by DC Alexander
I reached up to feel my face, my mouth felt about right, I felt the crust on my cheek and my skin was stiff and sticky. I could smell my blood on me and I was starving. I hadn’t felt this sort of hunger in a long time, I was empty, weak, I tried to stand and staggered to the wall. I dropped the pain blocks, the pain was gone. My back and cheek were sensitive and felt like I had strained them a little, that was it.
I went up to the kitchen and put on some soup, while it was heating I chugged the rest of a quart of orange juice from the fridge directly out of the plastic jug, and tossed the empty container in the trash. I felt it hit my empty stomach with a cold shock and I felt a little better, I went to the bathroom and got in the shower and got the blood off. The hot water cut it pretty good, hard scrubbing got it out of my hair. The water running out the drain was bloody for way too long and I had a hard time getting the dried blood off my back.
I went into the kitchen while I was drying myself off, poured the soup in a big mug and tried to drink it. It seared my tongue but the heat felt good in my aching, empty stomach. That one can just wasn’t going to make it. I opened the refrigerator and the smell of ham hit me, it smelled like heaven, I pulled it out and ripped a chunk off with a steak knife. I used the ham to cool the soup and ate uncontrollably, my hands were shaking and I couldn’t get it down fast enough.
I came back to myself, I had made a huge dent in the ham and the soup was gone and I was so full I couldn’t bend over. Sleepy hit me like a rock. I staggered to the mirror in the bathroom to make sure my face was ok and a skeletal apparition faced me in the mirror. I recoiled with shock, I must have pulled damn near everything in me out to do the healing. There was a faint indentation on my cheek, there might be a slight line running from the end of my left lip halfway to my ear, but it looked fine, I wasn’t about to enter a beauty pageant anyway. I staggered to the bed and collapsed. The last thing I saw was the clock on the nightstand showing two fifteen. I had a vague hope maybe I could sleep late. I dropped into sleep like a rock.
Chapter Sixteen
T he drumbeat was catchy, but off rhythm, it was frustrating. I couldn’t get in time with it. I was dancing, it was a fine party. I never danced, but it was effortless and I was enjoying it. The damn drum solo was impossible to follow.
I opened my eyes and I still heard the pounding. Someone was beating on the door. They must be slamming into it pretty hard to get that volume. I rolled out, the clock said eight twelve, as I stumbled to the door I pulled the cover off the bed and wrapped it around me. About six hours sleep. I could live with that I guess. I could have used a few more hours. And something to eat, I was ravenous again.
I hollered “Ok, alright, I’m coming, stop with the beatin on the damn door already.” The pounding didn’t let up until I turned the deadbolt.
I snatched the door open. Soon as I had it open enough to see what was there I tried to slam it shut again, but the ghoul put his foot in the door and my slam didn’t take.
He said “ow, son of a bitch, that hurt!” and pushed at the door to take pressure off his foot. “Hold on a minute, I have a package for you.”
I was leaning on the door trying to get it closed. I had an afterimage of too many teeth in a human looking mouth, the long face, the grey skin, and the pissed off expression. “Get your foot out of my door, we can talk through the door, I’ll shoot your ass if you don’t move your foot right now!” I couldn’t move the door. I couldn’t hold it, he pressed it on open. It wasn’t a contest of strength. I was sliding back, I wasn’t heavy enough to stop it and my feet didn’t have the traction.
He reached in through the crack and held a box there with a pink ribbon around it. “I’m returning your property and I have a message. Will you stop that and listen?”
I didn’t really have a choice since I wasn’t making any headway at all. The door stayed open and he wasn’t in a strain, he could push it open and come in when he wanted to. I had to get a peephole in the door if I lived through this. I eased up on the door. I was still tired.
“You left this last night. I’m returning it to you. I need to set up a meeting with you as soon as you’re able. Will you take the package or shall I sit it out here? I think you would prefer not to have it outside.”
“I’ll take it.” I put my foot against the bottom of the door, a useless gesture if there ever was one. I had to use both hands to take the shoebox sized parcel.
