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Darren's New Story
[Based off of: Vampire Mountain by Darren Shan]

I woke up in a plush bed, which right then and there bewildered me. My tired brain questioned, "Did someone put me in a coffin in the middle of the night?" I could not think 'night' really, because when you stay at Vampire Mountain, you stay in a network of tunnels. You can tell when it is around morning or night, but there is no definite time. Then I realized; Vampire Mountain only uses coffins and the occasional hammock. So why was I in a bed?

Being flat on my face, I did not open my eyes, but cocked my head slightly to listen for the crackling of a torch, usually those were the only light sources. Even my sensitive half-vampire ears could not hear a fire (Being a half-vampire heightened my strength, and senses of hearing, sight, and smell. My teeth, skin, and nails were tougher too; I could eat a metal spoon if I really wanted to. A full vampire would have these--much better, mind you-- and a few other abilities.), but instead heard something that disturbed me. I heard the chirping of birds.

To a human who's used to hearing the songs of birds, you would not be full of shock and fear.

I clenched my fists, and then was surprised, but glad I did not accidentally tear through the soft bed sheets. Slowly, I gathered myself and sat erect on the bed. Looking around, I saw I was in a small beige-walled room. Nothing was in the room except the twin bed, which had baby blue sheets and comforter, and a dark wooden nightstand. There was not a window, just a lamp that was on in the corner of the room. On the nightstand was my sweatshirt and shoes. Thankfully, whoever brought me here left me wearing my underwear and pants.

In case a threat was nearby, I sniffed the air. "I don't know where I am or why I am here, for all I know I could be in a vampaneze's lair." I shivered at the thought, the vampaneze are like a vampire's cousin, except they have purple skin, and red eyes, nails, lips, and hair. Sadly, they always kill the people they drink from, while vampires just take what they need and leave their sleeping donor with a small scar.

No vampaneze, no smell of smoke or soot, or vampires, I was immediately relieved. What I did smell though, was bacon.

My insides churned, after eating mainly bat broth for a few weeks, I was excited. I hopped off the bed and started toward the whitewashed door. Making note of some scratch marks on the door, I quietly turned the silver knob and then stopped, there were voices right outside.

A young girl's voice, "Why do you need to see him?"

"He is my son, I need to check that he is not in a hazardous situation."

Mr. Crepsley! I was Mr. Crepsley's '13 year-old son' in the human world, which made me assume we had come back to civilization somehow, really though, I was his assistant (and around age 20, I had lost count, but I only age one-fifth the rate of a human. A vampire aged at one-tenth). Mr. Crepsley was the one who had blooded me (made me a vampire); he himself was a full vampire. As long as he was here, I was bound to be safe, my worries of attack faded. I opened the door to its fullest, and acted like I was surprised. It would not be too hard, I was happy to hear the vampire after the birds (but I would not have dared say that aloud). Also, I had no idea who the girl was.

She was dark-skinned, and had light brown eyes and hair that was put up into a tight braid. She wore a white shirt with faded pink flowers on it and khaki pants. She looked around age ten, and like me, wore no footwear. Mr. Crespley was also receiving a glowering look from her. He had a tuft of orange hair growing from his head, a scar along the left side of his face, and was adorned in a red suit and cape. It definitely seemed weird to a regular person, but I was used to odd figures by now. He was looking stiffly back at the girl. I guessed they had been arguing for some time now.

"Oh, hey Dad, what's up?" I smiled at the two of them. "Um, where are we?"

"You're at my house," the girl smiled sweetly, "and I'm Hazel. You must be his kid." Hazel flipped her hair in Mr. Crespley's direction, and stuck out her hand. I glanced at Mr. Crespley, who was not trying to suppress his frown at Hazel's back, then back at her.

"Well, I'm Darren, and why are we here? Do either of you know?" I gingerly took her hand and shook it as lightly as I could. I had a bad habit of breaking humans bones when I interacted with them.

