RED CIRCUS
A Dark Collection
by
John L. Campbell
These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
RED CIRCUS Copyright © 2011 by John L. Campbell
All rights reserved.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
The following were previously published in another form; “The Woodshed” in Third Wednesday, “White Out” at MicroHorror, “Elephant Rides” at MicroHorror,“The Glades” in The Scream Factory, “Territorial” in Storyteller Magazine, “Alligator Magnets and Nuclear War” at MicroHorror, “Jackboot and Mary” at MicroHorror, “A Shade Above Normal” at MicroHorror.
Cover design and illustration by Keith Haney/Haney@xmission.com
For Dave, dear friend and keeper of forgotten things.
For Keith, long-standing accomplice.
And for Linda. Always.
Contents
The Woodshed
Choking Hazard
Guinea Pig Gothic
Family Night
White Out
The Glades
Territorial
Alligator Magnets and Nuclear War
Cain Rose Up
Jordan
Jackboot and Mary
Seminole
Unbearable
A Picture From Harriett
A Shade Above Normal
A Mastodon on Michigan Avenue
Dance of the Yard Apes
Kennel Man
Noah’s Arrangement
Elephant Rides
A Night With Angeline
THE WOODSHED
“Whatever bit you wasn’t nice.”
Graham hissed as his wife prodded the welt on the back of his left hand. They were seated at the kitchen table, and his arm was extended towards her.
“Looks like it hurts.”
“No kidding,” he said, pulling his hand back and looking at the bite. A pair of small red dots sat at the center of the quarter-sized, raised red bump. Ice had reduced its size and a little of the pain.
Susan disappeared, and called from the other room. “What were you doing?”
He flexed his fist, grimacing. “Just moving the hand truck. Must have been a hornet or something. I didn’t see it.”
She returned to the kitchen with an alcohol wipe, Neosporin and a square bandaid. “Be careful,” she said, for the fifth or sixth time this weekend, tending to the bite, “there’s a century worth of junk out there waiting to give you tetanus.”
Graham grumbled for the fifth or sixth time this weekend that he would indeed be careful, kissed his wife thanks and headed back to his project. This time on his way out, he picked up the heavy work gloves Susan bought for him.
The screen door squealed and banged as he left – adding WD40 to his mental Home Depot list – and he crossed a space which was more meadow than back yard. Knee-high weeds and tough yellow wildflowers spread for half an acre behind the big Victorian house, and clouds of grasshoppers took flight as he disturbed them with his passage. The July sun was hot on his neck and arms, and half way across his jeans were covered in burrs.
The realtor said the house was built in 1901 by a railroad man, an impressive thing with turrets, gables, high dormers and a broad porch wrapping all the way around. It sat on a private road with no neighbors for at least half a mile, and the property boasted a six car garage which had once been a stable, a gazebo on a private pond, and a small barn which was listed on the realty sheet as a woodshed. They had been here a little over a week.
Susan fell in love with it at once, envisioning summer evenings sitting on the porch drinking lemonade, and picturing a twelve foot Christmas tree in the entry hall with the sweeping staircase as a backdrop. Graham had his own dreams, and imagined that six car garage filled with highly polished, vintage muscle cars.
He swatted at a grasshopper on his neck. The realtor hadn’t known much about the previous owner, only that he had apparently just walked away from the place. The finance woman at the bank was plenty chatty, though. In the conspiratorial hush of small town gossip, she eagerly told him the owner was well-off, no family – and what a single man needed with all that house was anybody’s guess, she said – who one day just up and disappeared without a word to the bank or anybody, leaving behind his financial obligations, his possessions, even his Range Rover. The bank was forced to confiscate everything and auction it off. Probably running from something, she speculated, drug dealers or the Mafia. She pronounced it maah-fia, sounding a bit like a sheep. Graham had nodded, keeping his expression neutral. More likely some bad investments and mortgage panic, he thought.
Whatever the case, it was a piece of good fortune for Graham and Susan. The bank had been eager to unload it, and there was just nothing like foreclosure prices. Graham’s third novel had gone bestseller and stayed there for going on eleven weeks, so they would still have plenty left over for the renovations.
And those would take over a year.
Their checkbook was going to get a healthy workout with local contractors before the place was transformed into their dream home. Carpenters, roofers, plumbers, landscapers…everyone in the county was sure to get a piece. He’d have to run power to the garage and the woodshed, too. Some things they could do themselves, of course. Susan’s assignment this weekend was painting upstairs bedrooms, and Graham’s project was hauling trash from the woodshed to the thirty foot open-top he’d had delivered yesterday.
He reached the open doors and passed into shadow, exchanging sunshine and the scent of wild grasses for the musty odor of age unique to old barns. The inside of the woodshed was a big open space with a high, peaked roof supported by heavy rafters. Thick vertical beams split the room from left to right, holding up a half loft which was reached by an open wooden stairway. The far left wall was stacked nearly to the ceiling with cut firewood so brittle and ancient it had turned gray. He had expected owls, but there wasn’t a single bird dropping to be found.
He folded his arms and surveyed the task before him. A century worth of junk, Susan had said, and she was right. Most of the space was filled with trash; old furniture, disintegrating boxes, farming equipment from horse-drawn days, rusting bicycles, rustier oil drums, stacks of tires, highway signs with bullet holes in them, storm screens…the list went on. He had already spent two hours this morning trucking junk across the yard – he was quickly beating a path through the high weeds – to pitch into the dumpster. His muscles ached from the exertion, but it was a pleasant burn. Not so pleasant was what could possibly be a broken toe from where he’d dropped a 50’s era Chevy rim on his right boot earlier. He hadn’t mentioned it to Susan.
Seeing it now, it didn’t look like that two hours had made any impact whatsoever. Maybe Susan was right, he should pay some local men to clear the place out. He hadn’t even looked in the loft yet, and couldn’t imagine how much more junk was up there. Still, there was no reason he couldn’t at least get a start on it. There was something very satisfying about laboring for something you cared about, and the woodshed, once transformed, would become his writing studio.
