Full Moon Hike, Julie Steimle [best summer reads .TXT] 📗

to sneak out a chocolate bar from my pack when I wasn’t looking, this one was screaming to find that human he could smell and bite it.
My wings popped out, and I flew up.
“Eve!” Will called after me.
But I was in the air, my wings high and wide as I listened, going invisible and intangible as the imp blood from my birth mother allowed me to be when I needed it, and I flew through the trees, literally, to where I was hearing that imp.
It was moving fast at first. I then heard another gun shot. The bullet split the bark of one tree below me, and whatever the imp was shouting at yelped like some kind of dog and scurried towards the campfire, limping. Most normal animals would have been frightened by the fire, but this one seemed drawn to it. I followed it, then him, realizing that it was a boy, somewhat hairy and ragged looking, but a teenaged boy all the same. He ran rather fast, looking more and more like a regular boy with each step as he panted, nearing our camp. If he really had any ill intent towards us, I knew I had to stop him from reaching my brothers and sister. However, even his imps were shouting as if they were desperate rather than gleefully believing that he would do as they wanted.
I flew straight over his head, materialized back into something solid people could see and I landed in front of him before he could even cross the mountain path. “Come no closer.”
Yelping like a dog, the hairy boy fell back to the trees, peering out at me with wolfish eyes. He panted hard, trembling even as his imps shouted for him to bite me.
“What do you want?” I asked, peering at him as I recognized the smell I had detected earlier now. It was blood. His unusual blood.
He straightened up, shaking his hairy brown head and walked forward. He was shirtless, wearing jean shorts that were torn from thorns, and one bullet wound in his thigh. Showing me his empty hands that were mildly hairy, his fingernails thicker than normal, and said, “Normally I wouldn’t bother you, but—”
He then peered at my increasingly red eyes and stepped back.
“You’re a vampire.”
“Hey! Eve!”
Will jogged over to me, taking hold of my arm.
“Why did you run off like that? What happened? Did you—?” Will’s eyes fixed on the strange hairy boy. “Oh, crap. What have you unearthed now?”
“I didn’t unearth him,” I snapped back. “I smelled blood and then thought I heard gunfire.”
“I thought I heard some too,” Will murmured still staring at the boy, backing slightly away from him.
The boy was watching us, looking from Will who was about as ordinary as a blond Californian could get, to me who was far from ordinary. He opened his mouth and then cast a glance over his shoulder, ducking down. He whispered to me. “Look. I don’t know who or what you are, and you don’t know me. But all I’m asking is a favor. Please let me hide here.”
“What?” Will just stared at him.
Practically falling on his knees, the boy winced. “My name is Howard Richard Deacon the third. Those hunters are after me. If you have any sympathy at all, please hide me.”
I looked to Will and then Travis who had suddenly walked up, staring at our hairy newcomer.
Lifting my eyes beyond the boy through the darkness, I could see the hunters coming from far off. I could tell they were trying to make our figures out from our silhouettes in the firelight. “Ok…”
“What?” Will and Travis both stared at me.
I returned the look with a shake of my head. “Come on. This is an animal reserve, and they shouldn’t be shooting at anything here. Especially people.”

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Publication Date: 02-16-2010

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