Down Below
by Eric Mosher
In the not-so-great town of Washburn, it had just finished raining. The heavens had opened up and shed their tears in a mighty deluge and now the clouds were parting, letting small fingers of sunlight to caress the grey rivulets that coursed their way along the streets, winding their way down into the storm drains peppering the sides of the road.
Danny Oakley splashed along the stream, his small black frame jumping in and out, sending water up onto the sidewalk that lined Main Street and also onto his pant legs. Behind him, his friend Charlie struggled to keep up, huffing and puffing along as fast as his heavier, chubby frame would allow.
“Danny, I thought you said we were going to Cervone’s to get some pizza and play Donkey Kong?” Charlie moaned, gasping for air.
“I did. But we’re just taking a little longer than I expected. Splash along. Live a little,” he said, leaping into another puddle, a mischievous grin plastered across his face as he sent a little wave of water onto his friend's shoes..
“But we’re getting all wet.”
“We’re wet anyway. We didn’t have an umbrella after we left school and then it rained all over us.”
“This is different.”
“Alright," he relented, knowing the whining wouldn't stop until Charlie got his way. "Let’s go get you some pizza before you have a fit.”
Danny stepped out of the water and onto the sidewalk. Charlie grabbed his shoulder with a meaty hand.
“Let’s go to the other side of the street,” he said, his voice quavering.
“Why?”
“Derek Mays and his goon squad,” Charlie said, pointing down the street to a scruffy looking gang of punks wearing jean jackets and sweatpants, laughing loudly as they pushed each other around and scuffled playfully.
“Forget them. They’re not going to do anything to us on the street. There’s people around and Derek has no spine when there's witnesses,” Danny said defiantly. “Keep walking, chum.”
Danny strutted down the street, ignoring the toughs who smiled and plotted as they saw new prey. Charlie shuffled quietly behind him, trying to be invisible next to the window of Hilton’s Dry Cleaners, pretending to take great interest in their ninety-nine cent shirt cleaning deal. It didn't work. A few of the other youths brought him to their leader's attention.
“Hey tubby. Where you going?” Derek asked as they passed, then stopping as he brushed his dirty black hair out of his face.
“Nowhere," Charlie mumbled in reply, wishing he could slink into the wall.
“Then what’s your hurry? Too good to stop and say ‘hi’?”
“No. We’re just going to Cervone’s”
“I think you don’t need any more pizza,” he said, giving Charlie a hard jab in the belly with his finger and making the boy wince.
“Shut up, Derek,” Danny said, positioning himself between the two boys.
“Out of the way, Oakley. I’m talking to Chucky-boy.”
“No, you’re being an ass.”
“Ohhh. Tough words. Back off,” he said, shoving Danny down to the ground.
Derek turned, his attention back on Charlie. He grabbed the boy’s neck, as if to choke him. He stopped and reached down into the shirt, pulling out a silver heart necklace on a chain. He threw his head back and laughed like a predator who knew he had his prey caught.
“W-T-F?” he exclaimed, pronouncing each letter slowly. “Nice necklace, Chuck. You get this from your boyfriend?”
Charlie turned beet red. Little beads of sweat popped up on his brow.
“It…it’s from my mom,” he stammered.
“And you wear it?” Derek gave him a disgusted look.
“She loves me. It reminds me of her.”
“You are such a pussy,” he stated, and with a deft flick of his wrist snapped the chain off of Charlie’s neck.
“No! Give it back!” Charlie cried, leaping and trying to grab the necklace that the older boy held out of reach.
Danny got up quickly and clenched his fists and stood there, hunkered down and ready to charge.
“Give him the necklace back, Derek,” he growled.
“Ohhh. What are you going to do about it? You hit me and I’ll drop it down the drain,” the boy taunted, dangling the chain by a finger over the dark grate.
“Don’t do it.”
“Or what?”
“I will kick you in the sack so hard your momma cries.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Oops,” he said, letting it slip from his hand. “I guess the fatty sweat made it greasy. I couldn’t hold on to it.”
Danny lunged for it, missing as the heart dropped in slow motion, bouncing off the storm drain sides and then through it, the chain disappearing as the void swallowed it whole.
“Noooo!” Charlie wailed, falling to his knees.
“Come on guys. Let’s get out of here,” Derek laughed.
