Grit & Shadows Boxed Set

by J. D. Brink

  “I don’t trust them anymore,” August tells him.

  They’re in the master bedroom, which is about as big as Shovel’s whole damn apartment. George and Byrd are downstairs, checking out the car and getting everyone something to eat, respectively, as instructed. August is standing in the middle of his closet holding up various neckties in the mirror.

  “You’re the only one I can trust with her. Shovel the Unfeeling, the human instrument. A man with no emotion, no fear, no regret. Your reputation made your career, and mine. You’re solid as a rock. But those other two...”

  He decides on a cobalt blue tie, silk. “Good with my eyes, eh?” he says, knowing he’ll get no reply.

  “Those other two, they might get jealous. Can’t have that. That’s why I need it to be just you and me from now on. You’ll manage the other crews but keep them at a distance. You, me, and her, from now on.”

  “I don’t think I understand,” Shovel says.

  “Get rid of them.”

  Shovel gives August a look, one that only he and George can get away with.

  “Boss… Byrd’s just a splatter of shit on the windshield. I don’t mind giving him the heave-ho and busting his beak for good measure. But George has been with you a long time. Longer than me. He’s as loyal—”

  “As loyal as a dog,” August snarls. “And as soon as the right bitch comes in heat, he’ll turn on me and try to take her for himself. No. Things are changing.”

  “Maybe you should take the night to think about this, August. Don’t see what’s-her-name tonight, just have a sandwich and a drink and get some sleep.”

  That famous icy glare returns with cold fire behind it.

  August’s finger rises an inch from Shovel’s flat nose.

  “Don’t you back talk me. You get your ass downstairs and do your fucking job. Get rid of them, before they get rid of me.

  “And I don’t want them coming back for me later, you hear? Get rid of them.”

  Shovel’s name and rep are well founded: he’s a neutral instrument.

  He finds Byrd working on the big island in the kitchen, mayo and mustard jars without lids, three kinds of deli meat unwrapped from white butcher paper, two lengths of Italian bread.

  He has a foot-long knife in his hand and has just made a mess of the first loaf, cutting it jagged, crumbs everywhere. He’s about to saw the next one when Shovel comes in.

  Byrd gives a frustrated shrug and complains about getting the goddamn maid’s job.

  Shovel sets a meaty paw over the loony’s knife hand.

  Suddenly Byrd doesn’t mind being the sandwich bitch but, hey, sure, you can finish it if you like. He lets Shovel have the big knife and takes a step back.

  Shovel’s dull shark’s eyes stare at him.

  “You were right. I do get all the shit jobs.”

  He clamps onto Byrd’s throat, whose bulging eyes threaten to pop from their sockets. Byrd’s manicured hands tug at Shovel’s wrist but can’t budge it, so he goes for the eyes.

  Shovel’s bread knife slashes defensively.

  Byrd’s knees buckle and Shovel has to hold him up by the throat. The weight requires an even tighter grip, squeezing all the strength out of those slapping, bloody hands.

  “As if the girl would want you anyway,” Shovel says.

  It’s as close to an apology as he gives before wringing out the last of Byrd’s life.

  When it’s over, Shovel drags the body into the corner, kicks him down low among the cabinets, and wipes his hands on a dish towel on his way outside.

  The screen door slams.

  George is in the garage, his white sports coat hanging on a hook, shirt sleeves rolled up. He peeks over the raised hood of the Cadillac and is reinserting the dipstick when Shovel comes around to the front of the vehicle. There’s not much space here between the bumper and the tool bench, not much room to struggle and no where to run.

  Shovel picks up a big wrench.

  George is shaking his head. “Oil’s fine, tranny fluid, I even topped off the damn windshield washer tank. I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to be looking for out here. This is bullshit, checking the car in the middle of the night.”

  Shovel nods in agreement.

  “The man’s losing it, you know. This woman’s got him going crazy.”

  “I know,” Shovel says, his face expressionless.

  “I hope he doesn’t expect me to drive him over there. I can find better things to do than sit in the car while he gets laid.”