His toe advised him to avoid the rest of the rims and stacks of tires for a while, so he turned to the left side near the wood pile. Someone had leaned a long row of windows against one of the loft’s support posts. Graham started in, pulling on the splintered wooden frame and sliding the heavy windows out one at a time, dragging them across the dirt floor to his hand truck. He figured he could haul four at a time to the open top.
As he gripped the third window, a spider the size of his hand scrambled up over the back of it and leaped on his work glove. Graham screamed and shook his hand, flinging the glove and creature to the floor, stomping it violently with his boot.
“Good Christ!” he breathed, shuddering and brushing his chest and pants legs as if more might be there. He looked down at the crushed remains, flinching when one of the long, hairy legs twitched reflexively. It was a big bastard!
From the spider his eyes traveled into the nearby shadows, where a dusty wallet sat in the dirt. He picked it up and examined the contents; a few twenties, a couple of credit cards, a driver’s license.
“Dennis Tillman,” he said, looking at a photo of a man in his forties. Hadn’t the finance lady said Tillman? The man who abandoned his mortgage? What was his…?
Graham caught movement near the woodpile, another big black one running from the woodpile, across the floor, and up over a…shoe? A man’s shoe sticking out of a dusty khaki trouser leg, lying in the darkness.
More movement, a trio of spiders emerging from dark gaps in the woodpile, more following, like black streams. Graham’s heart sped, and still holding Tillman’s wallet, he stepped back and turned for the light of the open doors.
And heard the boards in the loft creak.
He froze and looked up, seeing her poised up on the edge of the loft – it had to be a her, had to be mama. Massive and covered in coarse black hair, her many eyes glistened as mandibles flicked above a big pair of wet fangs.
Graham bolted for the door, but she was fast, dropping on him, seventy-five pounds of arachnid pinning him to the dirt an instant before she bit, pumping venom into his back. She retreated just as quickly into the darkness, her whimpering prey held close.
Three hours later, Susan stood at the kitchen window and called across the meadow for her husband. Lunch was ready and it was time for a break. When there was no answer, she sighed, pushed out the squeaky screen door and headed through the high weeds towards the woodshed.
CHOKING HAZARD
A brief summer shower swept across Florida’s Atlantic coast, here and gone in twenty minutes, enough to give the palms and lush greenery a drink before the following sun burned it off. The boulevards of Boca Raton were steady with midday traffic, tires kicking up a light spray.
Nick switched his wipers to intermittent as he drove his six-year-old Silverado at a gentle pace, aware of the smaller vehicles darting in and out of lanes around him. He drove carefully, since so many folks didn’t. People were careless. They could be downright reckless.
Putting an exclamation point to that thought, a champagne-colored Bentley coupe roared up on Nick’s left, braking hard to keep from rear-ending the car in front of it, laying on its horn. The driver surged forward again, then feinted towards the Silverado. Nick jerked away and hit his own brakes as the Bentley crowded over, nearly hitting a Toyota. It wasn’t stopping, its horn still blaring, and if Nick didn’t move they were going to hit.
He eased back even more, making space, and looked over at the other driver, a man in his fifties, deeply tanned, his silver hair shaped by an expensive cut, talking on a cell phone. The Bentley driver looked back at Nick and started yelling, his face contorted as he roared obscenities Nick couldn’t hear. He made a sharp, dismissive wave of his hand and snapped over in front of the Silverado.
Nick stomped the brakes and tensed for the impact, but the Bentley roared away. He let out a breath. Reckless. What was so important to risk a car accident, especially with such an expensive car? And why act like that? He watched the champagne Bentley crowd its way through the traffic ahead.
He’d never understood why people did what they did in traffic, such dangerous things, cutting people off, blowing red lights, refusing to let people in. They screamed, cursed, threatened, made crude hand gestures. And sometimes with kids in the car. And then acted like everything was your fault.
Kids in the car. Nick’s son had seen plenty of it while riding with his dad.
“Why are people such jerks?” he’d once asked.
A smile. “They’re not bad people, just bad drivers. Folks having a bad day. Let’s not let it ruin ours.”
“But doesn’t it make you mad? They could make us get in a wreck.”
“You can’t get mad about things like that. Better to just be extra careful and hope that if they do get in an accident, you’re not close enough to be part of it.”
It bothered him that Nicky saw people behaving so badly, acting less mature than his ten-year-old. He supposed he couldn’t shield his boy from everything, though he tried to screen what his son was exposed to, movies and video games and certain music and such. Beyond that, the best he could do was set a good example.
Traffic was thickening and slowing, and Nick found himself idling beside the Bentley again. All that, and it didn’t get you very far, did it? Mr. Bentley, with his cream-colored polo and pricey haircut was still chattering on his cell phone, popping a mint and draping a Rolex adorned wrist over the wheel, still edging forward. Nick wondered what his son would have to say about this character.
All this aggression didn’t just cause accidents. Nick was amazed at how people could be so comfortable with provoking strangers. Honestly, you didn’t know who was in the cars around you. There were dangerous people in the world, crazy people, just stewing and percolating in their madness, and you might bump one of them, scream at them and set them off, getting more than you bargained for.
The odds were slim, of course, but still, weren’t those people out there too?
Nick had never been like that. It didn’t make sense to get so worked up over nothing, and rage had never been a part of his personality. The guys on his job teased him, called him the Gentle Giant, impossible for even the laziest worker or crappiest sub-contractor to rile up.
Traffic was still creeping, and Mr. Bentley was yelling over his steering wheel.
Was it the man’s obvious wealth, maybe an over-inflated sense of entitlement? Nick pegged the guy as semi-retired, the stock market or an airline owner or something like that, a house on Jupiter Island, a big place with a brick driveway in a gated community, close to golf and polo. He’d have Spanish gardeners he never spoke to, and he’d be the first to complain loudly when the fees went up on the slip where he kept his boat.
