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Ray doesn't start hunting vampires because he has a choice, okay? Ray starts hunting vampires because they start showing up everywhere, and because one of them crashes his tenth grade semi and tries to eat his classmates. If that was a joke, the whole evening would be funnier, but it's not. Eat his classmates, and people say Ray's got a bad attitude.
He can tell almost right away, too. The guy's in a letter sweater and creased slacks, the kind of vintage that would look cool if he weren't trying so hard, and even in the low-light, his skin is paler than anyone's ought to be. Ray doesn't make a habit of carrying stakes with him—what the fuck, this shit was supposed to be left behind in Missouri—but he makes do.
The guy's hanging out on the periphery of the dance floor, swaying to himself and waiting, when Ray sidles up and says, "Hey, buddy, you got a smoke?" He's small for his age, and skinny, but the vamp must be hungry, they always fucking are, so he just smiles, and manages to keep his pointy-ass vampire teeth hidden.
"All I have are Lucky Strikes," he apologizes, like a fifteen year-old kid at a dance in a small town town hall is really gonna give a shit about brands.
Ray grins at him, showing all his teeth, because he's not afraid. This is old fucking news. "They're awesome," he says, guiding Mr-Trapped-In-A-Time-Warp through the bowels of the Town Hall and out the back exit.
They lean against the building to light up and it's almost too easy. The vamp says, "Are you here alone?" and he must really be fucking stupid, because he turns his back for a second, probably fanging up, and Ray takes his shot. He stakes the dude right through the heart and doesn't feel even a little bad about it. Ashes get mixed up with the laces of Ray's Chucks, though, leaving a thin, bloody residue on the underside of his shoes. Fucking undead asshole.
A snapped-in-half curtain rod isn't the easiest weapon to wield, but it does the job alright.
*
There are vamps at the mall, and there are vamps at the movies. There are vamps at the gas station filling up their Cadillacs and vamps at the supermarket, although as far as Ray can tell, they don't fucking eat anything but people. He doesn't take on every single one he sees, because he knows his limitations. Ray is one dude; one smaller than the average teenager, and it's not like any of his friends are gonna believe that the undead are starting to clutter up Oceanside.
Well. Except for maybe Trombley, but Trombley's the last fucking person Ray would ever take on a hunt. For one thing, he never shuts up.
For example, it's lunch. The sun is shining and hot like it's not December, and they're hanging out in the courtyard behind the gym, enjoying the peace and quiet and eating their home-brought sandwiches. Ray made himself peanut butter and fluff because his mama was having another one of her episodes and couldn't be bothered. It's not too bad, even if he has brought a variation of it for lunch at least four times in the last week. At least peanut butter is cheap.
Trombley is the only one tactless enough to mention it, not that he's in a much better position, the fucker. He says, "Hey, Ray. Hey Person, are you eating a peanut butter sandwich again?" Like he's surprised that some people like consistency and repetition.
"Yeah, fucknuts," Ray shoots back, mouth still full. "Why the fuck do you care?" He kicks his feet up so that he's sitting Indian style on the red wrought iron of the table, trying to get comfortable.
It's probably not the smartest move he's ever made, because the next question out of Trombley's mouth is, "Is that blood on your sneakers? What the fuck were you up to last night?" and, Ray's personal fucking favorite: "Did you kill a dog? I fuckin' hate dogs."
Ray considers telling the craziest kid in school that Oceanside is being overrun by vampires. What he says instead is, "Trombley, you're a fucking psycho. Who the hell would kill a dog and not wash their shoes after? Who the hell would kill a fucking dog?"
It's something he's had to think about a lot since this all started. This is some mystery novel shit. Like a fucking Charlaine Harris epic, but for teens; The Vampire at the Dance, The Vampire in the Supermarket, The Vampire Who Went to the Library, they'd all be instant hits. It's a fucking literary career in the making.
"Is that blood on your sneakers?" Trombley repeats, because the guy doesn't know how to take a fucking hint. "You didn't wash it off," he adds, like maybe this is a conversation they're going to have: How To Kill A Dog And How.
Ray runs his hands through his hair, and when he drops them down again, notices that he has blood under his fingernails, too. Fucking undead creepers. "It's not blood, Trombley," Ray says, kicking out one of his feet again to inspect his shoes. "My folks are repainting the back of the house. I accidentally knocked over a can of varnish."
Trombley might actually be pouting, the fucking psycho. "So you didn't kill a dog," he states, like it needs spelling out.
Ray cuffs the back of his neck, using Trombley's scrawny body to push himself to his feet and kick off the table. "No," he says, speaking slowly and spreading his hands out wide. "I didn't kill a dog, Trombley. You want to know why?"
"Because they don't scare you?" Trombley asks, hitching his backpack high on his shoulders. Their arms bump as they walk, and they just make it into the metal shop hallway for the warning bell.
"Yes," Ray says, before they go their separate ways. "And also, because I'm not a psycho."
