Cursed

Not long after rejoining the others in the dining room, everyone migrated into the parlor where Tre had started a roaring fire in the gigantic fireplace. The five friends found seats in the wingback chairs and on the Victorian-esque sofas, but there weren't that many seats. Craig and Brandon were able to squeeze into one sofa, Val took one wingback chair, Isabelle took the other and Tre stood by the fireplace, knowing what Mike was trying to maneuver without the vampiric bassist having to say anything.

There was one seating option left. The love seat. The very small loveseat made of crushed, red velvet.

Taking a seat on one side, Mike patted the spot beside him for Beth, who gingerly sat down. She gave Mike a slight smile while holding her glass of wine, feeling a slight buzz from not having really ate anything except for a few bites of her apple.

When a sudden banging echoed throughout the mansion, followed by dull thumping and a growling moan, the five friends looked at each other in confusion.

"What was that?" Val asked, skeptically.

"That's just our dog...he gets restless at night..." Mike replied with an assuring smile as he placed the rim of his wine glass to his thin but nonetheless delectable-looking lips.

"Oh," Val muttered.

"What kind of dog?" Beth piped up, turning her head to face Mike.

He turned his gaze right back at her, pulled his glass away to rest on his lap as he took a moment to respond, then smirked. "A Boston Terrier mix," he answered. "Small thing, wiry legs, and incredibly energetic..."

"How long have you had him?"

"For as long as I can remember. He's like a best friend, right Frank?"

Tre grinned a little oddly as he nodded and turned his face toward the flickering flames. "Yeah...man's best friend..."

As time ticked away, the thumping from the basement continued until Mike gestured to Tre for him to take care of 'the dog.' Meanwhile, Mike suggested that everyone turn in for the night due to the very late hour.

But as they headed on their way, Craig lagged behind to look at some of the decorations on the wall, tilting his head at the suit of armor in one of the corners of the parlor.

Tre came up beside him and stood beside the younger man, folding his hands before him. "Like it?"

"Yeah, uh...I've never seen an actual suit of armor before," Craig replied.

"We got it in Romania," came the beginning of Tre's explanation. "We were staying in this...quaint Bed & Breakfast outside the city of Oradea about two years ago. And the lady that owned it...well, she didn't take too kindly to us. We left a little earlier than planned, but we returned to get a few things we left behind. And, well...when she saw our friend Billie...she's just couldn't say no to his face..."

Tre turned to Craig and smiled creepily.

"So, she gave the armor to you for free?"

"Well, it was the least she could do after what happened..." Tre trailed off, subtly leading the younger man from the parlor and down a hall toward the back of the mansion.

"What happened?" Craig inquired, and then took in the odd change in his surroundings. "Is this another way upstairs?"

Tre ignored the second question altogether as he sauntered along beside Craig and began to laugh a little. "Oh, well...I went a little crazy...but it wasn't my fault, you see." He turned to Craig, stopping before a door in the dimly lit hallway. "See...we got cursed."

"You--what? Cursed?" Craig repeated, unsure if Tre was joking around or not.

"Yeah," Tre nodded. "And then Mike was attacked by this bat, and he died from blood loss and to our surprise, came back to life, figuratively speaking, as a vampire...and then he killed our bus driver, and bit Billie Joe...drained him of a lot of blood..."

"Uh..." Craig began to furrow his brow in confusion and discomfort from what the drummer was telling him and by the creepy gaze he was giving.

"And did I mention the car that ran Billie Joe over and killed him? Well, let me tell you...I didn't appreciate that very much."

"Really?" Craig inquired nervously.

"Yeah," Tre sighed with a slight shrug. "So, the driver and his girl had to go. Lucky for me I was holding that butcher's knife. And, lucky for me that my best friend came back to life also..."

"Billie Joe isn't dead?"

"Oh, no. He's very, very dead. But somehow he's still able to walk around...but his motor skills are a little..." Tre made a whistling sound to make reference to something that doesn't work properly. "...And he gets restless and hungry. Not that he really needs to eat...but, feeding him on a semi-regular basis keeps the basement from smelling as bad. It keeps him from decaying and all that shit..."

Craig stared wide-eyed at Tre, who reached beside the college grad to open the door.

"Care to meet Billie Joe?" Tre asked without waiting for a response.

With a quick shove, he sent Craig tumbling backwards down a flight of stairs into the basement below. Tre listened to each cry and groan of pain as the younger man tumbled down the narrow steps to the damp ground, followed by cries of fear, which let the psychotic drummer know that Craig had met Billie Joe...

As Tre shut the basement door and locked it with a skeleton key, muffled screams for help bounced off the basement walls that were intermingled with Billie Joe's groans, moans and gnawing.

All the while, Tre walked off laughing.

* * *

Mike stood in the doorway to the bedroom suite allotted to Beth, leaning against the doorframe as she turned on a few lights so that she could see what she was doing.