Nick chuckled. Maybe. He wasn’t being judgmental, wasn’t jealous – he was happy with his simple life as a roofing contractor – but he had lived in this part of Florida for a long time and was a pretty good judge of people. No, it wasn’t the money. He’d encountered plenty of reckless people with humble backgrounds.
“You’re a saint.” This from his wife Marie, who even after fifteen years together continued to be amazed by her steady, patient man.
“Yeah, St. Nick, patron saint of roofers.”
“I’m proud of my husband.”
He always shrugged off the compliment, but had a harder time concealing how warm and loved that made him feel. All the more reason not to let these jokers get to you.
The cars were creeping forward now, and Nick hung back a bit, wanting to give Mr. Bentley room in case he decided to crowd in again. He did not want to hit a Bentley, and certainly didn’t want the confrontation which would surely follow.
This wasn’t the case with many other people. They seemed to crave confrontation, ready to jump out of their cars and get in a fight over a parking space or some equally ridiculous issue. Nick remembered an old man who had hit the hood of his truck with his cane, shouting that Nick had parked too close to him. Another, a high school girl, had thrown a full soda at him in traffic for reasons he never learned. And a middle-aged housewife had once locked up her brakes in traffic and marched back to his truck, purple faced and swearing, tugging on his door handle.
What had they been thinking?
The traffic started moving again, and several minutes later he saw the mall approaching on the right. Nicky’s birthday was just around the corner, and he wanted a video game. Nick knew what his first choice was, thought it was a bit too violent for an eleven-year-old, but he was okay with the second choice, a football game. Better full contact football than guns and grenades.
He noticed the champagne Bentley turning in ahead of him. All that impatience and rage, just to get to the mall a full car length ahead.
The Bentley pulled into the cool shade of the parking garage ahead of the Silverado, and Nick imagined he’d soon be in Nieman’s or Bloomies picking out Ferragamos, giving the clerks a hard time, or buying a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label and complaining about the price. Nick parked behind him.
Timothy Thorpe, who in fact did live on Jupiter Island but who’s business was yachting supplies instead of airlines, shoved his cell into the pocket of his khakis and climbed out, chirping the alarm. He looked up to see a man in jeans and work boots walking towards him between the parked cars, a big guy, well over six feet, all upper body with huge arms and hands. He had a pleasant smile on his face.
Timothy saw the Silverado. “Hey, you’re the asshole who wouldn’t let me over. You need to-“
Nick locked his big hands on Mr. Bentley’s throat and squeezed, forcing him to his knees on the polished cement. Thorpe’s eyes bulged as he clawed at the powerful grip, his vision quickly darkening, fear and outrage and surprise competing with his struggle for air.
Nick’s serene expression didn’t change as he strangled Timothy Thorpe in a public place, in daylight.
No one noticed.
After two full minutes, Thorpe was a limp doll in his grip, and Nick let him sag to the cement before reaching down and stripping the Rolex off his wrist. He walked back to the Silverado and climbed in, unlocking the glove box and tossing the Rolex inside. It landed amid two dozen other watches, men’s and women’s.
Toys R Us would probably have better prices on video games, he thought, pulling away from the mall and heading towards the main road. A maroon mini van bolted out of a parking row and cut him off, nearly clipping the Silverado’s fender. Behind the wheel, a soccer mom leaned out her window and flipped him off.
“Asshole!” She tromped the gas and shot into the traffic of the main road without looking. Nick shook his head. Reckless. Mindful of other cars, he looked left before easing carefully out onto the boulevard.
He and the soccer mom seemed to be heading in the same direction.
GUINEA PIG GOTHIC
The small dorm was cool and smelled of rain, the only window open just enough to let in a breeze that shook the blinds, the white slats lit by occasional flashes of lightning. The thunder had yet to arrive. Ivy covering the outside brick walls rustled like whispers.
Jason Carpenter sat in the dead man’s room, staring at a laptop screen.
To be fair, it was his room too, even more so now. Half the room was bare, a dozen cardboard boxes piled on the opposite, stripped mattress. Each had the name TERRY scrawled on it in black Sharpie. The other small desk was empty as well, except for a desk lamp that looked old enough to have been original issue when the college was built over a hundred years ago.
On screen, a blank Word document stared back, the cursor winking like an accusation.
Jason leaned back, sipped a Red Bull and stretched, his cast thumping against the desk leg, making him hiss and wince. Mid-thigh all the way down to wrap around his right foot, the cast was only a little over twenty-four hours old, and he was a long way from getting used to it. His crutches leaned against the wall between the desk and the window.
A glance at his digital clock told him he was more than nine hours overdue for his Percoset, a fact his leg had been reminding him of for just that long. Jason looked over his shoulder at the shelf hung above the foot of his bed – the shelf where Sylvester lived – and saw the orange prescription bottle with the white cap right where he had left it beside Sylvester’s cage. He wanted one badly.
He looked away. He wanted to live more.
A bolt of pain from his tibia – broken neatly in two places – shot up into his hip as a challenge to his medicinal abstinence, and he clenched his fists, digging his fingernails into his palms. He opened his eyes and gasped, leaning forward and gripping the cast. That was when his right ankle – also a double fracture, not to be outdone – abruptly reminded him what happened when he moved too quickly. Jason groaned, and tears leaked from the corners of both eyes. He sagged back into the hard wooden desk chair.
I’m right here, dumbass, called the Percoset. Take two, and in twenty minutes you’ll be right as rain.
Jason looked back at the pills. In the cage beside them, obese Sylvester squeezed his furry ass onto his wheel and went for a spin. Squeak, squeak, squeak.
Right as rain, Jason thought, looking at the window. He could hear the rain now, pattering on the ivy like a typewriter, rushing through the building’s green copper gutters, sluicing off the eaves of the four story building, gaining momentum as the storm built. The blinds floated into the room in the strengthening breeze.