Danny saw red and spun around violently, spittle flying from his mouth as he spoke.
“You asshole. Why did you do that?”
“It was just a stupid necklace. I did fatty a favor. Now nobody will make fun of him for it.”
“Don’t call him that.”
“Or what?”
Derek turned to laugh again but Danny was upon him, snapping out with a kick that caught the boy in the groin, felling him as his eyes bulged and he grabbed his injury. Danny landed on him, fists flying, wailing away at his prone target. Derek’s friends tried to drag Danny off but they were too afraid of being hit themselves as their friend was beaten to a bloody mess, each punch of Danny's landing with a wet thump onto Derek's head. He was soft, Danny thought, and it was like punching meat.
“Danny, stop,” Charlie pleaded, and to his surprise, Danny did, ceasing his assault and getting up off the boy's chest, giving his foe a quick knee to the ribs on the way up.
“He had it coming," he spat, rubbing his left hand. Danny had cut it on Derek's mouth.
“I know. Let’s just go,” he said, taking his friend’s hand and leading him away from the scene. A few people had come out of the nearby stores to see what the commotion was.
“Ok.”
And they walked away, leaving two of the boys stunned and the other furious as he recovered from the attack, relying on the others to help him from the ground.
“You’re dead, Oakley. Dead!” Derek shouted after him, blood dripping from his mouth as he stood propped up between his friends, but Danny ignored him.
“So, what do we do now?”
“I can’t believe I lost the necklace. My mother is going to be pissed.”
“Can we buy another one?”
“No. She got it while she was in Aruba with dad.”
“Oh,” Danny said glumly. “I guess that’s out of the question. We’ll never get there in time.”
He brightened up suddenly.
“Wait, what if we go get it?”
“What?”
“We’ll go into the sewer and get your heart back.”
“How?” Charlie asked, trying to figure out how that would be possible.
“Well, neither of us will fit down the grate and I don’t have a crowbar to lift up the manhole and I'm probably not strong enough either, but we can use the runoff pipe down by the old pumping station to walk right in.”
“We can’t do that. It’s creepy down there.”
Charlie shivered just thinking about it.
“Nah, man. The high school kids go there to party all the time. They wouldn’t do it if they could get hurt," Danny reasoned.
“How will we see? It’s going to be dark underground.”
Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out his house key, dangling from the end of which was a mini-Maglite flashlight.
“I can never see the damn lock on the door at night so Mom made me get this so I don’t scuff the finish. It’s pretty bright.”
He turned it on, the bright beam cutting through the fading afternoon light and nearly blinding Charlie. Danny quickly turned it back off.
“I don’t know. Can’t we just get a coat hanger or something?”
“It’s too far down. We’ll never reach it.”
“What about calling the cops?”
“I don’t think they make a habit of opening up storm drains to retrieve a boy's jewelry. Maybe if you had some bigger breasts they’d consider it..”
“Danny," Charlie said, almost in tears, not wanting to be teased anymore.
“Kidding. Sorry. So are you game?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you really want to tell your mother that you lost the necklace?”
“No. I think it was worth a lot of money.”
“Then just say yes. We’ll go in, get it and get out.”
“What if we get lost?”
“Then we call the cops,” he said, holding up a cell phone. “Then both our parents will be angry, but we’ll have your necklace.”
“How will we know which way to go?”
“We’ll peek up through the grates and follow the landmarks. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but we can do it.”
“Ok.”
“Let’s go. The pumping station is about a mile away, so we’ll have to hustle.”
The boys wandered off, away from the lights of Main Street and towards the woods on the outskirts of town. Behind them, Derek and his friends glared angrily.
Then they followed their quarry.
***
The boys stood outside the Haviland Street pumping station. It was set well back from the rest of the town, almost a half mile, but their reckoning. The trees and vines from the forest had encroached on it greatly in the years since it was shut down, replaced by a newer facility on the other side of town. The windows were broken, jagged teeth, long destroyed by errant rocks of the town’s youth. It looked empty and alone and frightening, but fortunately they didn’t have to go in there. Instead, they turned their attention to the toothless maw of the drain that yawned down a slope to their right.
“Are you sure we’ll be ok?” Charlie asked nervously.
“I’m positive. We’ll be fine. Come on,” Danny said, turning on his flashlight and leading them through the running water that poured out into the stream.
