Descending Son

by Scott Shepherd

  Walter nodded.

  Jess’s mind raced. “And the ‘T’ on the wall?”

  “It’s a cross.”

  His father edged closer. Jess couldn’t go anywhere. The open grave was still behind him.

  “But you’re dead. I saw you. They put you in the coroner wagon and took you away.” Jess’s voice was quickening; sheer panic and hysteria settling in.

  Walter leaned down to put his arms around his oldest child. Jess tried to wriggle away but was shocked to find his seventy-year-old father was overpowering him.

  “You must leave. While you still can.”

  “Why? I don’t understand what’s happening!”

  And then Jess did.

  His father opened his mouth—revealing sharp, pointed fangs.

  PART TWO

  DARK SANDS

  TRACY BEFORE

  The first time she saw Jessie Stark since high school, he almost ran her over with his car.

  It was her own damn fault; she had been walking in the middle of the street when he came barreling around the corner. Tracy was so busy digging in her purse for Kleenex to wipe her teary eyes she didn’t notice she had drifted off the sidewalk. By the time she became cognizant of the blasting horn, it was too late to dive out of the way. It was only the quick reflexes of the driver—spinning the vehicle into a hard left, expertly tapping the brakes, and plowing into a bunch of roadside trash cans—which prevented both of them from becoming fatal highway statistics on the eleven o’clock news.

  Perfect, thought Tracy. A fitting end to what ranked right up there as maybe the Crappiest Night Ever. She ran across the street to check on the black BMW and its owner. By the time she got there, the driver side door had swung open and her life had changed.

  “I’m so so sorry,” Tracy said. “I’m such a stupid fucking idiot. I didn’t even know I’d wandered out into the street.”

  “Are you okay?” Jess asked, stepping out of the car.

  “Am I okay? Me? You’re the one who pulled off that sweet NASCAR move.”

  Jess didn’t answer right away. It was that awkward moment when two people reconnect in the most bizarre way imaginable.

  “Tracy? Tracy James?”

  “Oh my God. Jess Stark.” She practically blushed. “This is getting more embarrassing by the moment.”

  When she had last seen Jess, he was being carried off a football field on the shoulders of his teammates after leading them to a comeback win for the Southern Section Championship. Tracy had avoided the cheerleading experience at Desert Chapel, depriving the squad of the prettiest girl in school. She spent most of her time curled up with a book in a corner of the library; Jess and his crowd’s all-night beer-pong-a-thons weren’t her idea of “good times.” They had exchanged maybe half a dozen sentences during her junior year, mostly at functions they’d been dragged to by their fathers.

  “What are you doing out here all by yourself?” Jess asked.

  “It’s a long and not very pretty story,” admitted Tracy.

  “It could have had a real downer of an ending.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

  “Interesting question.”

  Tracy pointed at the wrecked trash cans with a BMW sticking out of them.

  “You tell me.”

  It turned out they needed AAA. Jess said they could hike up the hill to his folks’ house, where he could call the tow service and get a taxi for Tracy. She told him she was happy to wait for the tow truck and offered to pay for the damage. Jess said it was his fault—he shouldn’t have been going so fast. By the time AAA arrived, they were busily catching up on the years since high school.

  About an hour (and two tire changes) later, they were in a twenty-four-hour Denny’s, still talking.

  Jess had just graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in history and a minor in English. He had purposefully forsaken the scholarships offered by a few Football Is King universities in the South and Midwest. Nor did he pursue the business school Ivy League track his father had so wanted him to get on.

  “Sounds like you did everything in your power to piss off your parents,” Tracy observed.

  “Well, if you know anything about my father, it doesn’t take much.”

  Tracy said you’d have to be an ostrich with his head buried in the Coachella Valley sand not to know Walter Stark’s ways. “He’s definitely a guy used to getting what he wants.”

  “Which makes our upcoming family reunion really pleasant,” he said.