He pushed back from the desk, leaned to get his crutches and levered himself up with a groan, swaying, clenching the grips, fearing he was going over, and then stabilizing. Not bad, he thought. Didn’t even puke. Yet. While he still had the courage he crutched across the small floor space and snatched the prescription bottle off the shelf. The rattle of pills made the bloated guinea pig stop and stare wide-eyed for a moment, whiskers quivering, before plodding onward once more.
Jason shoved the bottle into the front pocket of his Penn State hoody jacket, managing not to drop a crutch in the process, and took the last painful steps to the door. He checked the lock and the deadbolt – again – and put an eye to the peephole.
Empty hallway. Cheap, worn carpet and dull, tan walls. Fluorescents behind frosted plastic panels, and at the end a red fire exit sign.
Thunder rumbled behind him and the blinds banged against the window frame, making him jump and grimace. The leg throbbed, and Jason got back to his chair as quickly as he could, hoping he wouldn’t fall down before he got there. He didn’t, but he nearly tipped over backwards as he dropped into it, right leg fully extended. The crutches he just dropped to the floor.
Winded and squinting from the pain, he stared at the only two signatures on his cast. One was from the nurse who wheeled him out of the hospital to Bree’s car, the other from Bree herself. Under her big, loopy, girly signature was a red lipstick mark.
“I’ll come back and check on you tonight,” she’d promised after driving him back to campus and helping him to his room. But she hadn’t. Her cell phone went straight to voicemail, and she wasn’t responding to texts. Jason hadn’t gone so far as to call her roommate and see where she was, that might have been too clingy, and they hadn’t been going out long enough for that kind of checking-up call.
Rain drummed against the glass, and the wood floor beneath the window was getting wet, but Jason wasn’t about to get up to close it. The lightning was coming faster now, each ripple of white followed closely by a boom.
The lights flickered.
Jason stared at the blank page on the laptop. His English Comp professor, Mr. Billings, had been one of the few people to visit him in the hospital. Billings knew Jason’s parent not only lived in Arizona, but were farther away still, on an anniversary cruise of the Mediterranean. The prof was cool. He had taken a liking to Jason early in the year, said he enjoyed his writing style and creative slant, and had sort of adopted him.
Billings had gone with him to the hospital to identify Terry’s body.
Afterwards the two of them went to a local pub, and the prof bought him a beer, even though Jason was only twenty.
“I can’t tell you what you should be feeling,” Billings had said. “It’s a lot to take in, and losing a friend…especially like this…can leave a hole in you.”
Jason got that. There was as empty spot in his chest, as well as his room.
“Try writing about it. Get it down in words, how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. Don’t worry about structure.”
“Why?”
Billings sipped his beer. “Because you’ll forget.” He held up a hand to stop Jason’s protest. “Not forget about what happened, I mean forget the intensity. Time will numb this for you, make it easier to handle, and that’s a good thing. But you’ll never be closer to really articulating the grief and pain and feeling as you are right after something like this happens.”
Jason had the impression that Mr. Billings was speaking from some kind of personal experience, but knew it would be wrong to ask.
“And it could be cathartic for you.” He shrugged. “Years from now, when you’re not hurting and the memories have faded, you’ll read what you’ve written and be amazed at how time can heal you.”
He promised that it would fade, that in time Terry’s death would become more distant, no less sad, but a memory without such sharp edges. There in that dim pub it was meant to be comforting, safe advice. It came from someone who wouldn’t be on the bike path, who wouldn’t see what Jason was soon to see.
The thunder had Sylvester agitated, and the chubby rodent was hauling ass around his little metal wheel. Squeak, squeak, squeak! Jason’s leg was sending out pain pulses in time with his heartbeat, and he reached into his pocket to close his hand around the bottle of Percoset, rubbing it like an Irish worry stone. Relief could be twenty minutes away.
It occurred to him for the countless time how stupid it was to be alone in this dorm room. But then where was he supposed to go? Even if he could manage to crutch anywhere – and the idea of even getting out the building without collapsing, vomiting or both was laughable – everything on campus was closed. He didn’t really have any friends in the dorm, at least none close enough to come babysit him, and Bree was who knew where? His best friend was dead.
He’d spoken to his parents from the hospital. They were very concerned, but still three days out from arriving back in the states, and Jason wouldn’t hear of them cutting their anniversary trip short and spending a small fortune on a last minute flight from Greece to Pennsylvania. He said he’d see them when they got back, he wasn’t going anywhere. They were happy that Billings was there to keep an eye on him.
He wondered if Billings would mind a call at ten o’clock at night? Uh, Mr. Billings? I’m alone in my room and there’s a storm and I’m hurt and scared and feeling sorry for myself and gee, I guess I sound like a little girl but could you come and get me, and…?
Jason shook his head and snorted in disgust.
Then he picked up his Blackberry and dialed Billings anyway.
“Hi, you’ve reached Charles Billings. Please leave a message.”
Jason tossed the phone back on the desk, and as it landed, a cannon crack of thunder shook the building. Brilliant lightning – close lightning – turned the blinds a painful white. Jason’s leg screamed, and so did he. God, he felt like crying.
Three nights ago, Mr. Billings had come knocking. It was around 9:30, and Jason had been reclining on his bed playing Xbox instead of doing his required reading on the robber barons and the rise of the steel empire. Billings told him Terry had been in some kind of accident, and took him downstairs to where a campus police car was waiting. A paunchy, middle-aged cop sat behind the wheel, and said nothing as they made the short drive to the hospital. When Jason peppered his professor with questions, Billings had only shrugged and said, “I’m sure we’ll find out.”
The patrol car dropped them off under the emergency room canopy, where a county deputy was waiting, a woman a little older than Jason who fit into her khaki uniform quite well. Who was he kidding, she had been completely hot.