Charlie looked back nervously as they entered. He thought he saw something flash by one of the windows of the station, but he stared hard at it and nothing made itself known. He hurried after the light as Danny led them onward.
The walls were green and grey, moss and mildew and mold and slime formed a terrible wallpaper that lined the pipes. The boys tried not to make much of it. Nor did they try to look on the ground, afraid of what they might see floating in front of them.
“I am going to need the mother of all showers after this,” Charlie said, dodging a large chunk that drifted by him.
“I might take one with you. I think I’ll need to burn these pants too,” Danny replied, lifting his leg, pointing at the waste sticking to the fabric. “And my shoes too. Damnit, I liked this pair.”
They passed many a light that shone down through the slatted metal grates. Occasionally, Danny would peek up and redirect them down another pipe, heading towards what they hoped was Main Street.
“Any idea where we are?” Charlie huffed.
“Around 8th Avenue. I saw a sign for Murray's Antique Coins from that last grate. A couple more blocks and we should be there. Make a right up here.”
Danny led the way, playing his light on the walls, turning it off where there was sunlight from above so he didn’t waste the battery. He found he didn’t need it much after awhile, as their eyes became accustomed to the failing light.
“Alright, we should be here,” Danny said, looking up at the street. “This is the diner, so the next grate should be the one.”
Charlie took the lead, hurrying over to the next pool of light. Bending over, he sloshed through the disgusting water with his hands, throwing aside rubbish and cans and other refuse that he came up with as he sifted through it.
“Help me,” he pleaded, looking up at Danny with a wounded look.
Danny looked down at the water and felt bile rising up in this throat at the thought of touching it. He gave in and squatted down a few feet away and plunged his hands into the brackish water. He cringed as his fingers ran through a sludge at the bottom and resisted the urge to pull them out, feeling somewhat responsible for the necklace being down here to begin with.
It felt like hours they searched through crap and crud with nothing to show but filth on their hands. Danny thought they might not find it at all when Charlie suddenly let out a cry of joy and held up the necklace, grimy but glinting in the glow of a streetlight.
“I found it!” he cried.
“Thank Christ,” Danny said, standing up and wiping his hands off on his pants. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
They turned and headed back, Charlie practically glowing while Danny led the way with his light, not trusting his eyes, until they reached an intersection that didn’t look familiar.
“Where do we go from here?” Charlie asked.
“I don’t know,” Danny admitted, looking around. “I don’t recognize this at all.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Maybe we took a wrong turn.
“We’re lost?”
“It’s alright. We’ll just go down a path and if we don’t find anything, we come back and call for help.”
“So which way do we go first?”
“We’ll go right.”
Silently they trudged through the water, making not a sound save for the sloshing at their feet. Danny played the light off the walls, looking for anything familiar to him. He stopped. Something glinted in his path.
“Hold up,” he said, raising his hand, which Charlie promptly walked into.
“Sorry. What is it?” Charlie asked, peering around his friend.
“Something shiny," Danny replied, squinting to see it in the dark.
“Like a quarter?”
“A really big quarter.”
Danny walked over and picked up the object, brushing the ichor off of it. It was an aluminum briefcase, he saw, and it was heavy.
“It’s a briefcase," Charlie said, his penchant for stating the obvious coming through with flying colors.
"Can you open it?”
Setting the case down on a ledge of a nearby pipe, Danny checked the locks. They stuck a little as he worked them but then it sprung open, each latch flipping up.
“Yeah, they work. Must have been left on the combination,” Danny said. “Lucky us. Let’s see what’s inside.”
Charlie trudged over excitedly and they lifted the lid. Their eyes bulged as it swung upward and revealed the contents to them.
“Holy shit,” Danny almost whispered.
“It’s money.”
It was a lot of money, bundles of bills stacked neatly inside the foam-lined case. The bills facing him had Benjamin Franklin on them. Danny pawed through them and estimated it was a couple of thousand dollars, easy. He would have to count it to be sure and he wasn’t doing that there where the money could get ruined.
“I don’t think we’ll have to worry about you losing your necklace again," he said with a grin." With this much, we can buy you a new one. Hell, we could buy you ten new ones.”
“Where do you think it all came from?”
“It can’t be from anything legal,” Danny reasoned. "No way someone took out this much money and came down here with it."
