Exorcize This by Julie Steimle (sad books to read .txt) 📖

at once, biting into my shoulder and my neck and arm. They had killed my father. I let out an ear-rending shriek as their teeth sunk in deep, as sound which pierced through the trees and cracked against the rocks and made eardrums pop and bleed. They had killed my father. Pulsing, molten hot anger surged up from my chest overflowing into my head and filling every limb within me as I could envision how they had killed my father. I felt as if I were on fire. And worse, I could see in my mind’s eye what they would do if I let them reach town. They would kill my other father.

I cannot say what happened next.

Honestly, I don’t remember it.

I lost it.

My vision had gone red. My heart was in my ears. My body seemed to work on its own. My throat burned as my mouth felt like it as full of ash as I attacked. The rest of me was taut, moving faster than I had ever moved in my life. And when I was done, coming to some sense of myself again, I felt hot and sticky all over. Something thick and wet obstructed my vision and it took a great deal to wipe it out of my eyes. My hair dripped with it.

Exhausted, I landed among the remains of the bones and rags, the forest floor mostly exposed now though full of worms and creepy crawlies that usually lived under rocks and deep in the soil. The crowd of busy imps paused, watching me. My feel felt wet. Somehow I had lost my shoes. I wondered mildly where they had gone. I had liked those shoes too.

I looked to the imps and said, “Finish up. We must get them all out.”

The tiny little mischief eaters nodded with wide eyes at me and scrambled to get the last of the bones. Much of their regular cackling was gone for some reason.

As I looked around, my eyes readjusting to the dark of the forest floor, I noticed some of the imps had to move vampire bodies out of their way to lift off the rest of the vampires’ victims remains. I stood in the midst of them feeling lightheaded. Finally, my night vision kicked in again out from the red shade of fury I had been seeing through. Around me was a new pile of dead. Not bones from vampire feedings, but the undead… or the once undead—as I had killed them. Each one had something either shoved through their hearts, or they had no hearts at all—ripped out. I didn’t know vampires could be killed that way, but it made sense.

I felt like throwing up.

 

Not Over Yet

I don’t know how long I stood there in that forest, but I made sure the imps cleared out all the bones of the dead. I walked barefoot through the hollow in a daze, searching for any more bones that may have been left behind. I could not find my shoes at all, and I was not sure if some vampire had stolen them, or if an imp did it as a prank. Honestly, I was still shaking over what I had just done. Had I killed them all? The entire Order of Blood? Or had some gotten wise and run off?

I got my answer when something sharp flew at me. I caught it just before it could hit me, and then I looked toward the source. Three vampires cursed under their breaths, flying off through the trees.

No. I had not killed them all. The smart ones had fled and regrouped.

But then that meant someone from that group could still go after my family.

Panic returning, I launched into the sky, soaring back toward the town. In five minutes I was back at the park which was insanely littered with human bones and cardboard boxes. None of it had any order or sense—perfect imp style. No one was there except a couple of cops who opened fire on me the moment I landed at top the gazebo.

I caught the first bullet and threw it back at him, hopping off the roof and landing on a small patch of grass between bone piles. One group of bones had been stacked up like a campfire. The bullet I chucked bounced off the cop’s chest as I shouted at him, “Stop that! What’s wrong with you!?”

“McAllister?” The cop’s eyes widened on me. “You’re past curfew and… covered in blood!”

The sticky stuff. I moaned. I probably looked horrible. Seriously Carrie level gore. Not good. If my mom saw me like this, she’d freak out.

“Never mind that,” I muttered, marching past him. “Do you know where Mr. McDillan is?”

“Never mind that?” the cop in the dark park balked. “Covered in blood! Blood!”

“It’s vampire blood,” I retorted, feeling even more sick to my stomach. “By the way, have you seen any come this way?”

“Yes!” the man shouted at me. “That’s why we shot at you!”

I wondered if the bullets would have made any difference. Were they wooden?

“And what’s with all the bones? This is your doing, isn’t it?” the other cop said to me. He was looking like he had crapped his pants.  

I nodded. “They’re the bones of the dead whom the vampires in the mountains have killed. I was doing somebody a favor.”

