Juvenilia

“Good night, Phil.”

“Good night, Joe.”

The two security guards parted ways. Joe was going home, his shift having ended, while Phil was just starting his shift. It was ten o’clock at night, and Phil would be on duty until the crack of dawn. When he first started this job, a few months ago, working the graveyard shift at the old amusement park all by himself seemed like a scary thing to do. He never admitted that to anyone, of course. He couldn’t let the other guys know that he sometimes felt afraid. But doing the same job night after night for a few months proved that there wasn’t much to be afraid of. The old amusement park was on the outskirts of town, and since it was closed no one ever came out this way anymore. Occasionally, he had to chase off a trespasser or two, maybe some kids looking to break into the place for kicks or just looking for a place where they could get high, but that was about it. Otherwise, the job was pretty boring. He preferred to spend most of his time here, in the guard booth just inside the entrance of the park, where at least there was a TV.

Phil watched Joe get in his car and drive away. He watched the lights as they faded from view, and then he said, “Well, I guess it’s gonna be another boring night.”

He went into the guard booth and turned on the TV. He heard a news reporter say, ” . . . and that makes the fifth mysterious death in as many weeks . . .” Phil turned the channel. He didn’t want to watch the news, that was too boring, but the next station he turned to was also running the news: ” . . . all of the victims died from neck lacerations which police speculate . . .” he changed the channel again and finally found an old movie, one of those slasher films from the 80s. Before, a movie like this would have made him nervous since he himself was all alone in the middle of nowhere, but it didn’t bother him anymore. He knew nothing was going to happen.

He watched the movie for about an hour. He didn’t jump when a scary moment occurred in the film because he had seen this movie a million times before. He already knew what was coming. “These horror movies are so stupid,” he mumbled to himself. “They’re all exactly the same.” He turned off the TV set, not so much out of disgust, but because it was time for his first patrol of the night.

He was supposed to perform a minimum of four patrols every night. A patrol usually consisted of driving around the perimeter of the amusement park once and then driving among the boarded up buildings and broken down rides. It only took about twenty minutes to complete, and although it was pretty boring, at least it was a change of pace.

He left the guard booth and climbed into the patrol truck. He started the engine, turned on the lights, and off he went. The perimeter had been patrolled so many times by the truck that it had carved a trail all the way around the park. Two his left was the park itself. To his right, the chainlink fence that was supposed to keep everyone and everything out. Like there was anyone to keep out.

He started out driving slowly, but in a hurry to get the patrol over with, he pressed down on the accelerator a little more. He kept his eyes on the trail and didn’t pay much attention to his surroundings.

Suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and felt the truck hit something. Something had darted out in front of him. “Dammit!” he said loudly as he put the truck in park and stepped out. He went to the front of the truck and found a small dead deer, the left side of its body pulverized by the force of the truck which wasn’t in great shape any longer either. One of the headlights was smashed and the grill of the truck was gnarled.

“Dammit!” Phil exclaimed again.

He went back to the cab of his truck to get the flashlight. There shouldn’t be any deer in the park on this side of the fence. That was one of the reasons for the fence – to keep out large animals like deer. With his flashlight in hand, he began exploring the length of the fence, and it wasn’t long before he came upon a large hole in the chain link fence. It looked like something had ripped open the fence. It must have happened pretty recently because Phil never noticed it before, and he didn’t remember seeing any work order records back in the guard house. He figured he’d have to have to write up a work order himself when he got back. Oh, well, Phil thought. At least it’s something to do.

He turned and started walking back towards the truck, but before he took even two steps, he heard a rustling in the woods on the other side of the fence. Phil whirled around, aimed his flashlight, and expected to see another deer trying to get through the hole in the fence. Instead, his flashlight illuminated the figure of a person, a teenage girl to be exact. So unexpected was this that Phil was startled. He took a step back and said, “Whoa! Wait a minute! What’s you’re name? Where do you think you’re going?”

