L.J. Smith - Vampire Diaries - Short Story - Bonnie and Damon After Hours

TTÇÇ hhÇÇààÉÉÄÄww ggttÄÄxx TThhiiss iiss aa sswweeeett lliittttllee ssttoorryy wwiitthh ssoommee vviioolleennccee.. IItt’’ss nnoott tteerrrriibbllyy ddiissttuurrbbiinngg,, bbuutt bbee wwaarrnneedd .. .. .. Bonnie McCullough laboriously typed into her laptop, while reading from a pink Post-It note covered with neat round handwriting that included little circles over the i’s: The Conscience of A Queen. It was her history report, which would determine thirty-percent of her first semester grade in European History. And she had a good idea for it, a really good idea: original, easy to understand and thought- provoking. What, so her theory ran, would have become of England if Catherine of Aragon had had not been so obedient to the husband who had disowned her, and had allied herself with Spain (where she came from in the first place) and then led these forces combined with the English who were still loyal to her to battle Henry VIII’s army. She was advised to do so often, and only her refusal to take up arms against her husband. Catherine might have been able to establish her little daughter, Mary, successfully as heir, instead of letting Henry have his way in everything; and Henry’s second daughter, Queen Elizabeth, would never have been born. No Queen Elizabeth! No Sir Walter Raleigh! No British Empire— probably no America! Nothing would have happened the way it had down to modern times. A ferociously huge pile of history books loomed over Bonnie on her right right. An equally formidable pile leaned over her from the left. Most of them had Post-Its stuck in them, where she had found evidence to help her theory. There was only one problem, Bonnie thought, her small strawberry-curled head drooping almost to the library table. The report was due the day after tomorrow and all she had written was the title. Somehow she had to combine the facts from these books that held evidence to uphold her theory. Other facts were waiting for her out there on the Web, represented right now by the cheerfully lit computer screen in front of her. But how, how to make a coherent paper out of them in only two days. Of course, she could ask for an extension. But she could just imagine the look on Mr. Tanner’s face if she did so. He would embarrass her mercilessly in front of the class. I can go without sleep for two days, Bonnie thought resolutely. As if triggered by her thought, the lights of the library went off and then on and then repeated the cycle. Oh, no! Ten o’clock already? And she seriously needed some caffeine. Bonnie reached toward the bag beside her, then hesitated. Her hunches, as always, were good ones. Mr. Breyer came walking down the aisle, glancing at the study carrels left and right. “Why—Bonnie! Are you still here?” “Apparently,” Bonnie said with a nervous laugh. Everything depended on her acting abilities right now. “Well, but, the library’s closing. Didn’t you see the lights?” Bonnie had heard that Mr. Breyer always whispered inside the library, even before opening and after closing time. Now she could confirm that it was true. “Mr. Breyer, I want to ask a favor,” Bonnie said, looking up at him as soulfully as she could through her brown eyes. “What favor?” Now Mr. Breyer wasn’t smiling anymore. “I want,” Bonnie stood up, which at least allowed her to see Mr. Breyer’s face, “to stay in the library overnight.” Mr. Breyer was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Bonnie. But the library closes at ten, no exceptions. Think you’re the only one who’s asked me?” Mr. Breyer drew himself up, and murmured for a moment, as if counting. “Why you’re the twenty- forth student to ask that very question.” He seemed to take some comfort in precision. He was picking up her backpack to hand it to her. Bonnie hastily took it, worried it would slosh. “And I told each of those who asked the same thing I’m telling you: “The library closes at ten, but tomorrow is another day.” “Not for me it’s not!” Bonnie felt genuine tears flow into her eyes and over her cheeks. “Oh, Mr. Breyer, I won’t go outside until morning. I’ll be locked in here”—with all the ghosts and the spooky shadows, her mind added involuntarily—“safe as—as anything, until tomorrow morning. Nothing can get me.” “But think of your poor mother—“ Bonnie shook her head. “She thinks I’m at a friend’s house.” “Oh, my,”—under the brightened library lights, Mr. Breyer seemed to be considering. He even smiled. “We used to do the same thing ourselves as children,” he murmured. “Tell one parent one house and another the first house. ‘Double alibi,’ we called it, or sometimes ‘double dipper.’” He was almost beaming. “So you’ll let me