Mr. McDillan rushed up then, his crossbow at the ready, fixed on me. “Eve? Is that you?”

I nodded, waving. “Yes. It’s me. I probably look terrible. I’m sorry. The vampires found me before—”

He came up to me and grabbed my arm, rubbing off some of the blood with a handkerchief. He then sniffed it. It was weird, but then he always was. Yet he immediately shook his head with relief and wrapped it up, sticking it into his pocket like some kind of souvenir or something. He nodded, first to me and then the police officers. “Vampire blood. It is toxic to humans.” He looked to me. “So don’t touch anybody until after you get a good shower. How many did you kill?”

I shrugged, feeling weak and sick again.

Coming closer, he peered into my eyes. “Are you alright? Are you having an episode?”

Shaking my head first, I pressed my hand to my forehead and then nodded. “I think I am between episodes. The ones I could not get… I think they’re in the town.”

Nodding to me, Mr. McDillan looked around again at the shadows. He was a great deal twitchier than usual. It was creeping me out.

I rubbed my arms where he had smeared my skin with his handkerchief. It had gone dry. The blood even felt dusty there.

But then I felt a heavy presence. Turning swiftly around, I saw for a second what appeared to be Hell’s Angel—one of those bikers with the tattoos and beard—who nearly walked through the walls of the Bale’s home to go inside. He winked at me.

Walking that way, I stared.

Was that a death angel? The only wings he had were designs on his leather jacket. I would have investigated it further had not two vampires swooped down on the two cops out of nowhere. The policemen screamed shooting their guns. The bangs from them could have woken the dead.

Mr. McDillan shot his crossbow and missed.

But before they could take a bite, I lurched over on my wings and pounced with my claws. I don’t know how I did it. Instinct had taken over. But I tore out the throat of one vampire, and shoved the spare wooden stake Mr. McDillan had into the heart of the other.

Mr. McDillan quickly eliminated the one I had ‘wounded’ with another stake in his heart, going directly to the police who were gaping at me in horror.

“I’m glad she’s on our side,” I heard that cop murmur as I realized I had to get home.  

Launching into the sky, I pawed my pockets for my cellphone. I had to at least text my mother who would be worried about me.

But my phone was gone. My phone and my shoes. Damn. I had to have dropped it in the fight somewhere in the forest. Worried what the vampires would do with that—if they managed to figure out my phone code at least—I rushed home.

The house was surrounded by five of them. They were prying at windows and doors, entirely unaware of my family’s long learned policy to lock all of them at night. I could walk through walls after all. There was no need to give me a key.

When they saw me, they scattered.

I caught up with one, grabbing it.

“Please!” he begged, sagging heavily in my grip. “Spare me! I was just following the Order!

“Leave my family alone,” I growled out through my teeth.

He whimpered, nodding.

“Leave this town,” I said. “And never come back to those mountains.”

I let him go.

And he stabbed me.

It was just a knife, but it hurt. Luckily it was a small thing and only got me in the side.

I pulled it out and returned it to him, backward, clenching the blade as it cut into my skin. I aimed for the heart. The handle was wooden.

I decided not to go home.

Dawn would know not to go out. And she would tell our mom and dad what I was up to. Besides, if I came home in the blood soaked state I was in, it would horrify my mother. Instead, I soared to the ocean, letting myself drop into the frothy water. Under the salty waves, I let the water roll me around until all the blood of those vampires was off of me. Stumbling to the shore, staggering to the sand, I dropped down feeling achy all over.  

Morning After

 

The morning sun woke me. I sat up in the sand, feeling the burn from the sunlight of the dawn. All my sunblock had to have been washed off by then. Rising, my entire body ached.

I felt gritty all over. But as I looked at my arms, there was no sign of the blood from the vampires I had killed the night before.

I stood there with mixed emotions for several minutes. After all, I had just slaughtered a heap of people the night before. Vampires, sure—and the same vampires who had been terrorizing those mountains for years. The same vampires who had confronted me on Halloween two years previously along with my birthfather—the one who had saved my life (I believe) from infanticide and brought me to the home that I have now. The father that they had