She looked at me quizzically, "You both have very weak handshakes; you know that?"

Weak? I could not help but get irritated. It was for her sake anyways. Usually my handshakes were good enough... Mr. Crespley started talking, which interrupted my thoughts.

"Hazel, may I speak alone with Darren for a moment?" Mr. Crepsley asked in an overly polite voice. I had a feeling he did not like her one bit.

Hazel stood to her full height, and tilted her head the smallest of angles. I raised my eyebrows, realizing she was mocking Mr. Crespley's stance.

"Surely." Hazel also said in an extremely polite tone. She then proceeded to skip joyously to the end of the hallway, and then turned left, down what I assumed was a flight of stairs I had not seen. The hallway had another four doors other than the one I had woken behind, two on each wall.

I whistled, and said awestruck (anything that annoyed Mr. Crespley was cool with me), "Wow, the nerve of her, huh?" I looked up at Mr. Crespley to see he was scowling at me.

"Shush, you are no better." He relaxed his shoulders. "I am assuming you know nothing of our whereabouts or how we came to be here?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. He did not know either? "Does it look like I do? I didn't know Hazel until no-- Ouch! What was that for?"

I thought Mr. Crespley had prodded me because I was getting sarcastic with him, but then he brought up a pencil. "Do you see this?"

Mr. Crepsley did not need a tool to hurt me, he knew that as well as I. There must have been an underlying meaning to what he said, but I replied hopefully, "You tried stabbing me with a pointless pencil?" I had meant pointless as in 'meaningless,' but apparently that was not what Mr. Crepsley had in mind.

"No boy! It does have a point! In fact, the pencil's point should have broken in the process of me jabbing you with it!" Mr. Crespley was looking at me as if this were common sense. I slowly realized he meant 'point' as in the tip of the pencil, I still did not understand where he was getting at though.

I tried for some humor, "Did you not jab hard enough?"

He growled in frustration, but before he could say anything, I asked. "Have I gotten weaker?" Which seemed out of the question to me, but I had blurted it out so quickly that I could not stop myself.

"We both have." He replied glumly. My mouth gaped open at that.

He continued. "Apparently, Hazel and her father found us both lying in the bushes, we were both asleep. They laid you in the bed you have just woken up in. I on the other hand woke up several hours after the father had set me down on their couch..."

"What does this have to do with anything?" I exclaimed.

Mr. Crepsley did not even blink at me interrupting him. "Somehow we were transported back to human civilization and lost our vampiric powers! I was going to tell you how I discovered this to be so! Although I have not distinguished how this actually happened."

"That's not possible! I sniffed the air and smelt plenty!" I felt like yelling that aloud, except caught myself. Thinking about it, if Hazel and her father had just been in my room, even if I had been dormant for a few weeks, I should have been able to smell them. I had only smelled bacon, not human. My nails and ears too, I should have ripped through the blanket when I had clenched my hands. Plus, I did not even hear Mr. Crespley and Hazel arguing until I had been right beside the door.

"How..." I had a million questions bubbling through my mind: How did this happen? How could this happen? How did we get here? Where was here? Could this place, or someone or something else, have taken our powers away? I twitched in anticipation. I did not really want to think the last question, what I really wanted to know, was 'could this place have made us human again?' It was a taboo thought. I had pushed it away from my head years before today. Having hopeful fantasies like that only made me sad, I could never have a regular human life again.

Instead of asking Mr. Crespley my endless array of questions, my stomach rumbled.

Mr. Crespley chuckled, despite the situation. "Come Darren, I will explain as much as I can over the Hernandez's plentiful breakfast." He clapped me on the back. "That is the wonderful Hazel's last name." He said sarcastically. Which was random for him, he did not have a great sense of humor.
"Shush, you are no better." I silently mocked, following him dazedly down the stairs.
. . .