  “He doesn’t.”

  Shovel closes in. George tries to back up but can’t—the tool bench is there.

  Shovel’s wrench catches him in the nose on the up-swing and stuns him. A left hook throws him backward, then a big paw grips the back of his head and twists him into a headlock, choking off his air.

  “What—” George gasps, red sputtering from his lips, “what—, what—”

  “You’re right,” Shovel explains, “he’s gone nuts. Old Blue Eyes has been taken over by the green-eyed monster.”

  George tries to struggle but Shovel’s got him; there is no struggle.

  “He’s gone deep-end jealous and I’m the only one he trusts. Because I’m such a damned unfeeling brute.”

  The lethal arm relaxes and George spills to the concrete, gasping for breath.

  Shovel hovers over him a moment more, then gives him room.

  “Something is different,” he says, but more to himself.

  Everything’s turned upside-down because of this strange bitch. Even Shovel’s beginning to feel something.

  His friend rests on the cold floor, white tie all askew, red spots on his collar.

  “You have to go. Leave town, George.”

  George is still panting, too confused to be angry. “This is crazy!”

  “Yes.”

  “I been with him years…” The color comes back into George’s face. Now he looks scared. “What about Byrd?”

  “Byrd’s already dead.”

  This convinces him.

  They say goodbye and Shovel starts back to the house.

  He feels it on his back, like eyes watching him, that possibility of George coming from behind, putting two slugs in him and then going up to finish off that traitor, Alexander. Shovel really doesn’t care either way, he’d almost welcome it. But it doesn’t happen.

  Twenty minutes later, when he and August are leaving, Shovel walks around to the front of the car and finds nothing but a wrench on the floor. He slams the hood shut and climbs into the driver’s seat.

  “Where are they?” the boss wants to know.

  Shovel backs out of the driveway with his arm behind August’s seat. “They’re in the trunk,” he says flatly. “I’ll get rid of them after I drop you off.”

  “Good.” August has arrested the rearview mirror and is checking himself out. “Then come back and wait in the driveway. I don’t want us unprotected, in case that Dim comes by.”

  Anger flares inside Shovel. Didn’t he say Dim knew the score? Didn’t he already take care of that?

  Shovel the Unfeeling is getting a little hot, even fiery, when he sees the doll again.

  That stupid fucking doll.

  August takes it out of his pocket and stares at it lovingly.

  I should have kept the damned thing, Shovel says to himself. I’m the one who went and got it, I’m the one who bloodied a man for it. More mine than his.

  It’s just past midnight when they pull up to Elisa’s gate.

  The wrought iron swings open and the Cadillac eases up to the house. It’s not a mansion, but it’s nice. Her wealth, Shovel figures, has probably been accumulated from her many admirers. There’s a fountain on the front lawn with a chubby young angel pouring water from a vase, foot lights shining up at it.

  Shovel gets a better look as he’s getting out of the car and decides that the cherub’s face looks more spiteful than innocent.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” August d
emands, slamming his car door.

  “I’ll walk you in,” Shovel replies, his voice not so flat anymore. “I figured I killed two of my friends and beat the shit out of a man taking a dump to get you here, I might as well go all the way.”

  August doesn’t argue, just leads the way to the front door. He rings the bell once and a woman’s voice bids them to enter.

  The foyer is big with a marble floor and columns. A skinny black cat slips between the two men and out the door, disappearing into the night. Their eyes follow it.

  “Oh, don’t worry about her,” their hostess says.

  Both men look up.

  There she is, the bitch of the evening. The old crone that’s caused this mess.

  Seeing her in better light, she looks more like she’s pushing sixty, thin as that cat, small droopy breasts, wearing a slinky black dress that shows off her knobby shoulders. Her hair is dyed hazel, her face well powdered and lips thick with blood red gloss. She looks like a whore who doesn’t know when to retire.

  Then again...

  There is something sexy about this woman, something charming about the crow’s feet crinkling at her eyes, the confident and mischievous smile like a cat who hasn’t just eaten a canary but has a few more tied up in the closet for later.

