Scary Stories

54 pages

The First Bad Thing

Jimmy walked into the woods, moving slowly, listening each time he moved. There was little to hear. The few birds he heard were distant, and the sounds of squirrels were almost nonexistent. It was as though the animals had abandoned the forest around him.

Something's been hunting them. This is where I'll find it.

Jimmy wondered whether it was a man or a woman. A child or an adult.

Is it someone I know? Was it Emily who killed the squirrel? Did something happen to her?

Questions raced through his mind and served as a background to his vigilance. His eyes saw everything, cataloged everything. He was not skilled in woodcraft, and he didn't like being outside, but Jimmy read a lot. More than most people he knew.

He also remembered all of it.

Everything he had ever read, Jimmy could recall. Where it was in a book, where it was on the page. He could recite it verbatim, and he could synthesize the information.

He knew what something could mean.

Jimmy stopped, his eyes latched onto a trio of crows. All three of the birds were on the ground, feathers missing from around their throats, the necks themselves pitifully thin and violated by the massive tears in the flesh. Jimmy peered to the left, and then to the right. It was darker to his left, and he suspected the darkness would lead him to the vampire.

A hint of nervousness made itself known in his thoughts, and Jimmy examined it. It was fear. Fear of death and being eaten.

Jimmy accepted the fear, he acknowledged it, and then he put it away.

He would be afraid later if need be.

I don't have time for fear now.

With his fear handled, Jimmy walked towards the left. He found a thin trail, marred by the signs of violence. Broken bits of bark and trampled ferns. Tufts of fur clung in various places, and in far too many spots, he saw splatters of what could only be blood.

He passed the bodies of several rabbits and a fox. Farther down the path, he found a deer, a large stag with its neck twisted and its eyes bulging. The flesh had been torn savagely from the throat, and there were clear and unmistakable bloody handprints on the body.

Jimmy stopped, took off his knapsack, and retrieved the two-pound sledgehammer and one of the ash stakes. He left the bag partly open, enough so he could slide a hand into it. Then, he put the knapsack on backward, so the straps faced behind him, and the bag portion was on his chest.

With a deep breath, he started off.

The trail became wider, and a foul odor hung in the air. Older corpses lay on either side, and the sight of maggots and flies crawling over the dead creatures sent a shiver of revulsion through Jimmy.

His disgust was harder to control than his fear.

Around him, the darkness thickened. Not enough to block out the sun, but certainly enough to hinder its effectiveness.

Then, to his surprise, Jimmy saw an old camper.

It was a battered, wretched-looking vehicle, with gray primer covering most of the body. Dark curtains hung from the few windows, and the tires were bald. The camper was parked on a dirt road, one which Jimmy suspected was the fire road for the development Emily Arnold had lived in.

Jimmy stared at it and considered how best to approach it.

The door would be on the other side, and he suspected it would be locked. Not because the vampire within would be worried about intruders, but because it wouldn't make sense for a regular human to leave their home, however dilapidated it might be, unlocked.

For that same reason, Jimmy believed, there wouldn't be any traps around the vehicle. Traps would attract too much attention.

It doesn't want attention. Not like that. He tilted his head slightly as he looked at it. There was fresh mud splattered up on the sides.

It moves at night. Looks for a place to hide. It couldn't hide here, not after it took Emily. The police would have searched here. That's why no one's seen these dead animals. Why no one's questioned it.

It just came back.

Jimmy walked in a wide circle around the camper, listening as he went.

Is it a trap? Is it waiting for someone to try and look in? Did Emily do that, just open the door to see if she could find something?

Knowing the missing girl, he suspected she had.

When he had gone around the camper twice, Jimmy was almost positive there was a trap inside the camper. There had to be. The vampire would sleep during the day, as its biology dictated, and then it would awaken at night to eat. If no one had stumbled into the trap, it would hunt animals. But if someone had, then it would eat the person and drive away.

Jimmy stopped across from the camper's single entrance into the body on the passenger's side. He stared at it, trying to picture what it might look like within, what the general layout would be. Somewhere he had seen a schematic of one, and he accessed the memory of it. He knew, without the assistance of the layout, that the front would consist of the driver's area. The center would be the living quarters and kitchen. The bedroom would be at the top of the back, which meant that was where the trap would be.

Easier to catch the meal there, Jimmy thought. Then, the person would be imprisoned, and the vampire could get up and go to the front of the camper and drive it away. The vampire has to be near the door, not in the back. By the door means they control all the exits. It means the vampire can get to the front as quickly as possible.

Jimmy's eyes focused on the door.

The trap is to the left. The vampire will be near the door. I know this.

He crossed the short distance to the door, and when he reached it, Jimmy didn't hesitate to open it. As he did so, he heard a soft click, then the faint whimper of a child.

"Please. Someone help me, please."

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