You Can't Come in Here! (11 page)

Emily's jumbled dreams were shattered by the sudden, jarring ring of her cell phone. She groped around the dark tent until she found her phone. “Who is calling at one eighteen in the morning?” she muttered to herself. Then she saw the caller ID.

She answered the call. “Ethan, are you out of your mind?” Emily whispered.

“Just listen, Em! Listen!”

Emily could clearly hear the panic in Ethan's voice. She had never, ever heard him sound like this. She knew that this was no joke.

“What happened, Ethan? What's wrong?”

“It's Declan,” Ethan cried, his voice choking. “We found him.”

“Found him?” Emily repeated, moving deeper into her tent, turning away from the flap and trying to keep her voice down so she didn't wake up anyone else. “What do you mean, found him? He left here with you and your mom.”

“No, he didn't. He was never at the party. He was not at your house tonight.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“A little while after we got home, Declan said he had to go to the bathroom. He stayed in there forever, so I knocked on the door but got no answer. When I went in, I saw that he was gone and the bathroom window was wide open. I searched around outside, but he wasn't there. When my mom finally opened the hallway closet,
she found him. He was unconscious and all tied up. He's okay, but he was really shaken up.”

“Did he tell you what happened?”

“He said that shortly before we left for the party, while my mom and I were out at the store picking up ice cream toppings, someone grabbed him. Someone very strong. The next thing he knew, he was waking up in the closet when we found him.”

“So then, who was at the party with you tonight?”

“I was,” said a voice from behind Emily, startling her, causing her to drop the phone.

She had not heard anyone enter her tent. She spun around and there he was, looking down at her . . . Declan!

“Who are you?” Emily gasped, her hand reaching instinctively to her neck. “Who are you?”

She watched in horror as Declan slowly changed shape. His features blurred, rippling like wax on a melting candle. Then the process unfolded in reverse. The wavy unclear face re-formed, and Emily found herself staring up at Drew.

“Drew!” she exclaimed.

Every instinct told Emily to run, to push past Drew and get out of that tent. Then her eyes met Drew's dark, penetrating stare. His eyes burned deeply into hers. Emily tried to scream, but her voice choked in her throat, as if invisible hands were clutching her neck. She tried to get up, but found she couldn't move. Some
unseen force held her in place as panic rose up through her, filling her very being.

“Hello, my dear, dear Emily,” Drew said, in a calm, soothing voice. “Thank you for inviting me into your house earlier this evening. Oh, I know you thought I was that boy Declan, but that doesn't matter. You invited me in, and as I explained to you earlier, vampires cannot come into a home unless they are invited in by the person who lives there.”

Vicky suddenly appeared next to her brother in the tent. “Or if they are invited in by another vampire,” she said, smiling down at Emily, adding her intense supernatural stare to Drew's.

Emily suddenly felt her panic ease. The edges of her vision blurred. Only the deep black circles of Drew's eyes remained in sharp focus. Everything else faded. An odd calm washed over her as she looked up and listened to the two oddly comforting voices.

“I know what you're thinking, Emily,” Drew continued. “Why did we wait so long to come into your house? Why didn't we just make you a part of our family during one of the many evenings you were in our house?”

“We had to be sure,” Vicky explained. “We had to spend time with you, to see if you were the one—the right one to spend the rest of eternity with us. You see, Emily, we like you very much. You are special, so special that when we met you, we considered expanding our little family for the first time.”

All of this made perfect sense to Emily in her state of unnatural calmness. Strangely, she felt honored, even anxious, to join them. Some tiny part of her brain realized that the vampires' power included mind control as well as control over her muscles. But she didn't care.

“By now you have figured out that Vicky and I are not really brother and sister,” Drew went on. “I wandered alone for centuries until I found one worthy of joining me.”

“And now we have found another,” Vicky said. “But it took a long time. That's why we were reluctant to come over to your house. We knew that once we were invited in we would take that opportunity to have you join us. You see, we don't like to leave the comfort of our house and our coffins, and when we do, it has to be for something very important. We didn't want to waste the chance before we were sure.”

“Unfortunately, just at the time that we decided you were the one, you chose not to see us any longer,” Drew explained. “And we are sorry you had to see your coffin before you were ready to enjoy it. Once you refused to come to our house anymore, we had to get you to invite one of us in.”

