Bottled sunlight

 The girl drifted contently down the sidewalk, carefree. The moon shone down on her, lighting her path. She did not heed the whispering wind, nor the moving shadows. What she didn’t realize was that she was being followed.

She stopped suddenly as a chill ran down her spine. She was unaware of the dark hands reaching towards her neck. Only when they grasped her neck and roughly jerked her head upwards, did she start paying attention. But it was too late. She prepared to let out a yell when sharp fangs drove into her neck. 

While she could feel the blood draining from her veins, she was quickly losing consciousness. Her limp body dropped into the waiting arms of a dark silhouette before being dragged away. 

“16-year-old Jenica Mays has disappeared last night, marking this the fifth disappearance this week.” 

A tired hand reached over to turn off the radio with a slight click. Marcy watched her father with critical eyes.  His normally bright brown eyes were tired and looked like they have seen better days. He grabbed some of his dark auburn hair and pulled it into a ponytail. 

“You’re almost done, right?” She asked uncertainly. Her father looked at her from underneath his eyebrows. 

“You can’t rush science, Marcy.” 

Marcy sat back farther. Her father could be really scary if interrupted while working. Although Marcy wasn’t sure if he was working. The thing he said he was busy making was sitting right there on the table. It was a jar filled with pale yellow light. The light seemed to dance, chasing away the shadows. 

“What even is that?” Marcy asked tapping the glass. 

“It’s bottled sunlight.” He told her like it was the most obvious thing in the world. 

“How the heck do you even put sunlight in a bottle?”

“I couldn’t tell you that, even if I wanted to. There is a  small chance that somethin’ might get out, and I can’t chance that.” He leaned over and gave Marcy a sort of half-hug, before letting go and smiling in what he thinks is reassuring. It wasn’t, but Marcy wasn’t going to hold that above him.  “I love you, you know that right?” She gave him a thin-lipped smile before nodding. 

“I love you too,” She said, turning to go upstairs and leaving her father alone. 

Marcy walked up the dark and dust smelling stairway into the bright hallway. She shielded her eyes as she waited for them to adjust. When they did, she took in their hallway. It was the color of coffee, and it changed to a lighter brown when the sunlight shone through the window above the door. There was a coat rack tucked into the corner. Against the wall were tables covered in photos. 

She looked at the nearest one, the most recent taken earlier in the year. It was three smiling faces, although only one was genuine, the face of the little girl in between the adults, the other two looked forced. A knock on the door snapped her out of her memories. 

“Hey, Marcy?” A male voice called out from the other side. “You there?” Marcy turned towards the door. 

“Yeah, I’m here!” She opened the door and saw her closest friend. “Hey, Blaine,” 

He had dirty blond hair that stuck up all over the place and eyes the color of steel. 

“Hey, have you heard of the recent disappearances?”  Although not in the mood to discuss fiction, Marcy did admit that she needed something to get her mind off current events. 

“No, I don’t think I did.” She said leaning against the door frame.  

Blaine pushed past her into the hallway. “Let’s go into your room.” He suggested, grabbing her wrist and dragging her after him. 

Blaine threw Marcy down onto her overly fluffy bed before flinging himself down. “So, there were these murder cases, right?” Marcy nodded her head slowly. She only heard about three on the radio, but five people disappeared. 

“They didn’t die though.” Marcy pointed out. 

“How do you know?” Blaine sneered. 

“You don’t have any proof either!” Marcy countered. 

“Just their genders: three boys and two girls.” While he said the genders, Blaine held up a finger for each. “So that means the culprit is male..” He said with the utmost confidence. 

“The gender of the victims prove scat.” Marcy huffed. “The killer can be a girl.” 

Blaine waved his hand dismissively, not helping Marcy’s current mood in the slightest. 

“Don’t you find it odd that the disappearances have obscured at night?” She tried instead.  Like the fool he was, Blaine fell for the trap. 

“It might be a vampire or werewolf!” He said excitedly. “And I think I know where he lives.” 

Marcy raised her eyebrow. “It’s still light out, we can go check it out.” Blaine stood up and started for the door, Marcy on his heals. 

“It’ll only be light for another hour though,” Marcy said in hopes to crush his both ridiculous and dangerous plan.

“Then we’ll be quick!” Blaine promised. Marcy sighed but followed Blaine none the less. On the way out, Marcy grabbed a tiny jar of sunlight on a chain that she had stolen from her father while it was still in progress. 

They dashed down the street, Blaine pulling Marcy by her wrist. They dashed through the quiet town, every other second saw Marcy looking over her shoulder at the setting sun. They stopped at the edge of town, near an old house that looked like it had seen better days.  Blaine suddenly pulled Marcy into a nearby bush, giving the girl only time to let out a tiny yelp before covering her mouth with his hand. 

“Shhh!” He hissed and pointed to the door. A dark shape moved up the sidewalk, dragging something behind it. The shape stood up, showing it was human-looking. It moved its head side to side before going back to its task of dragging its thing into the house. 

“What was that?!” Blaine asked, removing his hand. 

“I wouldn’t know,” Marcy said while standing up. “Now we came to see what you wanted to see. So can we go now?!” 

The other boy had started walking towards the mansion, and Marcy sprinted to catch up with him. “We are not going in there!” She hissed. He looked at her with puppy-dog eyes, and Marcy gulped nervously. 

“Please..?” Blaine bagged. 

Marcy sighed, “Fine, fine. But if we get killed in there, I will come back to haunt you.” Blaine's fist-pumped, and both of them made their way up the steps. 

