CHAPTER NINE

It was now 10:57.  

Kevin, Howie and Janet had not shown up yet from the store. Brian was so worried.  He had also looked for Nick everywhere, and he was gone too.  This was not good.  Definitely not good. Brian, all of a sudden, remembered that A.J was still here...or was he?  He dashed up stairs and tried the door to A.J's room. The door was locked.

"Oh dear God, JOEY!!!  A.J's door is locked!  Can you open it?" Brian all of a sudden heard a groaning noise from behind the door.  "A.J!!  Are you all right?  Hold on buddy, Brian's coming!!!"  Joey appeared in no time with an extra set of keys. Brian grabbed them and un-did the lock.  He flung the door open and pounced in screaming, "I'm here!"  

A.J woke up with a yell and bolted up right.  He grabbed a pillow and threw it at his intruder.  When the pillow hit Brian, it exploded, sending feathers everywhere.  When A.J saw Brian spitting out feathers and brushing them off himself, he smiled.
"Brian!  Hey! How are you doing?"  

Brian's eyes opened wide.  He then smiled.  Only A.J. He thought.

"Just fine.  I thought you were dead!"  

A.J looked at him in a weird way.  "Why would I be dead?"  

"Well..." Brian stopped.  He didn't know if A.J would believe him or not.

"Well what?  You scared the shit out of me and woke me up so you'd better tell me now!!!"  

Brain laughed.  "Okay, but just so you know, Joey thinks so too, isn't that right?"

Joey nodded.

"Alright, Tell me now!!"  

Brian sighed and told him everything.  About Janet leaving, about Howie and Kevin acting weird, the fact that the store had closed over two hours before they left and that Nick was missing.  

A.J rolled his eyes.  "You're starting to sound like Nick.  'Janet's dangerous, Janet's dangerous, Janet's d...'" He stopped when he saw that Brian was not kidding.  A.J looked at Joey and he too was not smiling.  "Are they back yet?"  

Brian shook his head.  "Even if they did go to the store, it's only about two blocks from here.  They would have been back hours ago..."

"Well, maybe she didn't know when the store closed."

"Joey told her."

"Well, maybe she just forgot."

"It's kind of a hard thing to forget."

A.J put his face in his hands.  "How long have they been gone?"

Brian looked at his watch.  "Two hours and twenty minutes."

A.J looked a little scared.  "Did you call the police?"  

Brian shook his head.  "We tried about seventeen times in the last hour.  The phones are dead from the storm."  

A.J got up and put on his shoes.  "Well, I'm gonna go look for them."  

Brian gasped.  "A.J!! You can't!!  It's raining cats and dogs out there; you'll drown in the first five seconds you're out there!! Stay here. It's a lot safer."  

A.J rubbed the back of his head.  "Fine, but if they're not back by the time the storm is over, I'm going out there to look for them, and you can't stop me."  

Brian nodded.  "Okay, now let's go downstairs and wait for them."  

He, A.J and Joey made their way downstairs and sat at the bar...

And waited.

"Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God." Nick was pacing back and forth in Mr. Greenway's office.  He was petrified.  Brian could be dead by now...  He shook his head.  Don't think that Nick, he's alive, everything's fine and everyone's fine, the others... Nick stopped pacing.  The others.  How could he forget? What about them?  They could be in trouble too.  

Nick had a feeling that they were.  

Mr. Greenway sighed.  He liked Nick, he was a good boy, and he hated to see him like this.  They had notified the patrol and they were now on their way to the inn.  Unfortunately, the storm was so fierce that it would take them tree times as long to get there.  

As Nick paced back and forth he thought of something.  He wanted to help.  Brian was his friend, his best friend.  He needed to help.  "What about the tunnel?" He asked.  

Mr. Greenway looked confused.  "Tunnel, what tunnel?"

Michelle who was sitting in a corner turned red.  

Mr. Greenway noticed.  "Michelle, is there something you want to tell me?"  

Michelle looked up at him and sighed.  "Yeah."  She then took a deep breath and began.  "The tunnel that Nick speaks of is, well, let's just say it used to belong to my mother."  

Nick noticed that Mr. Greenway clenched his fists at the sound of Michelle's mother.  

"It was a family secret.  Because of the fact that it connected to the inn, it was just a way for us to get here with out having to worry about spies."  

Nick was confused.  

Mr. Greenway noticed.  "Well, Nick I guess we had better tell you Janet's story.  You might need to know it in the future."

Nick shrugged.  "Okay."  

Mr. Greenway took a deep breath and looked at Michelle.  "You can leave if you want to."  

Michelle shook her head.  "I'll be fine."  

Mr. Greenway turned away from Michelle.  

Nick glanced at her and he noticed that her eyes were watering.

"It all started about twenty years ago.  Michelle was only just three.  Janet and Michelle's mothers used to be best friends. When Stacy got married, Janet was there.  When Stacy got pregnant, Janet was there.  But like I said, twenty years ago was when it all began.  On the night of August 15, 1982, a vampire was caught and killed, actually by your father."

Nick bowed his head and sat down on an empty chair.  

"We thought that we had got in time before it bit anyone, but we were wrong.  When Stacy was on her way back home from the SVSS, she met Janet, who was lying in a gutter.  Stacy quickly turned Janet over to see her face and she saw two pricks in her neck.  Michelle knew at that moment exactly what had happened.  She rushed Janet to our hospital that deals with vampire bites.  Unfortunately, back then the stuff that we had was not very effective.  We did learn, however, that Janet was bitten, not to be killed, but to be made a vampire."  

