The night everything started was not dramatic.
There were no storms. No lightning. No creepy violins.
There was just Jack. On the couch. Dying of boredom.
The TV was dead. Fully, completely, uselessly dead.
“It’s not dead,” Dad said from behind the TV. “It’s resting.”
“It’s been resting for three days,” Jack said.
Dad grunted and stuck his hand somewhere it probably wasn’t supposed to go. “Technology needs love, Jack. And also possibly a light tap with a screwdriver.”
From the kitchen came the sound of his mother yelling, “LUCY. LUCY, I SAID LEAVE THE SNACKS ALONE.”
“I’M PUTTING THEM BACK,” Lucy yelled.
“You’re putting them back in your mouth,” Mom snapped.
This was normal in the Calder house.
Jack lay sideways on the couch, legs hanging off one armrest, head buried in the other, staring at the blank TV screen like maybe if he looked sad enough, the universe would feel guilty and fix it.
It did not.
“I’m bored,” he announced.
“Read a book,” Mom called.
“I did that last year,” Jack said.
Mom appeared in the doorway with her Serious Face, the one that said she was one argument away from assigning chores. She was holding a book. A thick one. Old. Brown. The kind of book that smelled like it had been alive at some point.
She dropped it in Jack’s lap. “Here. Educational.”
Jack lifted it with two fingers, like it might bite. The cover said:
THE BLOODSUCKERS OF DARKVALE:
A LOCAL HISTORY
Underneath that was a drawing of a pale dude with a cape and dramatic cheekbones. He looked like the kind of person who would say “Good eeeevening” and then steal your house.
Jack blinked. “No.”
“Yes,” Mom said.
“I’m not that bored.”
“Yes,” Mom repeated.
She went back to the kitchen, where Lucy was now pretending to be innocent and also chewing.
Jack stared at the book for three full seconds.
Then he stood up, walked to the trash can, lifted the lid, and dropped it in.
Problem solved.
“HEY!” Lucy popped up beside him like some kind of snack-eating goblin. Her dark hair was in two braids, both lopsided and both sticky from something orange. “That’s mine now.”
“No, it’s garbage,” Jack said.
She had already reached into the trash, pulled the book back out, and wiped it on her shirt. “Now it’s mine.”
Jack made a face. “That came out of the trash.”
Lucy opened the book and flipped dramatically through the pages. “So did you.”
Jack pointed at her. “Rude.”
She licked her thumb, turned a page like a librarian who does not respect germs, and said in a spooky whisper, “It says here… that the vampires attack the town every year.”
Jack blinked. “Cool story, Lucy.”
“Every year on October 31st,” she continued, her eyes wide. “That’s literally tomorrow.”
“Wow. Scary,” Jack said, walking away. “I’ll be sure to wear garlic deodorant.”
“I’m serious!” Lucy yelled after him. “They come at night and pick someone! And if you don’t give them something, they take something!”
Jack waved a hand over his shoulder. “Great. They can take the TV and fix it.”
He flopped back on the couch and stared at the ceiling. Being twelve, he had discovered, came with two main problems:
- Adults didn’t listen until it was too late.
- Little sisters never stopped talking, even when it was too late.
From the kitchen, Dad said cheerfully, “Okay. Good news: the toaster is no longer jammed.”
Mom said, “Why is it smoking?”
“That’s the bad news.”
A moment later, the smoke alarm started screaming.
“LUCY, OPEN A WINDOW!” Mom shouted.
“I CAN’T, IT’S STUCK!”
“USE YOUR ARMS, YOU HAVE ARMS!”
“I’M SMALL!”
Jack covered his face with a pillow.
He stayed on the couch until the smoke alarm finally went silent and the kitchen stopped smelling like “burned sadness.”
Then Dad said the eight most dangerous words in the English language.
“I think I can fix the fuse box.”
Mom gasped. “No—Carl—please—don’t touch—”
Too late.
The house went dark.
Not dim. Not flickery.
Dark.
Every light: off.
The humming fridge: dead.
The hallway night-light shaped like a smiling carrot: gone.
For a full second, no one said anything.
Then Lucy’s voice floated through the dark.
“Okay. If a vampire eats us, I get Jack’s hoodie.”
“Nobody is eating anybody,” Mom said.
“Yeah, Lucy,” Jack said. “If anyone’s getting eaten, it’s you. You’re bite-sized.”
“I’m fun-sized,” Lucy corrected.
“You’re loud-sized,” Jack said.
Somewhere in the blackness, Dad coughed. “Good news. I found the main breaker.”
Mom groaned. “Carl.”
“And the bad news,” Dad said, “is that I think the main breaker found me first.”