The girl seemed less startled. She saw the hole in the fence and quickly climbed through it. The girl was panting and out of breath. She looked tired and scared. “My name is Crystal,” she cried. “You’ve got to help me! It’s after me!”

Phil didn’t know what to say. This was all so strange, so he fell back on this training: “Uh, miss, this is private property. You’re not supposed to be here.” Only when he uttered the words did he realize how ridiculous they sounded.

The girl just ignored him. “We have to get out of here!” she cried, grabbing the security officer and trying to drag him towards the truck. “It will be here any minute!”

“What will?” Phil asked.

“The . . . thing! The monster!”

“Monster?” Phil started to wonder if maybe he wasn’t the butt of a practical joke. This girl probably had some friends in the woods watching, and they had decided to try to get one over on him. Well, Phil wasn’t going to let that happen! He’d show those teenage slackers who was boss.

“Come on!” the girl cried, pulling on his arm harder

But Phil refused to budge. “Now hold on a minute. I don’t know what -”

“There he is! It’s too late!” the girl screamed, pointing in the direction of the hole in the fence. She let go of the security officer and ran away in the direction of the amusement park.

“Hey! Wait! You aren’t supposed to go in there!” Phil was about to run after her, but he heard some rustling behind him. He turned around and pointed his flashlight back towards the fence, and he found a second figure standing just on the other side of the fence, staring back at him.

It was another kid, a boy, but there was something strange about him. Unlike the girl who was panicked and in a hurry, this boy seemed calm. His skin was pale, and it reflected the shining moonlight. His hair was dark, and looked greasy, and there were dark circles around his eyes. Phil guessed the boy was one of those “Gothic” weirdos. Phil thought that if he ever had a kid who turned out to be some slacker like that, he’d beat his ass until he learned to dress normally and get a job.

Phil watched as the boy moved towards the hole in the fence. He almost seemed to glide across the ground, although as he stepped through the hole, his foot caught on one of the broken links and he tripped, causing him to stumble. He recovered though and glided towards the security guard.

“What are you kids doing out here in the woods this late? Why was that girl so scared?”

The boy didn’t say anything. He simply stared the security guard down.

“Hey, you better talk to me. You want me to call the police, or maybe your parents?”

“My parents,” the boy said, speaking at last, “have been dead for a very long time.”

Phil saw that the boy’s skin really was as pale as it seemed, but there were also some red splotches on his face and neck – like really bad acne. And it wasn’t just the paleness of his skin that reflected the moonlight, his skin looked rather oily, too.

“Well, you better help me look for your girlfriend, and then I’m gonna take you two back the front gate and call the police to come get you.”

“Oh, I plan to find the girl,” the boy said. “But you won’t be coming along.” He suddenly charged the security guard, and before Phil had a chance to defend himself, the boy was on top of him, dragging him to the ground. Phil struggled hopelessly, and the last thing he saw was the boy’s teeth: the razor sharp fangs, and between them, the biggest, ugliest set of buck teeth he’d ever seen.

George was a vampire. For almost a century he had stalked the earth, feeding on the living, hiding in the darkest shadows. But it wasn’t his fear of sunlight, or his need to hunt that drove him into the darkness. Instead, it was his self-consciousness about the way he looked. He was only 14 when he died and was reborn as a creature of the night. Not only was he doomed to eat flesh and drink blood for all eternity, but he was doomed to endure his teenage awkwardness and gawkiness forever, too. His feet were too big, his arms and legs too lanky, and his center of gravity was always a little bit off. He might be dead, but somehow he still got zits. He tried to affect a deep, dangerous, seductive voice, but if he wasn’t careful, his voice would crack. He suffered from greasy hair and his teeth, especially his front two teeth, were too large for his head. George laughed at those who admired vampires for their chance at eternal youth. For George, eternal youth meant eternal puberty.

