Last Through The Night
 
    Rain.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen it rain here and yet it was raining.  And hard, too hard.  It was only the four of us in the house; Amber, Leo, Emmy, and me, Day.  I have a real name but everyone just calls me Day.  At school, I’m “Day, The Monster Freak” and I honestly don’t mind that nickname.  Leo, my big brother, wears glasses and has short brown hair.  He’s probably the biggest computer geek that I know.  Amber is my best friend, really my only friend.  She has long, brown hair plated in a braid and wears glasses.  Emmy, the only red-head in the group, is Leo’s girlfriend.  They met at college and have been together ever since.
    There aren’t any parents in the house.  Well, both of my parents are dead.  Mom died in childbirth after having me and Dad died a year later after getting a huge bite mark that sliced through his neck.  The bite was way too big to be human which probably sparked my obsession with monsters.
    We were all huddled in the living room watching “Killer Klowns From Outer Space” on SyFy.  As you can imagine, we weren’t used to the rain so Emmy ambled around setting out and lighting candles.  She was convinced the electricity was going to go out at any second.  Suddenly we heard a scratch on the front door. 
    “Day, go let the dog in,” Leo said in a monotone voice.
    I groaned but walked to the door and our dog, Smoochy, was there alright, soaking wet.  She was holding something in her mouth that was only a tiny bit smaller than her.  To me it looked like a crumpled, white heap with some gooey, black spots all over it.
    “Day, what does she have?”  Leo asked as Smoochy trotted in like normal.
    “I don’t know.”
    Smoochy dropped it to the ground as we all gathered around it.  To our surprise, it let out a moan.  We all looked at each other uneasily.  Was it…alive?  I guess Leo, being the oldest one there, figured he needed to take responsibility so he knelt down and examined the lump that seemed to be breathing.  I could see that the black dots were indeed liquid seeping out of some small holes.  Was it…bleeding?  Without any more hesitation, Leo gently grabbed the heap and flipped it over.  We all gasped.
   While Leo examined it carefully, we all saw that it was some sort of bat creature with huge ears that stuck out of the top of its oval head.  Its nose was shaped like a pink heart with a broad line extending up to its forehead.  It had a very wide mouth that ended on either side of his long face with two black cheeks.  There was a ring shape around the sides of both of its eyes.  Its arms pretty much looked like bat wings and its legs were very tiny and had black rings around the ankles.  We were truly looking at a monster!  A real monster!
    “It…can’t be,” Emmy whispered.
    “Day,” I heard Amber whimper, “What is that?”
    I gulped.  I hesitated for a second and then knelt down and looked at the creature close up.  I could tell it was seriously injured because it basically had a huge bleeding hole in the back of its head.  One of its arms was crumpled.  Suddenly, it hit me.
    “This is a Vetala vampire!”
    “A what?” Leo asked.
    “They come from Hindu tradition!” I explained excitedly.  “They are spirits that animate bodies so those bodies can work for them in vampiric ways!  I learned that from The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures.”
    “That’s great, Day.  Now someone get me a knife.”
    “Why?”
    “I’m going to kill it,” Leo explained.
    “What? No!”  I held out my hands protectively.  “I’m going to help this poor creature that Smoochy apparently mauled!”
    “And how are you going to do that?” Emmy asked.
    I narrowed my eyes.  “Get me some gauze.”
    I cleaned the wounds, wrapped it up in a blanket and laid it on a chair.
    “You should be ashamed of yourself,” I growled down at Smoochy, who was looking at me with her tongue lolling out and her tail wagging.
    “What should we call it?” Emmy asked.
    “Ricky.”  We all turned to Amber.
    “Why Ricky?”
    Amber shrugged, “He looks like a Ricky.”
    “Ricky?”  We all shot our heads around, surprised that he was talking, to see the Vetala vampire sitting on the edge of the chair, eyes open.  His eyes were a little creepy since they were all black with a glowing red dot in the middle.
    He yawned and rubbed his eyes.  “I can live with Ricky, I guess.”
    “We can call you Ricky?” Amber asked, double checking.
    He blinked, “Um, yes.”
    “Hey Ricky,” Leo started, “Sorry about our dog attacking you.”
    “What?” Ricky asked, dumbfounded.  “Your dog didn’t hurt me.  In fact, she saved me.”
    “Well, what did attack you then?” I asked.
    He cringed.  “Do you promise… to protect me?”
    Our eyes widened.
    “I-I don’t know,” Leo said.  “Protect you from what?  We will if we can.”
    Ricky sighed.  “I’m not the only creature that lives in this area.  In fact, this is one of the most monster infested areas in the world.”
    “Well, that can’t be good,” Emmy groaned.
    “No, it’s not,” Ricky continued.  “But, there is a catch.  Every one hundred years monsters all around the world have to perform a certain ritual to continue their existence because they aren’t originally meant to live on this planet.  If they don’t fulfill the ceremony some time during the night, they’ll all die.  That night is tonight!”
    “Oh.  Then, why did they attack you?” Leo asked.
    “Vetala vampires are immune to the ‘dying out.’  We could live even if this ritual wasn’t performed because we are descendants of bats.  Part of that stupid ceremony is to sacrifice a Vetala vampire!  They’ve been killing my family for centuries!” Ricky complained on the brink of tears.  “I don’t want to die for all the wretched monsters!  You’ve got to protect me until daylight!  Once the sun comes out, all of the evil creatures will die!”