"Thanks for letting us stay here for the night," she thanked again.

"Don't think of it," he responded. "And if you need anything else, don't be afraid to holler for it. I'm kind of a night person, myself, so I'll be up for a while longer."

"Is your bedroom in this hall?"

"No," Mike shook his head. "But I have really keen hearing."

With a smile, Beth dipped her head and then looked back up a little bashfully as she walked up to Mike, placing her hand on the doorknob. "Well...I should probably try and get to sleep now..."

"Of course," Mike nodded. "Goodnight, sleep tight..."

"...Don't let the bed bugs bite," Beth finished with a laugh.

"Actually I was gonna say, 'me.'"

Beth looked at him in all seriousness for a moment and then a smile spread across her heart-shaped lips as she let out a soft laugh. "Okay," she remarked. "I'll try not to."

With that, she shut the door and walked over to the bed as Mike smirked to himself and headed down the hallway, stealthily like a cat.

* * *

About a half hour later, Val was in full snoop mode. She'd figured everyone was in their rooms for the night, and given how huge the place was, she wasn't going to waste any time not searching it out. One of her downfalls was that she was quite materialistic. Sometimes compared with Mila Kunis' character, Jackie, on the half hour situation comedy, 'That 70s Show.' She even looked a little like the actress, which fueled the comparison all the more.

Creeping along the stairs to the main floor, Val tiptoed from the parlor which was empty, although the fire was still going, and into a narrow and dimly lit hallway, where she heard the same bumping as from earlier in the night.

Curious, she headed toward the origin of the sound, which seemed to be coming from behind a rather normal looking door.

Biting her bottom lip, Val grabbed the doorknob and tried to open it, but it seemed to be locked. Frowning, she wondered if she had anything in her pockets she could use to jimmy the lock undone, just as a hand appeared out of no where, the palm pressed firmly against the face of the door.

Jumping at the gesture, Val spun around out of surprise.

"Lost?"

It was Mike, standing there with his head cocked to the side, seemingly studying her every move.

"Oh, ah...no. I, um..." she smiled guiltily. "I just got curious."

"Curiosity killed the cat, you know." Mike then bared his fangs, the whites of his eyes overpowering his blue irises as he grabbed her neck and pinned her up against the door.

She let out a sudden whimper in fear as her hands flew up to claw at his hand to let her go.

"I don't appreciate noisy bitches in my house," he snipped, his face inches in front of her and the look he gave her was absolutely terrifying.

Wide-eyed, she lifted up her right leg and kneed him in the groin which was enough for him to release his hold on her and for her to get away. But, of course, she had to take that very moment to twist her foot and fall to the ground in the very cliche, damsel-in-distress sort of way.

As Val turned her body to look up at Mike, he appeared rather unfazed by the knee to the groin as he pulled out a skeleton key and unlocked the door. "You're so curious to see what's behind door number one, huh?" he muttered with his fangs still showing. Pulling the door open, Mike whistled. "C'mere boy..." he puckered his lips and made a beckoning call. "C'mere..."

Hollow steps on the stairs thundered up toward the door, proceeded by anguished moans and then followed by Billie Joe Armstrong.

The walking corpse, otherwise referred to as Billie Joe the Zombie.

His skin was extremely pale and slightly bluish due to his own death two years early. Parts of his flesh were mangled and covered in dried blood and dirt. There were even bite marks on his arms and hands which were most likely a result of him gnawing on himself when he was restless and without fresh...uh...flesh. He seemed to drag one of his legs that had been a little crushed from the car that ran him over and his head was distorted severely.

The random eyeball that had initially hung from its socket was tucked snugly back in place, compliments of Mike who was crafty with a sewing needle, but as a result, the entire eyelid was sewn shut to keep the eye from falling out again. His jaw was dislocated, his nose was broken and part of his scalp was permanently missing from when he'd been run over and part of his heads liquids spilled out.

He eyed -- singularly, pun intended -- Val and began to lurch toward her with his arms out reaching for her while he let a grotesque moan escape his horribly chapped lips. But that's not all that frightened the shit out of Val.

It's the fact that a now zombified Craig lumbered out of the basement right behind Billie Joe.

Letting out a shrill scream, Val scrambled to her feet and took off into a full run, not focusing on her twisted ankle in the slightest. She tore around the corner and into the parlor once again, heading toward the grand front entrance and grand staircase, screaming for help.

Isabelle and Brandon both stuck their heads out of their rooms at basically the same time and head out into the hallway in their pajamas, courtesy of Mike, and walked in the direction of the staircase, wondering what in the hell the screaming was for.

They practically ran into Val as she finally reached the top step. Brandon grabbed her shoulders and tried to get her to look at them and tell them what was up.

"Val! Why are you screaming?" Brandon demanded. "It's almost four in the morning."