“You know, the bank was robbed about a year ago. They never did catch the guys who did it. Some thought they might have gone into the sewer but the cops said that was ridiculous. I always wondered how they got away on a bike.”
“Why would they leave it here? I know I’m not letting this thing go, even if my life depended on it.”
Danny thought of all the things he could buy with this money. His mom needed a new car and he could go to any college she wanted for him, not that he had any great aspirations as of yet. Charlie just thought that he could play a lot of Donkey Kong on just one bill.
“You don’t think they’re still down here, do you?” Charlie asked, looking around nervously, half-expecting the owner to leap out at them from around the corner.
“I doubt that, unless they like to live on crap and rainwater.. Maybe they’re letting the heat cool down first, but I would think they would have been back by now for it. It’s ours now.”
“So should we go to a grate and call for help then?”
“Are you crazy? We do that, the cops are going to ask where we got this and then they’re going to take it away. Hell, they might even arrest us.”
“I don’t want to die down here. I heard Marybeth Roberts and Mark Lansing came down here and they never came back out.”
“Really? I heard she got pregnant and they skipped out to Vegas.”
“You did?”
“Pretty sure someone showed me a postcard of it or something like that. I don’t think anyone dies down here. Unless it’s from the smell.”
“So if we aren’t calling for help, what are we going to do?”
“We keep walking. If we don’t see anything, we go until we can’t go anymore. There are at least three exits out of here, including the one we came in. Eventually we’ll hit the far walls and we’ll follow it around until we get out. Is that ok?”
“I dunno.”
“Look, if we’re not out of here in two hours, we’ll stash the case and then holler until somebody hears us. I don’t want to stay down here anymore either. I just want to go take a shower and get some grub.”
“Ok. Two hours starting now.”
“Deal.”
Danny closed up the suitcase and got a firm grip on it. Leading the way, he and Charlie headed down the closest tunnel as the light from the topside world faded from a vibrant orange into a darkening grey.
All the tunnels looked the same to them--slime and sludge and concrete that made their footsteps echo for what seemed like an eternity around them. It felt like they were walking for almost as long, hoping that each turn would suddenly open up into the outside world. Instead, each turn just offered them more tunnels to navigate. They headed on as straight a course as they could, hoping to hit the end of the system so they could find their way back around.
Charlie’s stomach rumbled loudly, almost drowning out the sound of their sloshing steps.
“How long have we been walking?”
“We still have another hour.”
“Feels like another five," he said sullenly.
“We’ll be out of here soon.”
“You don’t think there are any gators down here, do you?”
“Considering there aren’t any in the state? I’d say no. Maybe snapping turtles.”
“Mutant snapping turtles?”
“No, just the regular kind, but they’re big enough as it is. Hurts when they bite you too. I had a cousin who got bit once...”
“Is it getting lighter?” Charlie interrupted.
Danny stopped and blinked. His eyes may have been playing tricks on him, but he thought that it was indeed getting lighter. It was still grey, but it seemed like it wasn’t so bleak. The two looked at each other and then broke into a run towards it, hoping it wasn’t just a really bright street light shining down from above.
They rounded the bend and saw it, fading light from the outside flowing gently in through the runoff opening. It looked like the one they had come through, judging by the graffiti. The tunnel they were in was from the opposite direction they had initially set out in, connecting to the opening via a large section of grating that covered a path that led further down below.
“I think we walked around the entire damn town under here,” Danny said, shaking his head.
“I’m glad we found the exit,” Charlie sighed, relieved.
“I am too,” came a familiar voice from out of view.
Derek and his friends stepped out from around the bend. Danny couldn’t make out his expression, but he knew without seeing it that it wasn’t anything that boded well for them. The boy reached into his pocket and pulled out something that glinted in the light. It was a knife, its blade glinting in the light
“What do you think you’re doing, Derek?” Danny asked, tensing up.
“I’m getting even.”
“By killing us?”
“No, I’m just going to cut you a little bit. Just enough to make things interesting.”
“Don’t do it.”
“You should have thought about that before you hit me.”
“We’ve spent hours down here looking for the necklace that you threw down here. I think we’re even.”
“Not by my count. Say, what’s in the nifty briefcase?” Derek asked, eyeing the case hungrily.
“Nothing. It’s just trash,” Danny said, moving it behind his back, hopefully out of sight.
“Why are you hiding it?”
