She flushed with pleasure and looked away for a moment. “You know,” she admitted, “I’ve been watching you, too.”
“Really?” I countered.
“Really,” she said. “I guess . . . well, I guess you didn’t notice. People are watching you all the time.”
I shrugged, but smiled, and placed my hand at the small of her back.
We slipped out the back door. I was careful. No one saw us.
“Hey, my car is right over there. And I have a six-pack in a cooler in the back,” I told her. I had noticed that she was carrying a draft beer.
She looked up at me. Those eyes of hers were wicked tonight. “I’m sure you do,” she said.
“Be prepared,” I said. “That’s my motto.”
She laughed again. The sound was throaty. Sexy. Wow. It was going to be a good night. Oh, yes. Halloween. A full moon. This little wishy-washy girl suddenly looking like a Cosmo girl. It was all right. And she just had no idea.
I felt my blood heating up. This was going to be an easy conquest. Easier than I had imagined.
I slipped an arm around her shoulders as we walked to the car. There was a full moon out. Cool. Too cool. You didn’t get a full moon on Halloween all that often.
We reached the car.
“Want to drive?” I asked her.
“Sure.” She sounded a little breathless.
It was such a great pickup. Everyone wanted to drive my car. It was a jazzed-up sports car, an Audi with a few custom alterations. Friends drooled to have my car. And she was getting to drive it.
I opened the driver-side door for her, and she slid in. I bounded around to the passenger’s seat and hopped in beside her. She was running her fingers over the leather seat. “Nice,” she told me.
“Thanks. Ivanna Romanoff,” I said, rolling her name pleasantly on my tongue. “Pretty name.”
“I’m glad you like it,” she told me. I was a little surprised. After the first sign of shock she’d shown, she’d begun gaining some confidence. Maybe she knew that she was nerdy, but—now that she was in the proper attire—dynamite-looking and totally alluring without her hunch-over-her-books and down-on-the-nose glasses.
“Russian?” I asked her.
She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, well, I guess my ancestors were from Eastern Europe, somewhere. Vince Romero. Spanish? Italian?”
I smiled. “Eastern European, too,” I said. “But, hey, maybe that means we’re meant for each other, huh? Romero—Romanoff. Not that far off.”
“Not that far off at all,” she said, nodding.
“There you have it—two unique, mysterious pasts!” I said.
“Oh, quite.” She laughed. “And we both have New England accents,” she said.
“Hey, ain’t that America? Land of opportunity,” I said.
The moon was rising. It was getting later.
Surely, she must know that she was being seduced—no matter how naïve she might have appeared at times.
I was cool, after all.
I found myself realizing that she was close, that she was wearing a truly exotic perfume. Her body was warm, enticing. She had moved even a little closer to me—no, I had moved a little closer to her. That perfume. Wow. It was seductive.
I almost felt guilty.
Almost. In fact, I was so close to guilt, I could taste it.
I tamped down the feeling. It was Halloween. It was perfect. All was going according to plan.
“I always thought of you as shy,” I murmured.
“I guess I am shy, usually. It’s just that . . . well, I’ve heard about you. I’ve watched you, as I told you, and the girls talk, of course,” she told me.
Was it kind of a come-on? Was I supposed to prove that I was as studly as she had heard?
I leaned back, smiling. I let my fingers play in that long, silky black hair of hers. How odd—I mean, it was her hair. The same hair she had every day. Tonight . . . it was electric. So sleek and shiny it almost gleamed blue.
“Where am I going?” she asked.
“Huh?”
“I love driving your car, but where should I drive to?”
“Somewhere quiet. Where we can be alone,” I said.
Too much? Would she bolt?
“Well, where would you be going if you were driving?” she asked.
“Quiet where we won’t be disturbed . . .” I murmured, as if I were deep in thought. I looked at her. “I know. The cemetery.”
“Oh.”
