Free Vampire U by Hannah Crow Page B

rolled through a red light without slowing, oblivious until a car horn blared, loud and frighteningly close.  Reflexes took over, and I stomped on the brake.  The wheels locked with the screech of squealing tires, and my little car lurched to a stop halfway into the intersection just as a big delivery truck roared across, inches from my bumper.  I sat frozen for a moment, staring at my bone white knuckles on the steering wheel.  A chorus of honking horns snapped me out of my daze, and I rolled across the intersection and into a convenience store parking lot, my whole body trembling.
    Shaken by the near-death experience, my fatigue washed over me like a cold wave, threatening to pull me under.  I wanted to shut off the car and curl up in the driver's seat for a nap.  I wanted to go back to Chicago and curl up in my mother's lap, to listen to her tell me everything was okay, that this was all just a bad dream.
    My phone buzzed, rattling in the plastic cup holder, a harsh reminder of the strange reality I'd found myself in.  I picked it up and saw another text from the unfamiliar number.  I frowned as I saw that nine other texts had piled up unread.  I opened the first one.  MEET ME AT THE TERREBONNE DRIVE-IN @ 3PM, COME ALONE - M
    At first, I thought it was just a wrong number, but the next text was more urgent.  D - DON'T BE LATE, WE DON'T HAVE MUCH TIME. - M
    I scrolled quickly through the remaining messages, each more insistent than the one before it.  Finally, the newest text glowed on my screen: DANIELLE, YOU ARE IN DANGER.  3PM.  TERREBONNE.  DON'T BE LATE. - MD
    Mander Deslauriers.  No one else in Baton Rouge called me Danielle.  What was he up to?  I felt a surge of anger at the thought of the mysterious young Beta.  In a way, he was the source of all my problems, starting with that stupid paper airplane and ending with Kara Thompson's wild diatribe.  But a faint memory stirred, a deep, passionate kiss that had swept away a night of terror.  Had that kiss really happened?  Had anything?  I hardly knew anymore, but I had more than a few questions for Mander.
    A quick Google search told me that the Terrebonne Drive-In had been a local landmark for decades, clinging to a tenuous existence as one of the last drive-in movie theatres in the state.  It was out of business now, but I found the address, a half mile off the interstate on the outskirts of town.  Still shaken by my brush with death, I let the GPS on my phone guide me as I gingerly steered my car out of the lot with shaking hands.
    The Terrebonne was twenty minutes away, and a glance at the dashboard clock told me I had less than fifteen minutes.  My brush with death had shaken me deeply, and despite Mander's dire warning not to be late, I couldn't bring myself to drive faster than the speed limit until a grandmother in a long Cadillac gunned her engine and gave me an angry arthritis-swollen finger as she roared past.  I relented and sped up.
    I could see the Terrebonne long before I got close.  The land around Baton Rouge is mostly flat, and the drive-in's massive screen stood like a monolith on a low, flat hill, facing away from the interstate.  A skeletal framework of steel girders laced the back of the screen, and it seemed to lean forward, as though it might fall and crush the audience.  TERREBONNE DRIVE-IN THEATRE stood in tall, black letters, mottled by flecking paint and streaks of mildew.
    I turned off the interstate and onto a long drive that led to the theater.  A rusted chain blocked entry at the admission booth, so I parked the car and got out.  The abandoned lot had the stagnant quiet of an abandoned graveyard.  Someone had slapped fresh coat of bright pastel paint on everything several years ago in a last-ditch effort to save the place.  Sun and rust had taken their toll on the thin veneer, but it was easy to imagine a time not so long ago when teens had piled into big convertibles to come see the latest Hitchcock