Revenant (4 page)

“Did you just say yes?” Brianna asks once he’s out of earshot.

“Yeah, you don’t date
ever
,” says Katie.

Dodger’s silent. For a while, I’m silent too. I try to search for a reason why I said yes, and I come up empty. It feels like several minutes go by before I shrug and say “yeah. Guess I did.”

Brianna and Katie give me high fives. However, I notice Dodger isn’t looking very happy. Her eyes trained like a sniper’s red light on Alex Fowler. 

Act Three: Hunters

My arrow is straight and true. It hits the target on the first ring surrounding the bullseye and embeds itself in there.

“You’ve really got some skill, Scout,” says my uncle Hunter, who is suddenly a frontrunner for the most-accurate-name award. “Most people take about a month to get that close.”

“My dad says there’s been so many slayers in the family for so long, that fighting’s just finding its way into our genes.” I draw back another arrow and take aim, hoping to fire it exactly to the left of my first. It’s Sunday, and my father and I are at my uncle’s cabin in southern Washington. They’re giving me a crash course in archery and general vampire-fighting skills. We’re out in his front yard right now, facing a row of half a dozen circular targets.

The outdoor environment invigorates me. It’s morning, the crisp air chills me and gets my blood racing a bit faster. My senses become sharper and my focus is absolute. Not far away, there are echoes in the woods. Birds chirping and sticks occasionally snapping from larger animals stepping on them. Evergreen trees stand tall and commanding, and when the wind rustles their leaves it brings a faint smell of pine to my nose.

A particularly strong gust of wind blasts my right ear, and I pull up my hoodie. I grit my teeth together and release. It’s an okay shot, I guess. It impresses Hunter, but it was too low and a little too far to the left for my liking.

“Another good shot, Scout. Aren’t your fingers hurting yet?”

“To be honest they’ve been numb for the last several shots now.”

“Well that would’ve been when you should’ve asked to go back inside!” My uncle jokes. “Come on. Let’s warm you up before starting the hand to hand stuff.”

My heartbeat quickens. I’ve become so comfortable with archery, but I haven’t yet trained in hand to hand. The thought of it is a little intimidating, really. So I stall and ask to shoot five more arrows. He obliges, but says that he’s getting too cold, and will be inside waiting for me when I was done. I wait until he’s all the way back inside the cabin to begin preparing my next shot. I want to drag it out and stay outside in my comfort zone for as long as possible.

I grab my iPod and put the earbuds in my ears. I’m not exactly in the mood for any artist in particular, so I shuffle it. It’s purely coincidence, but the song that plays is “That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore,” the same one I was listening to when the bus had rattled and shook, shattering my perception of the world along with it.

I turn up the volume and let Johnny Marr’s guitar wash over me. I aim to try and split the first arrow I shot in half. Robin Hood style.

Park the car at the side of the road

You should know

Time's tide will smother you

And I will too

              The arrow flies, but something distracts me in the last half second before I release, and the arrow flies wide left. My eyes find the entry to the woods, darting left and right looking for the source of the sound. At first, all I see is woods. Tree trunks and pine needles. But then, just for a moment, I see it.

It was all so brief. I try to convince myself that my eyes had simply picked up shadows in a weird way, but it doesn’t work. What I saw was the tall, strong figure of a man leaning against a tree, watching me shoot. He’d run off into the woods the moment I had looked over.

When you laugh about people who feel so

Very very lonely

Their only desire is to die

Well, I'm afraid

It doesn't make me smile

I wish I could laugh

“Who’s there?” I shout pretty much the most stereotypical thing I could’ve shouted. “I saw you! I know you’re watching me!”

Nothing. The woods are quiet. Not as in innocuously quiet. Eerily so. The birds had all ceased to chirp and even the wind had died down to a crawl. My heart starts to pound in my chest and I feel that primitive section of the brain kick in, screaming at me to run. I don’t. I resist the urge to turn tail and instead slowly back up towards the cabin. I keep my bow drawn and never take my eyes off the woods. I’m almost to the door when I see a figure dart between two trees, stop, look at me again, and take a step out into the clearing.