  Jess told her that his mother was the only family member who attended his college graduation the previous month. His sister, Sarah, was too busy spending his parents’ money touring the great palaces of Europe. For Harry to be interested in something, it needed to have a Transformer involved. Walter had flat out refused to go because it would mean he supported his older son’s decision to throw his life away.

  “I’m surprised they got you back here at all.”

  “It’s their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I considered not coming but then decided I could pick up a bunch of my stuff before I hit the road.”

  “And where would that road lead?”

  “Anywhere my father doesn’t own something.”

  Tracy couldn’t suppress a smile of admiration. She certainly had her own daddy issues, which she readily admitted as she brought Jess up to speed.

  Sometimes she wished she had the nerve to stand up to Clark James like Jess had with his father. She wasn’t going to cry “Poor Poor Pitiful Me” as Warren Zevon had once so deftly written—there were definite perks that came with being the daughter of a Mega Movie Star. More often than not, she found it easy to be Daddy’s Little Girl to get what she wanted, and Clark was happy to serve her every whim as long as she asked nicely.

  But the truth was that Tracy yearned for privacy. Her mother had died when she was just seven and she had grown up accompanying her father—a perennial “People’s Hottest Bachelor”—to every press junket or red carpet that came down the pike. By the time she hit puberty, she felt like one more flashbulb in her face would make her melt like the Wicked Witch of the West. Which led her to transfer into Desert Chapel her junior year. She had to beg Clark to let her enroll in high school down in the desert (where they had a vacation mansion) instead of the ritzy actor’s–kid school she’d been at since she was a toddler. She liked the anonymity she got being away from the Hollywood paparazzi, and the fact that she missed most of the high school cliques by getting to DC late was just fine.

  She’d graduated from Desert Chapel with honors while existing below the radar, and chose Dartmouth as a collegiate destination—as far across the continent as one could get from sunny Southern California. She took every liberal arts course available and ended up drifting into a string of relationships with older men, mostly teachers and alumni donors. Most of them fizzled out for her by the time they had barely begun.

  Tracy drained the rest of the black-and-white malt they were sharing. “Famous Dad that no woman can nail down. Motherless Daughter looking for love in all the wrong places. Dr. Phil could dedicate an entire week to us.”

  Jess laughed. “You’ve got one more year left?”

  “I start back right after Labor Day. Going to be one long hot summer.”

  Jess was surprised she was going to remain in the desert. “You do know that the average temperature is one hundred five in the shade?”

  “Dad is shooting a movie in LA. No way am I spending three months in that circus show. The house here is empty. I can catch up on my reading, camp out in the pool, and turn into a prune.”

  “I don’t think we have to worry about that happening,” said Jess.

  Instead of taking the compliment, Tracy lowered her eyes and stirred the last drops of malt with the straw. She could feel Jess watching her as a muzak version of “A Horse With No Name” mercilessly assaulted anyone who dared pay attention.

  “You still haven’t talke
d about it,” he said.

  Tracy stopped stirring. “It being what had me crying in the middle of a Palm Springs street at midnight?”

  “Yeah.”

  The gentleness of that one word got her to look up from the malt glass. Hedonistic hero, hell. Where had this man been all her life? Or even an hour ago.

  Her eyes had started to well up again. “One of those wrong places.”

  “You still in it?” Jess asked.

  “I hope not.”

  Six weeks later, Jess was still in Palm Springs and Tracy had seen him every single day since the night he almost ran her down.

  1

  Benji Lutz was actually the night manager at the Sands Motel. It was true that he owned the place, but since occupancy was rarely above a single digit and he lived in the best room, perfectly situated right behind the office so he’d hear anyone ring the bell, Benji figured he could save money by filling the position himself.

