The Midpoint #2: Introducing Monster House
Part I - The Vampire (a monster girl romance)
Welcome! Everything is terrible, so I started writing a story about a house of monstrous girls living together in a retrofitted manor in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. It’s called Monster House. This is how it’s going to work:
There are 5 monster girls. Each one gets a part of the novel.
Part I - The Vampire
Part II - The Mermaid
Part III - The Werewolf
Part IV - The Succubus
Part V - The Gorgon
I’m going to post a chapter every two weeks, though I hope to make it weekly after April when I’m done with my Rebel Angels deadline.
As you read, keep in mind this is very lightly edited and proofread. I want to use this space to experiment and write something that is truly just fun for me, and hopefully you.
Tell your friends! Tell your mom—but only if she’s into monster romance.
Don’t be shy with the comments. It won’t hurt my feelings, and I’d love feedback on what you’d love to see from the characters. Like, choose-your-own adventure, though really more of a “suggest”-your-own adventure.
I’m writing this as Zoey Castile.
Happy reading.
What’s Monster House about? Welcome to Foxwood Manor, a home built in the 19th century to one of the richest families in the northeast. After the bloody scandal that befell the original owners, it fell into the hands of Athena Hall, a real estate agent—and immortal Gorgon. She repaired the house and accrued four roommates over the years. Each girl is a monster. A Miami vampire frozen at the edge before turning twenty-one. A cursed mermaid who loves to cook. A Brooklyn werewolf living her cottage-core(gore?) dreams. A succubus trying to get her groove back. And a glamorous Gorgon waiting for her past to come and get its revenge.
They say good fences make good neighbors. Every month, three of the girls go on a trip called the Fever Hunt. They stock up on supplies, run and swim in the wild, and then return to the safety of the manor. But this trip brings a surprise—their meticulously planned hunt is interrupted by a blizzard, and a bachelor party stranded on their hillside road.
Karli Perreira has been a vampire for thirty-one years, and a vegetarian vampire for twenty-five of them. The sordid details of those six years are not important. Turned in the wild and wet 90s, she’s perpetually a day short of twenty-one. Like, total bummer. She’s made the most of it by living in a decked-out manor with her monstrous besties. Karli’s always been afraid of losing control again. Her recent cravings and the group of handsome strangers who seek shelter from the storm is about to test that self-control. Especially from the brooding Ryder Vega, a budding singer and disarming flirt with a secret of his own.
As the blizzard snows them in, and delays their leaving, the monster girls of Foxwood Manor struggle to reign in their hunger. For Karli, it’s been so long since she’s fed on a human, but she’s on the brink of breaking every rule that keeps them safe. After Ryder reveals that he’s one of four initiates on the final trial to ascent to a cult of monster hunters. Face to face with a man she wants to kiss or kill, she’s forced to ask herself—who is really the hunter, and who is the prey?
Once, the house on the hill was called Foxwood Manor. Built in 1838 by Atticus Birch, it comprised of thirteen bedrooms—one for him, one for his wife, and the rest split among their dozen children as well as the constant guests who appeared at their magnificent doors. The guests in question enjoyed the Roman baths and ice plunging pools made of marble quarried across the river in Vermont. The men stalked the forest and ladies followed the paths of neat gardens and manicured mazes. The grand ballroom was the showstopper, hosting exquisite parties for friends and business partners and those lucky enough to be in the same orbit as the eccentrically handsome and handsomely eccentric Atticus Birch.
Once, the house was full of life. Long dinners and balls. Champagne and wine spilled from Waterford glass and down wanton lips. Music echoed from the west to east wing. Servants washed and folded, dusted and polished; grounds keepers chopped wood and plowed winding roads through the forests to have better access to the town at the bottom of the hill and surrounding universities.
When Atticus Birch disappeared, more rumors than truth followed his legend. They say he was lured out of his bed in the middle of the night by a banshee, but banshees were messengers, not avenging angels. They said it was his business partner, Elias Sanderson, who’d coveted Mrs. Francine Birch, but Elias was found, half eaten by wolves, in the forest a few months later.