“Because you don’t have a sterling track record when it comes to other people’s property.”
“Hand it over.”
“No way.”
“Do it, or I’ll do more than just cut you. I’ll cut up fatty too.”
The boy brandished the blade and grinned, making cutting motions in the air. Charlie's knees were shaking as Derek pointed at him.
“Leave him out of it,” Danny said as bravely as he could, though he felt on the verge of wetting himself. Getting beaten he could handle. Getting stabbed was something else entirely.
“Give me the case and I’ll let you both out of here. Or at least give you a head start.”
“Danny, give him the case,” Charlie whispered.
“But the money…”
“I just want to go home.”
“Ok. I’ll give him the case.”
Danny sighed and grabbed Charlie’s arm. Together, they walked forward to face their foe. Together, they fell and screamed as the ground gave way beneath them and they plunged down into the darker levels below.
They hit hard, winded a bit, but alright.
“Ouch.” Charlie moaned, rolling over onto his back.
“You ok, Charlie?”
“I think so.”
“You dweebs alive?” Derek called from above. “I still want my case.”
“We’re just fine. I don’t think we can climb back up though.” Danny said, examining the walls.
The grate above had given way and swung flush against the sides. If they could reach it, they might be able to climb up, but it was too far for them to even jump. He pulled out the flashlight and gave a glance around. Danny didn’t know where they were now. It looked like the sewer but had pipes and tunnels running all over. Ahead, he saw a door.
“I think we’re in the basement of the treatment plant,” he called up.
“Good. Find some stairs and get back up here.”
“Why don’t you meet us in there?”
“I’m not going in there.”
“Scared?”
“No. I just don’t want to go.”
“Then what’s to stop me and Charlie from running once we get up. You won’t even know where we went.”
“I’ll find you.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You want the case? Come and get it, tough guy.”
“Oh I will. Come on guys. Let’s go get those pussies,” Derek commanded and disappeared from view.
Danny listened and heard them leaving, their footsteps echoing down to where he was standing.
“Why did you do that? We could have gotten away,” Charlie asked, surprised and disappointed. He was sick of wandering around in the filth and just wanted to go home.
“I figured we could hide out and get the drop on them. Teach them a lesson they won’t forget,” he said, punching the palm of his hand for emphasis.
“They’re bigger than us.”
“Maybe, but they’re not getting the case.”
“This is a bad idea.”
“You saw the knife. I don’t know if they’d let us leave and I’d rather know that they’re unconscious instead of mugging us on the way home. We’ll be fine. We’ll go through that door, find the stairs and hide. When they go by, we can whack them with the case and then run. You think you can do that?”
“I can try.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
The door was old and metal and covered in rust. It looked like it hadn’t been used in years, much less be able to open. Danny tested it and surprisingly, the door swung open with ease.
“Come on,” he said, creeping forward and waving for his friend to follow.
Charlie followed as Danny led him down the new corridor, tired and nervous and afraid. He didn’t let it show. He didn’t want to let Danny think he was a coward. They walked for a minute and then stopped.
“Do you see what I see?”
“Yes. What is it?”
“It’s light. Real light.”
They peered forward, trying to make out where it was coming from. An orange glow flickered softly on the walls. Listening closely, they could almost discern the sound of fire crackling over the dripping water around them. The scurrying of the rodents that they had been hearing for the past few hours was strangely absent as they got nearer to the light. Slowly, they advanced. The hallway opened up into a large chamber with torches situated along the wall. Danny gagged a bit, assaulted by a smell that reminded him of the time his cat was lost and when he found it, it was along Hightower Street in the bushes, long dead from being run over. Charlie reeled at the odor that permeated the room, thinking of his grandmother for some reason as she lay in bed, breathing heavy and asking for a kiss.
It didn’t take them long to figure out the source. Along the far wall, by the stairs, bodies were stacked in neat piles, black and bloated from the water that pooled along the ground. Some had rotted away into a grisly ichor and others down to bone. Most were animal, but several looked very human to them. Danny didn’t want to stop and investigate to find out for certain.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” he started, moving towards the stairs.
