Authors: Lennell Davis
"Haunt you?"
“As in I own this Masteria,” he seemed to be looking for a reaction from me.
"Why use the name if..."I started to say when Sam sat up.
"Nessa, I feel a little light headed, can we go home?" groaned Sam, half leaning up on her own.
"Yeah Sam, come on." I got up to help her.
"I will walk you two out," offered Alik, and he accompanied us to the opening, past all the teens who were still swaying to the music that the young girl mixed overhead. When we made it to the door, Alik slid the entrance back and we walked out into the dark. I walked Sam to the car and buckled her in, all the while, I noticed Alik watching us next to Jean at the door. When I drove off, I saw him walk inside in the mirror. It wasn’t until we were nearly back to Sam's place that she started to make any real sense.
"You know I think I might be anemic," she said, rubbing her eyes.
"Here, Alik gave you these. Take one a day to keep your blood levels high."
"You seem to be getting along with him rather nicely."
"He might have just saved your life, of course I’d be grateful. You’re my best friend, although I don’t know why."
"No, apart from that. You talked to him yesterday and he let you wear his very expensive Armani jacket, too."
"How do you know it was Armani?" I asked.
"I know designer clothes on sight when I see them; your SpongeBob pj’s aren’t very attractive."
"Damn it Sam, I was trying to ignore the fact that I didn’t change, but I didn’t know what had happened to you, but whatever." I don’t know why my cheeks blushed red; it was a good thing that it was dark. "Anyway, what are we going to do about your car? Your mom will go mental."
"I don’t know," she sighed. "I guess I can just stay at your place tonight and then we can slip out at the crack of dawn and go pick it up."
"You know, you better not pull this crap when we get to Cornell."
"I promise," she said, crossing her heart. "Scout’s Honor."
"You were never a scout."
"You know what I mean."
We pulled up to my house and her car was sitting outside with a small note on red paper with black ink. The script was rough but still fluid in its strokes. 'I thought this would simplify things for you, Vanessa. Take care of your friend. - Your friend, Alik', I read and handed the note to Sam.
"So he is a friend now?" smiled Sam. “You’re welcome.”
Alyon Alik
Chapter 04.0
The dance floor of the new club “tHE sPOT” was a horrible mix of blaring music, groping, and bad dancing. I was forced to witness teens doing drugs in the bathrooms, and hear the ecstasy of bad sex in the private booths. Everything here smelt of vulgar filth and felt colder than an Alaskan winter night, despite the sweaty people all around me. I wished to rage and curse at everyone here who made this out to be “fun”, but June’s touch on my hand focused my thoughts.
“It’s here, too,” she said in a low voice, and as I scanned the room again, I could see the various Nightcaps in use.
“Not everyone here is human; the real thing is close,” I said and we split up again to make our way around the outside of the pitiful dance floor. This was our seventh club of the night, and our first hint at an original blood drinker.
Girls gasped and boys sucked, bastardizing my culture as girls paid the exchange, whoring themselves for a mediocre thrill. Not that any of these fools knew what they were doing, I thought, as my focused slipped again just for a moment. Then I saw him. I caught June’s eye from across the room and we began to move. His teeth were at the girl’s skin before he dropped her. We had been seen and he moved for the back door quickly, not running until he made it out into the cold night air. I hated it when they ran, but June liked the chase. Quickly, we cornered him, June having circled around a few buildings overhead and cutting off his path as I forced him down a set of back alleys of my choice.
“Who is your creator?” I asked as he frantically looked around, trying to find a way out.
“As if I would tell you anything,” he spat cockily.
“You can be destroyed quickly or it can be slow. That is all dependent on how you answer my next few questions,” I said coldly, he had been responsible for this epidemic plaguing my home.
“I don’t think so.” His voice was even cockier, but now his expression matched his tone when he looked at me. Five others dropped down around us from the rooftops; three surrounded June and two others were behind me. “Now we take the city from you,” he laughed.