“Thank you. Andy – you met him last night – he wants to meet with you and discuss what you’re doing. This senseless murder spree has to stop. Do you have a time to meet that would be good for you? It has to be after dark, pick a place where you will feel comfortable.” I don’t think he liked being so nice, the words didn’t match the tone. It sounded like what he really wanted was to grab me by the neck and rip into me.
“I’m gone have to think about that, I got to be careful. Give me a day or so to think about it.” I could get Carl some bullets, maybe some shells for the shotgun, go back out there in the daylight and kill everything there. Oh shit! They knew where I lived! I was going to have to clean them out, it was them or me.
“Using that gutter slang isn’t fooling anybody. I know what you’re thinking. Andy told me not to threaten you, I can’t hurt you, I can only talk with you, but he didn’t say anything about your people. The little girl across the street is outside playing, it would be unfortunate for her if you can’t restrain yourself. I am not alone; if you do something to me, you will not be able to get to her in time.” He pulled his foot out of the door and let up on it. “It is your decision at this point. I will have an answer.” He didn’t care what decision I made, it was plain in his voice. I couldn’t take a chance with that baby, with any of those people. They were my people. Damn, that was frustrating. I never had to worry about anybody, it was just me and Grammaw then she was gone and it was just me. Life was getting way too complicated.
“Ok, we can meet here. As early as possible, we can meet outside if that would make yall feel better. How many of you are there? And you don’t worry about my talk, I talk any damn way I want to.” I laid a little heavy on the accent, it pissed me off a little that he picked on the talk.
“Just Andy, he told me to reassure you that he will be alone and he means you no harm.” Oh, he was awful happy about that. Andy must have some sort of good control over this guy.
“Ok, then we good, you going away now, right? Are we done here?”
He didn’t answer and I heard nothing from the front porch. I latched the deadbolt and hurried to look out the window, he was gone. That was spooky quick and quiet. I sat down and opened the box, my pistol was bedded in nest of crumpled up newspapers. I picked it up and a shell fell out on the floor; they had unloaded it and put the bullets in the box. How thoughtful.
Carl came by a little later. I let him in and we sat at the table drinking coffee. I talked him out of going back out to the house. I told him I was too worn out. He got on board with that immediately, he mentioned that he had eaten everything in the house and needed to take Wanda to get groceries. I gave him a wad of cash and asked him to get us some wood for stakes and some bullets for his gun. He was embarrassed, but he took it. He’d been giving me all the income from the jobs, I gave him money to pay his help and neither of us kept track of it as far as I knew. He brought up the conversation about us being partners, and whether I meant it. I reassured him, “Yeah, we partners, we share all the money the same for both of us.” I hadn’t really thought about it, but money was piling up, I didn’t even know how much I had stashed.
He said “Oh, no, it aint the money. I don’t want you running around getting tied up with stuff that gone kill you without me anymore. Every time I turn around you in another mess. If we partners you can’t do that; you got to let me know, we both get ready, then we do whatever it is together.” I hadn’t seen him like this before, he was adamant. I didn’t want to tell him I wasn’t able to watch out for him and make him feel unnecessary or like a burden, but trut
hfully, I didn’t see where looking out for someone else was going to help out any.
I didn’t see any way to do it but to break it to him like it was. I looked away from him and opened my mouth to shut him down.
He spoke again “I know what you gone say, and it aint so. You aint got to look out for me more than I look out for you. You think about last night when the things came at us. If that thing had got you first, then the other one got on you, they would have eat your ass up and it would be over. This kind of shit is gonna keep on happening. If I aint nothin but a chew toy, I can still keep them off you till you can get goin, and you need that.”
He was right about last night but I didn’t like it at all. I didn’t want to have to look out for someone else. “Carl, if it’s just me, I can run away when it gets too bad, but if you there too I can’t run and leave you. I can’t just go along with this because sometimes it aint gonna work, I can survive stuff that would kill you dead.”