He looked back but Charlie wasn’t following him. Instead, he stared towards the back of the room, to their left, where a man, obscured by tattered and grimy robes, sat reading upon a throne made of boxes. He looked up, suddenly aware of them, and then tossed the book aside, standing and striding towards them with a loping gait. The hood from his robe fell back and the boys recoiled in horror. The man’s face was sunken, wrinkled and devoid of hair, ancient beyond anything they had ever seen. The texture of his skin looked like he had been burned and healed again and again, leaving pink pitting and scarring that mottled his flesh. His ears were large and ended in points that crested above his skull. Beady black hungry eyes watched them as he moved ever closer, smiling and showing rows of pointy teeth.
“Good evening, boys,” the thing said with a voice like sandpaper and plague. “Welcome to my home. It’s been so long since I’ve had guests. I wish I knew you were coming. I would have tidied up first.”
Danny and Charlie said nothing and just stood there, shaking in fear, frozen to the spot.
“Not the talkative types? Don’t worry. I’m not much for conversation either. I prefer a good book, and a good meal. It’s been so long since I’ve had people for dinner. The animals,” the thing croaked, “they just aren’t…filling. I prefer sweeter meats.”
“Run!” Danny cried, grabbing Charlie’s arm and dragging him along towards the door. They took a few steps but then there was a thwip and then Danny was yanked backwards by his friend’s dead weight.
Looking back, he saw Charlie standing there, fixated on the beast, arms at his side placidly.
“Charlie, what are you doing? Run!”
But his friend stood there. Danny inched back warily, his eyes on Charlie. He saw why the boy wasn’t moving. Buried in his shoulder was a gore covered worm that stretched out horizontally, leading back into the thing’s mouth. Slowly, it pulsed, sucking the life out of Charlie. The vampire’s eyes rolled back into his head like a shark as he fed, his lips upturned in an open-mouthed smile. Saliva trickled slowly down its wizened chin and then onto the filthy rags it wore, blending with hundreds of other stains.
Danny looked back towards the door to the stairs. It was only a few yards away. I could make it, he thought. I could get out and come back with help. The briefcase was a heavy weight in his hand, all the money just sitting there. He could buy a lot of help with what was in there, he knew. But Charlie was his friend, and friends helped each other. That's what it said in all the stories, all the songs. No matter what, he couldn't leave Charlie behind.
Dropping the case, Danny grabbed at the tongue, trying to pull it free. It wouldn’t budge. Charlie didn’t even scream. He just stood there, fear in his eyes, unmoving, unfeeling. Danny reached into his pocket, looking for something to cut it with, but he found naught. Gulping, he swallowed his trepidation over his next action and bit into the pulsating organ. Bile and blood and something that tasted like what he thought could only be death filled his mouth. The thing screamed and retracted the tongue into its maw. He backed away, vomiting up tongue chunks and a dark green ooze.
He reached over, grabbing his friend again, trying not to notice the blood and ick that trickled out of the wound. Charlie still wouldn’t budge.
“Come on man. We have to get out of here. We have to move now!”
“Now, now. That wasn't nice. Besides, he’s not going anywhere, and neither are you,” the creature laughed at him, blood on its lips.
“Fuck you,” Danny said and tried to run back the way him came. He would come back for Charlie later, he told himself. But his legs wouldn’t obey.
“I told you. You’re not going anywhere.’
Danny turned ready to fight off the thing, but he couldn’t raise his arms. No matter how much he tried, they just hung there, limp as noodles. He could only stare as it approached.
“I can’t move,” he said, fear rising up in him, replacing what little bravado he had summoned.
“I know," the creature rasped. "You tasted my poison. Its full effect will render a man comatose, like your friend there. A little bit still goes a long way as you’ve found out. And you stay that way for a long, long time. That’s good for me, as I intend on making this last. It’s been so long since I had blood like your friend’s. So terribly long. But don’t worry about not being able to move, you’ll still be able to scream.”
Danny stood there, horrified. The thing moved closer with an executioner's pace, its mouth in front of his face, and as it opened its jaws, and there was nothing. Just a thwip and then darkness. He faded in and out as the thing drained him, slowly just as it promised, enjoying every minute of it. It was wrong though, he couldn't scream. His mouth betrayed him. Above them, Derek and his friends found the stairs and made their way downward, unaware of what was awaiting them in the lower depths, their minds occupied only by what tortures they could inflict on the two boys. Down in the torchlight, the vampire smiled around its tongue as it fed and then retracted it.
The thing licked its lips and waited patiently for his new guests to arrive. It was going to be a filling night.