“Terry Edwards was murdered tonight,” she said by way of introduction, guiding them into the hospital. “We can’t get in touch with any relatives yet, and since you’re his roommate I’m going to ask you to identify him.”
He’d gone numb, and followed her down to the hospital lower level without a word, Billings trailing. In a small, sterile room a man in scrubs led them to a stainless steel table with a sheet-draped body. Part of Jason was surprised. On TV there was always some sort of window between the body and the people doing the identification. Nope, up close and personal, complete with the smell of a fresh corpse. And no warning, either. No, “Prepare yourself, this may be disturbing.” Scrub Guy simply snapped back the sheet like some morbid bullfighter, and there was Terry, marble white, stiff, bloodless. His eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. His mouth was open, as if he’d been screaming. And his throat was open as well, torn away as if by a beast. The ragged wound was bloodless, too, and strangely, that made it a little easier to take. Billings rested a hand on his shoulder.
“Is this Terry Edwards?” the deputy asked.
On TV, this was the point where the family member sobbed and turned away, whimpering that it was indeed their loved one. But Jason couldn’t take his eyes off the corpse.
“Yuh,” he grunted.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Yuh…yuh huh.”
“That’s a yes,” Mr. Billings told her.
“Good enough,” she said, nodding at Scrub Guy and motioning for Jason and Billings to follow her.
Jason blinked, still staring. “What…what happened to him?”
Scrub Guy snapped the sheet back over Terry’s face. Ole’. “Cause of death was massive trauma to the airways and jugular, accompanied by near complete exsanguination.”
Jason looked at him. “Ex..san…?”
“He bled out,” Scrub Guy explained, turning away. “Though I understand very little was found at the scene.”
Billings and the deputy collected Jason and led him out, but half-way to the elevator he stopped. “Wait. How did…what happened to him?”
The deputy looked tired. “Someone found him in the parking lot behind Ricky’s Fastlane a couple of hours ago. You know the place?”
He did. It was a popular destination for the college crowd. He and Terry had been there many times, sometimes with dates, sometimes just to hang out.
“He was like you saw him. His wallet was missing, so we’re guessing a robbery. Haven’t found the weapon. Don’t have any witnesses yet.” Then her eyes softened. “I’m sorry about your friend.” Jason knew she meant it, and for some reason that helped a little.
But a robbery? he thought as he followed her out. People got stabbed, shot…who robs someone by ripping their throat out? She’d taken them to her own squad car, where there followed a predictable line of questions and note taking. How long have you known him? Did he say where he was going tonight? Who were his friends? Drug use? Drug sales? Any recent confrontations or enemies?
Jason told her everything he could. Terry was a really nice guy, popular, a couple of casual girlfriends, decent grades, no serious drugs, mild partying. No fighting, no attitude, certainly nothing to provoke something like this. She’d seemed satisfied and dropped them off at the dorm. Then Billings had suggested a beer.
The dorm lights flickered again, and he knew it was only a matter of time before they went out and stayed out. This old building was sketchy, with unpredictable plumbing and even more unreliable power. The lights went out in good weather. In this storm, it was a guarantee.
And a few minutes later they did go out. No flickering, just a muffled thud followed by darkness. The mini fridge in the corner under the TV whined to a stop, and from somewhere beyond the door came a couple of distant groans and protests.
Now there was only the glow of his laptop screen running on battery, and the intermittent flashes of lightning. Thunder crashed, and the wind had the blinds twisting as they flapped. Rain poured in through the open window. Jason just sat and watched the door, rubbing the bottle in his pocket. Normally a power outage was a signal it was time for bed, but he had recently decided that sleep could become a permanent condition.
Someone walked past his room, footsteps soft on the carpeting. There was no glow of a flashlight from under the door. A moment later he heard a door close in the hallway.
Yesterday he’d spoken to Terry’s mom, who was right now driving in from Oregon with Terry’s younger brother. He’s never met her, and the conversation was uncomfortable, filled with silent gaps. He had agreed to pack up Terry’s things for her. He didn’t know what she was going to do about the body, and didn’t ask. Ship it home, he guessed. Did FedEx have some kind of special rate for that?
After putting everything in boxes, he’d taken his bike over to the Student Union where he’d met Bree. They went to an early movie, then sat in her car and made out for a while. It was kind of strange at first, what with his best friend brutally murdered only a day earlier and his stuff stacked on his bed in little cardboard coffins, but he got past it. They seemed to really like each other, Bree was a definite hottie, and she’d been dropping hints that he was going to get lucky. Jason decided that turning into a monk wasn’t going to bring Terry back.
It was when he was biking back to the dorm after dark, cruising along a paved path lined with old fashioned lamp posts, that he’d seen Terry. He had just happened to glance to the right, and there he was. His roommate was standing in the shadows of a small grove of trees beside the path, dressed in jeans and a Hard Rock t-shirt. White, bloodless, he’d raised a hand in greeting, and when he spoke, Jason had seen the fangs.
“Hey, dude,” Terry said.
Jason had driven his bike right into a lamp post.
When he came around there were several concerned-looking students standing over him, and his right leg felt like a bag of broken glass. He’d looked around, still dazed, but there was no sign of Terry.
In the hospital – the same ER he’d passed through only a couple short days ago – the doctor told him how lucky he’d been not to have broken his neck. He suggested a bike helmet in the future, and gave him a pamphlet on the perils of spinal injury. Mr. Billings had brought him a couple of magazines and managed to contact Jason’s parents aboard their ship so they could talk to their son. Bree had shown up, concerned but uncomfortable, either with the surroundings or with the question of how much concern she should be showing at this early stage of their relationship. Jason told none of them about seeing Terry.
And now, in the dark with a storm raging outside, Jason wasn’t even a little surprised when he heard the soft knock on the door, and the familiar voice. He’d known it was coming.
“Dude, open up,” said Terry.
“Don’t think so.” Jason was suddenly cold, and his hands trembled.
