Twilight (Book 1 of The Shade Hunt Trilogy)

Chapter Two: That Night. That Man.

It was a dark and stormy night. And I happened to reading A Wrinkle In Time. Ironic, right?

My little brother, Nestor, was probably drawing in his room. He loved illusion drawing, and just looking at the sketches on his walls made my head hurt.

Mom called us for dinner, and we all ate to the wonderful (not) music of rain pouring on our roof. It was so loud, I was afraid that the roof would collapse on us from the sheer pressure of the water. But fortunately, it didn't.

But something else did.

Dad got up to go to the restroom. Ten minutes passed, and he didn't come back.

"Michael? What's taking you so long?" Mom called. No response. "Can you go get your father?" she asked Nestor. She did that sometimes, when she didn't want to get up herself.

Nestor didn't come back either.

"Athena, stay here," Mom told me, frowning. "Hide, and don't come out until I tell you to." I did as she said, barely managing to squish myself inside of an empty cupboard that had no shelves, for some reason.

The minutes passed. My phone told me that it had only been four minutes, but it felt like forty. Finally, I heard sounds. I was about to come out when I remembered Mom's warning to not come out until she told me to. I could hear doors opening and closing, as if ... someone was searching ... for me. That someone walked all around the house, opening bedroom and bathroom doors, until I finally heard Mom's voice.

"Athena? You can come out now." But I hesitated. Hadn't someone been looking for me just seconds ago? The voice couldn't have been Mom. Yet, it was her. It was her voice, and she was telling me that it was safe to come out.

Still suspicious, I opened the cupboard door quickly (thank goodness it didn't squeak.

I didn't see Mom. Instead, I saw a tall, dark figure. Calling out to me in Mom's voice. A perfect imitation. It sent chills down my spine. He (I think) was turned away from me for now, but I knew that my luck wouldn't last long. Ignoring all stealth and secrecy, I dashed out the backyard door, though not before I saw what was on the floor, by his feet.

Three bodies lay on the ground, ghostly pale. On each of their necks was a pair of bright red dots, rapidly fading, and a thought crossed my mind. I couldn't stop, though. He had turned around and seen me. And I saw his face. His eyes were pitch-black. Blacker than anything I'd ever seen. So black, they seemed to glow black. And his teeth. His canines were long, tapered, and sharp, like fangs, glinting in the dim light. I could hear him running after me, though he didn't shout after me, probably to avoid attracting attention. I did the shouting for him.

I shouted and ran until I was hoarse and breathless, and I slowly realized that I wasn't being chased. He hadn't followed me. Was he afraid of being caught?

I called 9-1-1, and the police soon came. I tried to tell them what I had seen, but they looked at me oddly, as if I was going insane, so I shut up. The marks on my family's necks had disappeared completely, so I had no proof. The police found that Dad had a broken neck, Nestor had been strangled, and Mom had been stabbed with a knife. They already had enough proof that somebody had killed them. They didn't need or want to hear a fifteen-year-old girl's rants about strange marks on her dead family's necks or a man with pitch-black, glowing eyes and fangs.

But I knew what I had seen. That man was a vampire.