  Once Ella, the ditzy college dropout who worked the day shift, bounced in around seven a.m., Benji followed a daily routine. He spun the Mustang into Palm Springs proper and ordered a well-done sesame bagel and Coffee of the Day at the local deli, and then turned around and drove the five miles back to the motel. He punched on Sports Radio and listened to Dan Patrick; once back and firmly ensconced in his office chair, he continued to watch the rest of the show on Direct TV. When Ella asked why he didn’t just buy the bagels and java in bulk and invest in a toaster and coffeemaker, Benji told her the morning drive cleared his head. She wanted to ask him what could warrant wiping out his brain since he did absolutely nothing. But she also knew Benji was her boss and she needed the job, as bored as she was out of her totally blank mind.

  Benji would check the receipts, and five minutes later when that was done, he’d settle down with the latest X-Men issue or read a classic graphic novel for the umpteenth time. Once a week he ventured back into town for Comic Day when the new issues hit the stands, and spent at least an hour flipping through the mags, though he always ended up buying the same four series. While perhaps not a man of vision or one to roll with change, Benji was loyal to a fault. After that, he picked up a greasy meatball hero from his favorite food truck and headed back to the office to enjoy an afternoon filled with superhero feats of derring-do, topped off by some Pepto-Bismol.

  On this particular day, he’d scooped up the latest Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Avengers issues, and spent the journey back debating which one to dive into first. He had settled on David Banner and his green raging alter ego and was chomping down on the sandwich when he entered his back office. He almost choked on the last meatball.

  Jess Stark—or more specifically some gone-to-shit version of him—was in Benji’s office chair.

  Jess looked like he hadn’t taken a bath in a lunar cycle. His shirt was ripped to shreds: mud and dirt caked every visible inch of skin. The exception was his neck, where he held a bloodied bandage he’d extracted from the emergency medical kit that Benji kept on the shelf above his desk.

  Benji dropped the Marvel quartet and meatball special on the floor. “Whoa, man. You look like something out of a Sam Raimi movie.”

  Jess replied with great effort. “Funny you should put it that way.”

  Half an hour later, the comic books were still lying on the floor. Benji had made a pot of strong coffee, but Jess’s hands continued to shake as he replayed the events that led to him occupying a desert grave.

  “Who do you think attacked you at Tracy’s house?” Benji asked.

  “I’m pretty sure one was Rice. I turn over a rock; the man crawls out from underneath it. Wouldn’t surprise me if Burke was the other guy.”

  “Burke? He’s a cop.” Jess gave Benji a “get serious” stare. Benji reconsidered his point. “You’re right. The guy’s a douchebag. Wouldn’t put it past him.” Then Benji thought a little more. “But why would Burke do that?”

  “Money. Power. He’s being blackmailed. All of the above.” Jess shrugged, which caused him to groan. He was still damn sore and a bundle of nerves. “It’s bizarre that Burke has been in my face at least three times since I’ve hit town.”

  “Is that why you haven’t called him?”

  “If he was one of the guys who dragged me out there, he knows damn well what happened to me.”

  “You’re still not answering the big question.”

  “Which is?”

  “How the hell did you escape out of that hole?”

  Jess took a deep breath. Then, he launched in.

  Jess tried to evade the fangs his father was attempting to bury in his neck. He couldn’t believe the strength Walter possessed. Even weakened from spending most of a night buried in a coffin beneath the desert floor, he still had forty years on his old man. But Walter quickly overpowered Jess and the guttural cries emitting from his throat were ungodly.

  He shoved his hand into Walter’s face to try and blind him. It was slapped away and Jess was shoved flat onto his back. Walter descended upon him once again and Jess felt a sharp scrape across his jugular vein. He felt blood spurt from his flesh and Jess let out what he was certain would be his final scream.

  Suddenly a burning smell assaulted Jess’s nostrils. A shrill keening filled the desert air. Jess was shocked the cry wasn’t his; it came from the writhing creature that had once been his father.

  The Walter-thing rolled on the ground in pure agony as smoke peeled off its back. Jess realized the smell was burning flesh and he lay on the ground gasping for air as Walter threw a coat over his scorched skin. His father’s hand was covered in blood and Jess realized it was a sharp fingernail that had slashed his throat.