They said all of the wealth Atticus Birch had amassed was on behalf of the devil himself, and his life was the price. No one truly knew, because the winter after the disappearance, disease spread through the neighboring towns, slowly making its way up the hill to the great house, claiming the life of every person within its walls. Only the groundskeeper survived.
And so, too haunted to live in, the house passed on to a distant cousin who sold the property on day one.
Foxwood Manor remained hollow, gathering dust and mold and spiderwebs. Only the bravest, foolhardy locals broke the rusty chains keeping the gates shut. Only reckless lovers snuck into the ancient master bedrooms to fuck and party and squat in the place which nature had started to reclaim.
[Photo by Nathan McDine on Unsplash]
But all of that stopped in 1970 when the land was bought by the mysterious Athena Hall. The real estate mogul refurbished every nook and cranny, firing each contractor at her whims, which changed like the New England weather. There was talk she’d turn the place into condos, or sell it to the universities, but when every repair and addition was made, the doors remained closed.
Athena fortified the iron agates and installed “PRIVATE PROPERTY” signs at every road that led to the driveway. She added security feeds and traps in case they were ever attacked. She kept the world out until the townsfolk, and would-be ghost hunters, and nosy neighbors gave up trying to break in.
New rumors surfaced. They said Athena Hall was a witch. That she was a monster and each of the four women who were allowed entry through the front doors were her coven. That they howled at the moon. Sacrificed men in Atticus Finch’s wine cellar. They said they were demons. Cannibals. All who entered were doomed a fate worse than death.
“Do not go to Foxwood Manor, monstrous women live there,” wrote a local priest in the paper. But wasn’t “monstrous women” redundant?
The town had one thing right. The five residents of Foxwood Manor were monsters. And that’s why Athena had fortified her fences, because the real danger always came from the world below.
My dreams are never pink, not unless Alia is at the wheel. My succubus roomie has this sick ability to psychically connect, which I’d normally be pretty stoked about, but it comes with an annoying side effect—it only happens when she’s horny, and after what she’s been through, she’s always horny.
Look, I love loving myself. I do. But I also love sleep. I know, I know. Karli, you’re a vampire, you can sleep for, like, ever. Blah blah. If we want to be technical about it, yes. But I’m still a walking, talking, sentient—however dead—creature. A body needs rest. My body specifically.
In my very pink-lit dream, I’m in my bedroom which is, albeit, already very pink. Raya, our resident mermaid, once called my suite’s decor “if Barbie had a cloaca.” I don’t really get underwater humor. Anyway, I’m brushing my hair at the vanity. Ever since I got turned, I’ve been frozen in time. Sometimes it surprises me all over again. I always took care of myself. Latina home remedies and tithing half my paycheck to creams that sounded more like witch’s brew than cosmetics. Ingredients include: frozen placenta (species irrelevant), desert rose cold pressed oil, shea butter left out to absorb full moon beams. That type of stuff. If I’d known I’d die, and then come back as something more and less human, I would have saved my paychecks. Still, I continue to have an extensive skincare routine. I’m dead, but I’m still not getting younger.
My dream reflection looks up at the man who enters my room. He’s got a human body, jacked in all the right places. Though, instead of a human head, he’s a retro tv. You know those ones from the 70s? With the dial and the plastic mint green cover. His face is the static of dead air, threaded by pixilated colors. His body is smooth, with a tuft of hair snaking down his abdomen.
He pumps his fist up and down his very big, and very pink cock.
“Wake up,” I snap, but Alia is a heavy sleeper.
We share the east wing of Foxwood manor, but I know her psychic connection reaches well past the house. We get the local paper, and a few years ago someone wrote about the summer the entire town fell into a state of debauchery. People literally died. A unusual number of babies were born nine months later. Even Sodom and Gamora didn’t last forever.