“Does it disturb you? I mean, if so—”
“Oh, no,” she said. “I like cemeteries. They’re full of history.”
“They’re full of the dead,” I couldn’t help but say.
Her sweet, teasing smile slipped back to her lips. “History,” she said stubbornly. “Cemeteries are filled with stories, and with lives gone by, and history.”
“Sure.”
She drove straight to the cemetery far out on Main Street. She was right about the history. The cemetery went way back; heroes from the Revolutionary War were buried in it. Hell, there was a grave that belonged to a fellow who had come over on the Mayflower. There was a small church way down on the western side, so I guess that meant it was officially called a graveyard rather than a cemetery; but the church was one of the oldest buildings in our area, and it was small, locked tight at night. In fact, the structure, standing kind of forlorn in the cool moonlight, made it all the better.
The point here is that the place was old, spooky, and neat. There was a wall around it, an old stone wall. But the wall was about two feet high. I had a blanket and the cooler in back. It was mild for October.
Perfect. Once again, I counted my blessings. All things were—perfect.
“We’re going into the cemetery?” she asked.
“Dead people are the safest people in the world, you know. They won’t hurt you,” I told her. “You just said that you liked cemeteries—they’re filled with history and great stories about lives gone past.”
“That’s in the daytime,” she said, shaking her head. But she was just watching me—she wasn’t really protesting.
“Have you ever been in a cemetery at night?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said coyly.
Maybe. Oh, she was lying.
She shivered slightly.
“We can go somewhere else. I mean, believe it or not, I just kind of love the peace around here, and the . . . the quiet,” I said. I was surprised. I sounded a little lame.
She looked at me and smiled slowly. “Well, I will be with you.”
“You are certainly safe with the folks in a cemetery,” I said. “Graveyard. Whatever.”
Of course, in my mind, I was being totally honest. None of the folks in their graves would do her any harm.
So we gathered up the cooler and a blanket, exited the car, and hopped over the wall. I helped her, of course, setting my hands around her to lift her over the wall, realizing as I did so just how perfect a little figure she had. Tiny waist, and flaring curves above and below. I’d have never imagined that she was so finely honed, that she obviously worked out, that she was such a piece of physical perfection.
That word again. Perfect.
Not a bad night’s work.
We found a place beneath a huge old oak and spread out the blanket. She sat with me and I noticed her drink was gone; I popped the tab on a dark Irish beer and offered it to her. She drank, watching me, those snakelike vampire eyes getting a golden glow in them that was truly exciting. I sipped my beer, I looked to the sky, and then I kissed her. It was great. She was hesitant, a little shy still, despite her demeanor. I pressed her downward, savoring the feel of her heat and the shivering within her.
Then it started. The transformation.
I felt it tear and burn through me, and with Ivanna in my arms, the rip in my muscles, the fire in my blood, and the savage hunger in my heart were just about orgasmic. Soon, she would scream. She would see the shoulder pads fall away, the football breeches stretch
and tear, and she would know the true concept of a guy who was an animal. I felt the first magnificent howl that the moon was eliciting form in my throat.
Yes, I was transforming. . . .
The all-American boy into . . .
The all-American werewolf.
I did have to be careful. I was living in the modern world, of course, here in America. I actually wanted to get my college degree and enter the truly savage arena of corporate law. So I did date, and I was a stud, and I didn’t rip and tear apart all those women who befriended me. But, hell, it was Halloween, and a Halloween with a full moon. I’d been extremely watchful that night; I’d caught her at the service bar, and I knew that we’d exited without anyone seeing us.
I looked down. I looked down longing for that look in her eyes; that look that meant terror and knowledge. But, usually, it had something a little more. Something that told me a woman knew of her own death, and yet her sexuality was at such a heightened peak that she would die in the throes of an ecstatic excitement. And the look in her eyes would be ecstasy in and of itself for me. . . .
This isn’t boasting. This isn’t arrogance, or conceit. It is what I am, and what the beast within is capable of creating.