Still, it wasn’t all bad. Because George didn’t look particularly intimidating, he found it easier to hunt the living. If his family (the clan of vampires that he traveled with) were jealous of him, though, they never showed it. Mostly they just picked on him and made fun of him. Often, when another vampire would bring home a victim for them all to share, George would be stuck with the leftovers. George preferred to eat out, and he had become quite a good hunter. What he lacked in brute strength, he made up for in taking advantage of the element of surprise, as he did with the security guard.

George bit deeply into the dead man’s neck. The hot blood tasted good. When killing adult humans, you could never be sure if you got one who would taste good or if they’d be “stale.” Fortunately, the security guard was a bit chubby, a bit lazy, and that gave him a good flavor. George would have to come back and feast on him some more later. First, though, he had to find the girl.

He began running in the direction of the abandoned amusement park, the direction the girl had gone. As he moved among the dark, abandoned buildings, he was surprised he had never heard of this place before. George and his family had been living in the town for about three months now, but he didn’t know about this place. George wondered how long the park had been abandoned, and he wondered when it had been built. He knew he was getting old when places like this, built after he had been born, had themselves become worn out and abandoned.

George stopped: he thought he heard something. Footsteps (a girl’s footsteps), racing away. George followed them. He tried to catch the girl’s scent on the air and he found it. Here, among all of this rot and decay, the scent of the girl’s perfume and sweat was like a beacon of light drawing him towards her. He knew why she had come to this place. She hoped she’d be able to find a place to hide among the ruins, but what she didn’t know was that this was easiest place in the world for him to find her. It was just a matter of time.

And then, as he turned the corner of a building, he saw her! She was looking in the windows and doors of the buildings, trying to find a good place to hide. The girl found that most of the buildings were boarded up or their doors were locked. At last, she found a door that was partially ajar. She squeezed through it and George hurried after her.

George entered the building carefully, he didn’t want to be caught off guard and attacked. Just beyond the main doors were a couple of smaller rooms. George passed through them and then he seemed to have entered an even larger room, a room that was much bigger than the building had appeared to be when he saw it outside. There wasn’t any sign of the girl anywhere. George couldn’t figure out where she went. He took a few steps into the vastness and then suddenly bumped into something. It was like he had run into a wall, but he couldn’t see anything in front of him. He stepped back, reached out his hand, and felt glass. With both of his hands, he reached out around him, looking for the side of the pane of glass, but he found himself surrounded. George didn’t understand. These weren’t windows or glass doors that he felt. They were like walls of glass.

Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by people! It was a trap! But wait, it wasn’t. The people were all the same – they were all the girl he was chasing. They were just reflections of her. Suddenly, George realized where he was. It was a hall of mirrors in a fun house! He hadn’t realized it because he was a vampire and his reflection was invisible. George realized that this was the best place the girl could have gone to hide. Even though he could see her reflection and he was surrounded by images of her, George couldn’t tell which image was the real one. She, on the other hand, would know him immediately, because there was only one image of him that she could see, and that would be his real self! George stayed still as he watched the reflections of the girl move. The girl had obviously gotten lost in the mirrors and was trying to find her way out. Suddenly, she stopped, and George saw some of the reflections look directly at him. George heard the girl gasp, and then all of the reflections vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

“You can’t escape me!” George yelled. “You know I’ll find you eventually! Maybe I can’t walk through this maze of mirrors, but I can break through them!” George slammed his fist against the mirror in front of him and it shattered. Hundreds of little shards of glass fell to the floor. He punched another wall, and it to shattered. George set about smashing all of the walls of mirrors. He knew he’d soon destroy enough of them that he’d finally be able to see the girl – the real girl.

Crystal, meanwhile, hurried her search for the fun house exit. She must have found it because she was gone while George was still smashing mirrors. After a few minutes he stopped, stood still, listened, and realized he was all alone in the building.

He returned to the exit of the building, where he had come in. He wasn’t sure if the girl had gone out this way, but even if she did, he had, for the moment, lost track of her. He knew she couldn’t have gone too far. He knew she must be getting tired. He was tired and he was immortal! He couldn’t imagine what she must be feeling. It was just a matter of time before he caught her.