Once a month, Alia’s power is stronger, and so are the psychic energy endured dreams. They get more lucid. More like I’m at the wheel but someone else is moving my arms. I’d always find that kind of submission terrifying, because you’re not actually surrendering. You’re not in control to begin with. But with our poor, eternally frustrated, horny succubus, I only feel sorry for her.
I suppose I’ll just have to dream-fuck a humanoid television with a throbbing pink penis. The things one does for their friends.
“Who are you?” I ask, shocked that this strangest of strangers is in my suite.
He doesn’t answer. Stands behind me, but I can see all of him in my vanity mirror.
“Can I call you Mr. Robotta?” I ask, pulling my sheer robe closed. As if, but I’m giving into the fantasy.
He doesn’t talk but the pixilated letters spell out: I’d prefer you call me Hank.
Dream man, honestly. It’s kind of nice not having to make small talk, not that I’m an expert. These dreams are the most action I’ve had in for. Ever.
So Call-Me-Hank rests his hands on my shoulders. They’re good hands, soft but firm. He brushes those strong fingers along my nape, and every single one of those baby hairs stands on end. With delight, want, or fear, I’m not sure. Maybe a little bit of all of it. But what do I have to be afraid of? It’s just a dream. It’s just the sexual electric current seeping into my subconscious. I haven’t let anyone touch me, really touch me, since the night I was turned.
Well, no, I’m not being honest. If we’re going to tell this story—the one about five monstrous girls in a haunted, pimped out manor—I’ll do it right. I haven’t had sex or bitten a human in twenty five years. I was turned thirty one years ago. What happened in those five years comes later.
All that matters is that maybe I look forward to these fantasies more than I let on. Yes, I have a literal treasure trove of sex toys. Yes, the drunken roommate nights can get heated. But there’s nothing that feels quite as right as those arms holding me tight, and not letting me go until I ask.
Hank pushes aside the edges of my robe. There’s the crush of fabric, and my faux-surprised intake of breath. I know what comes next because it’s my subconscious. Hank presses his screen-face on my shoulder, and I swear I feel the brush of lips tracing warm kisses down my spine. I wriggle under him, but he grabs my thighs, pinning me to my velvet bench. He sinks between my open legs. I try to close them. I’m too exposed. My g-string is made of soft plastic pearls. I can feel them slip as I get wet.
So wet, Hank writes across his face screen.
He lets his palms run down my thighs, squeezes the muscles hard, then spreads me open by my knees. He pulls my pearl thong to the side and drags his fingers between my labia. I feel embarrassed by the squelch of his fingers sliding in and out of me, but he eases me by pressing tender, warm kisses on my breasts, my throat. He is somehow touching every part of me at once and I still want more of it. I want to feel him cut through me like a current. I want to feel so good that I blur out of existence for a brief moment, a billion little pixels, then come back. Isn’t that what it was like becoming a vampire? I was dead, blurred out of existence. There was brief, but sharp pain, like I was being unmade, then pieced back together. The yawn of nothingness. The ache of living, so bright and so loud.
Hank presses his screen to my ear and whispers, “I want to be so deep inside you it scrambles my wiring.
I try not to think too hard on what that would entail. I simply give over to him. I lie back on the bench. My ass hangs just below the edge, but he is there to scoop me up and hold me fast. He slides inside and I squeeze my eyes shut against the pressure, the searing pleasure of him. I don’t even mind when his screen reads: just the tip, because it feels good. I let it feel good. I’m in control. At least, I think I am.
I try to move down his length but he teases me. Makes me ask for it.
“Please, please, please,” I say, breathless and eager.
He doesn’t smile, not exactly, but he’s pleased. It’s in the proud set of his shoulders, and the pixilated swatches of pink on the gray static of the screen.
He looks down at himself thrust into me, once hard, then slowly. Slow so I ask for him to fuck me harder.
The pink lights pulse in my dream as I feel myself edge closer to a climax. Everything feels brighter, louder than usual. Am I awake? I feel more awake than usual. My skin is hot to the touch, and so is Hank’s. He feels so terribly, beautifully real that when I sit up to rub my face against his chest, I can hear his heartbeat where there was only static before. I use my strength and speed to flip him around and under me.