It’s a man, and that’s pretty much all I can tell. He’s wearing all black, down to a baseball cap on his head obscuring his eyes. He’s wearing black gloves and even though I can’t see his lips from this distance, part of me knows that he’s smiling. A voice comes to me, and it’s not coming from the outside world, but rather inside my mind. A man’s voice whispering “are you afraid? Why aren’t you afraid, Scout?”

I can no longer withhold the urge to run. I sprint the last fifteen feet to the cabin door and breathe a huge sigh of relief once I’m inside. I remember Dodger telling me that vampires couldn’t enter a house without being invited in first, and though I have no idea why that is, I’m very glad the limitation exists.

Uncle Hunter is in the living room. He’s seated on a couch listening to a baseball game over the radio. I sit down beside him, trying to control my heartbeat and debating if I should inform him of what I saw. I feel like that would be the logical thing to do, and I don’t know why I so strongly wish to keep this secret.

“Oh hey Scout. Hang on, game’s almost over,” says my uncle. He directs me to be silent as we listen to the grainy announcer calling the last pitch of the game.

“Well it’s a 1-2 count, and this is the last gasp for the Mariners. Down 4-2 here at home to Oakland. Here’s the wind up, the pitch is on it’s way and... struck him out! Mariners fall at home, drop to twelve games out of the division-”

“Baah!” Hunter mutes the radio. “Maybe one day they’ll be decent again.”

“Maybe,” I say.

“So. Melee time, right?” He asks, clapping his hands together.

“Yeah. Melee.” I’m nervous. And I’m sure I look the part, because Hunter replies with “Don’t be afraid, Scout. It’s just practice.”

He smiles, and I shiver despite the reassuring gesture. That voice I heard in my head has me rattled. My world is no longer safe. Suddenly, this melee training no longer seems scary. Only necessary.

Hunter leads me into another room which contains a pool table, hockey equipment, a foosball table, beanbag chairs, and other sporting goods. My father is there, standing in an area that’s been cleared out of everything but a blue mat like you would find in the PE classes at school. My father’s in a white outfit. It has a specific name, and it’s on the tip of my tongue, but it escapes me at the moment. I know I’ve seen it before. It’s what people wear at martial arts competitions. He has another one draped over his arm.

“Put this on, Scout,” he says, tossing it to me.

“What’s this called again?”

“A gi.”

“Right. One moment then.”

I leave the room for a moment and start changing in the hallway. The gi has a sort of rough feel to it. It’s not like the polyester I’m used to. It looks like it’ll itch, but being itchy is certainly the least of my concerns at the moment. For now, I’m focusing on learning as much as I can about fighting vampires as possible.

I take off my shirt and toss it on the ground beside me. It takes me a second to figure out which way is up on the gi, and I’m glad no one’s here to chuckle at my noviceness. My left arm is halfway through the sleeve when my phone vibrates at my hip. It’s Dodger. She can wait until my practice is over, I think, and return the phone to its pocket. I fit my other arm through and turn to go back inside for practice when Dodger calls again.

“Geez, you’re pushy,” I say aloud before answering.

“Scout! Hey!”

“Um hi Dodger.”

“How’d the date go?” The words are friendly, but she seems almost relieved to hear my voice.

“What date?”

“With Alex.”

“Who?”

“Scout stop that. How did it go?”

“Geez, Dodger what’s gotten into you? I don’t know what you’re-”

“Shit! Shit, shit, shit this is bad. This is really bad.”

“Dodger talk to me. What is it?”

“You don’t remember, do you? You know Alex Fowler, right?”

“Nope.”

“He’s a tight end on the football team.”

“Dodger you know I know nothing about sports, right?”

“That’s not important!” She basically screams it into the phone. “Oh no. How much do you remember?”

“About what?”

“About... me.”