“I thought about that, and I‘m gonna get me some armor. You could use some too. I can carry stuff we need. I can do all sorts of things you need done. You gonna have to let me help you or this aint no partnership.”
I couldn’t lie to him “I can’t just agree to everything all at once. I tell you what I can do, and this is the best I can do. I will talk with you about it when I can, and if we can both be in on it we will. But sometimes I might have to do it alone, and those times you got to let me go and not give me trouble about it.” That was the best he was going to get, I was done with this, and I didn’t like giving up that much control.
“Ok, done deal. I’ll go get the bullets, and I got some other stuff to do, and I’ll be back this evening.” He didn’t move though, he sat there waiting.
Well damn. “Oh, yeah, somebody came by this morning, he wanted to set up a meeting with his boss, a guy named Andy. I’ll be meeting with him tonight.” There, that was truth, maybe he would go on.
“I wondered who that was, he looked a little strange. Time I made it over here he was gone, I watched him run off. He wasn’t normal, not the way he moved. If you got a meeting I think I need to be there, since we partners, right?”
“Aint everything in the world about the business, I might have things that are just me.” I was pissed, he was awful pushy. This partner shit was already getting old.
“Oh, is this personal? This aint got nothing to do with hoodoo shit and those things that eat people and all?” He got up like he was leaving, real casual, like he believed me. He would, if I said it was personal he would go on and leave me alone. Sometimes it sucks being honest.
“No, it was a ghoul. Andy might be a vampire, he sent my gun back” The gun was on the table, where I’d been cleaning it, I hadn’t thought about hiding it from Carl “and says he wants to talk about what we been doing. He’s supposed to be here alone after dark tonight so we can talk about it.”
Carl sat back down and I explained “Andy came up to us yesterday at the car, you were asleep and we were invisible. He smelled us, it looked like the blood made him hungry, he run off and this morning he sent the ghoul to set up a meeting. The ghoul threatened Pemmy if I didn’t meet with him, that’s why I hate to get anybody else tied up in this, they can hurt people and make me do what they want.”
Carl got real serious. “Rose, we aint got no choice. If it wasn’t Pemmy it would be somebody else, we might not know them, but everybody got somebody that cares. You’re a person who cares; you try to save everybody. I care too, and I’m going to try to save you. That’s just the way it is.” He got up and went out, calling over his shoulder “I been lookin for silver bullets, I think they might come in handy. I’ll be back in plenty of time for the meeting tonight so we can get ready.” He closed the door behind himself and I heard him thumping across the porch and down the steps. I didn’t know how to take those revelations. No man took an interest in me unless it was for his immediate physical gratification. If he couldn’t just jump on me and have a good time he wouldn’t give me the time of day, I carried way too much weight and wasn’t attractive at all. I give up on all that young and I never missed it at all. It occurred to me that the weight was gone now, I was skinny; I wasn’t pretty though, and I didn’t try to be. He might have adopted me as a sister somehow. He came from a big family. It was strange, but I wasn’t going to figure it out, I’d just see where it went from here.
Carl came back early enough to help get ready. We made up some stakes with good points on them. No luck with silver bullets, at fifty dollars a pop I wouldn’t be able to shoot anything with one and it would take a week to get here. Holy water, Carl came up with that, but we didn’t know how to keep it holy, and didn’t have time anyway. I didn’t know where to get holy water. We both loaded up with ammo. We shouldn’t run out anymore. Carl bought an extra magazine and loaded it; that gave him fourteen shots. If that didn’t do it, we were in trouble, and I had my six and some spares loose in my pocket.
We stashed stakes around the house and the backyard so we could get to one from about anywhere. I put the shotgun against the back steps and put a piece of cardboard over it, I had those two silver/salt shot cartridges. We couldn’t think of anything more we could do to get ready. We waited.
The day got stuck and stayed there. We rested and ate and talked and drank coffee, after the second pot Carl was vibrating and couldn’t sit still. After the third pot we declared no more coffee amidst continuous trips to the bathroom, it began running straight through us. We quit answering the phone. We couldn’t concentrate on anything till we got past this.