  Elisa holds out her arms as if to embrace them both.

  “Gentlemen,” she says, her voice like the soothing music in lunatic asylums. “What are we doing tonight?”

  A warmth flashes over Shovel, something he’s never felt before.

  August is a step ahead of him, this dumb schoolboy crush on his slack-jawed face. Shovel sees the wooden doll peeking out of August’s sweaty little hand.

  Before he even knows why, Shovel is pummeling August Alexander, first a blow to the back of the head, then his face. He snatches a phone from a nearby table and clangs it against those famous blue eyes until they close and August’s forehead splits and bleeds.

  Finally the boss’s flailing hand drops and the tiny doll spins away across the smooth marble.

  She stops it with one slender foot and reaches down with long, red finger nails.

  As Elisa curls back up, deliberately slow, Shovel can see inside the dress, breasts uninhibited by a bra, perhaps elongated by time but somehow still perky.

  He wets his lips.

  So does she.

  “I don’t understand,” he says helplessly.

  “The doll belongs to me,” the woman purrs.

  She holds it up so he can see the bell-shaped head, the blood-lashed eyes, the deep plunging V of the dress. Then her crimson lips kiss it. The head disappears inside, throbbed in and out quickly, erotically.

  Shovel feels a response push against his pants.

  She gives him a sexy grin, the wrinkles at her eyes like spider webs. “And so does anyone who touches it.”

  She holds out one claw-like hand.

  “Now come to me.”

  KISS OF THE MAIDEN

  Part One

  Epidemic

  One

  I’ve been reading Dracula lately like it’s a survival guide. Vamp methods, powers and weaknesses. How they hunt. Of course, vampires today don’t have to do much hunting. In the literary classic, the victims don’t go begging to have their blood sucked out, leaving them chalk-white and wasted on the side of the road. They aren’t that self-destructive. But this thing we have nowadays... I can’t help thinking it’s our own damn fault.

  Addiction is a terrible thing.

  I’m in the food court of the Wolf Creek Mall filling up on enough calories to get me through a twelve-hour night shift. And I can’t help but notice self-induced suffering all around me. It’s the job. Seeing the world through jaded glasses and all that.

  There’s a woman in the corner munching a chicken sandwich and fries. She can barely lift that soggy bun and breaded bird. Her pale skin is stretched over the bones, eyes sunken, lids are heavy. In any other town, in any other time, you might just think she’s a night owl, not used to being awake at this time.

  But a glance at my watch reminds me that it’s only 6:44 p.m. Everyone’s up at this time.

  I bet she really is a night owl, though. I might even see her later. Find her after midnight, sprawled across the damp grass in the park. Or passed out from blood loss in the front seat of her car. I trace her face with my eyes, commit it to memory.

  I’ll see her again. If not tonight, some night soon.

  I might sound like an insensitive know-it-all, but I do claim a little bit of authority here. See, I’m the guy that picks up the victims off the side of the road, park benches, bedroom floors. Preserving the spark of life isn’t just my job, it’s my duty. And these days, it can be a horror movie adventure too.

  I take another bite of kabob, heavy on the garlic sauce.

  I don’t know for sure if the garlic legend is true, but I’m sure as hell giving it a try.

  Mediterranean is my cultural region for food, but don’t tell my mom that. She thinks you should eat beans, rice, and tortillas with every meal, out of pure loyalty. I tell her if she didn’t want me to love Greek food, she shouldn’t have named me Zeus.

  She didn’t, actually. But my middle name’s Jesus—like, Hey, Zeus!—so people call me that. Manuel Jesus Contreras, that’s me. Night shift paramedic. And tonight, I’m working alone. My EMT partner, Lou, he’s out sick again.

  “Out sick.” I know the real reason. And that no one is immune to the temptation. Can’t help but feel a little bit sore, though. Thanks, Lou, for leaving me on my own all night. Again.

  This job was only mildly dangerous before. Now, being out on the streets till dawn by myself... I deserve hazard pay.

