by Jason Tucker
Joey nodded. “You’re dead whether I pull the trigger or not. Leaving you here for her will at least put a smile on my face for a while.”
“That’s cruel,” he said.
“Slide me the padlock and your phone,” Joey said.
Vincent dug his phone from his pocket and then slid both the phone and lock across the floor to Joey. “Please don’t leave me here. You can beat the shit out of me, take my girl, do whatever the fuck you want. Just don’t leave me here.”
“If I know Rachelle, I probably won’t be seeing you around,” Joey said, as he started to roll the door closed.
“You really just gonna leave me here?” Vincent screamed.
The fear and hopelessness in Vincent’s voice was almost enough to make Joey reconsider. Almost. “Don’t worry; the Haitian can keep you company.”
Chapter Three
Joey wasn’t going to stick around town to see how upset Rachelle got when she found Vincent sitting in a pile of his own vomit. Vincent deserved whatever was coming his way. He felt bad that things had gone the way they did with Robens, but it didn’t make sense to risk his own life just to try to make sense of it and find out what happened.
What could’ve been able to do that? Robens was a large man, smart and usually armed. What would have fit in that box that could kill like that?
The thought of Rachelle hiring a little person as an assassin was as amusing as it was brilliant if that was what she’d done. Who would expect trouble from a midget… or was it dwarf? Maybe he was right the first time and the term was little person. Joey didn’t know the politically correct terminology. The fact that he was even thinking the words politically correct pissed him off.
He had to hurry.
The only thing he wanted to do now was grab a few things from his apartment and then skedaddle, get the hell out of Dodge and every other cliché he knew for blowing town. He cruised through two red lights on his way and didn’t even bother slowing, not caring if a cop pulled him over. Hell, it would’ve been preferable to dealing with Rachelle, or whatever she’d decided to hire to kill him.
He made it across the city and pulled up to his apartment less than half an hour later.
Psycho cannibal midget or not, he wasn’t going to stay in Los Angeles any longer.
Someone had torn out the Haitian’s throat.
When things get that serious, it’s important to stay calm and do the sensible thing. Flee. There were no heroes in his line of work.
He’d cruise south for a while and then head east. Maybe stay in Albuquerque for a bit and just let all this crap settle. He could find work there. It sounded as good as any other plan. He berated himself for not getting out of the city before this. He could’ve been somewhere pleasant and peaceful, relaxing now instead of running around all hopped up on adrenalin. He did wonder if he should tell his sister so she wouldn’t worry. Not that she was likely to give a shit either way. Caroline lived in Los Angeles too, but they occupied completely different worlds. They’d been out of touch for nearly six months, ever since she found out what her big brother really did for a living.
He considered calling her and then thought better of it. Rachelle knew he had a sister, and she might use that against him. Not letting Caroline know where he was or even that he was leaving would at least give her plausible deniability.
Joey pulled into his parking space, hopped out of the car and hurried inside the building and up to the second floor. The little one-bedroom hideout was a barren month-to-month rental that held only his essentials. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was all he’d needed.
He grabbed a duffle bag and began tossing in some clothes and other items when he heard someone behind him, the sound of feet shuffling across the carpet. In a single fluid motion, he spun around and dropped to a knee while drawing his .40 from its holster.
Instead of an angry dwarf or one of Rachelle’s toughs, it was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven, but there was something terribly wrong with her. Her eyes were black, brow furrowed and angry. Blood covered her pallid hands and mouth. The once white dress she wore looked like a Jackson Pollock study in red and rust brown.
She tilted her head and stared at him.
Then her mouth opened to reveal sharp teeth.
Chapter Four
Vincent huddled in a corner as far away from the Haitian’s body as he could possibly get. He’d tried the door several times but the lock was strong and it would not budge. He thought about turning off the light so he wouldn’t have to look at the body. But he didn’t really want to be alone in the dark with a corpse either. Instead, he just sat with his head down and prayed that he might be lucky enough to have a heart attack before Rachelle Giovanni and Carlos decided to show up. They were going to make his life miserable.
Until they killed him.
It didn’t take him long to remember that he had some weed. Puffing on a joint took off the edge, at least a little. He relaxed a bit, stretched out his legs and then chanced another glance at the corpse. Poor bastard.
“What the hell happened to you, man? What was in that fucking box?” Vincent asked the dead man. He took another hit and thought he saw Robens move. The corpse’s arm twitched. It was slight, but Vincent was sure he saw it. He swallowed hard and kept watching. Maybe dead bodies did things like that. Maybe it was nerves in the body or gas or something, he thought. Vincent didn’t know. He’d never had reason to try to find out something like that. But that had to be what it was because the dead don’t just move around like that.
The Haitian’s mouth opened and he groaned.
Vincent pushed himself further into the corner and told himself that it wasn’t real. Someone must’ve laced his weed with LSD or something. What he was seeing couldn’t be real.
Robens sat up. His chest heaved as he tried to take in air through his ruined throat with great wheezing gasps. He blinked a few times and brought his hand up to his neck. His eyes locked on Vincent and he opened his mouth as if to speak. No words came out.
“Hey,” Vincent said. He watched in disbelief as the wound in the Robens’s throat began to knit itself back together. “I didn’t do this to you. Just so you know.”