The first to attack me was a girl no more than seventeen. I wish I could still feel something when I killed, but I did it without a second thought. She charged blindly with her arms outstretched. I took a quick step back as she grabbed for me and when she stumbled, clutching thin air, I aimed a kick to her head that sent her crashing into one of the alley’s brick walls. With another twist, the back of my fist struck the head of another boy around nineteen, knocking him into the opposite wall where he, too, joined the girl on the floor, bleeding. Where June had once been surrounded by three, there was now just a circle of blood and the whisper of wind on steel.
“Whoa, I will talk, calm down.” All the cockiness in his voice was replaced by panic as he now begged for his life.
“Your name is Jason, isn’t it?” I asked as I walked closer.
“Yeah.”
“The law is that we pull the canines out of anyone who is caught on their first offense.” I had him by his hair and pulled his neck back as he groaned in pain. He then screamed when I pulled one of the yellowing teeth from his mouth. “That is when one feeds in the open, the law states that one who kills in the open is death. I made a promise and I am still willing to honor it, depending on what you tell me next.”
A shout came from the rooftop. “Hey,” the familiarity of the young female voice caught my attention. I looked up and was almost taken by surprise as a girl threw herself at me and I spun to dodge. The second I let go of Jason was all it took for the girl to grab a hold of Jason and flee.
“Damn it,” I said as I straightened my jacket.
“We know who their creator is now,” said June, wiping the blood from her katana’s blade on the shirt of one of the young dead.
“I wish I didn’t.”
“Alisa is just playing a game, she is a child.”
“She shouldn’t play like this with the flag of Masteria flying,” I nearly hissed in anger.
“She wants your attention,” June said as if that made this any better.
“You’re not helping,” I sighed, stretching my neck. I pulled out a small flashlight and waved it in a circle around us to clean up.
“Well, shall we catch them?” June asked, eager to chase.
“You enjoy this too much.”
“I’m a little monster, what do you expect?” She smiled showing teeth and took off, running with me close behind.
Vanessa Stanton
Chapter 05.0
My parents honored their promise of a trip to Hawaii for Sam and I. I spent the first week sampling the local food and culture. Sam would say she did the same thing, but her idea of food was the local boys, and culture was whichever was the best way to control them. It wasn’t long before she had two of them showing us the cities and islands. With them around, our vacation became days on the beaches and nights at secret beach parties in spots that were strictly “locals only”. It was all very peaceful, probably the last extended peaceful time I would have for a very long time.
Sam had fallen asleep shortly after takeoff on the flight home. I couldn't blame her as her last night in HawaiI was a wild one. I was fine until my laptop battery died about an hour and a half out from New York and I sighed. I was forced to reached around in the back pouch on the chair in front of me and I found some headphones, which I plugged into the arm of the chair. A little TV then flashed to an old news report and as I was about to try another channel, the report caught my attention.
-Nightcaps, the newest fad to hit the New York club scene, is currently suspected to be the cause for a string of deaths that have been plaguing New York over the last month. Nightcaps are small ceramic caps placed over the canine teeth to make them sharp enough to easily penetrate the skin with the intention of injecting liquefied versions of several different drugs directly into the bloodstream while tasting and licking the wound. While others in turn have been using the act as sexual foreplay, the taste of the blood they claim acts as an aphrodisiac, heightening the sexual experience. Eight deaths, five male and three female, all ranging from ages 18-22, have been reported in several different club locations around New York. In every case, two puncture marks have been found on either the neck or inner thigh with the victim drained of enough blood to cause exsanguination. No evidence has been found at any crime scene to indicate anyone else was ever with the victims: no footprints, fingerprints, or biological evidence has been found, which is the most baffling aspect of the situation, considering the personal nature of these potential murders. Police are asking for any information that could lead them to whoever is committing these atrocious acts. Meanwhile, police are also tracking down and questioning all those who have had the ceramic fangs, 'Nightcaps', made recently in the greater New York area. Later on, we will be having an expert on young adult culture from the University of….-
I turned off the TV and wondered if this had affected Masteria; Alik almost admitted Masteria was responsible for this and he did allow it in his club. Although he wasn’t happy about it either so it wasn’t like he wanted these deaths to happen. I didn’t know why I instantly thought about him first, and then lept to his defense. Was it because he helped Sam out of a tight spot that night? He might have even saved her life. I was just remembering him because he was connected to Sam, I told myself. I had gotten to the point in an internal conversation where I was considering going to Masteria when the plane began to descend for the landing. My next memory was of Sam complaining about me not listening to her complain about letting her almost miss the landing. She really enjoyed takeoffs and landings.
