"Lizz! Stop playing that game!" a highly annoyed voice screamed from the top of the basement stairs.

"Shut up, Becca! I've been working all morning!" another voice screamed back.

And indeed, Lizz had been working all morning. Taking care of the dogs, taking out the trash, cleaning the bathroom and vacuuming the basement. If that's not work, then what is?

Lizz was lounging in the rec room of her family's ranch house. It was summer, and no one in their right mind would go out into Nebraska heat in the middle of the day. Except maybe Becca, who would fry herself to ride her horse. Lizz, on the other hand, normally stayed in her nice, cool basement (also known as The Dungeon) and play her Playstation. This week's games were Soul Reaver and Soul Reaver 2. Lizz was rather proud of herself when she managed to outsmart the shades for the fourth time that day. And yes, she kept count.

"If you don't, I'm going to sell that game!" Becca shot.

"Over my cold, hard corpse!" Lizz shot back. She noted, with satisfaction, that the come-back ended the conversation.

Lizz paused the game, then got up and went to the basement's wet bar to get something to drink. She searched the cabinets for a glass, found one, then scoured the fridge only to discover that they were completely out of Coke. Muttering, she picked up a Pepsi and returned to her game.

She played for an hour or so longer, then saved her game. She turned off the power, made the room all neat again, and finally retreated into her room. After closing her door and turning off the lights, she decided to lay down to sleep away the remaining hours of heat.

Two hours later, she woke up in a cold sweat. She had had her third Dream of Warning, and she wasn't enjoying the results.

Lizz always had a Dream of Warning right before something bad happened. She came from a long line of empathy, Wicca's, and psychics (real ones, not phonies like Miss Cleo), and her powers were stronger than those of the past four generations. The ones before her could normally only predict the future (stock market or weather, nothing major) and do actual tarot, accompanied by minor cases of déjà vu.

Her first Dream of Warning warned her of the teen boys who enjoyed messing with her family's property in the middle of the night. Lizz and her Irish wolf hound Finn caught then in time, and they were in court the following week.

Her second Dream woke her up in time to get the barn animals out of the barn before the gas tanks exploded. The barn and most of the equipment was destroyed in the explosion and the following fire, but the farmers and ranchers helped them replace everything. Lizz got away with a slight concussion and a few minor burns.

This Dream though…. She didn't understand it. She remembered something about a stick, the T.V. and a monster. And something about her Playstation, but she wasn't sure what it was about.

Lizz sat up and glanced around her room, trying to make sure everything was in its place. She jumped out of bed, completely dressed, and turned on the light to inspect her room. Swords were on the racks, pole arms and shield in the closet--all of the weapons were renaissance, and only a handful were sharp--undead thing holding a sharp, pointy stick in the corner…

Lizz did a double-take with what she thought she saw, but it had vanished by the time she looked again. Her heart began to race as she grabbed a war lance from her closet and stood in the middle of the room.

Her eyes darted about the room as she turned around in a complete circle. After doing this for five minutes, Lizz began to feel foolish. After all, having grabbed a full-sized war lance and searching her bedroom for an undead thing holding a sharp pointy stick and not finding an undead thing holding a sharp pointy stick… it can get very disappointing.

Lizz's train of thought was quickly altered when she heard raspy breathing behind her. She spun around in time to see something quickly escape her field of vision. She turned again to keep it in her sights, and when it finally stopped running, Lizz decided it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen in her life.

The thing's skin was an unnatural color, and its eyes were blood-red. Its bony hands sported nasty looking claws, and the fangs in its mouth were dripping with saliva.

"Oh, this isn't good." Lizz said as the monster turned to face her. "It's a vampire."