NO PARENTS ALLOWED

Part IV: One Genesis, Multiple Revisions

By Hunter Lambright

The Hostel

“I told you, I’m hungry…”

Those were the last words young Molly Hayes remembered hearing before she slipped under the vampire’s spell. The twelve-year-old girl didn’t look very special, especially slumped in a heap on a decaying sofa, but she was a mutant with untapped potential. Potential that could be sucked away at a moment’s notice by two bloodthirsty fangs attached to one angry vampire.

“My name is Topher,” said the vampire, appearing to be an attractive-looking sixteen-year-old boy. His black hair was a little long and was pushed back behind his ears. Even his pierced eyebrow seemed to reflect the moonlight. “In the 1940s, you see, I was bitten by an old bat—literally. The bat was a vampire of the old age before that Strange man attempted to exile most of our kind. The vampire wanted nourishment, and I happened to be on my way home late that fateful night. You could guess what happens next, Molly, if only you weren’t asleep.”

Topher looked at the dazed little girl and licked his lips. “I haven’t had mutant blood since the seventies.” He paused. “If you’re awake in there, you’ve probably wondered why I’ve been talking so long. To be honest, it would have been a lot easier if I’d just sucked you dry and left. But let’s face it—this was my home until you claimed it as yours. I had to follow the vampire laws to get into what I considered my home. So, please, spare me some time to blab, because you know it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to do that, too.”

Molly groaned. “…Unh…what are you talking about?” Her eyes were glowing faintly pink. “Are you Dracula?”

Topher let out a laugh. “Still fighting the hypnosis? No, little girl. I’m not Dracula.”

The pink in Molly’s eyes flashed brighter. “You hypnosis-ized me?”

“Where have you been for the past twenty minutes?” Topher smiled. He was still smiling as Molly drew back a pint-sized fist and sent him flying backward, splintering one of the dark, molding walls of the underground Hostel.

“I don’t know where I’ve been,” said Molly, a pout on her face, “but I think I just sent you into next week.”

As she turned her back, however, Topher began to rise.

“Not so fast,” he said angrily, brushing wood splinters from his now-torn clothes. “Unless you have a crucifix or holy water—or maybe a wooden stake—then I can go all night. The question is: Can you?”

The Stein Residence
Outside

“Aieeeeee!” screamed Karolina Dean, as she felt a strong arm grab her wrist. The lean, blonde girl struggled as she felt Gertrude Yorkes’ father, Dale, try to hold her down. “Get off of me, you perv!” she shouted, driving an elbow into his gut.

Karolina’s elbow knocked the wind out of Dale, a heavyset man with gray hair and extravagant mustache. “Just…ack…stay still!” he muttered.

On the other side of the yard were Alex Wilder and Nico Minoru. Alex, the only black member of the runaway kids and de facto leader, stopped and looked back. Nico saw him thinking, and knew as soon as his glasses flashed in her direction that he had made his choice. Without a moment’s hesitation, Nico and Alex were running back toward Karolina, Nico’s black shock of hair trailing behind her as she ran.

Alex drew back a fist, and looked at Dale. “Stop it, you jerk!” he shouted.

“Jerk?” asked Karolina. “Jerk?!”

“Not the time, K!” shouted Nico. She struggled to peel Dale’s muscular hands off Nico’s pale and skinny frame. “It’s not working!”

“Yes, it is!” shouted Alex. He let loose his punch, not even pulling it like he originally planned. Dale was barely fazed, but it was enough to shock him into loosening his grip somewhat. Nico and Alex managed to wrestle Karolina’s body from his grip, but he held firm on her wrist.

Karolina felt her medical information bracelet dig into her arm as Dale squeezed her tighter and tighter to ensure the fact that he would not let go.

“Someone help me!” Dale shouted toward the house. “I found them! I found the—yeargh!” He cut himself short with a screech of pain as Karolina bit his wrist. “You filthy brat!”

Karolina jerked her wrist free, but Dale was not done yet. He still had a finger under the bracelet. As she jerked away one final time, the weakest link in the bracelet broke. The restraining metal pieces fell to the ground.

As this happened, the world began to change. Karolina’s skin erupted into a vibrant display of every color across the visible spectrum, mixing yellows with blues and greens and reds and violets and everything else under the sun. Light began to pour off her body, illuminating the night. Karolina shrieked as she saw what she was turning into.

“Oh god, I’m a mutant!” she shouted.

Dale used the moment to his advantage. He brushed his mustache with one finger before saying, “No. Not a mutant. An alien.”

The Storage Shed
Basement

“No…no, you’re lying,” Chase Stein stammered. He couldn’t believe what the Deans, Karolina’s parents, had just told him. “My dad’s not dead.”

“He is,” said Frank. His hair was graying, and his neck seemed somewhat oddly proportioned in comparison to the rest of his body, but otherwise he was somewhat attractive. That was not an odd thing, considering he and his wife co-starred on General Hospital. “I’m sorry, Chase. There was nothing anyone could do. He was gone before we even found him.”

