Vampire Love Story (8 page)

Just then, Yari walked out of the same room the drunk guy had been in.

“You don’t want to be up here, Josiah. Let’s go downstairs.”

“No problem. I was looking for—”

But she grabbed my forearm and steered me back down the stairs. As she did so, I couldn’t help but notice the woman’s grip. Sweet Jesus she was strong. Once back down the stairs, I heard a squawk and saw two big black birds flying in the house. I nearly dove for cover, but someone calmly opened the rear sliding glass door and the birds flew out of the house. Not a single person called attention to them or seemed to care that two birds had been inside the house. I looked around to get some kind of reaction from somebody. Nothing.

What the hell was going on here?

Yari led me to one of the downstairs bedrooms. “Let’s go in here,” she said, and opened the door. The room was lit by a couple of candles in the window still, and there was a mattress with a comforter on the floor. She laid on the mattress, and I stood there looking at her dumbly. I was still trying to wrap my brain around everything I had just seen, from the candles, to the secret upstairs bedroom, to the damn birds.

One at a time,
I thought.

Yari’s eyes were bright and expressive, as if she was amped up on something. So I started with the obvious question, even though I suspected I already knew the answer. “So what was going on up there? Drugs?”

“No one was doing drugs, Josiah, but trust me, people were having a good time.” She stared at me long and hard and I wondered if she was one of those having a good time. A good time doing what? “Why don’t you lie down next to me?”

“Look, if all you wanted to do was fool around, then we didn’t have to come to the world’s freakiest party to do it. We could have just stayed at my house.”

“World’s freakiest party? Is Josiah scared?”

“I’m not scared. It takes more than a few pale-faced dudes and a house that seems to have zero electricity to scare me.”

“Oh, this house definitely has electricity.” Yari took her hand and rubbed it on my upper thigh.

Yari was holding a silver flask. She reached up and grabbed a shot glass that was on the dresser next to her. “This looks clean.” She giggled and poured a sort of red alcohol into the shot glass. She handed me the shot glass. “Try it, Josiah. You’ll love it.”

“Thanks, but I had some Tequila; I’m feeling good.”

“Trust me, this isn’t Tequila.”

“I really don’t want to get wasted. I have to train tomorrow.”

“Josiah, you’ve been training real hard. Tonight have a little fun.” She got up from the mattress and slipped behind me. I was wondering what she was doing until she put her left hand around my waist. She then reached around with her right hand and held up the shot glass full of red liquor. I puckered my lips and turned my head away.

I said, “I really don’t want it.”

Yari kissed my neck. I froze. She had definitely hit the right spot. “Try it...for me...please. You know I would never hurt you.”

“Actually, I really don’t know that.”

“You really do need to trust me.” Yari slid her hand down and grabbed my inner thigh. “Please, Josiah, just one sip.”

I continued to resist the drink. And the more I resisted the higher Yari’s hand rose up my thigh, massaging as she went. I let out a long, shuddering breath. Honestly, what guy could have resisted her? I clearly wasn’t strong enough. And besides, it was just something to drink, right? If these Goth nutjobs were going to poison me, they would have done it out on the Flatlands, when I drank that weird shit.

I said, “You promise you’re not trying to kill me?”

Yari leaned even closer and whispered real softly in my right ear. “I just want you to loosen up so we can have some fun.”

Then she completely grabbed my groin. I gasped, all the breath leaving my lungs. She continued to massage. I was excited, to say the least. Then she lifted the flask to my helpless lips and gently poured the drink down my throat. It was really thick and sweet. It didn’t taste anything like alcohol.

“All right. I drank it,” I said. “So now what?”

“Now here’s where the fun starts.”

Yari took me by the hand and led me out of the room, and back to the living room, where party-goers were kissing so deeply and rhythmically, that I suspected some of them were doing the dirty right then and there. But then again, with the absence of any real light, it was hard to tell.