"I saw Billie Joe...their friend...and he's dead...like...like...like a zombie and he's all disfigured! And Mike's a vampire! He had fangs and his eyes were all white and he was choking me but I kneed him in the crotch and then he opened the door where Billie came out and Craig was with him and he was a zombie, too! Omigod, Craig's dead!"

"Val...Val!" Isabelle barked. "Snap out of it. You clearly had a nightmare...so, just chill."

Val whimpered. "But it wasn't a nightmare...it was real..."

* * *

In Beth's bedroom, she was sitting on the bed, taking out the ear pieces from her iPod and setting it all on the nightstand just as she heard a knock at the door. Knitting her brow in wonder, she got up slowly and made her way to the door. With one hand on the doorknob, she leaned in toward the crack between the door and the doorframe.

"Who is it?"

"Mike," came the slightly deep voice.

Not knowing why she was smiling to herself, Beth turned the doorknob and opened the door up to her sultry host.

"Uh, hi. Is everything okay?" she asked a little skeptically.

"Everything's fine," he insisted. "I take it you haven't been disturbed by anything...loud?"

"No," she shook her head with a small smile. "I've been listening to my iPod and when I have it on, I'm kinda lost to the world..."

"I know the feeling," Mike replied. Then asked, quite boldly, "Mind if I come in?"

"Uh, no. Not at all," she responded, stepping aside for him to enter. "To be honest, I'm not that tired. I guess a little company couldn't hurt."

It's not as if Mike needed her permission to enter the bedroom. It was his house, it wasn't as if he had to be asked in. Had he wanted to, he could have simply barged right in, unannounced.

Instead, he chose the polite route, sending her a charming smile as he sauntered inside and shut the door behind him.

* * *

Val continued to insist to Isabelle and Brandon that what she'd seen had actually happened and it wasn't just her imagination, and when they agreed to follow her downstairs to satisfy their bored curiosity and to keep Val from whining any further, they were brought to the same hallway Val'd been in earlier, but it was empty and the basement door was shut, and locked.

"I swear it was unlocked...and Craig was right here..."

"They were probably playing a prank on you, Val. You know how Craig gets," Isabelle rationalized.

Taking deep, calming breaths, Val slowly nodded, accepting her friends' reasoning as best as possible until a smile appeared on her lips. "Maybe. I guess that makes sense."

"Val..." Brandon began, a cautious look in his eyes as he looked over her shoulder.

"Craig does like to joke around a little too much..."

"Val!" Brandon and Isabelle both shouted at the same time, just as a look of surprise broke out across Val's face, and remained stunned as her head rolled off her neck and fell to the floor with a thud.

Tre stood behind Val's now decapitated body, which slumped over against the wall and sank to the floor beside her severed head, holding a blood soaked sword.

A sword that, if anyone paid attention to, had gone missing from the coat of arms above the parlor's fire place.

Jerking his face forward, Tre opened his mouth and cackled maniacally at Isabelle and Brandon.

"Homerun!" he shouted with a wild-eyed grin.

Emitting a horrified scream, Brandon grabbed Isabelle by the hand and took off running with her down the hallway, away from the insane and murderous Tre Cool.

* * *

Who knows how it started, but all that seemed to matter at the moment was how sensually Mike cradled Beth's body against his as he laid her down on the bed and began to lift her night dress over her head and let it fall away.

She tipped her head back and let out a sigh at the way his hands moved up the sides of her stomach, caressing her soft skin so delicately, as if one wrong move and she'd shatter into a million pieces. The way his lips sank to the valley between her breasts, his tongue flicking out to lick her salty skin.

As she arched her back to his every gesture, her ears became attuned to the sound of his own shirt coming off his body and his pants sliding off his narrow waist. Her instincts took over as she fell deeply into his thrall, allowing her legs to wrap around him and welcome his hard manhood into her body.

She cooed and cried out with every thrust into her, letting her hands climb his back as she dug her short fingernails into his skin, causing him to moan and bury his face into her neck as he pounded away.

Beth's hands lingered down to his ass, cupping his cheeks and letting him know she wanted him even deeper inside. She wanted all of him, and peculiarly, he wanted her so badly.

Nay, he needed her.

"Mike," she groaned in a hearty whisper at his ear.

He lifted his face and they locked eyes. Bringing his lips down to hers, they kissed rather hungrily and ravenously, letting his tongue slip into her mouth and battle it out with her tongue.

When he looked back up at her, his eyes dilated and became all white again, his fangs starting to appear as the pleasure began to soak his very being. And what was amazing was that his change didn't seem to faze her as he slid sexily down her body, placing kisses further south...until she cried out with satisfaction as his tongue and lips found the right place.

She ran her hands through his hair and arched again in satisfaction...

...All the while two of her friends had been killed and the remaining two were running for their lives in horror.