“C’mon, man, someone’s gonna see me. Open up.”
Jason turned in the chair, dragging his cast around so that he was facing the door. The laptop’s screen saver cast the room in a blue glow, and his shadow loomed on the far wall.
“Go away. You’re dead.”
“No shit, dude. Let me in, stop being a pussy.”
Jason blinked. A dead guy just called him a pussy. That was a first. He turned with some pain and pulled a ruler out of the desk drawer. Earlier tonight he had carefully snapped the end off at an angle, and now it had a nasty point to it. He gripped it and looked at the door.
These days you couldn’t throw a stick in the air without it landing on something about vampires, from books to TV, a sexy HBO series and of course that monster, Twilight. Since the bike accident, he’d done a lot of thinking about what he’d seen and heard on these shows. The ruler was a small comfort.
“You can’t come in unless I invite you.”
There was a long pause, and Jason allowed himself a triumphant smile.
“Uh…it’s my room too, dick. I just don’t have my keys.”
Jason’s smile dropped.
“I could kick it in, but that’d be noisy and draw too much attention, and I want to do this fast and quiet.”
Jason swallowed. “Do what?” he whispered, too softly to be heard.
Terry laughed. He’d heard it. “Get my stuff, jackass! Man, you are a pussy! Open the door, bro.”
That was twice he’d called him that, and vampire or not, it was pissing him off. “So turn into smoke and float under the door, asshole.”
A sigh. “Movie stuff, bro.”
“Well, I’m not opening the door. Come back tomorrow. At noon.”
“That’s not even funny. Open the door.”
“No.”
There came a long silence, long enough for Jason to start wondering if maybe he’d given up and gone away. Then Terry’s voice, soft and menacing. “Don’t make me take a trip across campus. I’ll bet I can get Bree to let me in.”
Jason flushed. “You don’t…!”
“That’s right, amigo. I’ll suck her dry. ‘Course, maybe I’ll make her go first. She is pretty hot.”
Jason forced himself to his feet without the crutches, his leg sending crimson flashes into his brain, and staggered to the door, cast clumping on the wooden floor. He braced himself against the frame. “You…don’t…touch her…fucker…!” he wheezed.
“Then cut it out and let me in!” The menace was gone, just amiable old Terry now. Jason put an eye to the peephole.
Terry stood there looking dead, though his eyes held an unpleasant, silvery gleam. His throat was smooth and undamaged, and his tight, white flesh reminded Jason of a Greek statue. Terry smiled at the peephole. His fangs were equally white.
Jason closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wood as a shudder passed through him. “If I let you in, you promise to leave her alone?”
“On my life,” Terry said, and Jason was sure he heard a soft chuckle.
Putting his fingers on the deadbolt latch, he knew he was making a huge mistake. Then he snapped it open anyway and stepped back. In an instant faster than he would have imagined, Terry was inside, the door closed, and the vampire picked him up under the armpits, lifting him off the floor effortlessly. He felt the cold of his roommate’s hands through his sweatshirt, and had a moment to think, Now I die.
Instead, Terry deposited him on his bed. “You should stay off that leg, bro.”
Jason leaned his head back against the wall, taking deep breaths as his fracture sent pulses through his body. Should have taken the Percoset.
“Yeah, you should have,” Terry said, standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pants pockets as he looked around. The laptop screen turned his milky skin blue.
Jason stared at him. “I didn’t…”
Terry waved a hand dismissively, turning his back and poking through the cardboard boxes on his own, bare bed. “I can hear all kinds of things now. Spoken, unspoken, even feelings. There’s two guys at the end of the hall – those two weightlifter guys? They’re in their room whispering about how they’re gonna tell their parents they’re gay. And the kid upstairs?” He pointed a slender white – blue – finger at the ceiling. “The math kid? He got a ‘C’ on his exam today and he’s thinking of killing himself. Can you believe that? For a ‘C’?”
Actually, Jason had to agree that offing yourself for a mediocre grade was pretty stupid. Instead of answering, though, he just watched his former roommate. He still looked like Terry, although with a much lighter complexion, he still seemed to have the same way of moving, like the way he unconsciously tapped his top lip with his index finger when he was thinking. But now his moves were more fluid, his movements quick and precise, hinting at the speed which Jason had just experienced firsthand.
“Oh yeah,” Terry said, pawing through a box. “I’m freakin’ fast now, dude. With these reflexes, I’d be untouchable at Modern Warfare. I’d max out my level in one night.” He picked up an Xbox controller. “Wanna see?”
Jason shook his head slowly, and Terry shrugged, tossing it aside on the bed. “Probably wouldn’t be a challenge, anyway.”
Despite his situation, Jason found he was getting pissed again. First, Terry had called him a pussy, and now he was disrespecting his Modern Warfare skills? Jason had always kicked Terry’s ass at video games, especially that one. And then Terry looked back at him with that sickly silver gleam and winked, half-grinning and showing one canine. With a chill, Jason realized that Xbox had suddenly become incredibly insignificant in his life.
“Good, it’ll rot your brain and make you flunk out of college,” said the vampire.
“Terry…what the hell happened?”
The vampire snatched the desk chair up, spun it around and hopped onto the seat, crouching like a squatting gargoyle. All this in a blink. “So, I’m having a beer at the Fastlane. Liz and Corey are there with their friend, that hot Russian chick Katarina. She just transferred here. We’re talking, and I can tell she’s totally into me. So I’m getting closer to invading Moscow, but I gotta take a piss. Only the men’s room is occupied – as usual – and by the sounds I’m hearing inside it’s gonna be a while. So I step out back to piss by the dumpster.”
Jason nodded. He’d been there before. Ricky’s Fastlane had one crappy little men’s room and it was always busy. He’d done the dumpster thing many times himself.
“I’m mid-piss, and POW! I get ambushed! How messed up is that? This lowlife wino vampire comes out of the shadows and jumps me, no warning, just rips my throat out. My junk was still hanging out! No one should have to die like that, man.”