*
Ray's captain of the debate team, which at Oceanside is good enough for an English credit, so instead of hanging out in the language studies wing right after lunch, he's an office aide. It's not a glamorous job, and in the first month, he gets paper cuts so bad that his fingers ache, but at least he doesn't have to be in class. Besides, it means that he gets the good gossip before everybody else does.
On the Monday they discover a body stuffed in a locker, Ray's trying to figure out how to unfuck a paper-jam in the color copier. He hears the words, "All the blood drained out," and, "Just two little holes poked in her neck, like some—" and doesn't need to listen to the rest, because he knows how it goes.
"Um," he says, clearing his throat. "Mrs. Butler, would you mind if I ran to the restroom?" Mrs. Butler is the administrative assistant to the principal. Ray once made the mistake of calling her his secretary and was stuck on eraser duty for the whole day, true story.
She glares at him over the tops of her glasses, but he's asked politely, and he did just unfuck the copier. She doesn't even bother responding, just hums discontentedly under her breath and waves him off.
He goes to bathroom first and forces himself to take a piss, even though he doesn't really have to, just covering his bases, and then takes the hallway to the science wing at double time, still zipping up his fly as he goes. There's a huge crowd around, of course, but Ray is small and bone-rail skinny. It's not that hard to get to the front, although he doesn't know why he even bothered. There's a sheet covering the girl, as lily-white and bloodless as what he can see of her skin.
Ray is great on his feet, which is what makes him trip back, and then sprawl forward, landing nearly on top of the dead girl with the serious lack of blood in her body.
"Person!" Detective Ferrando hisses, and Ray's getting up, he is, but his feet are tangled, see, laces all untied, and he trips forward again, pushing the sheet up just high enough that he can see the puncture wounds in her neck. Jessalyn Rickards. Senior. Track star. Dead.
Awesome.
"Sorry, sir," he says, leaning back on his heels and pushing up. "You know what a klutz I am, sir." He clears his throat and adds, "Trombley pushed me," even though he knows for absolutely certain that Trombley has Spanish right now on the complete other side of the building.
Godfather rolls his eyes. "Person," he says, exhaustion and annoyance evident in his voice. "Get the fuck back to class, son."
"Right!" Ray agrees, like it's only just now occurring to him. "Of course, sir." He salutes as he goes, running back down the hallway, even though it's against the rules.
Killing kids on campus is against the rules too, but he's pretty sure vampires don't give a shit about what's in the Oceanside student handbook.
*
Ray's unchaining his bike from the bike rack after school when a cloud passes in front of the sun, leaving him in a temporary patch of shade.
"I saw what you did," the cloud says, not sounding very cloud-like at all.
To his credit, Ray doesn't jump. He's too used to the creepy-crawlies of the night to do that, but he does turn around, staring at the cloud that is apparently a person. He turns and looks up, and up. And fucking up, because the cloud that is a person is also a fucking giant, what the fuck.
"What the fuck are you talking about, homes? You don't know shit about me." Ray says, getting on his bike and starting to peddle away. There are a good couple hours before the sun starts to go down, and that's when the vamps start to walk, so he has to be ready. There aren't many times when he's thankful for his mama's condition, but this is one of them.
"Ray Person," the cloud-person says, but not even his name is enough to get Ray to turn around. He has shit to do. "I know what you do!" He calls out, completely ignoring the need for secrecy. Ray is not making it up when he says that several people turn around.
He skids his bike to a stop. "What the fuck," he hisses, doubling back. "Dude, what the hell are you doing, announcing that to the fucking world? That's none of your business."
The cloud glowers down at Ray and says, "You weren't stopping," matter-of-factly. "I needed to get your attention."
"You need to get your ass kicked," Ray says, completely fucking meaning it, even if it would take a fucking stepladder just to get a punch to this dude's nose.
The guy smiles, like Ray has time for this shit. He's a fucking psychopath just like Trombley. "I know what you can do," he says easily. "I don't doubt it."
"You don't doubt it," Ray repeats, and he's getting trapped in this too, this conversation with some useless giant who's getting in his way.
The giant smiles and says, "Brad. Colbert," and then sticks out his hand like they're going to have some formal introduction.
"I don't have time for this," Ray says. It's Christmas-time. Who the fuck cares that they're in California and it's not snowing? The sun still sets earlier.
Brad just smiles at him, Trombley-crazy with hazy blue eyes from what Ray can see and a backpack on his shoulders. So he's a student, then. Or a really unconvincing pedophile.
"I know," he says. "Let's go."
Ray stares at him. "No," he says, and gets the hell out of there.
*
Brad is a tall motherfucker, and after their initial meeting, Ray starts seeing him everywhere. In the supermarket when he's tailing the vamp that killed Jessalyn, at the cemetery, where after dark, there are more vamps than there are actual dead people. He doesn't try to talk to Ray again, but he hangs around, just watching, probably because he has a fucking death-wish, the idiot.