"Damn engineers..." I muttered.
"Don't give me that. If it wasn't for us, all that artistic crap you architects draw would just fall down and... No, even then, someone might still call it art. I don't understand art," complained Sam as the plane touched down and we launched into a debate on function versus form.
Over the next few days, news reports on what some clever reporter nicknamed ‘Night Children’s Movement’ would show up from time to time. Hospitals were readying for what they thought would be a rapid spread in HIV and AIDS, while city officials were trying to pass new laws to make the creation of Nightcaps a banned practice and impose fines on clubs and individuals who allowed the act to be done. As if those laws would affect underground raves where it was most popular. There had also been another death: a sixteen year old teenage boy who still had his fake ID on him. They still hadn’t found the girl he was with and despite reports calling it a disappearance, everyone knew she was most likely dead. Analysts were expecting there to be a decrease in the business for the nightclubs, but there was an increase in the amount of business local clubs were getting over the next two weeks, which shocked analysts. They were all stupid, you don’t wave a big red “do not push” button in the face of a child. It will make the child want to push it more; they were stirring up a frenzy that would soon explode.
Sam only had three days at home after we got back from Hawaii before she had left again, this time to California for two weeks to see her brother. I hadn’t really left the house in a week as our other friends were busy with preparing for colleges all across the country. So when Eugene called, I agreed to go “hang out”, although I knew he just didn’t want to use the word date. Eugene Scott was blonde, blue eyed, and of a thick solid build with arms twice the size they should be. He was basically like every Joe out there, except this Joe was the big baseball star of the school. New York State even gave him a scholarship to play for them, that plus the fact that everyone in the school wanted to know him, had given him an ego larger than your average narcissist. Soon there wouldn’t be any space in his head for him to remember his own name. I had known him since my second day in middle school and he hasn’t left me alone since. Despite his shortcomings, he was a very good friend, his father had raised him to open doors for women since he could open doors, to always be polite to his elders, and to do the right thing. He just justified bullying the average new kid as the right thing because it puts them in their place in the school’s social structure.
Eugene never understood that I never had any real interest in him outside of friendship, he has been trying to get me ever since our second day middle school. There have been a few girlfriends over the years, but they never lasted long, and several times I seriously considered dating him, but when we were alone and he didn't have the support of his friends, he wasn't the same Eugene. He showed up to my house and greeted my parents and 'surprised me' with tickets to some horrible romance he thought I would like or would set the best mood for him to make a move. About ten minutes into the movie, I became highly aware of his hand that would twitch toward mine. He always ended up taking a detour to the popcorn or candy between us, and this is what I meant. If the confidence he showed around his friends or on the baseball field was always there, it wouldn’t be such a hard decision to say yes to him. As he moved in for the fifth time and ended up taking a sip of soda, I sighed and leaned my head back. I had been out with other guys and this always happened, none of them had the courage to take my hand or just kiss me. When we were one on one, they had to be surrounded by the sounds of people at a party to sneak a kiss in the midst of the passion of a little swaying to the badly mixed music at a house party. As we sat watching this horrible movie, a record of my sad love life began to float around in my head. I welcomed it as I would do anything to block out this horrible Twilight movie.