Carl said “So, this is a vampire, right?” All day we been sitting there talking and getting ready and this was the first time he asked.
“Yep, I think so. He aint got a sign or anything like that, Dirt don’t like him. He doesn’t show up on Dirt’s radar except as a blank spot.”
“What kinda vampire got a name like ‘Andy’?” They supposed to be named Vladimir and stuff you can’t pronounce, and they talk with an accent, according to everything I ever saw.”
“This one is different from what it shows on TV and the movies. Hey, it’s about dark; we can go around back and wait for him. Or should we be in the house? That way he can’t come in unless we invite him, unless that aint true. Actually, I doubt that’s true, I don’t know why it would make a difference.”
We wound up sitting on the steps at the back of the house. I had stashed my sword on the ground over by where the shed used to be, covered with leaves. That was pretty much as a last resort, if I needed it, things would be bad.
The mosquitoes came out with the twilight and they were eating us alive. I played with watching them eat, I could focus and see them flying in. They were following our breath to find us. That was just odd. When they got close they went for body heat. I worked on myself a little bit and built an area around myself like the invisibility stuff. It blended me in with the background, I made it look like I was blending in with a mosquito, a really big mosquito, and they quit landing on me. They were still eating Carl alive, maybe even worse since he was the only target, so I extended the field over the back yard.
It worked like a charm, the whining cut way down. The ones already biting stayed, but soon as they left they didn’t get replaced, and we were soon bite free. He didn’t notice they had quit and I didn’t mention it.
When the field touched the hedge overgrowing the fence I was surprised, I could almost talk with the hedge bush. It wasn’t real smart but it was happy to know I was there. It was protective, on guard. It stood watch and stopped intruders. I couldn’t tell how much was Dirt and how much was the hedge; Dirt gave me to understand it was only the hedge. Our visitor moved through the hedge as I was talking with it, the hedge resisted his coming though, and I gathered that it the resistance was unexpected. He tore himself loose from the limbs that had become twined around his arms and legs and staggered away from the bush brushing leaves off himself.
“You could have come in from the road and not tore my h
edge up, you know. It’s there for a reason. It keeps people from wandering through here.”
He acted like he didn’t know I was there until I spoke, he almost jumped in surprise “Oh, hell, I mean hey! Yeah, I uh, I don’t normally have any trouble with bushes and stuff, I go through them without moving them or anything, I never got stuck like that before. Sorry about that!”
This wasn’t at all what I expected from a vampire. Obviously Carl was a little thrown as well, he said “Hey, that man is bald! You sure he’s a vampire?” in a whisper.
The man in question said “Yeah, don’t that suck too. I mean the bald part. Well, the vampire part too, I mean it sucks to be a vampire, not about vampires sucking, which they do. Anyway, let’s talk about you coming to my place killing my minions.” He stressed ‘minions’ like it was real important. This is all my territory. That is, as far as vampires and such are concerned, I’m in charge. I can’t have you doing stuff like that, those ghouls served me. The family is upset now, they want revenge. Or blood price. You can pay them off and they might forgive you.”
“How many of them is there?”
“There are four now, you met Armando, and there’s his wife Megan and Megan’s brother and sister. They’re all grown and have better control, you ran into Shep and Peter. They were youngsters and didn’t have much self control.”
“Thanks, now I know how many I have to deal with to clean them out. I appreciate that.”
He went silent in thought, then “I shouldn’t have told you that. Ok, well then, here’s the deal. You stop killing them or I will have to become involved.” He said that with great finality, like I cared.
I said “You already involved. You standing in my yard. Dirt don’t like you much. I already found one of you in a cellar the other day and I killed it. That was the first one I seen. You look cleaner, but do you go round killing folks? There were bones down in that cellar. If you killin people I’m gonna put you down like a dog right here and now.” Dirt was in the back of my mind watching, it was eagerly awaiting the end of this irritation.