Jason agreed. Then it hit him again that Terry was dead. He walked and talked, but that silver eye shine was definitely not life. And waves of cold rippled off him. Living people didn’t do that either.
“That’s only because I haven’t fed yet today.”
Fed. Hadn’t fed…yet. Jason shuddered.
“Next thing I know, I’m on the slab, and you’re there. Way to man up about seeing my corpse, by the way.” In a blink he was right at the edge of the bed, and knuckle-bumped his roomie with a frigid fist. “I was just messing with you about being a pussy. We cool?”
Jason folded his hands and rubbed at the lingering cold spot on his knuckles. “You knew I was standing there? In the hospital?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t move yet. And that lady cop was smokin’ hot, dude. You should take a run at that. It’s not like you and Bree are married, or anything.”
It occurred to Jason that the people at the hospital were going to be very upset that Terry’s body was no longer tucked away in its drawer.
Terry was back on the chair, and he frowned. “In the movies, the vampire who makes you is always around when you wake up to explain things and teach you stuff. He might be a dick, but at least he’s there to help. But I was made by a bum! I have to figure all this out on my own!”
Jason was having trouble being sympathetic. Did that make him a dick, too?
Terry scratched his chin. “I’m getting it, though. There must be some sort of innate instincts, ‘cause my first kill came pretty naturally.”
Jason stared, and when he spoke his voice was small. “You killed someone?”
The vampire grinned playfully. “A couple, actually. The first was a cute little Asian chick waiting for a late bus. I think she’s a waitress at Panda Buffet. I was soooo hungry, went total savage, made a real mess of her. Had to steal new clothes. The next one was better, more control, and that kill was awesome. I can’t describe it.”
“Who…?”
Terry smiled broadly. “The lovely Katarina, comrade. Snatched her up in the parking lot of her dorm, took her into the woods…yummy! I didn’t turn her, though. I know how to do it and how to avoid it, just not sure how I know. Instincts, like I said.”
Not only was his roommate a murder victim, but now he was a murderer as well, and Jason suddenly realized that if Terry tried anything, he wouldn’t be able to stop him, even without a broken leg.
Terry chuckled and winked at him, then hopped off the chair and started rummaging though more boxes. He pulled out a worn, brown leather bomber jacket and put it on, then went back to digging. He scattered the things Jason had packed so carefully across the bed and floor, removing a Penn State backpack and stuffing clothes inside. “I don’t need much of this,” he said, his back to his roommate.
Jason spotted the snapped-off ruler lying on his bed, within reach.
Terry stopped digging and looked back at him. “Don’t,” he said softly.
Jason kept his hands folded in his lap.
The vampire moved to the room’s single closet and looked though it. “That hurts my feelings, bro. You’d try to stake a friend? I helped you through Applied Psych.”
“So? I helped you through Euro History, and you killed two girls.”
Terry pulled a yellow shirt out of the closet and held it up. It had a big green tiki head on it. “Can I have this?”
“No!”
The vampire pouted and put on sad eyes. A true Terry move.
“Take it,” Jason said in disgust. “But you can’t get pissed because I thought of protecting myself.”
Terry shoved the tiki shirt into the backpack. “I could have fed on you on the bike path, if that’s what I wanted. And awesome wreck, by the way! Wish I had it on video. That thing’d go viral on You Tube in a second!” He laughed. “Sorry about your bike. It’s trashed.”
“It’s your fault, showing up like that. And put my Diamondback jersey back!”
The vampire returned the shirt he was holding to the closet. Finished, he closed the door and walked to where the Xbox sat on a low table amid game cases.
“No way, dude!” Jason yelled. “I paid for half that!”
Terry rested a cold hand on the game console.
“I thought you said it rots your brain.”
“And I thought you came to the realization that it’s, ‘Incredibly insignificant in my life.’”
“Not that insignificant. And it’s half mine.”
“I fronted you that money.”
“So? I paid you back.”
They glared at each other, Terry with a dead animal stare, and Jason trembling but holding eye contact, hoping he wouldn’t pee himself.
“What are you gonna do with it, anyway? Hook it up in your coffin?” He shook his head, it was absolutely surreal. “And where are you going to go? You can’t hang around here.”
The vampire cocked his head, thinking, then took his hand off the Xbox. “My gift to you.” He tapped his finger against his top lip, staring at a wall in thought. “Don’t know about the whole coffin thing. Still gotta figure that out. Been spending my days in the basement of that abandoned warehouse down by the rail yards, but that’s just nasty.” He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”
He hopped back onto the chair. “You’re right, though. I’ll need to travel light, gonna be on the road. I think I’m going to LA. With as freaky as that town is, they’ve gotta have an undead scene that’s off the hook. And the hunting opportunities in the clubs alone…it’s gonna be sweet.”
Then he was beside his bed, shrugging a strap of the backpack over a shoulder. “Gonna be a long trip.” His voice was soft, and as he turned to look at his friend the silver in his eyes flashed. “Can’t make it on an empty tank.”
Jason pressed himself back into the corner on the bed, his cast stuck out before him. Panicked, he snatched up the broken ruler and held it shaking in front of him.
“You…you p-promised…”
Terry licked one canine. “I promised I wouldn’t kill Bree. I didn’t say anything about you. And what good is a vampire’s promise, anyway? Sorry, bro, but I need a snack.”
In a blur he was on Jason, straddling his waist and pinning the hand holding the ruler, his face inches away, fangs bared. So strong. Jason couldn’t move. How could he have even thought he had a chance? He realized he had sacrificed his life for a girl who really didn’t mean anything to him. Was that chivalry? It was definitely stupidity. He wondered if it was going to hurt.
Terry’s other hand shot out, and Jason squeezed his eyes shut.