  The monster rose to its feet, the coat wrapped around him like a shroud. Walter ran for a car parked fifty yards from the open grave. The first streams of dawn’s early light tracked his father like a sniper’s beam. Wherever the rays hit him, smoke began to billow. As Walter dove into the car, he let out a bloodcurdling sound so high-pitched and otherworldly, it made Jess’s head want to explode.

  Jess tried to stand up but was still too weak from his ordeal down below. He stumbled as the car revved to life and squealed off, kicking up a sandstorm of dust that rose into the purple morning sky like a waterspout.

  By the time the sand settled, dawn was breaking and the car had vanished from sight.

  Jess sat in the desert for a long time, trying to pick up the pieces of his fractured mind and meld them into something he could believe was real.

  Jess gripped the coffee cup tightly. The sensation of warmth on his shaking fingers did little to calm him down.

  “Let me get this straight,” Benji said. “Your father—who I saw dragged out of here in a coroner’s wagon—is now a vampire who pulled you out of a grave, burst into flames before he could sink his teeth into you, and then drove off leaving you stranded in the middle of the desert.”

  “Did I mention that he was driving a Celica? My father—in a rental car?”

  Benji looked at Jess like he had squirrels popping out of his ears. “Wha—?”

  “C’mon, Benji. Do you think I don’t see how utterly ridiculous this sounds? That you should call one of my family’s rest homes and have them come take me away?”

  Benji finally picked up the comic books and a half-eaten meatball hero from the floor. “Hey, man. I had trouble buying the Celica too. No way he’d be caught dead in one.” He chuckled, realizing the inadvertent double-entendre. “Then again.”

  “You don’t think I’m making this up?”

  “How long have we known each other?”

  “All our lives.”

  “And you’ve always been a straight shooter. You never lied to me. I wouldn’t have protected you from three-hundred pound goons trying to sack you through all of high school and let you put your hands up my ass to grab the ball if I didn’t trust you, Jess.”

  For the first time this side of the grave, Jess’s hands stopped shaking. He even eked out a slight smile. “Not sure I love the specific im
agery… but thanks.”

  “I’m just saying that you had one hell of a night—make that few days. You were buried alive, for fuck sake! Who knows what kind of tricks the light played on you when you got free?”

  “I saw my father, Benji. I swear to fucking God.”

  “Jess, you’re trying to convince a guy who reads two dozen comic books a month and is a card-carrying member of the Stoker Society.”

  “The what?”

  “Vampire club. Online thing. Named after the Dracula author.”

  Jess gave his friend a dirty look.

  “Never mind.” Benji tossed the comics on the desk. “You say you saw your dad. I believe you think you saw him. But there has to be a logical explanation.”

  “And if there isn’t?”

  “Then you’ve made my lifelong dream come true and found an actual vampire.”

  “So you do believe me.”

  “I want to. I swear, I really do.”

  “But…”

  Benji dumped the sandwich in the trash. “The truth is… who knows what’s real and what isn’t?” Benji pointed at the comic books. “I know all this stuff is made up, but the kernel of the ideas must come from something real.”

  “I don’t think we’re talking about superheroes here.”

  “No shit? He wasn’t wearing a costume?” Jess frowned before Benji let him off the hook with a grin. “How’d you get back here anyway?”

  “I hiked for a good two hours before I hit some kind of road. I kept walking down the blacktop with my thumb out, hoping someone would stop and give a zombie a lift.”

  “Guess you walked all the way, huh?”

  “A couple of day laborers actually took pity and pulled over. They agreed to bring me here but insisted I sit in the back of the truck with some chickens.”

  “You could use a shower, man.”

  “I need to find out what happened to Tracy.”

  “It’s almost been a day since they took you away, Jess. She’s either at home or not. Fifteen minutes won’t matter at this point, but I don’t think I could stand being in the same car with you for more than five. No offense.”