Kindred

Sighing in aggravation Cassie wrapped her arms around herself, not understanding the strange melancholy enshrouding her lately. But try as she might, she could not shake the misery that clung to her like a second skin. Her funk was not a good place to be; becoming worn down by her life would only get her killed sooner.

“Of course not,” Chris agreed.

“Yeah,” Cassie mumbled absently.

Melissa’s onyx eyes focused intently on Cassie, her pretty face scrunched slightly as she studied her. Cassie prickled under the scrutiny, but she had grown accustomed to Melissa’s fixed stares. It was a look Melissa often wore when she was trying to decipher the future paths a person might take. Cassie never asked about her future, she didn’t want to know, but she was certain that Melissa had already glimpsed some of it. Although, Melissa never let onto whether it was good or bad, and that was the way that Cassie liked it.

Cassie broke the stare first, becoming slightly unnerved as Melissa’s gaze went on longer than normal. Shaking her head, Melissa broke into a beautiful grin that showed off her perfect white teeth. “Let’s dispose of these guys.

Between the three of them it did not take long to drag the bodies into the woods and hide them within the shadowed interior. Cassie didn’t worry that the bodies would be discovered. Once day broke the bodies would burn away, all evidence of their existence would disappear into a pile of ash. The animals would not come for these bodies either, there was nothing but evil for them here.

“I’m hungry,” Melissa announced wiping the dirt from her hands.

“Yeah, me too,” Chris agreed, patting his flat stomach.

“What else is new?” Cassie inquired lightly.

His handsome face lit up as he threw his arms casually around both their shoulders. “B’s and S’s,” he suggested.

“Ugh you’re going to become a giant puddle of grease if you keep eating at that place,” Melissa groaned.

Chris shrugged as they began to make their way through the darkened cemetery. “What can I say? I love my grease.” He smiled brightly, pulling them tighter against his side. “I’m a growing boy.”

“You’re arteries are growing closed!” Melissa retorted.

Chris rolled his eyes and leaned closer to Cassie. “Please rescue me from the vegetarian Nazi.”

Cassie chuckled softly and shook her head at him. “You’re on your own with this one.”

Cassie tried to keep her gaze focused straight ahead, but despite her best intentions not to, she glanced back to the edge of the dark cemetery, and the thick woods. Though it was quiet now, it was from there that the two vampires had emerged tonight. She didn’t know why, but for some reason vampires were attracted to the cemetery. She thought it might be because they had never had a proper burial of their own, but she had no way to know what the monsters thought, or why they acted like they did.

She spent far too many of her nights with Chris and Melissa, stalking out the cemetery and waiting to see what might pop out of the woods. She also spent far too many nights hanging out around restaurants, and busy places, trying to keep people safe from the monsters that lurked in the night. By reading the papers and keeping an eye on the news, they were usually able to discern when a vampire was hunting in the area.

When reports of strange disappearances, or wild animal attacks started to surface, they all knew they were going to be in for long nights, and long weeks, until the things causing the disappearances and deaths were caught and destroyed. “Wild animal” was often the term used to describe anything that the authorities couldn’t fully explain, or understand, in the area. To the three of them, it usually meant vampire, as there were few dangerous wild animals on Cape Cod. Cassie didn’t know what the authorities told themselves in order to go to sleep after these attacks, and their poor explanation about the deaths. Nor did she particularly care.

She sometimes envied them their blissful, deep rooted denial though. She could never experience it again. When she read about the “wild animal” attacks, there was no peaceful denial for her to slip into. There was only hunting, stalking, skulking, and death.

A momentary flash of guilt shot through her, shaking her slightly with its ferocity. She was not the one that had killed these monsters first, she reminded herself forcefully. That had been some other monster, not her. The lives of the vampires they hunted had been forfeit long before the three of them ever came along. If the men they had killed tonight had not been stopped, they would have caused even more death and destruction. More innocent lives would have been lost; they had done the right thing here. Though she kept telling herself this, it did not ease the knot of guilt that encircled her.

Cassie’s gaze darted over the darkened headstones. The night was quiet, but she couldn’t help the chill that crept down her spine. She spent half of her nights in this cemetery, but she never got used to the coldness that enveloped it, the pain that suffused it. Loss and anguish permeated the air, lingering remnants from the living that had been left behind to mourn their lost loved ones.

Making their way slowly out of the wrought iron gate, Cassie allowed them to lead her down the quiet street toward the center of town. The sidewalk was dark; streetlights had not been placed this far away from the center of town. Cassie glanced toward the woods surrounding them, her eyes narrowed as she studied the darkened recesses. An owl hooted, fluttering from the branches of an oak to a maple. The leaves of the trees were a bright green against the dark night. Nothing else stirred, not even a mouse emerged. It seemed that even the animals sensed the gloom in the air and did not want to come out.

Reaching the end of the road, they made a right toward the large rotary marking the center of town. From the giant rotary five roads branched off, leading toward back streets and residential homes. But the first fifty to a hundred feet of each road was packed with stores, restaurants, and bars.

They finally reached the streetlights that lit the sidewalks and roads. A few cars were driving around the rotary, their headlights bounced across the pavement, music filtered from their open windows. People wandered the streets, enjoying the places still open at this time of night.

Though it was almost nine, there was still a large crowd gathered around B’s and S’s. The front of the burger place was bright against the dark night. An old wooden sign hung from the side of the building, the name Burger’s and Shake’s was spelled out in bright red lettering. Burger’s and Shake’s wasn’t a very original name, but it was the two things the restaurant did best. It was also the two things that most people stuck to, as the rest of the menu was a little iffy at times. That was the main reason why B’s and S’s had been designated the teen hang out for the past twenty years, as people over the age of twenty one rarely ate there again.