Little cherry bombs appear on his screen, then rainbows, like my own personal jackpot.
I sink around his rock hard erection, chasing the hunger that comes with twenty five years of abstaining from the two things my subconscious wants more than anything—sex and blood and blood and sex. When I press my palms against Hank’s chest, I feel overwhelmed by his scent. Metallic and new. Manmade, but like walking through the detergent aisle and an IKEA all at once. And then something beneath it—dark and cherry sweet.
Blood.
My heart and the pulse between my legs flutter. These dreams have never had blood before. I’ve never flipped Hank over either.
“Wake up,” I try to tell myself, but the words are a fading whisper.
The ache in the pit of my stomach grows, and the only thing that will make it better is Hank’s dark, cherry sweet blood. I try to hold back a groan as my fangs elongate and I sink them into the crook of neck, like I’m eating all the pink flesh off a watermelon slice.
I drink feverishly, feeding my hunger. Feeding the pulsing energy coursing through the manor. It builds until I start to see pixilated outlines of my roommates in the room with me.
“Wake up,” I say, as blood spills from my gluttonous mouth. My heartbeat kicks into high gear, like I’m alive again. I look down, dazed at all the blood. Hot and sticky. What did I do?
Oh, no. Oh no. Not again.
I scream until I can trick my body into thinking we’re in danger. The rush of adrenaline jolts me awake.
[Photo by Dev Asangbam on Unsplash]
I’ve got a purple mushroom plushie wedged between my legs and I’ve ripped two holes into my memory foam pillow. My weak, barely-there pulse struggles to catch up with all the emotion I feel. Whatever you’ve heard of vampires, we do feel. At least, I do. Though my heart isn’t alive, the magic that reanimated me locked it into an eternal soft pulse. If it were to ever stop, there’s nothing to start it back up. I press my hand there and listen to the steady rhythm.
“What the fuck was that?” I roll over onto my back.
My pink room is bathed in evening light. Sometimes it still startles me. Sun exposure and all that. But when I moved in, Athena had these enchanted windows installed into manor. Light can’t hurt me, not while I’m in here. I toss my molested, damp plushie aside into the laundry bin across the room.
I don’t normally wake up before sunset, but I might as well take advantage of the dregs of the day. My mouth feels awful from the dream. (Nightmare, more like it.) Even after brushing and rinsing with mouth wash, the ghost of that blood weighs on my tongue.
I rifle through my walk-in closet and fish out a pair of pink and purple track pants and matching sports bra. I tie my hair back with a scrunchie and grab a water bottle from my glossy 50s retro pink fridge.
At this time of day, the only ones up are Raya, who swims an indeterminable number of laps every day (we’ve tried to count), and Athena (whom I’m sure never sleeps). Good. I don’t need hysterically confused questions after the succubus-induced dreams get too strong and too weird.
While I wait for the sun to set, I stretch at the east kitchen door.
And no, I don’t know why my subconscious wet dreams are about a man with a television for a head. I don’t know if it’s something I conjured up myself or by Alia’s pent up psychic energy. The others have dreams, too, but we’re not always on the same sleep schedule. Raya’s wet dreams are more vengeful and surround the man who cursed and stole her mermaid song. Marirosa always dreams some variation of a werewolf orgy, and Alia’s mind is too chaotic to make sense. Theirs change a lot more than my recurring dream.
Before I can think too much as to why that is, the sun sinks below the horizon. I open the door and jog on the frosted grass. The snow-capped forests that surround the property nearly blend into the palest January sky. We don’t get good weather this time of year, but the day was supposed to be clear, if cold. The tips of some of the clouds are tinged gray and soft flurries fall like bits of Styrofoam. The girls are supposed to leave for their monthly ritual—the fever hunt. I don’t partake, but I hope the weather clears.