Yari scanned the room, looking for something
.
And then she found it. A beautiful blond girl who was sitting close to an equally beautiful brunette. Yari took the blond girl’s hand, who rose from the couch without hesitation or question. The blond, I could see, was lean and very sexy. She smiled at me shyly.

As Yari held our hands, she continued leading us through the undulating party, where we stopped this time in front of a sexy Latina woman who was probably in her early thirties. The blond girl nodded and reached out her own hand. There was some sort of chain reaction going on here that I wasn’t fully getting. The Latina simply nodded and took the proffered hand. Once done, Yari led the three of us back into the same bedroom with the mattress on the floor and locked the door behind us.

I think this is where I swallowed. Hard. What the hell was going on?

Yari led me to the bed. I went, to say the least, willingly. Without asking or hesitation, the Latina woman took off my shirt, and now the blond girl began kissing my chest. That’s when the room started spinning. Or maybe it was my head. And everything kept on spinning until I couldn’t see anything at all. I suspected I had been drugged but I really didn’t care, not with three women swarming around me, touching, kissing, licking. All I could do was feel. And feeling was enough. Hands all over me. My entire body groped and kissed.

“I have one rule girls,” I heard myself say from somewhere seemingly outside my body. “No biting. Everything else is fair game.”

The next two hours were the greatest two hours of my adult male life.

* * *

At some point I either passed out or fell asleep.

I opened my eyes and could finally see. I was alone in the room. I pulled out my cell from my pocket. It read 2:12 a.m. Four hours of my life gone. I got up and my legs felt wobbly.

What the hell was in that drink?

I slowly got dressed and weeble-wobbled to the bedroom door and then made my way to the living room. There were still a lot of couples making out. Smoke from the many candles hung suspended in the air. The whole scene was surreal and bizarre and now I was a part of it. I needed fresh air. With my legs feeling a little stronger, I headed out the front door.

I stood on the brick steps and took in a lot of fresh air, which did wonders to clear my head. And that’s when I heard the sounds of crying. Off to the right, in a small patch of grass near the side of the house, was a swing hanging from the thick branch of a tree. Lena was sitting alone and crying softly, her muffled sobs reaching me easily in the quiet night air. I walked over to her.

“Hey,” I said.

Lena looked up at me. “Hi, Josiah.” She wiped her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“It doesn’t seem like it’s nothing,” I said. “What’s going on? Where’s Atticai?”

“Atticai left with a couple of his friends.”

I looked over and noticed the van was still in the driveway.

“The van’s still here. Is he coming back?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t like to tell me what he does.”

I paused. “That’s a pretty weird party going on in there.” I didn’t mention the foursome I had had, although thanks to the power of that witchy potion I had drank, I was beginning to remember less and and less of it. Which was a damn shame.

“You have no idea,” she said. “Did you go upstairs?”

“For a moment, but Yari found me and told me I shouldn’t be up there.”

“Be glad that she did. They might not have known.”

“Not known what?” I asked.

Lena looked at me. “You really have no idea what they were doing up there?”

“I’m not stupid. I assume it was some serious drugs.”

“Drugs? You think that’s what this is? A drug party? Are you really that clueless?”

“What are you saying?”

“Open your eyes, Josiah!”

“Are we back on the vampire thing again?”

Lena gave me a withering look that seemed to imply I was the world’s biggest idiot. Maybe I was. “Josiah, they were
feeding
up there!”

“Feeding? Like eating?”

She shook her head violently, and she kept shaking her head.

“Feeding on what, Lena?” My voice growing higher, perhaps with panic. “What were they feeding on? People?”

“No, not people, Josiah.”

And then my clouded, sex-drained mind finally got it. “They were drinking blood?”

She started nodding, and had somehow shrank in on herself.

I said, “You have got to be kidding me.”

She wouldn’t look at me. “I don’t know why Yari brought you here. But now that you’re here you need to start opening your eyes. This isn’t a Halloween party. These people—or things—are very real.”

“The only thing that is real about them is that they are delusional. If they are truly drinking people’s blood against someone’s will, then they are also committing a serious crime.”

