Things that Go Bump in the Night

Chapter 7: The Place Between

Chapter Seven:

“Juniper could you go get me some basil from the garden?” Brenda’s voice asked me from the kitchen. I dropped my head into my text book and groaned. Why was it always me? I looked over at Chey, who was sprawled across the couch watching some sort of stupid television show. It was about werewolves. They alwasys were now.

“Make Chey do it, I’m busy.” I yelled back, trying to return to my homework. Calculus. Yuck.

“Mom! The show JUST started!” Chey suddenly rebuked, lying through her teeth. She had been watching the freaking television ALL afternoon!

“Juniper your sister’s program just came on, just go get it please.” Brenda's voice called back, clearly frustrated. I slammed my text book shut.

“Fine.” I snapped, getting up from the chair at the table and walking across the room to the back porch door. Chey stuck her tongue out at me jeeringly as I approched her and I responded by slapping her in the back of the head as I walked by the side of the couch.

“Ouch, MOM JUNIPER HIT ME!” she yelled. I rolled my eyes.

“Tattle telling? Really?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow as I opened the back porch. “What are you five?”

She glowered at me but I ignored her and whatever her mother was yelling at me as I walked out the door and down the porch steps to the garden.

It was dark. But the night was warm and the moon was bright enough that I could see enough to find my way around, finding one of the basil bushes and beginning to violently rip off leaves.

“Stupid sister.” I grumbled.

Once I had a good handful I decided to leave the poor bush alone and looked up at the clear night sky. It was peaceful. Quiet.

Eerily quiet.

No crickets chirping or frogs croaking.

 It didn’t sit well with me.

I looked back into the lightened windows of the house. Dad should have been home by now.

Where was he?

I went back to the house and stomped directly to the kitchen, dropping the basil leaves on the counter next to the cooktop that Brenda was working over. She thanked me without looking at me, pushing her blonde hair behind her ears as she bent down to put the garlic bread into the oven.

I looked at the clock.

7:55 p.m.

Dad was never later than 6:30 coming home from work. He was clock-like that way, almost like a robot in some regards, and he put the “P” in Punctual.

“Did Dad call you?” I asked.

Brenda, shut the oven and looked up at the clock in a frazzled way that I recognized as her signature look. Everyone had one. Dad liked to joke that I was born pissed off and had stayed that way my whole life.

“No, he’s probably still at the office.” She told me, going back to cooking.

I frowned.

“I’m going to go out and look for him.” I told her. She shook her head as she dug in the fridge.

“Honey, you’re not old enough to be out in the streets by yourself past curfew.” She told me. I rolled onto my toes feeling anxious.

“If I get stopped I’ll just tell them that I was going to meet Dad. We’ll walk together anyway.” I told her, using the voice that she called my “convincing tone.”

She sighed and threw her hands up.

“Fine!” She told me. “Just hurry up.”

 

I half jogged down the street toward were my dad worked with an ache in my stomach that wouldn’t go away. Something was wrong. I could feel it. I was halfway there and I still hadn’t seen a trace of him.Where was he?

I wanted to yell out for him but I couldn’t.

If I did a patrol would be on me faster than I could finish yelling.

I was almost to the main business district when I saw something that made my heart drop out of my chest. There was something in the street, some sort of big black lump about the size of a person. No. Nononononono.

I ran to it. Knowing. I knew already even though I hadn’t seen.

“Daddy!” I yelled, the worry of the patrols forgotten. I ran to him, skinning my knees on the asphalt as I slid to a stop at his side.

“Daddy!”

I rolled him to his side, my hands shaking. He was cold.

His skin was ashen in the moonlight, making him look even paler against his dark hair.

His eyes were open.

“Oh Daddy…no…no.” I cried a wild sob escaping my chest.

I looked down at his chest.

It was ripped to shreds.

Along with his throat.

It was ripped open.

I put my hands on his throat, thinking stupidly that could stop the bleeding.

I didn’t need to stop it.

It wasn’t bleeding.You don't bleed when....

NO!

I felt something wet soaking into my pants and looked down to see a black pool stretched underneath him in the moonlight. It was cold.

“H-Help.” I squeaked. My breath catching in my throat and my whole body trembling. “HELP! Please! H-Help.” I managed to wail, my voice disappearing into the night with a deafening silence.

I cradled his head in my lap. Blood dripping off of his clothes and staining though mine. My hands were covered his blood.

He can’t be dead. Daddy. Not my Daddy.

“Did someone call for help?” a voice asked behind me, making the hair on the back of my hair stand on end. My gut twisted.

I didn’t have to turn, because suddenly the owner of the voice was in front of me. But this wasn’t right. No he wasn’t here. He didn’t fit.

It was that monster. Black eyes, dark hair, large frame. He smiled and his fangs dripped with blood, bright red blood.

Too red. None of the color drained out by the moonlight.

“It’s ok, you’ll see him soon.” He promised, pointing at me. I frowned at him, completely bewildered and shaken. 

But then I felt it.

Something hot coming from my shoulder.

I looked.

I was bleeding, bleeding the same color of hot red blood that his fangs were dripping.

Pouring out like a faucet.

All I could see was blood. Red blood. Black blood. My blood mixed with my fathers. I could smell blood, even seemed to taste in my mouth, choking on it. 

I was bleeding to death.

“But I help you out.” The monster grinned, his face twisting into that of a beast before he lunged at me, sinking his teeth back into my hide.

All I could do was scream.