I set off on my own jog. Before I was turned, I was not an athletic girlie. I was a beach bum party girl, but I was low maintenance. Swimsuit, sunscreen, a scrunchie for my black waves. There’s a primal tic inside all vampires. We are the magpies of the monster world and we love beautiful things. I crave shiny, glossy, pretty things. My love of sparkly vampires makes sense, or so I tell myself. While I run, I think of how you change after death. You just do. Sometimes I wonder if I’m even the same person. Am I still Karlotta Perreira? Boy crazy optimist who thought everyone had the best intentions. God, what an idiot. I never rose before noon. I had the thinnest bikini straps glowing on my sun kissed skin as a sun tattoo. I’ve looked like that twenty-year-old since 1985. But now I wear pink sports clothes and I run and I never stand in the sun and I’ve forgotten my parent’s landline number which I knew by heart and I drink deer and bear blood.
Is that just growing up without growing old? Or maybe when I came back to life someone else’s soul replaced me. When my thoughts take this morose turn, I know I have to adjust the amount of THC oil I mix into my animal blood.
That wet dream has me a little unsettled, so I run a hundred and one laps around the labyrinthian garden. I could go a little longer but I’ve never liked the snow, even if I don’t feel bothered by extreme weather. I’m still a Miami girl at heart.
I jog back to the house, my heart still that faint, barely there pulse. The snow is sticking and falling harder. I brush it out of my ponytail and hurry upstairs to shower, lotion up, and join the others for our nocturnal breakfast.
By the time I get down there, the winds are howling, and the first foot of snow blankets the ground.
I twist my long black waves and clip them atop my head. Athena is at the long stone counter reading the newspaper. I know I was turned decades ago, but even I get my news on my phone. She says once we lose our newspapers, we lose civilization. The local paperboy rides up on his moped every day and flings the plastic covered roll over our tall gate, lingering like his curiosity is at war with his self-preservation.
“I don’t remember snow in the forecast,” I say, opening the fridge. I pull out a blood bag and a bottle of tart cherry juice. It’s my favorite cocktail.
“Winter in New Hampshire,” Athena says, turning the page. She reaches for a slender gold pen and begins to work on the crossword.
Raya runs in through the back door, trailing ice chunks and pool water. Athena heaves an exasperated sigh. Her glorious snakes are at rest and covered with a silk turban. their scales match her eyes, brilliant orange and chartreuse. Her skin is alabaster, and her silk black slip looks like black water skimming off her hourglass curves. The bait for the Fever Hunt.
“I’ll clean it up!” Raya says before Athena can remind her. Mermaids are notoriously messy. Not to mention hoarders. Her nest is in the cellar, which Athena had converted to a grotto beneath the pool.
Raya’s blue and green scales shimmer where they cover her dark brown nipples and the mound between her legs. They disintegrate into sand, which is why there’s always a bit of the shimmering stuff all over the house. She grabs a robe from the hook on the wall. The one thing I love about this house is that we have matching robes, like Pink Ladies from Grease. We keep them near the back door, not because we’re ashamed of our bodies, but because we love a cozy vibe.
Raya slinks her way into the kitchen and hooks up her playlist to the Bluetooth speakers. A sonata I have no name for other than it’s haunting and pretty fills the room. Her green hair is already drying as she rummages through the fridge. She takes out the ingredient to make herself a shrimp and vegetable omelet.
Athena glares up from where she is stuck on a blank word, as still as stone. She puts up a big front. We are her annoying family. But she loves us. She’s the only reason we’ve all had a second chance at these monstrous lives.
“Nine letter word.” The gorgon purses her full lips in thought. Her orange and green serpentine eyes flick from me to Raya. “Earth-616 and Earth-312 in comics.”
The mermaid hovers her webbed hand on the iron skillet to check for heat. “Don’t look at me. I’m not the resident nerd.”
“No, you’re the resident slob,” I joke, nearly slipping on the wet sandy trail she left behind.
“Who’s a nerd?” Marirosa stomps into the kitchen with her hunting pack slung over one shoulder. Her thick brown curls are tamed into two neat milk-maid braids. She’s already got her shearling-lined denim jacket on, big boots leaving dirt prints, which Athena’s snake eyes dilate on.
