From chapter two Dating Dracula Jr.
“He’s gonna be real hungry,” Hart Hyde said, his voice sounded tense. Hart didn’t particularly like blood sports or contact sports, which were really about the same in my opinion. As big as he is and living in Texas, he should have been playing football. But hey, Hart didn’t like the necessary roughness. Texans loved football. Instead Hart played baseball. Left field. Vampire staking was way out of his comfort zone. “Really hungry.”
“Yeah,” I sighed and hesitated. I could feel the container of Holy water in my hand; it felt cold in its glass container. You have to use glass because metal contaminates the water. The movies get it so wrong.
My best friend raised her stake high and leaned over, but hesitated again. Debbs didn’t want to stick him either. She was tons more shallow about looks then I was. After all, she was dating Seth and he really did have to ask and tell his Mummy everything, even secrets. That’s how come he got grounded on the toilet paper bit.
“Hart, if he gets past us.” I began, as Debbs stake started on its downward strike as this howl of pure demented delight cried out in the darkness beyond us.
Startled, she stopped the down thrust of the stake and turned; stake in hand. Quickly, Debbs started towards the ladder we had placed in the open grave with us. I followed on her heels as the sounds of scrambling reached us. And then the really dreaded and dreadful sound of long nails clasping and clicking like hundreds of rats crawling across the dirt and dried grass of the cemetery.
The noises were gaining in strength. Then the low guttural groans begin to fill the air with their harrowing menace. Combine the scrambling rat-like sounds and the groans and you’ve got one thing.
One thing only making those creepy sounds.
One deadly thing.
I shuddered. I took a breath and tried to swallow. My mouth suddenly felt like I had a blow dryer jammed inside set on extra high voltage. I just couldn’t stand the thought of being eaten alive. It’s why I wouldn’t go beyond two feet in the ocean when my family took vacations to the Gulf Coast in Corpus Christi, Texas. One black-eyed, teeth-gleaming thing…
Sharks. Great Whites were the ultimate terror for me and the worst of the shark species as far as I was concerned. And even though I loved the ocean, I would only go out in the greenish-brown waters up to my knees. No shark was going to have me for dinner, lunch or a late afternoon snack.
As I scurried up the ladder, a harsh howling sound came from a stand of oak trees hidden deep in the black velvet folds of the night, interrupting my morbid thoughts of torn flesh and bright red blood. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. We had a fresh vampire about to rise, and to add insult to injury, we had something nasty.
Something deadly.
Something foul coming at us from the shadows of the cemetery.
Ghouls!
“Vampires and ghouls! Oh my!” Debbs exclaimed.
My best friend, a Van Helsing, was doing the Wizard of Oz and I was terrified. I hated ghouls. From the sound of them more than a few were scurrying to feast on our flesh!
I wanted to howl in misery. Even though I’m a Frankenstein, and quite used to things that go bump in the night, and even though I’m not afraid of no ghosts, I am absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, terrified of ghouls. Ghouls are the reason I carry a special gun that shoots bullets that burst into fire on impact. As much as I hate ghouls, I’m pretty sure that ghouls feel the same way about me and I know they absolutely hate fire.
I glanced at Debbs, my eyes white with terror as more of the blood-curling howling filled the night.
If we didn’t move fast, we were toast, or to be more realistic, red meat!