“You’re... Dodger.” I look around quickly to make sure no one else can hear the next part. “You’re a vampire, you’re...”

“That’s good enough. Phew. Okay listen to me
very
carefully. You got that?”

“Yes?”

“Yesterday at lunch. Alex Fowler walked right up to you and asked you on a date. You said yes. That you would meet him for a movie this Saturday.”

“He didn’t-” I begin

“Yes he did.”

“I didn’t do anything with any Alex Fowler Saturday.”

“Oh really? So what
did
you do?”

Then it hits me. There’s a gap in my memory between arriving at school on Friday and waking up this morning. It’s like my life is a recording, and someone edited out those hours entirely. Nothing of it remained. Instead I feel like my life just jumped forward as if in a dream from event to event. I’m trembling as I ask my next question.

“Dodger... what’s happening?”

“Alex is a vampire. I knew it. I knew it and I should’ve never let you go out with him. He hypnotized you to forget whatever you found out on that date.”

“You can do that?”

“Some of us, yeah. I can’t. It’s a gift.”

I remember the voice I heard in my head earlier, and ask Dodger if that’s also a vampire thing. She doesn’t answer me, however. The voice in my mind does.

“Yes, Scout. Only the most gifted of us.”

I snap my head left and right, looking for the source of the voice even though I know it’s in my own head. It chuckles at me. It mocks me.

“Scout, you there?” asks Dodger. “Did you hear me? I said yes. Only a few though.”

“Come to the door, Scout,” says the voice.

I walk over to the front door and stand up on the tips of my toes to look through the peephole. I see a tall, broad-shouldered man waiting outside the door. He’s grinning devilishly. Fangs hide behind his lips and his eyes look bloodshot.

“Open the door, Scout,” says the voice.

“Scout? Hello? Answer me,” says Dodger.

I talk to Dodger in a whisper. “There’s a vampire at the door.”

“Shit! Okay hang tight. I’m coming.”

“No! Don’t. I’m not in Portland. I’m at my Uncle’s cabin. In Washington.”

“Is it Alex?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember what he looks like.”

“Open the door, Scout. Won’t you please?” says the voice.

“Whoever it is keeps talking to me. Like that telepathy thing.”

“Ignore it,” says Dodger. “Now listen closely to me. I am going to ask you to do something incredibly stupid. And if you do it wrong... just, don’t do it wrong. For my sake.”

“Yes?”

“Open the door. But not now. Wait for me to give you the okay. When I do, open the door, take a good look at him, and slam it as fast as you can.”

“Okay.”

“But
don’t
look him in the eye.”

“Why not?”

“That’s how they hypnotize you,” she says. “They look you in the eye and they get you. Right now, this guy’s not going to hurt you. He has to be invited inside. But if you look him in the eye...”

“He can hypnotize me to let him in.” I finish the thought for her.

“Exactly.”

I take a long, deep inhale, close my eyes, and exhale through my nose. The voice keeps trying to talk to me, but I blot it out. I rest my hand on the doorknob and wait for Dodger’s okay.

One second. Two seconds. Five.

“Now!” she shouts.

I almost screw up right away, because my eyes are staring right at his chin when the door opens. He looks down to catch mine but I look down and away. I dart my eyes once more across his body before slamming the door. It all takes about a second in real time, but the nerves and peril of it all leaves me feeling exhausted.

“Aww. Why won’t you look at me?” says the voice.

“Did you get it?” asks Dodger.

“Yes. Dirty blonde hair. Tall. Earring on the right ear. Has a cross necklace around his neck.”

“That’s him. It’s Alex.”

I hear my father call from the other room. “Scout? You almost ready?”

“Just a second!” I holler back.

“Good,” says Alex’s voice. “Wouldn’t want to bring daddy into this. Don’t want him finding out about your old friend.”

I have an idea suddenly. The kind of idea that just springs into your mind out of nowhere. The kind that can either be a stroke of brilliance, or idiocy, with no in between. “Dodger?” I ask, “What happens if I open the door, but shut my eyes?”