And the sensation that would follow for me . . .
Ah, it would be wondrous.
Not to mention the soul-shattering wonder of the kill.
But her eyes weren’t full of terror—or excitement. She was staring at me with amusement. Total amusement.
And she started to laugh.
I had never known that laughter would ruin everything. That it would stop the transformation.
“Don’t you know what I am? Don’t you see?” I demanded.
To my astonishment, she pushed at my chest—with a stunning power. I halfway fell back. I stared at her, thinking that my fury would start the transformation all over again.
But she leaped atop me, and her laughter tore from her like a banshee’s cackle in the night, and to my amazement, I discovered that I was pinned beneath her. Pinned! Me!
“Don’t you know what I am? Can’t you see?” she demanded with a throaty chuckle. “You are in costume tonight, and I, finally, am not! Oh, the poor little book-worm! The shy girl—who should fall all over herself for a chance to be with the hot guy. Oh, what a silly, silly egoist of a dumb animal you are!”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came.
Above me, I saw the moon, the beautiful full moon.
That was when she leaned forward and bit me.
Sank her fangs into my flesh and began to slurp.
And beneath that beautiful full moon, I heard the horrid sucking sounds she made, and I felt my blood, my life, my magnificent life, being drained away.
It was Halloween.
And what a Halloween. . . .
Not quite so . . .
Perfect.
SUCKERS
▼ SUZANNE WEYN ▼
▼NEWYORK,2060▼
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to ever visit the tiny planet of Lectus; I just didn’t want to live there. I mean, who wants to move at the end of his junior year of high school? You just don’t ask a guy to do something like that. I was set to go to the junior prom with Stephy Hoppington. She was counting on me. And on July Fourth I was planning my first skydive with my pals. I’d already put a deposit down on the plane ride.
But my family isn’t like other families because Dad and Mom are actors, not just regular thespians, either. Biggs and Julie Boreidae are both movie stars, the kind that appear on the cover of cheap newspapers at the grocery store checkout line with headlines that announce every month that their marriage is ending. Splitsville is the way one magazine put it last March.
These reports were obviously bogus. Mom and Dad were more together as a couple than the parents of anyone else I knew. (Which maybe isn’t saying much, but still . . .)
The weird press and the fact that family was important to Mom and Dad was partly the reason Dad decided to relocate us to Lectus, supposedly the newest, hottest place for the elite to set up residence. He wanted the family to be someplace more private; “away from the ever-prying eyes of the paparazzi,” was how he put it.
My school, Flemont Prep, has some real rich kids in it, but, just the same, all my friends were super impressed that we were going to Lectus. Real estate on Lectus costs so much that only billionaires could afford it. But with Mom and Dad’s combined star power they were able to buy a private ranch on the newly terra-formed planet at the outer edge of the solar system—plus first-class tickets on the new, high-speed, luxury space transport, Gattus.
Not one of us four kids wanted to go. My older sister, Felicia, cried day and night until her face was permanently puffed. My younger twin brothers, Chester and Chomper, weren’t any happier. (We gave Chomper that nickname because as a baby he liked to bite everything in sight.) I tried to reason with Dad about the inconvenience of living so far away from the movie industry, but Chester and Chomper just plain-out begged, pleading not to be taken from their friends.
I don’t think Mom was even really that thrilled about the move, but she was philosophical about it. “Lectus is supposed to be gorgeous,” she said, trying to console us, “and it’s a wonderful hopping-off point to some of the really desirable other planets that are so popular these days as movie locations. Dad and I can be home much more often this way.”
We were standing on the docking platform when Gattus came into view. I had to admit, the huge space transport was something to see. It was so gigantic I felt like a microbe standing next to it. And it had these two giant, green headlights in front. As it descended into its transport dock its engine purred steadily.