stay?” Bonnie gazed up at him pathetically. “What? Oh, no. No. Never. It was a most reprehensible thing to do and we were caught and thoroughly punished for it,” Mr. Breyer said, looking as if this reminiscence were as pleasant a the other. “No, Bonnie,” Mr. Breyer said, “I’m sure you can do some research when you’re at home. There’s more on the Internet than there is in all these books together,” he said, waving a hand at the books Bonnie had scattered with Post-It notes in favor of her theory about Catharine of Aragon. “But you yourself have to be out of the library now. Pronto! It’s six minutes after ten o’clock anyway!” He sounded horrified at his own lateness. All right. When Plan A doesn’t work, go to Plan B. “Okay, Mr. Breyer. You can’t blame a girl for trying. Let me just get my pencil, and my lucky Elmo doll—this was a small suction-cup doll that Bonnie always took with her on studying expeditions, and exams, “and I’ll go to the bathroom, and go home.” “The bathrooms are closed,” Mr. Breyer eyed Bonnie’s tear- streaked face uncomfortably. “But they don’t lock. I suppose you can go.” “Thank you, Mr. Breyer,” Bonnie said, looking up at him as soulfully as if this favor was as important as letting her staying overnight. She swung her backpack over one shoulder and left the study carrel. She also left a mess of crumpled papers, stubs of pencils, and old Styrofoam cups she knew Mr. Breyer wouldn’t be able to resist taking to the trash in back. A few minutes later, Bonnie’s cheerful, “Good night, Mr. Breyer,” echoed through the library, followed by the sound of the small library’s door shutting. Mr. Breyer himself called back, “Good night, Bonnie.” He made sure, however, as he shut the library’s front doors, that the bright green car Bonnie always drove was gone from the parking lot. Bonnie, who had crept back after loudly “leaving” to perch once again on with her feet on the seat of a toilet in the girl’s restroom, waited until the lights went out. This took a kind of courage she was seldom able to achieve. Shivering, with tears still leaking out beneath her eyelashes, she immediately broke Rule 1 of Plan B by turning on the powerful flashlight she had in her backpack without counting to sixty. Then the darkness was bearable—almost. But she knew Mr. Breyers’ routine from the last two nights when she’d staked out the library after studying, and he left and went straight home like clockwork. As soon as she got the flashlight on she tumbled out of the bathroom stall and turned on the bathroom lights. That made her feel a lot better. And when she’d switched on the lights in the computer area at the very back of the library, she knew she was safe. Go away! she told a worry that wouldn’t leave the back of her mind. You’ve done it! You’re fine! Now all you need is some caffeine . . . she scrabbled around in her backpack for a thermos flask that was entirely filled with the strongest coffee she’d been able to make from heaping tablespoons of instant—and popped two No Dozes just to make sure as she took a swig. Now, you’re ready for a long, long night with these reference books. Bonnie took her shoes off, unlatched her computer determinedly, and went to work. * * * * * Outside, there were two dark shadows hunched over something broken and motionless on the ground. “You see?” one said in a guttural voice. “It’s best to come where the lines of Power cross in the ground. The meat is sweeter.” “I do see,” the second one said, and its voice was thick because its own mouth was full of . . . something. “The ley lines give Power to the human lifeforce.” “Sweet meat—and there’s sweeter waiting inside there,” chuckled the guttural voice. “I know all the rules of this library. The little redheaded girl has to come out of the building before morning.” There was a gnawing sound. “After these kills we’ll have to go away,” the second voice whispered. “They’ll hunt us with dogs; they’ll find our scent.” “They will not,” the guttural voice replied. “They may get our scent but I’ve bought an herb-potion that will confuse the dogs. It’s very simple—a strong scent we sprinkle when we get to a crowd. After that everyone walks in the potion—and a dog’s nose is overwhelmed.” The gnawing voice let out a grating laugh. “You should know, brother! You should know about dogs!” “Now shut up and let me eat in peace. We’ll have to move the car before too long. It’s conspicuous.” The gnawing voice shut up. Its owner did not want to say that it had a feeling of unease—of worry—at the back of its mind. That would be stupid. They were werewolves wandering footloose in the human world, in a town where nobody knew them, no one had cause to fear them, and above all, no one had any reason to