“Do whatever you wish to do in the afterlife, but I don’t think ghosts can haunt each other.” 

They pushed open the door, which looked like the lock had been broken. Marcy quickly tickled the top of her mouth with her tongue, but Blaine was unsuccessful and ended up sneezing. 

“It’s too dusty in here!”

“No, really Sherlock?” Marcy rolled her eyes. They walked to the steps in silence, until a loud voice boomed out.

 “My my! I had no idea I'd have guests today! If I would've known I would've removed the smell of dead bodies out of my carpet." The two looked up at the landing and saw a boy who looked like he was in his early teens. He had bright green hair and sharp purple eyes. 

The boy swept down the grand staircase, his hand dragging along the rails.

 "And such a handsome pair too! I feel so bad." He bowed, looking up at them from underneath his eyebrows. 

"Who the heck are you?” Blaine barked. “Alabaster, lord of this house. Now I don’t suppose I’ll get the pleasure to know your names.” He pouted. 

“Darn right you won’t,” Blaine growled. 

“But it’s not like I wouldn’t know who you are. I did meet your mother, after all, Marcy.” Marcy stopped and turned around to face Alabaster. The other boy grinned, two of his teeth are sharper than any other human. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I might have struck a nerve there.” Marcy made to lunge at the boy, but he moves with the speed of light. Marcy landed face-first onto the stairs. 

“Darn, I would’ve liked to add you to my collection. But it seems you’re wearing sunlight around your neck.” 

As she was getting up, she heard a startled yelp followed by Blaine's shouts of, “Let me go!”. She quickly flung herself up in time to see Alabaster with Blaine flung over his shoulder as the vampire raced down the side hall. “Marcy help!” Blaine cried. 

“Blaine!” Marcy shrieked as she raced down the hall after the boys.

The hall wasn’t too long, and soon Marcy came to a closed door. She knocked her shoulder into it, and it gave way with a short noise of protest. The smell of the room was overwhelming, causing Marcy to cover her nose. She looked up and saw Alabaster and Blaine in the middle of the room. The older boy had his arm wrapped around Blaine’s middle. His other hand Blaine's head tilted and his mouth in position to bite. 

“Come closer, and I won’t hesitate to kill him off.” The vampire threatened. “It would be easy too. I only did the same to four other stupid teens and an unsuspecting adult, I don’t think it would be a problem to knock off another.” Blaine gave off a tiny whine, and Marcy looked around the room. Her eyes landed on a familiar-looking corpse. 

Not wasting any more time to dawdle, she slowly reached for the chain around her neck. The vampire saw what she was doing, narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to Blaine’s neck. 

“M-Marcy…” Blaine tried to move away from the impending fangs, but the older creature held him back. Moving more quickly, Marcy grabbed the tiny bottle and aimed the lid at the two males at the other end of the room. 

“Hah! Like you think that would threaten me.”  Alabaster scoffed, but Marcy could see him back down. 

“No one kills my mother, and threatens to off my friend and gets away with it.” She growled and popped the cap. 

The tiny bottle released a large yellow beam, filling the room with bright light. All that could be heard was a chilling scream and a thud. The light dimmed after a moment, and Marcy blinked to refocus. 

“Ew, he died on me.” She opened her eyes again to see Blaine laying on the floor. He was covered in ash and was frantically trying to brush it off. Smiling slightly, Marcy turned back to the corpse she was looking at before. It was indeed her mother, the woman from the photograph that she barely remembered. 

The sound of something crashing against the wall. Followed soon after by the sound of pounding footsteps. 

“Marcy?! Blaine?!” A voice called down the hallway. 

“Dad?” Suddenly, she was smothered into her father’s embrace. 

“What were you two thinking?” Her father asked breathlessly. 

“It was all my idea,” Blaine piped up. Marcy’s father looked up through narrowed eyes at Blaine, who shrunk back. 

“Dad,” Marcy said looking up at him, “I murdered a vampire with sunlight.” The older man looked down at his only child disbelievingly. “Tell him, Blaine.” Blaine swallowed

. “Yes, and he covered me in his ashes.”  

The older man ran his hands down the side of his face. “I’m guessing you’re the one who stole my sunlight?” Marcy shrunk back and nodded. 

“With all due respect sir-” “Oliver, please.” “Okay, Oliver. If it weren’t for Marcy, we would have both been dead.” Marcy looked up again to meet her father’s eye. “I kinda want to know why you made sunlight in the first place.” Oliver sighed and gestured to the body Marcy was looking at before. “I and your mother fought, she left. A year later the attacks started. When they said your mother’s name on the news, I knew I had to do something.”

“I was walking out one night, when I saw this one teenaged boy attack another person, and brought them to this house, I thought it was a paranormal attacker. You know the rest.” Marcy nodded and locked her father in a tight hug. Blaine stood off to the side awkwardly, before Oliver noticed and beckoned him over with a nod of his head. Marcy moved over to give the other boy room and gave him an equally tight squeeze. 

“Marcy, I can’t breathe…” Blaine wheezed. 

“Sorry,” Marcy said sheepishly as she backed out of the hug. 

“M’kay, who’s up for pizza?" Oliver asked as he placed his hands on the two teen's backs and guided them back out through the empty hall. 

"Yeah sure dad," Marcy said walking forwards with Blaine's arm in her iron grip. "

Thank you for saving my life," He said as the two jumped the stone steps outside. "It was no problem," Marcy said, reaching out and giving Blaine's hand a tight squeeze. 

"Come on children." Oliver appeared once more in front of the two and the three of them walked home through the night.