"Yo," Ray says, sidling up to him outside the Pick ‘n Pay. Vamp's mostly disintegrate once you stake ‘em, but there's still blood residue that gets everywhere, ash bits and dust that never seem to wash off, no matter how many showers he takes. Ray's got to be the cleanest vampire slayer in the history of time. "You have to stop doing this."
Brad looks at him with his brows raised like he's surprised to see Ray at all, even though he's been following like a shadow for days. "What am I doing?" he asks.
Ray doesn't even bother rolling his eyes. He's not joking around. This isn't funny. "This isn't a fucking joke, homes," he says, eventually, one eye on the door to the Pick ‘n Pay. There's a vamp in there, and he's been in there for a while, but it looks like he's actually looking through the bargain bins instead of trying to eat the people working behind the counter. "You could get hurt. You don't know what you're doing."
"How do you know?" Brad asks quietly, leaning in close and speaking so softly that his breath tickles against Ray's ear.
Ray rolls his eyes. "I would've fucking seen you at the Vampire Slayers Anonymous meetings if you were a part of the team, don't you think?"
Brad doesn't answer right away, and Ray really doesn't have any more time to waste, so he pushes away and into the store, sticking close to the walls and keeping his eyes peeled. The vamp buys a tarp and some magazines, but he doesn't flash his teeth or make a fuss, so Ray lets him go.
Outside, Brad's exactly where Ray left him. He's a tall; obnoxious Viking in distressed jeans and an obscure band t-shirt that barely seems to fit across his chest.
"I hate you," Ray says, because the vamp probably thinks he has a team now, considering all the following Brad's been doing. "You're screwing me up."
Brad pauses before he speaks, taking a deep breath and shoving his hands in his pockets. "I'm just standing here," he says eventually. It's exactly what Ray knew he would say, because Brad is turning out to be annoying as well as an asshole. "You're the one who let him go, man. I am an innocent bystander."
"He probably thinks I have a team now," Ray says, spitting the word out through his teeth. "They usually live in packs, and you being here—"
Brad shrugs. "Why let him go, then?" he asks, trying for logical. Logic doesn't have a place here, though. Not really. Not in a world where the undead roam freely and Ray; Ray fucking Person from Nevada, Missouri by way of Oceanside, is the one tasked to kill them.
"He didn't try and hurt anyone," Ray says, unlocking his bike from the rack and tugging his helmet on. "Not yet, anyway."
*
Of course, vamps aren't people any longer, so the one Ray let go does try and hurt somebody. It's December, nearly Christmas, but this is California, the land of the plasticized and also the stupid, considering Ray tracks him to the camp-ground of a church group having an out-door sleepover to commune with nature.
Ray stakes him before he gets a chance to attack, barely two feet away from the clearing. He's not sure if anybody sees their tussle, but the kids are little enough that they can probably explain it away to bad dreams and camping-induced hysteria.
He walks home, because his bike is pretty useless in the messy brambles of the woods, and is unsurprised to find Brad with him after a while, materializing out of the shadows like nothing and falling into step with Ray easily.
"I want to help," he says, simply.
Ray tries not to laugh, because his ribs are bruised from the fight, and he's pretty sure he sprained his wrist when he fell. "You want to help," he mocks, trying not to wince as he curls his palm into a fist and punches Brad's arm. "You can't help, dude. What are you going to do, stand there and Nordic the vampires to death?" He clears his throat and makes his voice high-pitched and breathy, so nothing like Brad at all. "Oooh, hi, I'm Brad. I'm tall and handsome and a descendant of a long line of tall handsome people also probably named Brad—"
"Actually," Brad says conversationally, "I'm adopted." He shrugs, tugging on the draw-string of his hoodie. "I have no idea what my long line of ancestors is from."
Three things happen at once: Ray says, "Nordic gods. Sea people, definitely," a trio of vampires appears out of nowhere, fangs out and blood-thirsty, and Brad shoves Ray behind him and pulls out a stake-shooter way more complex than whatever Ray's got going on under his sleeves and in the back pocket of his jeans.
"Stay down," Brad whispers, voice weirdly close to Ray's ear, but whatever, fuck that, Ray's the one with actual experience. "I can handle it," he says, when Ray doesn't move, when Ray sticks right there next to him, fighting and shoving and staking and trying his best to keep his eyes open, even though the temptation is to close them and swing wildly.
He has no idea how long the whole ordeal takes, but they're in a more residential area, further in from the hidden darkness of the trees, and anyone driving over the ridge would have been able to see. Then again, people have a hard time believing in things they don't recognize.
Ray's hunched over, breathing hard. His ribs are killing him and he's pretty sure his arm is dislocated. "What the fuck was that?"
"Ambush," Brad says, ambling closer, his fingers weirdly gentle as he inspects Ray for damage. "Pretty sure they expected us." He tips Ray's chin up. "Pretty sure they think we're a team now, too. I think it would be a good idea."
His head and arms are throbbing, and Ray's pretty sure what were once mere bruises on his ribs before have escalated to at least one break. Awesome. "Awesome," Ray says, too tired not to mean it. "Tell that to someone who cares."