suspect what they really were. They were invincible. * * * * * Despite the luxury of sinking her toes into the thick pile of the plush carpet (just under a sign that said SHOES MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES), Bonnie had a faint feeling of unease that wouldn’t go away. She didn’t know what it was. She knew—she could feel somehow—that there was nobody in the library. But still, at the back of her mind, she was uneasy. At the back of her mind—hey, that was it! All that darkness behind her. Bonnie really, really hated darkness. She knew all too well the things that she could imagine might come out of it. Although her rational mind had accepted that there were no such things as vampires, witches, werewolves, and so forth, it wasn’t so sure on ghosts. She had seen a few ghosts in her lifetime and it was hard to dismiss them as remnants of dreams. You should never have taken up book on spiritualism, her mind scolded her. It’s given you all sorts of ideas. Now somewhere underneath you really believe that you’re psychic. Thank God you haven’t told anyone so. What would Caroline and Meredith say? What would Raymond, her current boyfriend, say? Most important, what would Elena say? But Grannie MacLachlan, who had always known where to find lost keys and lost T.V. remotes and who had always known when the phone was going to ring—she had looked gravely into Bonnie’s hand on her last visit over the Atlantic. “A life full of excitement,” she had said, slowly and thoughtfully, “but not a life of stability. And you have the Sight, my girl. Far more so than any MacLachlan before you. Add to that talents of the McCullough, and—” She had looked sharply up at Bonnie, who at age thirteen would much rather have been playing with her friends, or checking out boys. “Do ye ken what I’m talking about at all, girl?” Bonnie had shaken her flyaway red hair, looking up into the grave, gray old eyes that usually were twinkling with delight over her grandchildren, or gazing peacefully off into some distant landscape. Now those gray eyes were brooding, worrying about Bonnie. “No,” Grannie had said, “ye ken nothing about it now. But you will, my girl. While you’re still a lassie, you will.” Well, Bonnie interrupted her own musing, I don’t have time to “ken” that now. I have to “ken” Catherine of Aragon. And I have to work fast. She picked up a book, and turned it to the first pink Post-It note she found. * * * * * The figure that belonged to the guttural voice and the figure that belonged to the gnawing voice were lying back, replete, but bothered in their minds. “I’d like to see the girl inside that building right now,” the gnawing voice whined. There was the sound of a sharp blow. “You wanna ruin everything, after all our research?” demanded the guttural voice. “You wanna break a window maybe, set off an alarm? Well go ahead—you won’t get any help from me. I’ll just be a face in the crowd. You’ll take the whole rap for the guy and the girl.” The gnawing voice sniffled, “I didn’t mean to do anything to the library. I only wanted to sniff at the doors and windows.” There was the sound of another sharp cuff, and a whimper. “I know your sniffings,” snarled the guttural voice. “They end in pawings and pryings and broken glass, and then you say, ‘Well since the window was already broken, I’ll go in. Idiot!” For a while there was no noise except the sound of a bone splintering and a sucking as the marrow was taken out. “Ad this way we wod’ ged indo drouble?” the gnawing voice asked finally. The blow to its owner’s nose had been not only painful, but disabling. Who could smell with a nose full of clotting blood? The gnawer rubbed it tenderly. “I’ve told you and told you! We’ll be in the next county—hell, in the next state before the girl is missed. We’ll have plenty of time to run!” There was a pause and then the gnawer’s voice said slowly, “But— who’s going to come open the library? It has an alarm—” “The woman, you idiot! On weekdays, the man comes first and opens the doors. On weekends the woman comes and opens it. After dawn she’ll come and we’ll have both her and the girl. We’ll make the woman open the door; then force her and the girl into our car. Dead or alive, they come with us, and we’ll be snuggled up safe somewhere long before anyone misses them. On Fridays there aren’t many students who head straight for the library.” There was a pause. Then, almost timidly, the gnawer said, “But whad if subone comes wid de woman?” “Divide and conquer. It won’t be the first time we’ve taken on three.” The growler was clearly sick of questions. “Bud . . . ” “But, but, but! This better be a good one or I’ll kick your butt!” A moment’s pause, then, slowly “Bud . . . the