“You feel at peace now, don't you, Emily?” Vicky asked. “You are ready. The time has come. And speaking of time, now you'll have all the time in the world to learn to beat me at foosball and Ping-Pong and learn to play every riff ever played on the guitar . . . and those that haven't even been created yet.”

Vicky opened her mouth, revealing long, sharp fangs. She moved closer.

Emily was suddenly distracted by the sight of Drew slowly morphing again. This time he lost his human shape and changed into the form of a wolf—the very wolf she had seen again and again, complete with blood-specked fangs and a snarling growl. Then slowly the wolf transformed back into Drew, just as he had in Emily's dream.

It was Drew all along, she realized. He was the wolf. He left his house in this form to feed at night. Emily
was so distracted by the astonishing transformation that she hardly noticed the sensation of Vicky's fangs sinking into her neck.

She felt a rush of warmth flood her body. The last bits of fear and apprehension washed away in a gentle wave. Then everything went dark.

The last rays of sunlight disappeared in smears of red and orange behind the distant mountain. As darkness blanketed the world once again, Drew and Vicky stepped from their house into the cool evening.

Years had passed since the night of the sleepover, and much had changed. Drew and Vicky no longer lived in the same town. As the two had done many times before, they moved to an abandoned house in a new town where no one knew them. Where they would be safe. And where they could make new friends.

“I'm certain about Billy,” Vicky said as they kept to the shadows of their dark street.

“It's been a few months and he's come over almost every night,” Drew remarked.

“And I agree with you,” Vicky continued. “It's her turn. And he seems particularly drawn to her.”

“Yes,” Drew replied.

They walked up to a house just down the street from where they now lived. Vicky rang the doorbell.

A boy who appeared to be about Vicky and Drew's age opened the door.

“Hey, Drew, Vicky,” said the boy. “What's up?”

“We realized that we've been friends all this time and we've never even seen your house,” Vicky explained.

Billy looked around, gazing past Drew and Vicky. “Hey, where's your sister?”

“Right here!” called out a voice from behind Drew. “Have my brother and sister been giving you a hard time?”

“Hey, Emily!” the boy said, his face lighting up.

“Hi, Billy,” Emily said. She flashed a big smile at him. “Can we come in?”

“They're not coming back,” Ryan Garcia announced.

“What?” Kelly demanded. Gray slush from her boots fell in clumps onto the woven mat by the front door, leaving behind small pools of water. The warmth of the house felt good. The bus was like a freezer on wheels, and she was starving. Friday was Taco Day. So totally beyond disgusting, and of course, her mom hadn't packed her any lunch. For the last hour, she'd been thinking of nothing but the package of chocolate cookies waiting in the pantry.

“Mom and Dad,” Ryan added.

Kelly kicked off her boots, and Ryan followed her across the front hall and into the kitchen. Her fuzzy blue socks slipped on the worn wooden floor. She dumped
her backpack and hunter-green parka on one of the mismatched chairs, then turned to stare at her little brother. “What are you talking about?”

At ten years old, Ryan delighted in taunting her with secrets. His days were spent scheming to possess more information. As if it made him smarter or more grownup. He still hadn't clued in: She didn't really care. Usually.

Ryan watched her open the pantry and grab the foil package. She slid out four cookies. They were the oversize, hockey-puck kind. Four seems like the right number to make up for lunch, Kelly reasoned. She ate the first one and let him wait. She knew he wanted her to ask again. To beg for more information. Ryan fidgeted, trying so hard not to tell her anything until she asked.

She ate the second cookie, chewing slowly. “So?” she finally said.

“So . . . we're all alone,” Ryan reported. He looked unsure.

“Meaning?”

“Meaning Mom and Dad aren't coming back. Just like I told you.”

Kelly studied her brother's face. He wasn't smiling or smirking. Had something bad really happened?
Her mind raced through the possibilities. Car accident. Plane crash. She grabbed his arm. “Ryan, come on. Tell me what's going on.”

“Snowstorm,” Ryan said, swatting her hand off his sweatshirt. “They're in Philly.”

Kelly took a deep breath, annoyed that her brother had almost scared her. It was only for a second, but still.
That's
my
job,
she thought.
Everyone knows that I'm the best at scaring people.

“When did they call?” Kelly asked, biting into another cookie.