I sip from my neon pink straw. The tart cherry blood cocktail bursts my tastebuds. I drink faster than normal, and I’m sure it’s because my hunger has deepened after my dream. I want to grab another bag, but I stop myself.
Athena repeats her crossword clue. “Nine letter word. Earth-616 and Earth-312 in comics.”
Mari drops her backpack and joins us at the long stone kitchen counter. She walks up to Raya’s skillet, picks off a pale pink shrimp and plops it into her mouth. “Universes.”
Athena slaps her hand on the paper, flashing a rare smile. “You’re my favorite nerd.”
Mari scowls, but her pretty features slip into a wolfish grin. “Happy to help. Raya, am I also your favorite nerd?”
“Is that your way of asking for an omelet?” The mermaid asks.
“Yes please.”
“Coming right up. Karli, will you be a dear and get me some bacon for Alia?”
I hop off my seat and shuffle over to the freezer. Frosty air cools my cheeks as I search the few containers full of raw meat wedged beside frozen pizzas and tubs of ice cream. “We’re running low. I’ll restock everything while you guys are out on the Fever Hunt.”
“Must we call it that?” Athena asks, moving onto the next row of black and white boxes. “Must your generation turn everything into a game?”
“Uhm, I’m sorry Mistress Hall,” Mari sasses back in a terrible British accent. “When you and Adam were naming all the animals and plants of the world, wasn’t that technically a game?”
Raya chuckles behind her webbed hand as she scrambles some eggs. I snort into the freezer. Athena hates when we give her a backstory, any backstory. In every instance, we make her older and older. Soon we’ll reach the age of dinosaurs. If she had any real problem with us guessing at where she came from or when she was born, she’d tell us. But she hasn’t. The mysterious Athena Hall is a gorgon, and gorgons are made when a witch experiences an unspeakable act of violence.
“If you condescend to place me in biblical mythology, at the very least cast me as Lilith,” Athena says in that clipped, haughty tone.
Mari breaks off a piece of the fresh bread Raya made yesterday and slathers it with butter. She walks up to the glass door and watches the snow fall, slowly shaking her head as she chews. “I don’t know if we’re going anywhere, guys. This is a full blown snow storm.”
The winds howl over Raya’s piano classics playlist. Fucking New England.
“Hmm.” Athena sets her pen down, the crossword still unfinished. “Well, that’s unfortunate. But that’s why we have a full cellar.”
Time feels unreal sometimes. But I count on my fingers. That assessment doesn’t seem right. “Actually, last month there was that flu outbreak on the campus, so they couldn’t be fed on, and the reserves were already pretty low before that.”
“Yeah, from when that fucking giant cat got loose in the cellar,” Mari added.
I slurp up the last drops of my drink. “I wouldn’t call a puma a giant cat.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” the werewolf doubles down.
I set my empty glass in the sink. I’m still hungry. So hungry it feels like I haven’t eaten at all. This happens sometimes. If it wasn’t hailing out there, I’d go for another run to work out my want.
Maybe Mari senses what I’m feeling because she nudges my shoulder. “Maybe we can still try to go. You sure you don’t want to come on the Fever Hunt? We can get you a fresh deer. A puma if we’re lucky.”
“You really hate cats, don’t you?” Raya asks.
Mari rolls her eyes, and I change the subject. I don’t want to talk about me or listen to her feline slander.
“I don’t want to take the chance,” Athena says, turning her face up to the glass kitchen walls. “New variables.”
Athena has tried to teach us that when it comes to hunting, or surviving in the world outside Foxwood Manor, we have to try our best to anticipate everything that could go wrong. Weather alone isn’t a barrier, it’s what it brings.
Sure, most people will be in their homes or dorms. But there will be reckless drivers trying to make it to and from somewhere. People stocking up last minute. Snow plows. Eager skiers. Emergency vehicles. The Fever Hunt happens once a month and is meticulously planned to not draw attention, and takes into account town and school events, festivals, notable holidays. This storm leads to too many things to chance. We’ve spent too many years hiding from the world below, keeping to ourselves like the eccentric recluses we are speculated to be. We don’t like to take chances…not unless they’re life threatening. When you’re nearly impervious, few things are.
