I drove my dad's old car- which sucked because he had cheap taste. It was a dented, light blue Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera, only about a thousand years old. He said owning an official "Piece of Crap" first car built character, and he often pontificated how high school kids driving brand new sports cars and SUVs could only grow up to be major league assholes. Of course, I knew from firsthand experience that most of those kids would never grow up, and most of them were already assholes.
It was funny to think that my Dad, the guy who said old cars built character, was presently fucking the hell out of my new neighbor's Mom, a woman he barely knew. When I say funny, I definitely do not mean it in the "ha ha" sense. And as if this was not bad enough, my Mother was being fucked in the very same room by Maddy's dad.
It seemed more than improbable. It was impossible. That just wasn't my parents. Yeah, I'm sure they did things they didn't want me to know about, but I knew them well enough to believe with certainty that they were not swinger material.
And yet, my cock remained hard as I remembered the scene, no matter how disgusted I became.
I flicked on the overhead light and checked the address on the card given to my by Sarah Tasker. I recognized the street and thought I knew at which motel she was staying. It was a little off the beaten path, a good place to party without worrying about parents driving by and recognizing cars. Needless to say, I had been there more than once.
I turned off the light and drove. My body felt weak, but I had forced myself to the garage and in the car after discovering my parents at the Taskers. This was the kind of thing that could not wait.
Bits of Sarah's story twisted through my mind. For instance: the fact that her family had taken off without telling her. If that was the case, how had she found them? I thought about what she had said about finding the bodies of her new neighbors, about how they had looked: drained, withered, mummified.
I tried to make sense of it, but nothing seemed to fit; nothing rational, anyway.
By the time I pulled into the motel, I was more confused than ever. Sarah had written her room number under the cell phone number on the card she had given me: number 4. The number gleamed in the yellow cast from my headlights. With a heavy sigh, I twisted the key, and the ignition stuttered to a stop. I sat for a moment, listening to the slowing tick of the engine.
The motel was a rundown hulk: urine-colored buildings surrounded by droopy, leafless trees. The few rust-buckets that littered the parking lot looked suspicious, the kind of cars one's drug-addicted cousin would drive. Whenever nice cars were in the lot, you knew it was kids from town, partying. Apparently, no one felt like partying tonight.
I pushed the car door open and approached Room 4. I wasn't sure how to act or what I would say when Sarah opened the door. She'd probably be pissed I was waking her up, and I considered turning around and going straight home, wait until morning before coming back. But, as I said before, this was something that couldn't wait. Something... unnatural was happening to my family.
I lifted my fist to knock on the door, hesitated, and brought it down with a loud rap. Something creaked within the room, probably Sarah shifting on the bed.
"Who is it?" she called.
"It's me... Maddy's neighbor."
I heard footsteps. Something rattled- the chain, and something clicked- the lock. But the door didn't open. Instead, I heard the footsteps back away, and Sarah's voice on the other side.
"Come in," she said. Though this kind of demand struck me as odd, I did so. I pressed the squeaky metal latch down and pushed the door open. I thought vaguely of a story we had read my freshman year in high school: "The Lady or the Tiger." The pit of my stomach filled with dread; I would not have been surprised if something unnatural, something fanged and hungry, awaited me on the other side.
The door revealed the lady. Sarah Tasker stood in an unremarkable motel room. No tigers. Sarah was neither fanged nor drooling, but a handgun pointed at me from one hand. I seemed to register the gun with indifference. At this point, I was too tired to be afraid. If Sarah was going to shoot, then go ahead and shoot, my body seemed to say.
Instead, she lowered the gun. She motioned for me to come into the room.
"Just a precaution," she said, tossing the gun on the bed. I nodded.
"Yeah, never know who's going to show up at a lady's motel room in the middle of the night. I could be a vampire," I said with a twisted grin. Sarah didn't return the smile, and I didn't blame her. The remark wasn't very funny.
She reclined in a rickety chair, one not unlike the ones in the student lounge at school: cheap, barely cushioned, and stained. She heaved a heavy sigh. I noticed that she was still fully dressed, as if prepared to charge into action at a moment's notice.
"So what are you doing here?" she asked.
I took a seat at the end of the bed. The mattress creaked. I felt springs dig into my ass like bony fingers. I idly wondered if places like these were ever rated negative stars.
"I believe you." I paused, shaking my head. "Well, I'm not sure I believe you, but I believe something is going on," I struggled to explain. I still did not believe the Taskers were vampires, but I was starting to think that maybe there was a kind of superhuman or supernatural aspect to them. There had to be if they had managed to turn my parents into sex-hungry maniacs.
Sarah opened her mouth to reply, then closed it and frowned. She blinked. Then she looked down at herself. Her hair was light brown- as if unable to decide between the amber of her mothers and the dark black of her fathers, and scoops of it hung over her face as she glared down, gently touching the area of her jeans between her legs.
"Holy shit, I'm dripping wet," she observed.
This revelation caught me by surprise, even considering the outrageous activity I had observed (and partaken) earlier that evening.
"They've tagged you," she said and lifted her eyes to catch my own.
"Um, what?"
"They must have something, some pheromone or something. It makes them irresistible. That's why it's so easy for them to seduce you without question. They've already tagged you with it. They're preparing you," Sarah said, her words quickening, stumbling one over the other as she spoke.