Chase pushed his long, blond bangs away from his eyes. The jock-ish teen and his father had constantly argued about everything from girls to grades, and now one of them was dead. “All these years…I never told him,” Chase muttered, falling to his knees at the sight of his father’s body. “I never told him I respected him.”

“It’s okay to cry, hon,” said Leslie. Her blonde hair was cut short, and she looked like she was getting somewhat emotional over the situation too. “No one is going to think less of you for crying.”

“I don’t cry,” said Chase coldly. “That’s the one thing my old man taught me that I actually believed in. Don’t cry if you aren’t weak.”

“Are you weak?” asked Frank. “Because it takes strong people to admit they’re wrong. Your father was on the side of the angels, and what you kids saw tonight was a big misunderstanding.” He looked Chase in the eye. “Now, do you want to run away thinking your dad died a bad guy, or do you want to come with us and find out the truth about your father?”

Chase’s fingers gripped the morgue table so hard that his knuckles turned white. A single tear ran down his cheek, and he wiped it away in frustration. “I’m…I’m coming with you,” he said angrily. “But know this: I want to know everything. If I find out that something is a lie or that you’re stringing me along, there’s gonna be hell to pay.”

Frank nodded in agreement. “Spoken like your father, Chase. Spoken like a true Stein…”

The Hostel

“Hiii-yah!” shouted Molly, as she karate-chopped Topher in the shoulder. The vampire’s collar bone snapped, and he slumped to the floor.

“Yeah! Take that, bat crap!” shouted Molly.

“It’s guano,” said Topher, cracking his neck with one hand. “Not ‘bat crap.’ Stupid kids these days…”

He levitated an inch off the floor. “Look into my eyes,” he ordered.

“No,” said Molly, looking at Topher’s feet. “You’re not going to hypnosis-ize me again.”

“I won’t have to,” Topher said, swinging his arm across Molly, sending her body across the room like a rag doll. She flopped against the wall, and stopped.

“Feeling…sooooooo tired,” she yawned dazedly. “Can I take a nap…please?”

Topher stalked over to where Molly lay slumped, fast asleep. Her powers used more energy than she could store in her little body, it seemed. “So, no more fight in you?” he asked Molly’s sleeping form. Topher looked down at his skin through the many tears and holes in his clothes. “See what you did, Molly? Now I need a new shirt and pants, which means I have to drain someone with cash. Mutants, always making life complicated.

Picking up the prone mutant in his arms, Topher walked over to the holey armchair, sitting down with her splayed across him. “I’m still hungry, but I have to thank you. Dinner is usually so much more satisfying if it’s a challenge to get on the table.”

Topher bared his fangs, leaning over Molly’s neck. He hovered for just a moment, paused to dips his fangs into warm flesh.

“Catch, freak!” shouted Gertrude Yorkes. She had been left behind by the other runaway kids to watch over Molly. Her dyed purple hair and pudgy form did not make her a very attractive person. Gert tossed something shiny toward Topher.

Topher dropped Molly to the floor before rising into the air to catch what Gert tossed. “What’s this?” he asked, grabbing the gold chain. “It definitely isn’t holy water or a wooden stake…” He opened his palm, just as the acid burning began to start.

“Damn you, girl! Where’d you get a crucifix in this house?!” Topher asked.

Gert ran up to him. “Get out, because I have a vial of holy water, too, you bastard.”

“You’re the intruders in my home, though! Not the other way around!” Topher protested, dropping the golden cross necklace to the ground. His hand was scalded, especially into the shape of the cross in his palm.

“Get out, you monster!” Gert shouted. “And don’t you dare come back! You aren’t allowed back in here, if those are still the stupid ‘vampire rules.’”

“You’re a little on the plump side,” said Topher, as he rose in the air to soar out the front door. “If only I’d run into you first. Then I’d have stuck an apple in your mouth and, well, leave the rest to your imagination…” He flew out the front door of the Hostel then, disappearing into the cavernous area outside the lost building.

As she watched the vampire-kid fade into the darkness, Gert sighed. “The evil ones are always good-looking, aren’t they?”

The Stein Residence
Outside

“Wait—I’m an alien?” Karolina asked, too dumbfounded about the situation to realize she’d asked. She was too busy looking over her body, trying to figure out the source of the light.

“She’s an alien?” Alex and Nico asked in unison. “Are you serious?”

Dale laughed. “As serious as I can possibly be,” he said. “Her parents migrated here from Majesdane before the formation of the Pride.”

“Majes-where?” asked Alex. “Is that one of those post-Soviet Union countries?”

“It’s another planet,” said Dale, shaking his head. “You were supposed to be the smart one, Wilder.”

Alex turned to the windows. The silhouettes were gone; the rest of the parents would be there in a matter of seconds. “We have to go,” he said to Nico and Karolina. “They’re going to be all over us like Tom Cruise on psychiatrist advertisements.”

