They packed the car. It was all ready to go at a little past nine-thirty at night. Earlier that night they went over to Ivan’s old house and gathered up all the clothes, books, toys and games they needed to take with them. They emptied the house of food and snack items to bring with them as well. Then, Ivan went into his parents' room where he grabbed a few photo albums of their whole family. He also opened his mother’s jewelry box, the place she kept three thousand dollars that only he and his parents knew about. It was for use during an emergency only. Ivan took that, knowing it would be enough for them to get a start on. He also took his mom’s golden locket necklace she wore on very special occasions, knowing that Christina would want it later in her life.
Back at Mr. White’s house, Mr. White could not leave the house knowing that there was a raccoon under the deck, tearing away at his parents' treasured house. None of them knew how, but that raccoon was still alive under that porch. They could hear it moving about, scraping its claws under the deck, tearing the wood to shreds.
Mr. White returned with scrapes, bruises and even a bite mark from the raccoon, but he was sure that he had killed it with his machete. There was blood on it to prove it.
“I cannot believe that you got so banged up over a silly raccoon!” Gracey exclaimed, examining Mr. White’s wounds.
“Ouch! Stop that! Gracey, it stings!” Mr. White protested when Gracey poured the peroxide over his cuts.
“Oh suck it up you big baby,” she teased, patting Mr. White’s head and telling him that he was going to be okay.
“I hope the damn thing wasn't rabid!” Mr. White said.
“I thought they only bit when they were rabid?” Latianna said, with a confused look upon her face.
“Or if you are prodding it with a machete, trying to kill it!” Mr. White explained with a slight laugh as he winced again in pain.
“If the thing had rabies, it would have been out from under the porch and died days ago!” Gracey said definitively.
“I guess you are right,” Mr. White said, patting off the excess peroxide with a hand towel. Latianna and Ivan watched Gracey bandage the wound as if she had done it a million times.
“I can’t stand the sight of blood, but once all the blood is gone, I know exactly what to do!” Gracey laughed about the irony of that.
“Well at least you did not have to take him to the emergency room. Then, we never would have gotten out of here by tonight!” Latianna said thankfully.
“You got that right, kiddo,” Mr. White said. “I swear, for an emergency room, those people do not respond that quickly and spend a lot of time fixin’ ya up,” Mr. White said as they walked off to the car and got everybody loaded into it.
“Man, I don’t know what they gave me at that hospital for medication, but boy is it hard to come off of. I feel really weird, kinda sick, and desperately hungry.”
“That’s just because it is late and you have not eaten anything yet, love,” Gracey said, rolling her eyes. “I swear men never stop complaining about something or other. You should get used to it now, Latianna, because you have a lot of years of living with it! I tell you what!” Gracey said, half way joking, half way serious.
Gracey stepped into the driver’s seat in the car and turned the key.
I can't believe we're leaving, Mr. White thought to himself. He thought about future plans that would never work now. He wondered what would become of his beloved house. But most of all, he wondered what his new future would hold and how proud his parents would be of him for taking in those three kids.
“Are we ready?” Gracey asked, looking back at everyone.
“Yes!” everybody exclaimed, as excitedly as they could. Everybody was grateful and happy to be getting out of Riverwolf Pass, getting away from the memories of the night before, and getting away from vampires all together.
Everybody agreed earlier not to speak a word about vampires to Christina. She was far too young to know about that sort of stuff. It would scare her, and scare her badly if she knew the truth. Therefore, they decided this was the one time it was better to lie to somebody than to tell them the truth. Maybe when she was older she could know... but not now, not at four.
Mr. White, Gracey, Ivan, Latianna, and Christina drove off into the darkness, heading somewhere towards Maine, leaving their old lives behind, forever.