    We were all quiet for a few seconds.
    “So, let me get this straight.  If we ‘protect’ you for the whole night, all of the bad monsters will die?” Amber asked.
    “Precisely.”
    We all nodded.
    “If we live, of course,” Leo deduced.  “I’m guessing they’ll do anything to get you back?”
    “Sadly, yes.”
    “So, all we have to do,” I whispered, “Is last through the night.”
    All of a sudden there was a sound like someone scraping their nails down a chalkboard on the nearest window.  It was so loud and grating that we all put our hands over our ears.
    Emmy yelled, “Oh, my goodness!  They’ve found us!  They’re here!”
    “Now is not the time to panic!” Leo said taking charge.  “We just can’t let them in!  Hurry everyone!  We need to start blocking the doors and windows with the furniture!”
    As more scratching noises came from other parts of the house, we began picking up the furniture and propping it against the windows.  Then we heard more noise coming from the front door.  The four of us grabbed a side of the couch and heaved it over.
    “I never liked this sofa anyway,” Leo admitted.
    We managed to prop it against the door just as it was starting to pulse in and out by the weight of the pressing creatures.  The sofa stopped the hissing and snarling monsters momentarily.  And then, to our surprise, everything stopped; the scratching, the growls, the hissing.  We all looked at each other nervously, tittering with relief.  Had they gone away?
    Then there was a knock on the door that made us all jump.  The monsters were not gone.  We heard it again; knock, knock, knock.  We slowly started backing away from the door.
    “If it thinks we’re going to let it in, it’s crazy,” Amber moaned.
    “I don’t think it’s counting on us to let it in,” I whispered back.
    The rapping on the door was getting louder.  KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!
    “I’m scared,” Emmy whimpered.
    WHAM!
    Whatever it was, it blew the door off the hinges demolishing the sofa in the process.  Amber and I grabbed Ricky and ducked down behind the arm chair.   The only thing we saw was a black silhouette walking into our house.  When it took a step inside, the electricity flickered out.  The candles that Emmy had set out were still shining brightly, though.  We watched in horror as it came closer to us.  It stepped into our circle of candles revealing its face.  She was… beautiful.  She wore a gorgeous black skin suit with a few thorns sticking out of the shoulders.  Her eyes were black and her skin incredibly pale.  Her black hair was flowing behind her as if she were swimming in water.  She was much taller than all of us, so she had to look down at us with her black, empty eyes.  We were all spellbound.  For some reason she looked familiar, but I couldn’t fathom from where.   Leo knew right away, though, from his hiding place.
    “Mom?” He accidentally blurted out.
    “Mom?” Ricky interrupted.  “How did your mom die?”
    “Childbirth,” he quickly said.
    Ricky looked nervous.  “Oh, no.”
    “It’s a Churel,” I whimpered.
    “What’s a Churel?” Amber whispered in my ear.
    “The soul of a woman who died in childbirth,” I whispered back.  “They kill the person they most loved to the person they least loved.  They have to kill everyone they knew before they can be released.  Or someone could kill them, of course.”
    With a high-pitched roar the Churel suddenly opened her mouth revealing at least ten rows of sharp, jagged teeth.  Amber stared at her, mesmerized, while I pushed Ricky behind my back.  The creature’s skin tuned into a sick brown and her flowing hair got tangled and matted filling with dreadlocks.  Her dark eyes bulged out of her head and turned into dripping matter.  I could see Leo and Emmy crawling backward toward the kitchen.  The monster grew a pot-belly that almost touched the ground and her hands and feet flipped backwards all sprouting huge, blood-red claws.  Out of her mouth fell a black tongue that slapped the sides of her face and then she pounced.
    “Then,” Leo screeched springing up, “Is she trying to kill me or you?”
    The Churel roared again, slashing the air with her claws toward me.
    “Well, obviously, it’s ME!” I yelled, ducking down.
    The Churel was fast.  She swiftly jumped on the ceiling spinning her head around like in a “Creature Feature.”  I screamed as the monster’s tongue shot out of her mouth trying to grab me.
    “Day!” Ricky yelled and jumped in front of me holding up his good wing like a blade.  He used it like a knife and sliced her tongue in half.  The Churel screeched falling to the floor, the tongue gushing blood.
    “I got this!”  I heard Amber yell as she came running up from behind me with a huge butcher knife in her hand.  Amber stuck the knife into the Churel’s protruding pot-belly and the monster shrieked and writhed in pain.  With black blood spurting out, it looked like everything in her body was spilling out onto the floor.  The monster hissed and then all that was left was her skin soaking in her own blood.
    “How did you know that would work?” I asked, panting.
    Amber shrugged, “That belly was the biggest part on it, so that’s what I aimed for.”
    “The heart is in the stomach,” Ricky replied calmly, licking the Churel’s blood off of his wing.  “You made a wise decision.”
    “Wait,” Emmy said.  “Didn’t it break down the door?”
    We all looked over at the door in horror.  We gasped as we saw monsters crawling in on the ceiling and walls through the hole left by the Churel.  I felt Leo grab my arm.
    “We need to run.”
    “What?”
    “RRRRUUUUUNNNNNNNN!”
    Clutching Ricky, I bolted for the door with Leo, Amber and Emmy, and even though I felt one of the creatures brush against my hair, the five of us somehow managed to get out, past the monsters.
    We ran.  We ran in the rain even though it was pelting us like hail.  We ran, just ran.