“What about Chase?” Nico asked worriedly.

Alex shook his head. “No time. He’s been down there too long. We have to assume they have him.”

Dale shook his head. “Scheming, I see?”

“No, not really,” Alex said, looking at Dale. He heard the Stein’s back door open. That was their cue.

Alex dove forward onto the grass. If removing Karolina’s bracelet was what caused her to turn into Little Miss Light-Bright, he had to guess that it was what kept her looking normal, too. At the same time, Nico and Karolina ran in opposite directions around the fence to Chase’s van in the back.

Dale tried to dive on top of Alex, but Alex rolled out of the way. “Live to fight another day,” he muttered breathlessly, before pushing himself up off the ground and running toward the fence. He jumped the fence and landed in a tangle of his own limbs on the other side, just as Karolina gunned the van’s engine.

“Let’s go, Alex!” Nico shouted, the passenger-side door slamming shut as she spoke.

Alex barely got himself into the back before Karolina, still blazing with the entire visible spectrum of light, gunned the engine a second time, backing into the neighbors’ garden and over two angelic statuettes.

She shifted into drive and together, the three ran away.

Back at the house, Geoff Wilder stood facing the fence, a look of disbelief on his face. The bald, bearded, black leader of the Pride was dumbfounded. “They were in the backyard?!” he cried out. “Yorkes! What the hell just happened?”

“The prodigal children came home,” said Dale. “And because of my clumsiness, they found out the Dean girl’s secret.” He looked down at his feet.

“Were all of them here?” Geoff demanded. His eyes were ablaze with fierce anger.

Dale stuttered, “N-no, Mr. Wilder. Only Alex, Nico, and Karolina were in the backyard.”

“You’re wrong, Yorkes,” said Frank Dean, coming out of the shed. “The Steins’ son was here, too.”

Chase stood there in front of all the parents. “I left, and my dad got killed. So much good running away got me, huh?”

“I’m sorry it turned out like that,” Geoff said. “You have big shoes to fill in your father’s stead, because you, Chase, will be taking your father’s place in the Pride.”

“No,” said Chase.

The parents’ looks reflected Geoff’s next outburst.

“No?” Geoff asked in astonishment. His fist rose halfway into the air, like he was going to strike the boy. Geoff’s wife, Catherine, gasped. “I’m sorry, Chase, but you don’t understand. This is an offer you can’t refuse.”

“I do understand, ‘Mr. Wilder,’” Chase spat. “But before I get involved in my dad’s old work, I have something to take care of. The Deans told me what happened. I need to know where to go, because there’s no way in hell those bastards are going to get away with murder…”

The Hostel

Karolina, Alex, and Nico poured into the Hostel in a breathless rush.

“So, how was your day?” asked Gert dryly, her face contorted in anger. Poor Molly sat in her lap, arms around Gert’s neck.

“You’ll never believe what happened,” Alex blurted out, still huffing and puffing.

Gert gave a sarcastic smile. “Oh, really? Then you go first.”

“Chase was kidnapped! And Karolina’s an alien!” Alex exclaimed.

“He was kidnapped?!” Gert asked, sitting straight up in her chair. She slumped backwards. “Figures. It was bound to happen with our parents being the bad guys.”

“But you think I’m an alien anyway?” Karolina asked. She was slightly hurt and paranoid—had she shown alien behavior before the bracelet came off?

Gert gave a chuckle. In her situation, what else could she do? “I believe it, but only because me and Molly fought off a vampire while you were gone.”

“God,” said Alex. “As if our other problems weren’t enough…”

“Now we have vampires?” Nico asked, shivering.

“Don’t worry,” Gert said. “We beat him with your cross necklace. I found it in your bag while he was hypnotizing Molly. Thank God, right?”

Nico took the necklace from Nico and knelt on the floor. “Dear God,” she said, her hands clasped around the cross. “Please, please, please—let this be the end of our problems.

“Amen.”

Epilogue

Darkness began to cower as, in the early hours of morning, sunlight began to fight its way back into the world. Chase Stein preferred the darkness to the light of the world. Just a few hours had passed since he had been accepted into the same fold that his father had belonged to just hours more before.

As for the people who created and sold the creature that killed his father…they would have to pay in kind. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, life for a life.

The shack in front of him was extremely downtrodden and in pieces. The wood would probably ignite in a matter of seconds, and from there, nature would take its course. Chase ignited the flame jets on the “Fistigons,” flame-spewing gauntlets created by his parents before his father’s death. The fire on his palms roared with a hunger to devour something.

“Eat away,” Chase whispered to the flame, as he spewed it onto the front door of the Little Shoppe of Horrors. The door burst into flames, and the fire quickly spread up into the shingles of the shack and the floor of the small porch.

Chase watched for just a second, before realizing that his work there was done. His thoughts turned to the people inside the shack, but he stopped.

“An eye for an eye,” Chase reassured himself. “An eye for an eye…”