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As the sun hid behind trees of the forest, the sky turned yellow and the air grew chilly. I marched towards our not-so-secret meeting place, with my bookbag filled with- well, not books for sure.

The door binged loudly as I walked into Marc’s Pizza Place, and searched the room for Randy. Sure enough, I found him in the booth closest to the window, face buried in the menu.

I plopped down in the booth opposite of him and huffed. “We could literally get killed tonight, and the first thing on your mind is eating pizza.”

“What’s a better final meal than pizza?” Randy put the menu down to look at me with his velvety brown eyes. “Besides, it was Levi’s idea to come he-Ack! Damn sunlight!” The low sun blinded him and he lifted his glasses to rub his eyes.

I cackled while the door binged again and in came a sweet coconut-ty scent. Christy was here.

She sat beside me and pulled her jean-jacket tight. “Whew, it’s chilly outside!” She threw me a glare. You love this weather, don’t you Ria?”

I couldn’t hide my grin. “It’s perfect. It’s been smolderingly hot all day. I couldn’t wait for the sun to go down so we could go hunting.”

Christy winced at me mentioning hunting. “You like creepy stuff. Spiders, vampire hunting, freakish clothing.”

“I think she looks great. That shirt is really cool,” Randy, who’d wisely brought his leatherman jacket, spoke up. He readjusted his glasses and refocused on the menu when I smiled at him.

“Thanks,” I answered, looking my outfit over. From the silver moon necklace to black platform boots, I wore whatever spoke to me.

Finally, Levi arrived, with the most bloated bookbag of all of us. Randy was lucky he was stick-thin, because both Levi and his bookbag took up the majority of that booth.

My face crinkled. “What do you have in there, a pack of rabid squirrels!?”

“Yeah, dude, why are you so eager to get killed by vampires?” Randy groaned.

Levi looked serious. “Dude, I have to catch them. A vampire almost had me for dinner yesterday. I don't know how they got here, but I know that 1: they live among us, and 2: they meet at Cloming Church every few weeks. They’ve got to be there on Halloween night.”

“Yeah, because vampires are so predictable that they meet at a conveniently abandoned church on the night people will dress up as them” Randy deadpanned.

Levi’s face crumbled. “What’s that supposed to mean!? You don’t believe me?”

Randy raised his hands. “No! I believe you. There have been a whole lot of missing people alerts lately. But is that really because of vampires? Plus, they’re like, a hundred years old and would probably know how to not get caught.”

“Guys! Quiet down!” I hissed and then nodded at the restaurant. People were starting to stare.

“Right.” Levi turned and gave me a thankful nod. “We’ll continue this convo later. “But right now, mes needs to eat.” He patted his gut. I rolled my eyes.

For the next thirty minutes, we discussed our plan over pizza. We would get to the church with the wooden stakes Levi and Randy had spent all yesterday making. Christy would go in as bait, pretending to be a clueless girl who came to pray at the old altar, and when the vampires came to get her, I would throw a net over them and Randy and Levi would come with the stakes.

“We’re really gonna show them who they're messing with!” Levi laughed before shoving the last bite of crust into his mouth.

While I gagged Christy said, “but before you stake them, maybe we should try to…I don’t know, reason with them? I mean, maybe the vampires aren’t as bad as we think.”

Levi groaned. “For the last time Christy, we are not in a vampire romance novel!”

Just then, we heard a chorus of squeaks and screeching that got louder by the second. A huge black cloud of smoke flew by the window, blocking out most of the sun and dimming the light in the pizzeria. I realized that it wasn't a cloud, but a wave of bats. The bats flew low into town and people began to scream and swipe at them. The cloud of bats grew smaller as they got farther away, eventually grouping together and flying into the broken window in the bell tower of the old church.

The four of us shared looks between each other.

“Oh, they’re gonna be there alright,” I mumbled.

TO BE CONTINUED

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