There was a clunk, a click, and finally—mercifully—the lights buzzed back on. The kitchen lights flickered twice, then settled. The carrot night-light blinked awake in the hallway, looking traumatized.
The TV did not come back to life.
“Still resting,” Dad muttered.
“Still dead,” Jack muttered back.
“Carl,” Mom said in the quiet, warning voice she used when she was deciding between forgiving Dad or burying him in the backyard, “do not touch anything else tonight. Please. For me.”
Dad held up both hands. “I will sit. I will not touch. I am harmless.”
The toaster chose that moment to spit out a piece of bread so black it was shiny.
Jack went upstairs.
Not because he was scared of his dad’s electrical “skills,” or whatever.
He was just tired. That was all.
He changed into his pajamas and dropped onto his bed. His room was the only quiet place in the whole house. Posters on the wall. Pile of socks in the corner. Baseball bat under the bed, just in case Lucy tried to “borrow” his stuff again. (The bat was for intimidation. Mostly.)
On his desk, the digital clock glowed 10:42 PM..
He thought about the book cover and the pale guy with the dramatic cape. He thought about his mom calling it “educational,” which was suspicious. His mom called math “educational.” She did not usually say that about things with blood on the cover.
He thought about tomorrow being October 31st.
And also, about how, last year, his parents didn’t let him stay out past nine “because of the situation.” When he asked what “the situation” was, they said, “Don’t be dramatic, Jack,” and then locked all the doors and pushed the couch in front of the back one.
He had thought that was just because of raccoons.
Slowly, Jack sat up.
No.
Nope.
No way.
This was ridiculous.
There were no such things as vampires. Vampires were in movies, and he wasn’t even allowed to watch those, because Mom said they “rot your sleep.” Vampires were in video games, and Dad said those “lower your grades,” which was extremely unfair because Jack’s grades were already low and it was definitely not the video games’ fault.
Real life did not have vampires.
He flopped back down.
Downstairs, voices floated up through the thin floor.
He wasn’t trying to listen.
He was just… resting his ears in the general direction of the hallway vent.
Mom’s voice, low: “I don’t want them out late tomorrow. Not after last year.”
Dad’s voice, also low: “It’ll be fine. They’ll be in by nine. We’ll do the usual.”
“The usual?” Mom sounded tired. “Carl. The usual didn’t work last time. Do you not remember the goats?”
Jack sat straight up.
Goats?
There was a pause.
Then Dad said, in the voice of someone who absolutely did remember the goats and wished he did not, “We gave them the goats. They took the goats. End of story.”
“That is not,” Mom whispered sharply, “the end of that story.”
Jack’s heart thumped.
He slid out of bed, crouched, and pressed his ear right against the floor vent, because if his parents didn’t want him listening, then maybe they shouldn’t talk about mysterious goat-related events directly under his room.
Mom continued, quieter: “I just don’t want them choosing a person. Last year was animals. If they change the rules—”
“They won’t,” Dad said. “They follow rules. That’s the whole point.”
“Vampires don’t ‘follow rules,’ Carl. Vampires eat people.”
“Allegedly,” Dad said.
There was a long silence.
Jack’s skin prickled.
He swallowed.
There were two possibilities here:
Possibility #1: His parents were playing some kind of weird “let’s scare each other” game for fun.
Possibility #2: His parents had just casually confirmed that vampires were real in the same voice they used to talk about grocery lists.
Jack lay there on the carpet for a few seconds, thinking very, very hard.
Then he whispered to himself, “Okay. So. Tiny chance vampires are real.”
That something came to town every year, and everyone just sort of… dealt with it?
No.
Nope.
No way.
He pushed himself back into bed and yanked the blanket up to his chin.
“Not real,” he told the ceiling firmly. “Vampires are not real. Lucy is dramatic. Dad is dumb. Mom is stressed. The end.”
The house had mostly calmed down. No shouting. No alarms. No toaster explosions.
For a moment, everything was still.
The digital clock on his desk changed to 10:43.
And from downstairs, just before he drifted off, Jack heard his mother’s voice again—soft, worried.
“I just hope,” she whispered, “they don’t ask for a child this year.”
Jack’s eyes snapped open.
🌀 What Just Happened?
- The TV died, and Dad almost did too (electrically).
- Lucy ate all the snacks and stole a vampire book from the trash.
- The house went dark because Dad “fixed” the fuse box.
- Jack overheard his parents whispering about goats and vampire rules.
- Mom casually worried about vampires taking a child this year.
📚 What’s Next?
⬅️ Back to Story Index
➡️ Continue to Chapter 02 – Operation Fang Boy
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