“I think we can make it one more month,” Athena asserts.
Mari plops into a seat and pouts. Her pretty brown freckles look like the perfect paint splatters. “Spoil my fun.”
She’s been watching too many Buffy reruns.
“I want to swim in the sea!” Raya whines. “And Karli needs blood!
“Come on, my darlings,” Athena says, always sensing the shift in morale. Her polished, moon white skin has the barest hint of a blush. Beneath her silk turban, her snake hair slumbers. When I was alive, really alive, I would have found her unnerving. Now I think she is the most glamorous, lovely creature I’ve ever seen. She stands, making her black slip of a dress pool around her ankles. “We are better than moping. Marirosa can still get a run in around our woods. Raya, the sea will be waiting for you. Karli has bags of buck blood in the cellar. And Alia—” Athena glances around the room, almost startled that she’d missed something. “Where is Alia?”
“Probably busy rubbing one out after those freaky dreams last night,” Mari says casually.
I grimace, not because of the dreams, though they will surely start to poke fun at my television hunk, Hank. I grimace because Athena is wrong. I do have some reserves, but I’ve been so hungry. So excruciatingly hungry that I’ve doubled my intake the last few weeks, maybe months. Again, what is time?
I’ve been a vampire for thirty years. I’ve lost control. I’ve gained it back. I can make it another month. I can.
“Actually,” Raya starts, putting tiny cilantro sprigs on their omelets, “Karli, I do have some questions about Hank. Why a pink—”
[Photo by Juan Moreno on Unsplash]
I am saved from having my subconscious wet dreams analyzed when Alia appears in the kitchen in a cloud of violet smoke. She’s in her succubus form—lavender skin, glowing yellow eyes, tiny fibrous wings flapping at her shoulder blades like a giant bat. The curtain of her short bob, usually immaculate, is frazzled with static from piercing dimensional space. That form of travel takes a lot of energy from her, but sometimes a monster girl is too lazy to walk across a giant manor for a slumber party or get a noon time snack. I don’t know how I lived without my vampiric speed.
But when I notice the threads of anxious energy crackling around her, I freeze. Athena’s chair skids back, the gorgon senses the worry, too. Raya and Mari stop eating.
“What is it?” Athena asks.
“There’s someone here.” Alia turns in the direction of the front gates. We have high tech cameras, but there’s too much snow obscuring them. “At the gate.”
The succubus vanishes into another poof of smoke. I run out the door behind her, and the others follow. Raya and Athena are the last to join. For all their magical prowess, they don’t have the speed. We cluster at the front door of the house. The snow helps my night vision, though it’s like looking through infrared goggles. Past the snowy grounds and frozen fountain, the thick wrought iron gates fence the world outside. Spells and charms are buried beneath every cardinal point of the property to ward off strangers and unwanted guests, but the occasional straggler gets through. No magic is perfect, after all.
We’ve had a lost family hike through our forests. Kids from the colleges around try to break in on dares. Curious mail carriers snoop around the gardens for somewhere to smoke some grass. But the sight of a red SUV parked halfway down the winding hill is a strange sight. Even more strange are the four men—based on height and built—trudging against the storm. Some carry what looks like duffles. One keeps holding a cell phone to the cloudy night sky, as if that will get him a signal. The skinniest of the four is tucked into his jacket like a turtle. The car’s lights flash twice rapidly and I catch the faint horn beneath the winds.
“I don’t like this.” The frown between Athena’s brow deepens with worry.
Raya hides behind my shoulder, using me as a shield. “What do they want?”
“Shelter?” I suggest with a silent duh implied.
“I can get rid of them,” Mari suggests nonchalantly.
I flick her gently pointed ear. “So that people can come looking for them? They’re clearly broken down.”