I never really had what you would call a boyfriend. I haven’t even had sex before, and I wasn’t one of those girl who swore they were saving themselves for marriage only to lose their virginity in some kid’s parent’s bedroom after she had a few shots and heard a few nice words from a jock in a Letterman jacket. Then I realized that the only thing even close to a romance I’ve ever had was five years ago when my parents forced me to go to 'camp'. It was really college prep for math and engineering nerds, which happened to be held by a lake with a few cabins. There was a boy there, Seith. I can’t even remember his last name. I do remember that he had caramel colored skin and short black hair; all the girls thought he was 'yummy'. The most striking feature he had was that one of his eye was a lighter shade of brown than the other and they never really seemed focused on anything that the rest of the world was focused on. He always sat in the back of the classes and never spoke unless asked to, and he aced every test with top scores in the class. I never got the impression that he was shy, more so that he knew he was better than everyone and his tests were proof. It might have been him who gave me the baseline for how I felt about my own intelligence.
Every night, I would have to listen to my roommates complain about him ignoring them or whatever. I couldn’t blame him for ignoring them, I did the same for the most part. I watched him for three weeks and I slowly began to dislike him myself, but I didn’t know why. He hadn’t done anything wrong to me, he hadn’t even said a word to me. I received the highest score on a Physics test halfway through the two and a half month long camp. The room that usually gave a soft groan was silent and I could feel the eyes on me, but when the class resumed I couldn’t help but take a glance to see how Seith took it. He still had the same look on his face as if he hadn’t even heard the teacher's announcement. He looked to be more concerned with what was outside the window. The next day however, I found a note in my notebook: 'Meet me tonight at seven at the lab, we need to talk.' I knew it was him; was he serious, this isn’t a movie. I ignored his note and the next day in class, I glanced over at him again; there was no change in his attitude. It made me irrationally mad that he didn’t care. I found another note in my notebook: 'Meet me tonight.' I was pissed by now and at lunch I took a long path to the table where I usually sat and dropped his note on the ground next to him; our eyes met for a moment, but he just went back to his food and didn’t seem to care. Why did he piss me off so much? Again the next day there was a note: 'Please do not ignore this, lab at seven.' I had the room to myself that night; my roommates all had summer boyfriends by now and didn’t want me around, nor had I ever wished to be around them. I stared at the ceiling, an internal argument raging inside me. Finally, my anger beat rationality until it was bleeding and I left my room.
I got to the physics lab and he was laying on a table in the middle of the room, staring at the ceiling tiles. The only light in the room was the moonlight that was coming from the windows on the far side of the room. He looked over when I entered and then went back to staring at the ceiling. I thought that I would turn and leave at that, but felt it would be better to slap him first. I walked over to where he lay and pushed him off of the table he was laying on, hard. He managed to hit the ground softly, landing on his hands.
"What was that for?" he asked, calmly standing and rubbing his wrists. It was the first time I had ever heard him speak. I liked his voice, it wasn't too deep as his voice was probably still deepening, but it didn't cracked and was calm and steady, despite me having just hit him.
"For you being an ass," I said angrily.
"I’ve never even said anything to you."
"Then what are these?" I asked, holding up two of the three notes he had written.
"Sticky notes? I have no idea."
"Then why are you in the physics lab at seven?”
"I’m always here at this time, it’s the quietest place in the whole area. Anyway, why would I be writing notes to you?" That hurt me.
"Because I did better than you on that test, you were mad that you were no longer the best."
"You’re the only person in this entire place with half a brain and you think jealousy over a test score no one will ever see except the shitty teachers here would drive me to arrange secret meetings? What would I do at this meeting? What have you been imagining I would tell you? A threat to dumb yourself and never do better than me again?"
"I… Okay, if it wasn’t you, then who has been leaving these in my notebooks?"
"By the looks of the hand writing, it should be one of those idiots you call a roommate; this handwriting isn’t mine. After all, they have the access and means to do so," he said, laying back down on the table.
"Why would they do that?"
"Because they are jealous." He sat up and swung his feet around to look at me. “Maybe I was wrong about you.”
“Jealous of what?”
“You having a brain? Me not responding to their overactive hormones? I don’t really know, but considering we’re currently under no supervision, we could get into a lot of trouble. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a teacher on his/her way here now, tipped off by one of those idiots that we would be meeting here.”
“What do we do now then?”