Free Fatal Bargain by Caroline B. Cooney Page B

up.
    When she got home, Roxanne thought, she would take a shower several hours long. She would use Clorox and Ajax instead of Ivory soap. By the time she was done, it would be daylight and she would dry herself in the yellow sun, soaking up safety and light. She would revel in those precious hours in which vampires could not function.
    And if they ever did build that new mall here, on this very site, she, Roxanne, would never shop in it. Because who knew? Who knew where else a vampire could dig in? Who knew what cracks in new buildings his stinking spirit might find?
    “Hurry up,” said Lacey. Her voice was taut with urgency.
    Roxanne moved to the center of the group. Let Sherree and Randy go first. Let the vampire grab their ankles and yank on their hair. Roxanne hung on to Lacey’s waist.
    The group was going too slowly for Roxanne. She began herding her friends along, as if she were a sheepdog. “Go on, go on,” she said, practically nipping them. “We don’t have all night!”
    Randy and Sherree reached the small landing at the top of the stairs.
    Sherree took the first step down.
    Nothing happened.
    She took a second step.
    Roxanne could almost hear six separate hearts whacking chest walls, pumping furiously. Her own heart was going insane with the need to move, to run, to race, to get out of here while there was time! “What are you waiting for?” shouted Roxanne. “Get going!”
    Nobody was in the tower now. Three of them were on the stairs, three were crowded onto the little landing.
    Don’t look back! thought Bobby. Whatever I saw when I was pinned in the air, it’s back there! I must not look back. I must not look down. I just have to get out! Out! Out!
    Bobby caught the nearest hand. It was Lacey’s. He had never held anything so gratefully.
    Bobby would have shoved the rest forward, used all his athlete’s strength and just pushed them all down the stairs, except what if somebody fell and broke a leg? They had enough problems as it was. “Hurry up,” Bobby whispered. “Get going. What is taking so long?”
    He could not tell whether he was talking out loud or not.
    Outside, he thought, all I want is to be outside.
    Sherree, incredibly, began taunting the vanished vampire. “You did-n’t get us,” she called, singsong. “We’re go-ing ho-ome. Nan-ny nan-ny boo-boo.”
    Why, Roxanne asked herself, were people like Sherree allowed on the planet? Enough of this, thought Roxanne. I have to get home and scrub off an entire layer of skin.
    Roxanne shoved through the silly delaying pack and plunged forward.
    Her brain turned into a mental map of the mansion. Nothing mattered but exits and speed.
    First set of stairs, she thought. Turn right in upper hall. Go down second set of stairs. Turn at bottom. Enter abandoned dining room. Go through window. Reach porch. Run like the very —
    But she could no longer run.
    She could no longer move at all.
    She had collided with the vampire.
    Or his cloak.
    It was not like running into a wet sheet hanging out to dry on a clothesline. It was more like sinking into the mud of low tide. The stench and vapor of the vampire hit Roxanne’s face, filling her open mouth and her nostrils as if she had fallen into pudding.
    I refuse to let this happen! thought Roxanne. She shoved both hands forward, with all her might, to push him out of her escape route.
    Her hands went right through his body.
    “I’m not entirely here yet,” the vampire explained. “It’s because I need a meal. I’m becoming extremely hungry, you know. It’s all this time you are wasting. All this running around you’re forcing me to do.”
    The vampire had begun walking up the stairs.
    Bobby, Zach, Sherree, Randy, and Roxanne were forced to back up, also.
    Roxanne, coughing and spitting, tried to wipe the vampire off her face.
    Sherree was sobbing and beating on Randy with her fists. “Tell him to stop this!” she said. “He’s earned his money. Fire him, Randy!”
    The vampire continued to