and I cupped my hands around my mouth.

    "Mom!!" I called out, hoping for an answer.
Nothing. I tried again, louder, staying hopeful.
    "MOM!!"

I got a response this time, but it was a male's voice instead of a female's. It came from behind me.
    "Katie?"

I jerked around to see that Alan had just run in behind me. Offering him a small grin I gestured for him to follow me up the stairs. The two of us climbed up to the second floor and hurried to the next place I thought to look; my mom's room. Alan and I ran into the bedroom only to find it empty as well. Goddamnit, where was she?