In the darkness, he closed his eyes and let his other sense take over as he tried to find her trail again. He let his ears, his nose, even his skin seek her out for him. Soon, he got it. She was heading uphill, towards the center of the amusement park. There was a tall, dilapidated tower in the center of the park. Maybe she was going to use it to try to signal for help. George couldn’t let that happen. He had to move fast.

Meanwhile, Crystal was getting tired, and running uphill wasn’t helping. If she could just get to the tower, though, she thought she might have a chance to signal for help. When she was a little girl, her parents had taken her to this amusement park. She remembered that at the top of the tower was a beacon that could be seen all the way into town. It was sad, when she turned ten and the amusement park shut down, and the light at the top of the tower had been turned off for good. There might not be any electricity there now, but there was a chance she could make the light work. And if not, she had a lighter and cigarettes in her pocket that that could be used to start a fire in the tower. One way or another, the tower was going to be lit up once again.

When she reached the tower pavilion, she ran around to the other side, where the entrance to the base of the tower was located. From there, she ought to be able to find some stairs (Ugh, she thought, more climbing!) that ought to take her to the top. But when she found the entrance, the door opened and George came out. Crystal turned and started to run away.

“Crystal, stop!”

To George’s surprise, she did. Maybe she was just tired, he thought. Maybe she didn’t know where else to run. Maybe, George hoped, she didn’t want to run from him anymore.

“Leave me alone!” the girl shrieked. (Maybe not.)

“Crystal, I’m not going to hurt you. I promise!”

“Like you could ever hurt me! I know what you are. I can defend myself!” She held up her fists like she wanted to fight.

“I won’t hurt you,” George repeated. “I love you.”

The girl just stood and stared. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was bad enough that some unholy creature of the night was in love with her, but did it have to be an ugly unholy creature of the night? Weren’t vampires supposed to be sexy? Why couldn’t he look like Ricky, from chem class? She wouldn’t mind getting unholy with him! Instead, she had this creepy looking guy stalking her – literally!

“Well, I don’t love you,” Crystal said, hoping that would be enough to send him away. It wasn’t, of course.

“Please! I’ll give you anything you wanted – love, riches -”

“You’re rich?” the girl asked, slightly interested.

“Well, no, but I can get you riches if you wanted. I’d just have to kill a few rich people first.”

“Forget it!”

“How about if I turned you into a vampyre too! We could share eternal life together!”

“Spend eternity with you?! No thanks! Besides, why would I want to spend eternity as a 15 year old? Sheesh, I’d never get out of high school! Call me when I turn 21, then we’ll talk!”

This was one of those times when George wished the legends about vampyres and their psychic abilities was true. It would be so much easier to just cast a spell on this girl and make her fall in love with him. But it would be a hollow conquest. He knew he couldn’t force her to fall in love with him. No, he wanted a girl – a girl he loved – to love him. He wanted a girl to look past his gawkiness, his acne, his awful hair, to look past the fact that he had been dead for almost a century, and to love him just for him. That was what he wanted.

But if this girl wasn’t the one who would do that, well, he could always just chomp into her throat and drink her blood. “If you won’t love me, then you’ll have to die!” he declared.

Crystal knew it was time to run, and so she did. She wouldn’t be able to just keep away from him all night and hope that sunrise would come and fry him. She’d have to do something to stop him.

She ran away from the tower. She was moving downhill now, which was a lot easier, but she was on a concrete path which meant it would also be easier for George to run after her. There was a steep slope to the right of the path so she jumped over the rusting railing and barreled down the slope, sliding through the tall grass, the trees, and the bushes.

At the bottom of the slope, she found another structure – another one of the park’s amusements – in front of her. She was behind the building, though, so she didn’t know what it was. She didn’t have long to stop and catch her breath. She could hear George following her down the slope. Crystal took off running again, staying close to the building.

