Page 62 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

These things were foreign contaminants, and they were spreading.

They were coming through the pool somehow. The pool was the key, and I was the pool guy. I could do this. Think. The creatures had contaminated the water. Which meant, I needed to shock the entire system.

One of the creatures lurched toward Theo.

Another shotgun blast boomed.

Fleur yelled.

Think.

Theo yelled back.

All around me was chaos and noise and water and guns.

Every pool problem had a treatment.

Algae.

Bacteria.

Clouding.

Contamination.

Shock the system. Destroy the invader.

I pulled my hands free and bolted around the back of the pool house. I grabbed the drum of chlorine crystals from the storage shed and hefted it back to the chaotic poolside. Theo was now dancing with yet another creature, and Leander waved the shotgun, trying to get a clean shot.

I dropped the drum by the filter, tore off the lid, and dumped in half a bucket of chlorine. That would kill anything. And probably us too, if we breathed it in.

“Get back!” I waved. Nobody listened. Of course they didn’t. Why would vampires listen to the pool guy?

Fleur was still riding one of the creatures, close to the water’s edge. The slabs around the pool’s edge glistened slick. If the creature went down, it would take Fleur with it, and if she fell in the water, the chlorine would burn and the gas would kill her. I hadn’t saved her once already only to kill her with chlorine now.

I bolted toward them, grabbed the creature’s weird, gnarled hand-thing, yanking it away from the water’s edge. As it spun, its head part swung toward me, slack-jawed, mouth open. I smacked a fist into its face area—although face was stretch, just two holes and a mouth—then kicked its spindly legs out from under it. The prison exercise yard had taught me how to fight dirty.

The creature flopped backwards with Fleur pinned under it. She scrabbled out.

“Stay away from the water!” I yelled.

The creature tried to flip itself onto its legs. I kicked it toward the steaming pool. Vapor poured off the bubbling surface. Great wisps of it snaked into the air. I’d somehow made a huge witch’s cauldron that glowed and bubbled and steamed.

I grabbed the spindly wrist part of the creature I’d been fighting with and heaved it toward the pool. It tried to dig its stubby wooden feet into the slabs, but they were too smooth. At the edge, I covered my mouth with my sleeve to try and avoid breathing in the vapor, and I shoved the creature over the side. It fell with a splash, bucked and convulsed, thrashing wildly. In seconds, its limbs dissolved, until there was nothing left but twigs and debris swirling in the tumultuous waters.

I staggered back and gasped clean air.

The sounds of churning water slowed. The pool was calming again.

My eyes streamed. I blinked hard, squeezing out tears.

Nothing would survive that pool.

Behind me the pool had settled, returning to its benign state, albeit now highly toxic.

Fleur and Theo stood to my left, breathing hard, drenched, and Leander stood opposite, shotgun in hand. Woody debris littered the ground around us, like the aftermath of a hurricane.

“What just happened?” Fleur asked. “Was that real?”