Nick gulped.  This sure beat those stupid scary stories that A.J tried to tell.   This one was real, though.  

"We did everything that we could.  But by the next night, Janet was fully a vampire.  We had no choice, but to stake her. Stacy said that she could not do it, so I volunteered.  The next night when it was planned to take place, we realized that Janet had disappeared.  We looked everywhere that we could.  But Janet was really gone.  Two years later though, she showed up again.  This time, she decided to make her best friend a vampire.  I was there that night, so was your father and many other old friends of Stacy's.  I remember it so well..."

"Make your choice, Stacy.  With me you can have power. With them, you would have nothing."  

Stacy Silverstone looks back and forth between her friends and her best friend.  As she looks at one side, she sees Robert Carter, Allen Greenway and many others.  When she looks at the other side, she sees her best friend in the entire world, Janet Lynn.  

"Make your choice NOW!"  Janet screams.  

Stacy looks at her and is about to make her decision, when she hears a familiar voice.

"Mommy?" Stacy turns to sound of the voice.  She sees a little girl pushing through the crowd.
 
"Michelle..."

"Mommy!  Please come home! We need you! Daddy needs you. I need you, please..."  

Stacy's mind is cleared.  All she sees is her little girl Michelle, who she loves so much.  All of a sudden, a man appears at Michelle's side.  "Mark."  

The man looks at Stacy.  He is crying.  "Stacy, we need you!" He sobs,  "I can't raise Michelle on my own. We love you...and I love you..."

Janet laughs.  "How sweet, your family came to say good-bye, well, come on Stacy, let's go."  Janet turns to leave, but Stacy doesn't follow.  "I said let's go, Stacy..."

Stacy has made her decision.  She turns to Janet and looks at her in the eye.  "Good-bye, Janet." With that, she turns and walks towards her family.  She hugs her husband and her daughter.  "My place is with those who I love."  

Janet's mouth is wide open.  What is left of her heart is broken.  She all of a sudden gets very angry.  Her eyes start to glow with a burning desire of revenge.  "You just made a mistake, Stacy Silverstone."  Janet raises her hands.  "Now you will pay."  She brings them down and there is a blinding red light.  

Stacy and Mark grab their daughter and get out of the way just in time.  The light hits the ground and a hole appears.  Everyone is running in panic.  They run towards the house that is near by.  Stacy and her family run with them, but Janet stops them.  

"You can run, but you can't hide."  She raises her hands once more.  She lets the light go and the family dodges out of the way once again.  The light hits the nearest house and it explodes, sending bits everywhere.  

They run once again towards the house, but all of sudden, Mark is hit by the red light.  He screams and drops Michelle. Stacy yells for him to get up, but there is a hole in his body.

He is dead.  

Stacy picks up screaming Michelle and runs.  She turns around and sees Janet running towards her.  Stacy ducks behind a building and Janet runs right passed them.  Stacy then runs around to the front and sees her old friend, Sam.
"Sam!!"  She screams at the top of her lungs.  

He stops running and turns to see Stacy.  "Stacy! I thought you were dead, where's Mark?"  

Stacy drops her head.  

"I'm so sorry," Sam murmurs.  "I didn't know.."

"It's alright."  Stacy turns to see Janet coming back.  "Sam, take Michelle.  If anything happens to me, promise...promise me that you will raise her and teach her all she needs to know about the SVSS and about life itself."  

Sam looks at Stacy as if she were crazy.  "But Stacy..."

"Please Sam, do this for me."  

Sam sees his old friend's look of fear.  Her daughter was the most important thing to her, and she wanted her to live.
"I promise."  

At that moment, they hear the sound of someone laughing. Janet is right behind them.  Sam turns and runs and Stacy tries to do the same.  

"So sorry Stacy, but now since you decided to abandon me, you will pay."  

With that there is a final flash of red light.  

Michelle screams as she watches her mother fall from a distance. 

"MOMMY!"

Nick turns to Michelle.  She is crying.  He goes to comfort her. He hugs her and she hugs him back.
  
"I'll be right back, I'm going to go see how the patrol is doing."  Mr. Greenway exits the room.
  
"It¹s not fair, just not fair."  Michelle cries.  

Nick hugs her again.  "I'm so sorry.  I don't know what it is like to lose a mother, but I do know what it is like to lose someone close."  

Michelle looks up at him.

"Denniz PoP and Danny Lee, right?"

Nick smiles.  "Yeah, I miss them a lot."  

Michelle lowers her head.  

"Oh, please don't cry."  

Michelle brings her head up.  "I can't help it.  I've had so many people who've died trying to protect me.  Sam, my mom's friend, died.  About five years ago, he went on a business trip. He checked in to a hotel room and went up to his room.  The next morning..." she paused, and bit her lip.  "The next morning, the maid found his body, mutilated.  His body parts were all over the room.  They also found a note, written who blood."  She stopped, and turned away from Nick.  "It's just not fair.  Everyone I love has to get killed."  

She starts to cry and Nick hugs her again.  He lifts her head up with his fingers.  She looks in to his eyes and he does the same.  This time, Nick feels a strange sensation.  He leans in and kisses her lightly on the lips.  When he pulls away, he sees that her eyes are closed.  He leans in again and kisses her more passionately.  

Michelle pulls away after a while, just as Mr. Greenway walks in the door with a pale face.  He doesn't even notice that Nick and Michelle separate quickly.
  
"The patrol got to the house.  We need to get down there A.S.A.P, Nick, there has been a break-in.  The obvious work of Janet."