“It’s not a crime if no one is alive to press charges.”

“Are you saying they’re
killing
people upstairs? You’re telling me vampires—real vampires—are running wild in the city of Victorville?”

Lena just stared at me. Above, I heard more birds flapping, the beating rush of their wings loud in the silent night. I felt as if I was being watched, but I didn’t know by whom. Mostly, I heard the dull thumping of my heart in my ears and my own harsh breathing.

This was crazy talk, of course. I mean,
c’mon
. How could anyone believe in something so crazy? Worse yet, if she was telling the truth—at least about the killings—then I was stranded here with a bunch of psychos.

“Lena,” I said, trying again, “just because some people have a fetish for” —and I couldn’t believe I was about to say this— “drinking blood, that doesn’t make someone something they’re not.”

“You think all those people in there just have a fetish?”

My mind was spinning. I was still feeling the effects of whatever it was in Yari’s flask. “Of course. What else could it be?”

“We
really
shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not safe for either one of us.” Lena looked away, pausing. “Josiah, I have seen things.”

“What? The biting? Please! Just because someone can puncture flesh with filed-down teeth doesn’t make them a vampire.”

“Do you seriously think all those people in there are playing games?”

“Of course they’re playing games. And someday they’re all going to have to grow up and get real jobs and let the fantasy go.”

Lena seemed pretty upset. I thought she was going to storm off, and maybe that would have been for the best. I felt sorry for anyone who believed this crap, and Lena obviously did. She seemed like a reasonable person. Everything pointed to her not being delusional, but then again, I hadn’t spent a lot of time with her, either.

“You really believe this, don’t you?” I said.

“It’s not a matter of believing. Believing is what a kid does in Santa Claus. This isn’t faith. Faith and believing is what you do with the unknown. This is very real.”

I knew I’d better drop it. She looked very vulnerable. I took her hand. “Let’s go for a ride,” I said.

“But where’s Yari?” Lena asked, her round eyes meeting mine.

“I have no idea. We don’t need to worry about Yari.”

“She’s pretty possessive.”

“Well, she is nowhere near being my girlfriend, so I wouldn’t worry about her.” Any girl that drugs me and brings in two other women is certainly not the possessive type, and certainly not girlfriend material. Lena stared at me and then looked down at our hands. I could tell she wanted to go with, but something was holding her back. She pushed through it and finally said, ”Okay, I would like that. Let’s get out of here for a bit.”

“Cool.”

Lena and I walked over to my truck. I opened the door for her and she jumped into the passenger side. Lena smelled incredible, and she looked fantastic in her usual black attire.

I got into my side and keyed the ignition and reversed out of the house of horror’s driveway. I found my way back to the same road that I used to get here, and I just drove.

Just to lighten the mood, I said, “Even though it’s dark, I feel at peace out here.”

“Well, you are in great company. Everyone around these parts only like the dark. It’s what they’re all about.”

“Still on the vampire kick, eh?” But before she could answer and we could get into another argument about the undead, I quickly added: “So what are you about, Lena?”

“I like the dark. It makes me think of death.”

“You make it seem like that’s a good thing.”

“Death, for some, is a good thing.”

I shuddered a little. Geez, dark girl. I said, “I have too much living to do to think much about death.”

We lapsed into silence after that rather lively exchange. If she was going to talk like that, then I would rather just sit in silence, anyway. Who likes to talk about death?

A few minutes later, I asked Lena, “So do you still live with your parents?”

“Unfortunately, yeah. I was hoping Atticai and I could get a place.”

“Are you two pretty serious?”

“Yes and no.”

“What does that mean?”

“Emotionally, we are pretty serious. Physically though, that is a whole other story.”

“Physically? I’m confused.” I pulled the truck into a field and parked. “Explain yourself, young lady.”

“Young lady?” She laughed a little. “Okay, well, Atticai and I have never....” Her voice trailed off.

“Never what?” I asked eagerly.

“Never...had sex.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope.”

“Not one time?”

“We haven’t even been to second base.”