“All aboard, kids,” Dad instructed as we crossed the walkway. When we reached Gattus, we entered a dark walkway. It was soft and the floor was cushiony under my feet.
“What is this?” I asked Dad.
“It’s a bio-transport,” Dad explained. “All our biological needs are built right into the structure of the ship.”
“Do you mean I could bite this floor and there would be food in it?” I asked in disbelief.
“Yep.”
“Weird,” I mumbled.
In no time at all, we arrived at our new home on the planet Lectus. As the transport docked, an uneasy feeling overcame me. Maybe it’s just fear of the unknown, I told myself. How I wish now that that had been true.
As soon as we disembarked, a space bus whizzed us out to our ranch. It was a vast expanse, but there wasn’t much livestock other than a few goats. Huge white tumbleweeds blew across the flat acreage. “It doesn’t look like much now, but once we’ve had a chance to fix it up, you’re going to love it,” Dad said, opening the front doors to our new home.
As I stepped inside the big, empty ranch house, I wasn’t so sure. That eerie feeling was still with me and rattling around this huge, vacant place wasn’t helping.
“Let’s go home,” Chester requested. “I don’t like it here.”
“Me neither,” Felicia seconded him.
“Give it a chance,” Mom said. “Once we move our belongings in it’ll feel more like home.”
That night, I tried to call Stephy, but as I’d suspected, the satellite signal didn’t reach back home. Felicia must have discovered this at the same time I did because I heard her shouting from her new bedroom: “This is Hell! We are living in Hell now!”
The next day couldn’t have been more boring. There was no one around. I actually missed going to school! Desperate for something to do, I wandered to the farthest edge of our property and was really happy to discover another luxurious ranch house very like ours. At least we weren’t completely alone out here.
I approached nervously, feeling awkward about just introducing myself to strangers. I came up on a grassy hill behind my new house and from there I could see into the yard. My nearest neighbors had a pool, and someone was floating in it.
Feeling encouraged because I wouldn’t actually have to knock
on the door in order to meet my new neighbors, I quickened my pace. As I got closer, I saw that the person floating there in the pool was possibly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.
She looked to be about my age, maybe a little younger, but not much. This girl was too awesome to be real. For a moment I was sure I was dreaming. The sun glistened off her dark hair. And, her skimpy bikini revealed a figure that made all thoughts of Stephy Hoppington fly out of my head.
“Hi, I’m Phil,” I said as I climbed over the split-rail fence separating our properties. “I just moved into the ranch next to yours.”
She swam to the pool’s edge and propped herself up on her elbows; her brown eyes studied me in a languid, sleepy kind of way. “I’m Etchenia.”
“Pretty name.”
“Thanks.”
She was so beautiful.
“Is school done for the season?” I asked. “I’d sort of like to meet some other kids.”
Etchenia shook her head. “Everyone has private tutors on Lectus.”
“Why?”
“Kidnapping,” she answered in a low, secretive tone.
“What?” I asked.
Etchenia nodded. “Kids around here sometimes just disappear. Older people, too.” She snapped her fingers. “Whole groups of people—entire neighborhoods. Poof! Gone. Just like that.”
“Has anyone ever demanded a ransom?” I asked. I figured that the reason for the kidnappings was because Lectus was such a wealthy planet.
Etchenia shook her head. “Never. And no one has ever come back.”
“Wow,” I murmured. Suddenly it occurred to me that maybe she was a little crazy. Could what she was telling me be true? It seemed impossible.
But she was so hot and gorgeous that I desperately hoped she wasn’t also a loon. “With all these disappearances, aren’t you scared to be out in the pool all alone?”
“I’m not alone.” She gestured back to the house and, for the first time, I noticed armed guards dressed entirely in black stationed on two of the balconies. “Telescopic, long-range rifles,” she reported.
Instinctively, I backed away from her.
“Don’t worry,” she assured me with a twinkling laugh. “I have a hand signal for danger, and I didn’t give it.”