“This isn’t a halfway house for lost skiers,” Athena grumbles. The wind picks up hard, so hard Alia flies backward a few paces then opts for standing like us grounded immortals.
“No,” the succubus says. “It’s a halfway house for monsters.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Raya says. “They’ll use the guest rooms and call a tow truck, then they’ll be on their way. Like those hikers who escaped that cult in Vermont.”
“They were college kids,” Mari points out.
Athena shakes her head. “Lock the gates.”
I try to cut through the noise to listen to the approaching strangers. Would it be so bad to let them in? The girl I was used to believe everyone was good. I felt safe, even though the world was an ocean. And then I drowned in it, and I died, and I stopped believing in the kindness of humans. These men are looking for help, but in my experience, groups of men usually lead to trouble in one way or another. My faint heartbeat picks up just so, and the roots of my fangs ache. “Maybe Athena’s right.”
“Or,” Mari says. “Here’s an opportunity.”
The cadre of men are out of view, making their way around the last bend that snakes up to the top of the hill. We are all trained on that dark spot, waiting.
“To what?” I ask. She’s always wilder the night before the full moon. “Draw attention when their wives or families come searching for them and track the GPS on their phones?”
“Can we play with them,” Raya asks, like she’s asking a mother for a toy. “We won’t get a chance for a whole month.”
“See? Accidents happen.” The werewolf crosses her arms over her chest.
Why does the thought of these guests make me nervous? I could rip out their throats with my teeth. I am not weak anymore. And maybe if I remind myself enough, it’ll stick for as long as I live.
Athena is very still. Her snake eyes watch the cleft of the hill. The only light comes from the manor. “Listen.”
We all have augmented hearing, but the storm isn’t helping. I catch bits of “That shit is haunted” and “Sleep in the fucking car” and “Triple A won’t be here for hours” and “I’m fucking starving, bro.”
Same, bro. I bite down on my molars, then regret it when my fangs prick the inside of my bottom lip. They won’t retract because I’m still hungry, and I don’t know if I trust myself. There’s a reason why I don’t join in on the Fever Hunts every month. I’ve spent twenty-five years trying to forgive myself for my years of rampage. But I don’t like to talk about that.
All that’s important is that as long as I’m at Foxwood Manor, I’m safe. My monster is at bay. Or I thought so. Lately my appetite weighs heavy on my heart, deep in my belly, in every corner of me. I can’t tell the others because they’re so strong. I’ve been here longer than everyone, except for Athena. I should be in control. They need me to be in control, too.
“It’s all right,” Athena says gently. Somehow, she can always tell when one of us is hiding or burying emotion. She squeezes my shoulder. Bits of snow hits my face as the winds change. “We’ll keep them to the front of the house. Kitchen. Living room. They’ll be gone in the morning.”
Their heads crest over the hill. Four men decked out in winter gear. One waves like a man lost at sea trying to hail a ship in the distance. “Hi! Thank God! We need some help!”
I take a step back into the threshold of our home. I summon all the pep from my cheerleading days, one of my very first costumes. With all my control, I force my fangs back into place. I hit one of the switches on the panel beside the entrance. It locks any room we don’t want outsiders to have access to. Then I flip the heavy switch which opens the gate.
I feel the brush of magic on my skin as Athena extends a glamour from the apex of her power and over each of us. My skin takes on a less ashen pallor, more Miami sun kissed like in life. Raya’s eyes shine less, a muted gray instead of sea-glass. Alia’s lavender skin becomes human light brown, and her wings appear hidden. Mari’s ears lose their gentle points, and Athena’s serpent eyes round into green irises with orange flecks and pin-prick pupils. There’s nothing she can do to get rid of the snakes of her hair, but they take the appearance of soft round curls tucked into a colorful turban.
“Wise up, girls,” says the gorgon, stepping into the dark storm like the eccentric hostess she affects. Snow kisses her bare shoulders. “Time to greet our guests.”
I take another step back into the shadows, like a creature lying in wait.
MONSTER HOUSE: PART I - THE VAMPIRE CONTINUES ON 3/15 WITH…