  Three tables to my left is a gaggle of teenaged girls dressed all in black. Goth-types. The whole goth thing was going out of style a few years ago. Took right off again, though, when this whole sick thing came on. Vamps became popular. The thing that kills you, everyone’s doing it. What happened to the good old days when high schoolers had booze parties when their parents were out of town? Now the parents are junkies, too.

  Or pasties. We call the blood donor junkies “pasties” due to the complexion you develop as an addict.

  One of the girls loosens up her studded dog collar to show off her neck marks. The other three get all excited, croon over her and curse with envy.

  Sometimes people, especially the young ones, they fake the marks. They think it makes them cool. They stick themselves with a kitchen knife or a hypodermic needle. Even from here, though, I can tell these are the real McCoy. I’ve seen enough of them to know the difference. You take a girl like that, she can probably bounce back pretty well the first few times she’s drained. Eventually, though...

  One of the girls spies me watching. She squirms a bit, embarrassed. Then she shushes her friends and side-nods in my direction.

  The uniform makes them nervous. My arm patch says paramedic, not police, but they can’t tell the difference. The whole mob of them scoop up their shopping bags of black dresses, retro t-shirts, and hair dye, and they get the hell out of my field of vision.

  “Be safe!” I shout after them.

  Only one looks back. She gives a tiny wave of acknowledgement.

  Sure hope I don’t see them later tonight.

  It’s getting late. I need to be on duty by 7:00.

  Shovel in some rice (see, Mama, I’m a good Mexican boy), finish my beef and lamb kabob and my tabbouli parsley salad. Clean out the little plastic cup of garlic sauce with my last triangle of pita.

  And that sauce is like ninety-percent garlic, too. Grind the cloves with a pestle and mortar, add some olive oil. Pure alchemical goodness.

  I grab a large coffee for the road and head out. My turn on the twelve-hour struggle of good versus evil is about to begin.

  Two

  The October sky is dark blue on-high, bruise-purple on the way down, and as red as a fresh wound at the horizon.

  Dusk.

  Let the games begin.


  As I stride from the mall to my office on wheels, I find three skinny wastoids dancing around the ambulance, trying to find a way inside.

  Remember how I said there’s too much money in the horror for anyone to end it? Brimstone Pharmaceuticals decided to “help combat the crisis” by developing Universal Red, an emergency blood supplement for treating victims. Uni-Red isn’t real blood but it can keep patients from sliding into shock long enough to reach a hospital. I’ve heard that it actually kills one out of ten people it’s given to, but apparently that meets muster for the FDA these days. Most ambulances carry it now. And thanks to Brimstone marketing and the nightly news cycle, everyone knows about it. So every once in a while, you’ll find pasties trying to break into an ambulance to get it.

  That’s why these three ding-bats are circling my rig.

  They look like they’ve been sleeping in the park in those same T-shirts and jeans for a week. One of them, the shortest, he’s not nearly as energetic as the other two. He’s running low. The brainy one—a tall guy made up with eye shadow—he’s found himself a big chunk of asphalt from some corner of the parking lot. He comes trotting up to where his buddies are parked outside my vehicle, holding it victoriously over his head. The last guy, all fashionable in a black vest, he raps his knuckles on my driver’s side window, designating the target.

  “Hey!” I shout, just a few yards away now. They all jump. Pasties startle easily. “Put that rock down and go about your business, fellas.”

  Eye Shadow shakes his head defiantly.

  His buddy in the black vest starts in with the demands: “We want the Universal Red, man. Give it to us, or else.”

  “Or else, what?” I say.

  “Or else we’ll bite you, homie,” Vest says. His hands do a lot of talking for him; he jabs a finger at me when he says that, then indicates himself and his boys. “We’re vampires, full-on. We’ll drain you dry, man.”

  I can’t help but chuckle. I’m no action hero but these guys don’t scare me. And claiming to be vampires? I don’t think so. A real vamp would never chase after Uni-Red. It’s not blood. It’s barely a substitute for it. That’d be like handing a wine connoisseur a cup of grape juice you just spat in and saying, “Try this, you’ll love it.”