A/N: Part one of this story. Maybe I'll actually finish this one! What a concept...

Reviews please!

No one ever walked the streets of Terra-Anice at night anymore. Doing so was a death wish. People of all ages had been disappearing into the night for months and not one was ever heard from alive again. Some lucky families had their loved ones found dead in shady alleys or under park benches, but for the most part, once a person went missing, they were just gone. Different theories floated through the town on hushed voices.

"A plague?"

"No, no. I think it's a serial killer. It must be."

"But the victims are so different. Don't serial killers have patterns?"

"Vampires."

"What? They don't exist!"

"They do. They do exist. And they've come to Terra-Anice."

The vampire theory stuck around for many weeks and was excited into a frenzy when the body of little Heather Creery was found in James' Alley looking ready for burial. After being missing for three weeks, her body was fresh as if it had been killed the day before. The cause? She had been bled dry. No tell-tale puncture wounds were found though, and this was almost enough to shut the vampire rumour up for good, but you could still here people whispering about it on street corners, and the smell of garlic was pungent in the small, superstition-ridden town. But with all the rumours and fears, still no one knew just what they were facing out there once the sun went down.

"So what do you think about it?" Derrick Marshal sat across from his friend Lauren Jamerson as she swirled her spoon around in her coffee cup. Her brown hair tumbling in waves over her shoulders and her green eyes looked intently into her beverage.

"What do I think about what?" she asked, almost absent-mindedly, not breaking her fixed gaze.

Derrick rolled his eyes.

"Day dreaming again, are we?" he said with a smirk. Lauren was always off in some other world thinking about some guy or another. It was a miracle she pulled the grades she did, getting into a top college and all, while Derrick worked his ass off to barely scrape by in community college.

Lauren finally turned her eyes over to Derrick, sitting there with his scruffy dark brown hair and sparkling blue eyes, looking at her with amusement.

"What on Earth are you talking about, Derrick?" she asked with a slightly sarcastic edge. "And to answer your question, I think this whole vampire business is total bull shit. I find it preposterous that people would even consider the idea. Un-dead blood suckers running around at night picking off unsuspecting wanderers? Yeah, right."

"What about Heather Creery?" Derrick asked, countering her argument. "She didn't have any blood left in her. And what could have happened to all the other bodies?"

"Maybe they turned into bats and flew away," Lauren laughed darkly and stood up to return her coffee cup to the counter.

The two friends exited the shop and walked into the nippy November air. Lauren tied her scarf around her face and further buttoned up her trench coat while Derrick rubbed his hands together and breathed into them. Neither of them had ever been much fans of the cold, preferring to stay inside and read by the fire or just talk. The two of them had been friends since kindergarten when Lauren got Derrick out of trouble with their teacher. He had stolen another boys Crayola Crayons and Lauren defended him saying that they were his and the boy had stolen them from him first. Thus started a long tradition. Derrick would get into some form of trouble and Lauren would play classroom lawyer and get him out. He had had a lot less detentions that way.

Over the years, neither of them had changed much. Lauren was the average goody two shoes with the extensive vocabulary and spacey mind set, while Derrick remained the too-handsome-for-his-own-good trouble maker with a soft heart. But to everyone’s immense surprise, their relationship had remained as platonic as the day they met in kindergarten when all children were convinced that the opposite sex had cooties.

"My place, or yours?" Lauren asked through her woollen scarf.

"I'm sorry, Kenny, I didn't quite get that." Derrick snickered, making reference to his favourite cartoon.

Lauren glared over at him and began in the direction of her house. Derrick followed suit, laughing loudly at her disgruntled facial expression.

Once inside her warm apartment, they peeled of their various layers of winter clothes and dropped them in a messy heap in the doorway. Derrick made a beeline for the DVD collection which was as varied and well cultured as Lauren's vocabulary.

"Harold and Kumar?" Derrick picked up a DVD and flung it behind him. "What kind of goody-goody are you? This is the unrated version!"

Lauren poked her head into the living room from the kitchen where she was making more coffee.

"Even nerds like to have a good time, honey." she replied with a wicked grin.

"Ohhh, I'm sure they do," Derrick called back in a mock-suggestive voice.

Once the coffee had brewed, Lauren and Derrick settled down on the couch to watch Across the Universe, despite Derrick’s loud, obnoxious complaints about his hatred of musicals. Lauren sat there feeling quite pleased with herself when she saw a tear slide down Derrick's cheek during the final scene. But that time, the sun had long set and the caffeine had worn off.

"I think I'm gonna go home now," Derrick said with a yawn as he dozed on Lauren's shoulder.

"You sure you'll be safe to walk alone in the dark with the scary vampires?" the girl asked mockingly.

Derrick tilted his head up to look at her.

"You'll feel really shitty if I go out there and you never hear from me again," he said with a frown.

Lauren pulled him into a tight hug and buried her face in his soft hair. The thought of never seeing Derrick again...

"I was joking," she murmured, "If you want to stay here, though, that's fine."

"Nah, I'll be alright," Derrick insisted, getting up to leave. "Thanks for the coffee and the good time. Wanna go see a movie in theatres tomorrow night?"

Lauren nodded, "Sure, why not."

They two said their goodbyes and Derrick walked out. Lauren began to tidy up the living room, collecting popcorn kernels and washing out coffee mugs.

Stupid boy, she thought merrily, always scaring himself with those superstitions. He's probably going to show up late to the movies tomorrow just to freak me out, or call me and tell me some horror story of witnessing a vampire attack an old lady. That would be just -

Her thoughts were cut short by a loud yelp from the streets below.