Mr. Crespley told me that he had woken up as confused as I was. According to Hazel's father, Pedro, he had been in the sun-soaked coach for several hours (my mouth almost fell open at that. Vampires cannot be in the sun for more than a few hours or they die, being a half-vampire, I can stay in the sun all I please), and was delusional. He had been muttering nonsense, but could not remember it now.

Since we were all sitting at the kitchen table when Mr. Crespley had been explaining, Pedro asked in his thick Hispanic accent. "Do you remember waking up, Darren? I personally did not see."

"No, I might've though, considering my father doesn't remember anything. Unless something rings a bell?" I looked at Mr. Crespley, hoping I would get an answer of how we came to be here. We started discussing to see if Mr. Crespley or I could remember anything. We could not come up with any conclusions. Actually, the most sensible came from Pedro, but Mr. Crespley rejected every one of them.

Mr. Crespley started to say something, but Hazel interjected. "If anything, aliens came down and abducted you two. They probed you guys and dropped you off here, 'cause they knew you'd be taken care of! That's why you can't remember anything!" She looked quite proud of her answer.

I grinned, thinking; was it your care that made us not remember anything or the aliens?

"If anything we should find out for ourselves. I thank you for your housing but we must be off." Mr. Crespley decided.

"Huh? That was out of the blue." A confused Hazel said. "You didn't even get to finish your story."

I sighed; I was used to his random declarations, but did not want to leave the Hernandez's comfortable home. "I highly doubt we can find anything out. Especially since we lost our..." I stopped myself, anything about vampires would just sound weird, "well, Dad, you know."

Hazel lit up. "You lost something? We can help you find it! I've tracked down a cow before. I bet you I could do it again! Except, you know, with whatever you lost."

"Hazel, if they really must go then they should. Not with you either." Pedro remarked. He turned to 'Dad.' "Do you need any transportation? Town is a several miles down the road from here."

"We will not be needing any, we could use the walk."

I looked outside, it was nine in the morning, and the sun would be out for much longer. What did Mr. Crespley think he was doing? He could not afford the extra sunlight, even in the house the sunrays reached him, horridly laying, shining, glinting on his extraordinarily pale skin.
. . .

I ran upstairs to grab my few belongings. Thinking about what Mr. Crespley wanted to do next. Our plan was to leave the Hernandez's house, head toward the town, and find a way to the Cirque Du Freak. The Cirque is a traveling circus with all-around amazing 'freaks' as the show. Unlike the freak shows of the past, the Cirque is not cruel to its performers, and is made sure of being well maintained by the man Hibernius Tall. By going back to the Cirque, we would be welcomed and have a home and see people we knew again. So we were assured that everything was going to be all right. There was just one problem that I had seen. "How are we supposed to make the journey and find the Cirque if we've lost all our powers?" I had muttered to Mr. Crespley.

He shrugged. "Let us start at step one and find transportation. The Hernandez's hospitality was enough, so we can come by the local town by ourselves."

"But Mr. Crespley," I looked to see if Hazel was spying on us, she was not so I continued, "what if our powers come back?"

"Darren, they are not 'powers.' Go and put your clothes on." I had wanted to speak up, but did not.

Coming back downstairs, I saw the vampire (could I still call him that?) standing outside. He seemed to be enjoying the view of the countryside. I moved beside him, and looked at the rolling hills, yellow from the tall grass that reached for the sky. A single black, dusty road in front of us was on flat land that jutted out from the hillside. This would be our path for the city.

"Bye, you guys. Have a safe trip!" Hazel said from behind us.

I turned around. "It was a pleasure to be here."

Pedro stepped forward, his big bulk holding a good-sized backpack. "If we cannot help you in any other way, please take this." He held out the backpack to Mr. Crespley. "It has a gallon of water, two sandwiches, and a pocket knife, just in case."

I stepped forward and took the gray backpack, slinging it over my shoulder. "Thank-you, you've been a fantastic help."

"You are welcome. Come again sometime, we hardly get visitors."