When she came around to the front, she saw an old sign that declared what the building was once used for: it was the Tunnel of Love! Crystal remembered, when she was a girl, that she had wanted to go on this ride, but her parents wouldn’t let her. “You’ll have to wait until you’re older,” they said with smiles on their faces. Well, she was older now, and although the ride wasn’t what it once was, this seemed like a good time to check it out.

Back in its day, the ride had used a European motif. Couples rode in cozy little gondola-like boats that floated into the building. It was like visiting Venice, or maybe Paris – if Paris were known for its canals. Now, the aqueduct that once supported the boats was empty, although whenever it rained, water flowed into it, leaving behind large puddles that Crystal had to splash through. The boats themselves decayed at the bottom of the aqueduct.

Inside the tunnel, it was dark. She almost tripped over a pile of debris at the entrance, so she picked up a long piece of wood, took out her lighter, and made a torch out of the stick. Now that she had some light, she could go deeper into the abandoned ride.

George struggled to free his coat from the underbrush. He hated the trees and the brush and he wished the girl would stop running through the woods to try to escape from him. He found the building that Crystal had found, and circling around to the front, he could hear movement coming from within. He jumped down into the aqueduct and began chasing Crystal, but not before he too stumbled over the debris that had tripped up the girl just a moment before.

Without the aid of a torch, George had to proceed in the dark. But, as evil creature of the night, not to mention a rather unattractive boy, the darkness was where he felt most comfortable. If only he could have met Crystal in circumstances like this, where she could have gotten to know him before she saw his face. Maybe then she could have fallen in love with him, and he wouldn’t be trying to kill her now.

George could just barely see where he was going. Frequently, he had to hold out his hands in front of him to make sure he didn’t walk into the side of the tunnel as it twisted and turned, and so he could keep his balance if he tripped. He could just barely make out the remains of the once gaudily decorated tunnel: ruined and decaying hearts and flowers and lovebirds. Angrily, he recognized what a lie love was. If you could even find it, it would never last forever. The people you loved most would run away from you. And if you bothered to chase, them, they’d only dislike you more.

George soon came to a point where he could detect some faint light coming from within the wall. Examining the strange light more closely, George saw there was a door, presumably one that opened to a service room for the ride. Light on the other side meant that someone was inside, and George knew who it was!

He leaped out of the canal and grabbed hold of the doorknob. The door didn’t have a lock on it so George threw open the door. “Ah ha!” he shouted.

He was met with flames and fire. The light was coming from Crystal’s torch, and when George opened the door, she reacted by thrusting the torch in his face. She didn’t worry about burning him – it would probably improve his looks, and maybe the legend about fire being extremely dangerous to vampyres was true.

The legend was true. George panicked as he stumbled backwards and fell into the empty canal, almost striking his head against one of the boats that rested there. Crystal, thinking she had the advantage, charged out of her hiding place and attacked George again with the torch. Although he was on his back, George had recovered from the initial surprise of Crystal’s assault. When Crystal jumped into the canal, George was ready for her. He kicked the girl’s feet out from under her, sending her to the ground and the launching the torch from her hand where it landed a few inches away from George.

The vampyre grabbed the torch and stood up. Rather than wanting to use the torch to kill Crystal, the way she had tried to use it to kill him, the vampyre’s first instinct was to extinguish the flame. There was a puddle of water nearby, and George dipped the flaming end of the torch into the water.

As soon as he did, he realized he had made a mistake. Now that the light was gone, he couldn’t see anything. Crystal couldn’t see either, but now they were on equal terms. George had given up his advantage. He could hear Crystal scramble to her feet and run away. George tried to chase her, running blindly in the dark, trying to listen for the girl’s footsteps so he would know where she was. So focused was he on tracking the girl that he forgot to use his other senses, and so he never had a chance when his foot caught on a piece of debris, tripping him and sending him crashing down to his death.

Hours later, when morning came and Crystal led the flashlight-equipped team of police officers into the tunnel, they found the vampyre still where he fell. Beneath him – and impaling him through his chest – was a long, sharp, wooden “L”. The first letter of the word that killed him.