man locked the door. He must have the same key as the woman. We might be able to turn off the alarm. Then we could have the girl for”—there was a sucking, slurping sound, like a straw reaching the bottom of a glass—“for hours. Ride now. We could play . . . games.” There was a long pause and then the guttural, growling voice spoke again. But it seemed less annoyed, even somewhat less rasping as it replied, “It’s not a bad idea. It might mean we have to give up the woman—” “But the girl!” The werewolf with the gnawing voice panted. “She’ll be so sweet . . . and the games we can play in the dark . . .” There was a slobbering sound. “All right! All right!” the guttural-voice panted. “But first we have to find the keys, Mr. Big Shot.” “I found them already!” The gnawer whined triumphantly. “That was how I thod of all dis. Should we Change? “We stay like this, half-changed,” the growler said and laughed his guttural laugh. “When she sees us like this she’ll go crazy from fear.” The gnawer laughed his low, snarling laugh. “We can play good guy, bad guy. She’ll run right into our arms.” “She’ll scream,” rasped the growler, “Scream and beg. No help will come. No help.” He took the key from the gnawer and they quietly tiptoed to the library. Thn he put the key in the door. * * * * * Tick. Bonnie could see nothing, could hear nothing now from the front of the library, but she was sure she’d heard a Tick. What could it mean? There was no light being shed; from either overhead lighting or flashlight, and that would be the first thing a teacher or janitor would do, wouldn’t it? Turn on some kind of light. Unless the person wasn’t coming to ensure obedience to the school rules. Unless they’d come for her. Bonnie didn’t believe in ghosts, not really. But inside her mind were hundreds of locked doors, each of which held behind it a boogeyman. They were bogeymen she had shut behind firm doors when she was a child, but at night—at night they had a tendency to come out. And so did Bonnie’s own instincts, like those of a cat. In fact, when the bogeymen unlocked their doors and came out at her, she became more animal than human. She simply let her own instincts take her where they wanted. The overhead light went out. And Bonnie’s instincts, in two bounds, took her ten feet to the right. Bonnie landed on palms and tiptoes like a cat, squatting. Something had landed on her chair. And it had splintered the chair to pieces. “Hey, girl—come this way. There’s an exit!” whispered a human- sounding voice. In fact, it sounded like a nice boy, not much older than Bonnie. But Bonnie had an instinct—this was too much of a coincidence; that a nice boy should have come in with a monster. Rapidly, on hands and knees, she began to scuttle away from the voice and the chair. She found a dark corner in the children’s section to defend herself in. Lightly and softly as a spring leaf she slipped under a table. “You—you monster,” the nice voice was saying. “Take me! Just leave the girl out of it!” “The meat is sweet;” chanted a terrible voice—a sound like gnawing at bones. “And so is the smell of fear so near.” It began to laugh insanely. “I’m not afraid of you,” the nice voice said. Then another whisper, “C’mon, kid. Head to my voice.” Bonnie didn’t move. Not because she didn’t trust the nice voice— although she didn’t. She didn’t move because she couldn’t. Her stupid muscles were frozen in place. Meredith was right Meredith was right Why was Meredith always right But when they found Bonnie, Bonnie would be a pile of cracked and polished bones and Meredith would only know then that Bonnie had just pretended to be convinced that spending the night at the library was a really really stupid idea. Bonnie was good at talking fast—even to herself. All that went though her head before the echoes of the nice voice had faded. She was wedged into the corner now, under the table, protected on three sides but wide open on the fourth, And she had no weapon at all. Timidly, like spiders that she sent out scurrying on missions in opposite directions, she tiptoed her fingers away from her. She knew Mr. Breyer and Ms. Kemp kept what they could see of the library spotless. She also knew that they were both short-sighted and that there was a whole treasure trove of garbage underneath the library tables. After a moment her terrified right hand came into contact with something that rolled slightly and was high and curved and—oh, God, it was only an old plastic cup, a big one, sure, McDonald’s Extra-Large Size, but what was it going to do against an enemy? Beware! Or you will feel the wrath of my plastic cup! But her trembling left hand came across a real find. A ruler. And not any ruler, a steel one. Hurriedly,