"Yeah," Hazel stepped next to her father, "I haven't had a foe like you in a while!" She smiled to Mr. Crespley.

"Nor I you, these past few days have been interesting." He actually smiled back. How long was I asleep? I thought agitatedly.
. . .

Mr. Crespley and I started down the dirt path beside the road. He was finally able to finish his story.

He explained again of how he woke up in the sun, and did not die.

"Of course, or I would not be here now." He said dryly. "I suspect that all vampire attributes we once had are now gone. Whether or not we are human again, we will see as time passes."

"Since we'll get weaker the longer we go without blood." I stated. "Saying we're still at least part vampire, right?"

"Precisely, now I should tell you of these past few days. That is how long you were asleep for after me actually..."

Mr. Crespley told me how he had discovered his powers were gone. He had fallen off walls he had tried scaling with his claws (he had first tested his claws behind my door, thus the scratch marks), could not run as fast, carry a cow... activities a vampire could usually do. His senses had declined as well, he had noticed this when he did not smell the cow as well, could not see in the dark, and did not hear Hazel sneaking up on him or when she pulled the trigger of a water gun to shoot him (I laughed at that). He had also been spending an incredible time in the sun. "It should have killed me when I was dozing on the coach. Since it did not, I tested out small periods of time in the sun and what they would do to me..."

I personally cannot remember most of what he said. After he had convinced me that he was safe in the sun I started to daydream. Of course I tried to listen... He stopped talking soon afterwards anyways, he seemed bored, and so was I.

An hour or so later, Mr. Crespley was breathing deeply, so I glanced over at him. "You alright?" He nodded curtly. He had sweat falling from his forehead, which scared me. I did not say anything; I kept watching him warily though. We kept walking, and slowly but surely his breathing became heavier. Suddenly, he stumbled over his own feet. I quickly darted in front of him and caught him. I was shocked from how weak he seemed and how quick I had moved. Well, he seems lighter than usual... I gasped. Could our 'vampire attributes' be back? If so, why was Mr. Crespley weaker? I looked up with horror, the sun.

Wincing, I looked down; I probably should not have looked up. Everything seemed brighter, yet filled with an impending sense of doom; I could see everything, including Mr. Crespley's face with a new detail. He looked terrible. His very skin seemed to be steaming, and it was not pale anymore. It had its own darkness to it, so very slight that I could barely see it. Almost as though he was burnt to a crisp, but inside instead of out, and his skin was ghostly thin enough that I could see it.

Immediately I set the vampire down, I emptied out the backpack Pedro had given us. I grabbed the water jug, and boy; it seemed a great deal lighter than when I last drank from it. I shoved it into Mr. Crespley's hands. "Drink." He answered by shakily pressing it to the side of his face. I realized he must really be hot. How could I have not seen this? I needed to get him out of the sun. I stuffed the sandwiches and pocketknife into my pockets, and put the backpack over Mr. Crespley's head and hands. Luckily, he had come to some sense and started drinking quickly from our water supply.

His cape and suit covered virtually every other part of his body. I looked around, was there shade? The sun's powerful rays bounced off the pavement and hills, any shade I found would still be hit by a little sunlight. He needed complete darkness, or death would come upon him. I almost wailed at the thought. I flung my limp friend over my shoulder, muttering "Sorry," although he probably was not conscious anymore.

My feet began to move. We had passed another house on the way here... it looked vacant. If I run I should be able to make it in a few minutes. But does he have that sort of time? My feet pounded, scuffling over dirt and pebbles as I run. Whenever I felt like stopping to rest, frightening thoughts of my only companion surfaced. I did not know how a vampire actually dies from the sun, but I kept imagining Mr. Crespley's skin bubbling and boiling, as he screams out in agony. The thoughts kept me running with occasional bursts of speed.