Above his head there was a rattle of metal and a tiny, terrified squeal, then Terry’s weight came off. Jason opened his eyes to see the vampire was back in the center of the room, stuffing the squirming guinea pig into a pocket of his leather jacket.
“For later,” said Terry.
Goodbye, Sylvester, Jason thought.
The vampire nodded his head. “Later, bro. Maybe I’ll see you.” Then he was gone as if he hadn’t even been standing there, the door to the dorm clicking softly shut.
Jason sat unmoving on the bed for a long time, his heart and leg hammering in unison. After a while he got up and limped painfully to the door, snapped the deadbolt, then dragged the chair back in front of the desk and lowered himself into it. The laptop had gone to sleep, so he tapped the touchpad and brought up the blank Word document with its accusatory cursor. He popped two Percoset and washed them down with warm Red Bull.
His fingers started moving on the keyboard. Mr. Billings wanted him to get his feelings about his dead friend down in writing.
Jason would give him something to keep him up all night.
FAMILY NIGHT
Lorenzo stood in the front room, hands in his pockets, tapping a Gucci loafer. His ten-year-old Juan sat on a footstool, engrossed in texting.
“Rosaria, let’s go, already.”
His daughter trotted up from downstairs. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” She wore too-tight jeans and a belly shirt, looking closer to twenty than fourteen. Too much makeup, too much cleavage.
“You’re not going out like that.”
She took a stance and folded her arms, her dark eyes fiery, like her mother’s. What a beauty, Lorenzo thought.
“It’s a family meal, not hanging out with the girls.”
She didn’t move.
“We can wait all night, if you like.” Lorenzo leaned against a chair.
“C’mon Rosaria,” said Juan, “I’m hungry.”
“I’m not kidding,” her father said, “it’s inappropriate.”
She huffed and stormed back downstairs.
“Yeah, you look like a puta,” Juan yelled, not taking his eyes off the iPhone.
“Shut up, creep!”
Lorenzo slapped the back of the boy’s head. “I hear you say puta again, muchacho, and you won’t sit for a week.”
Juan looked at him sideways. “Yeah, yeah.”
Lorenzo slapped his head again. “You act disrespectful and you won’t eat for a week, either.” He had his son’s full attention now. “And you’ll watch me put that iPhone down the garbage disposal.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry, Rosaria!” he yelled towards the basement.
Lorenzo paced, his Gucci’s whispering over an expensive Persian, checking his own appearance in a hall mirror. Over six feet, all chest and shoulders, thick black hair. When he wore a dark turtleneck and jacket, as he was now, he looked like some Mob enforcer on TV. He glanced at the big grandfather clock. After eight already. He sighed. It took ten minutes before Rosaria returned, changed into Converse, baggy cargo pants and a sagging, overly-fuzzy green sweater with a high collar and sleeves that hung to her fingertips. Shabby in protest.
“You look like a Dr. Seuss creature in that thing,” Juan said. Lorenzo didn’t correct him. Rosaria waited until her father looked away before she shot her little brother the finger.
They climbed into a shiny, black Mercedes SUV and drove slowly out of the Westchester neighborhood, past gated driveways and expansive lawns, huge houses screened by trees and barely visible. They didn’t really know any of their neighbors, but then people in this area prized their privacy, and paid well for it.
A dark van followed them through the winding streets.
A few of the estates had stables and fenced pastures nearby, rich, rolling grassland quiet and empty in the moonlight. Nothing said money like horses in Westchester. It was the only place Lorenzo had ever seen where you could find a Rolls parked in front of a barn.
“What do we feel like tonight?”
“Italian!” Juan looked at his sister.
She shrugged. “Sounds okay.”
“Coming right up.” Lorenzo smiled. “And only an authentic taste for mi familia.” He headed for the city.
These family outings were important. At least he hoped they were for the kids. Ever since Maya died last year, he had tried to do things to bring them together, tried to be the kind of father Maya would want him to be. It was hard. He had to put on a smile for them, stay upbeat and strong, when most of the time he just wanted to crawl into a dark place to be alone with his grief. He missed her so. And when he wasn’t grieving, he was consumed with rage at the unknown and unpunished men who had murdered his beautiful wife.
He wasn’t sure how Rosaria and Juan were coping. They refused to talk about it.
The Mercedes slid through traffic on the FDR, the high-rise sparkle of the East Side reflected in the waters of the river to their left, the lights of Brooklyn beyond. The van blended well among the cars thirty yards back, just one more pair of headlights among many.
As he looked in the rearview at his kids, Lorenzo wondered as he often did if they had made the right decision. He and Maya hadn’t been given a choice, were forced into this life, and the kids had been small then, only ten and six. For four years he and his wife had lived a double life, trying to raise their children normally in an abnormal situation, but it grew more and more difficult as the kids got older, certain aspects of their life increasingly hard to explain. Finally, a year before Maya’s death, they made the decision and brought Rosaria and Juan into the Vega family secret.
So young. It still felt wrong, but what choice had they had?
They reached Little Italy, dropped the Mercedes off at an underground parking garage and walked two blocks to Mulberry Street. Juan chattered constantly, his texting forgotten as he marveled at the lights and crowds. Lorenzo smiled, pleased to see that even Juan’s hard-to-impress sister was taken with the neighborhood’s old-world charm.
The family had settled on Paesano’s, a small, exquisite little eatery tucked in amongst larger restaurants and shops, when the van moved past them on the narrow street. The bearded driver gave them a long, hard look as he passed, and an internal warning sounded for Lorenzo. This was the third time he’d seen that van since leaving the house.
He put his hands on his kids’ shoulders. “You two go in and pick out what you want. I’ll be along in a second.”
Rosaria frowned at him. “You’re not smoking again, are you?”
A smile. “No, mi amorita, not a puff.”
They went inside, and Lorenzo walked to the next restaurant, taking a seat at a sidewalk table. A waiter instantly brought him a menu and ice water, snapping a linen napkin into his lap. Lorenzo ignored the menu and watched the street.