How long had it been? Is this the right direction? Keep going, no time to turn around. The house, where is the house? Miraculously, the top of a house is around the hillside I am running around. Yes! I have to get inside. It disappears. What kind of cruel joke was that? It was a mirage. No, no, no… my friend might die because of this! I growled, and kept pushing on. I could not help it; I imagined how odd it all must have looked to a stranger. So far I had passed none, but a skinny kid, wearing all brown clothes, carrying a limp man in red with a backpack over his head probably did not look like the most innocent act in the world.

Another house appears as I am having this image. Do not get your hopes up, I tell myself, but it became bigger as I ran around the hill beside it. It is a small house, but it had not disappeared. This could not be a mirage. Dashing for the door, I twist the handle, and hard. I heard a loud crack. It was locked; my tough encounter with it had broken something though... Pushing the door open, I stepped inside. There was a hallway; I cautiously went down it. It was designed exactly like the Hernandez's, and abruptly I pine for the time when Mr. Crespley was healthy there. I entered the room at the furthermost point in the hallway. Thankfully, it had no windows.

I slammed the door shut, set the now conscious Mr. Crespley down, and took off my sweatshirt to patch up the bottom of the door, where the most light is coming in. Mr. Crespley takes off his cape and gives it to me. I pin it up to the rest of the door by dismantling the pocketknife and puncturing the cape with its remains. When I was satisfied that no light could get in, I sat down to face Mr. Crespley. He was chugging down most of the water, and was shivering. I had done that as a human once when I had gotten the flu. My father had told me that it was the body's natural way of cooling you down, other than sweat that is.

For a while there was silence, I had started to play with a string that was coming out of the carpet. Mr. Crespley coughed. "Darren?"

"Hmm?" I was angry with him for being careless and daring to go in direct sunlight. He knew as well as I that it was impossible to become human again. Even if our vampire attributes were no longer there.

"Thank you for saving my life. I am in such a great debt to you."

Instead of saying, "You sure are, the scare you gave me...!" I sighed. "You're welcome, but you're never allowed to be careless again!"

"Usually I would not have been, but I was fascinated from how our 'powers' had disappeared. I am sincerely sorry. I will do my best to make it up to you."

I sighed again. "That sounds good." I flopped onto my back, suddenly filled with great relief. I really did not know what I would do without the vampire. "After the sun goes down, you want to get something to eat?" The sandwiches were not in my pockets, so I assumed they had fallen out when I was running for Mr. Crespley's life. Never really thought I would think that...

The humorless vampire began to laugh, "Well, I feel quite nauseous after experiencing that excruciating heat... but sure, why not?"

"Just don't pass out on me okay?"

Loudly, the door burst open, Mr. Crespley's cape flying off, to reveal an old woman brandishing a broom. Startled, I jumped up, but Mr. Crespley stayed on the ground. She shrieked. "What are you doing in my house? Who are you people?"

I looked to Mr. Crespley, but he only frowned and sighed. He slowly stood up, raising his hands in peace. "I am Larten Crespley, this my son Darren..."

I smiled at how calm everything seemed, even though the old lady was probably freaking out. Mr. Crespley kept talking quietly, as if to soothe her, I highly doubted she would be calm with two strangers barging in her home. Surprisingly (to the elderly lady that is, I knew Mr. Crespley had to have a trick up his sleeve), he sprung forward and blew his breath into the old woman's mouth. She collapsed to the floor, passed out. A vampire's breath could do that to a person.

"We probably should not tell her why we are here." Mr. Crespley stated.

I chuckled. "No duh, how long would that story be? Who would believe it anyways? We still don't know what brought us to the Hernandez's in the first place."

Mr. Crespley shrugged as he lay down next to my feet.

I dragged the old woman into the hallway. She seemed awfully peaceful when not threateningly wielding a broom. I felt kind of bad, but she would be all right. I shut the door and began pinning up Mr. Crespley's cape again. I thought of the people at the Cirque, all my friends there, they would believe the long tale. I lay back down and took in a few deep breaths. Tomorrow was looking quite keen.