Robens flopped over onto his belly and then pushed himself up awkwardly to his hands and knees. He started crawling forward. Vincent flicked the remainder of the joint toward the Haitian and then turned around again and tried to get his fingers beneath the rolling door. Maybe adrenalin would kick in and maybe he’d be able to break the lock. Maybe.
He felt Robens’s large, meaty hands clamp down on his shoulders. He tried to pull away but the dead man was just too strong. Vincent struggled and pulled, but the Haitian wrapped his arms around him so he couldn’t move. He tried to scream, but Robens was squeezing hard like a constrictor snake. Breath rushed from Vincent’s lungs like air escaping from a leaky balloon. He thought he heard his ribs breaking. Stars darted in front of his eyes.
Maybe it was all just a bad dream.
Maybe he’d wake up.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
Maybe not.
He felt teeth suddenly sink into the side of his neck and felt his own blood begin to spill onto the dirty floor. He heard the splashing sound as it sloshed onto the cold concrete. It felt like the sting of a thousand tattoo needles driving into him.
He closed his eyes and stopped struggling.
This is what it was going to be like to die.
Chapter Five
The girl’s dead eyes dug into Joey. She reminded him of a snake watching its quarry.
Motionless.
Deadly.
Waiting to strike.
A predatory vibe oozed off the bloody girl standing before him. He wasn’t accustomed to being the prey. Apparently neither was she.
The girl stalked forward, mouth open and drooling strings of red tinged saliva.
Joey aimed, still not willing to squeeze the trigger. Whatever level of Hell she’d escaped from, she w
as still a little girl. Wasn’t she? He wouldn’t hurt a kid. Not even a kid with freakishly long canines and a bad attitude. What was Rachelle playing at? Was she trying to bait him into killing a girl? He’d have a hell of a lot of explaining to do to his landlady if that happened. She was a nice woman, but gunshots in the middle of the night and monsters in the apartment weren’t going to endear him to her.
“Stop,” said Joey.
He was surprised when the girl listened.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked. He’d found his psycho cannibal. Rather, she had somehow found him. No one knew about this apartment, so he wasn’t sure how she’d known to come here. Unless Rachelle did know where he was staying. Maybe her men were waiting outside, just waiting for him to come out and the girl was merely a ruse. Or maybe the little monster had hitched a ride in his backseat, waiting for him to get home. That made more sense. She’d gotten into his car while he and Vincent were in the storage unit. She’d been in the car the entire time. The thought chilled him. “You killed Robens?”
“He isn’t dead, not really.”
Her voice sounded raw and deeper than any little girl’s voice should sound. He detected a slight trace of an accent. Joey thought it sounded vaguely southern, maybe from somewhere in Louisiana. Not that it really mattered right then.
“What do you mean?”
“Not dead. I need to use him, for a while at least. If he’s not right, I might give him the second death then.”
“He looked pretty damned dead when I saw him.”
“How many have you killed?” she said. “We’re death, you and I.”
“Morbid little thing, aren’t you?”
“I’ve learned a lot about you, been studying you like they wanted me too. Only they didn’t know it was all a game,” she said. “I already knew you. And now you get to play my game.”
“Game?”
“I will kill you. But not yet. You need to know why you are dying, and you need to feel true pain.”
“Look, kid, I don’t want to hurt you.” Joey stood from his kneeling position to let the blood start to flow back into his legs. If he was going to try to get past the girl and out of the apartment, he didn’t want to try to do it on legs that had fallen asleep. In the immortal words of Danny Glover, he was getting too old for this shit.
The blood had barely started flowing back into his legs when the girl surged forward at an impossible speed. She closed the distance between them in less than a second, snatched the pistol from him with one hand and used the palm of the other to push him in the chest. It felt like a hammer smashing into him. Joey dropped to the floor, gasping for breath. She rolled him onto his back as easily as if he were a doll.
The girl’s face appeared in front of his. Her eyes were inky black and her voice was a whispered growl. “I could cause you pain for millennia if I choose. You are going to beg for death before I grant it to you. ”
Joey opened his mouth but couldn’t speak. The girl placed her small hand onto his chest, keeping him pinned to the ground. She leaned closer. Her breath stank of rotted meat and clotting blood, a scent with which Joey was familiar. The blood around her mouth was dry now, cracked and flaking from her pale face.
“I will destroy those you love. And then I will come for you.”
“What… what are you?” Joey could barely whisper the words. The pressure on his chest was making it hard to breathe. Her eyes burned into him, and it seemed almost as though she was digging into his mind with her own, as though she was searching for something.
“I’m a kinder monster than you’ve ever been,” she said. “Until now.”
Joey’s breath was gone and he could feel the darkness closing in on him. He closed his eyes.
Chapter Six
The sound of metal grating against metal woke Vincent.
Someone was coming. He could smell them. What the hell did that mean… he could smell them?
His stomach ached and needed food, but he could barely remember where he was or even who he was. It started coming back slowly, a flash of memories. He touched his neck where Robens had bitten him. It was sticky with blood but the wound had healed. He turned his stiff neck and saw Robens sitting across from him. The big man put a finger to his lips motioning for Vincent to keep quiet.
Who was coming? Their scent grew stronger as the door began to open. He could smell cheap cologne and expensive perfume. Carlos and Rachelle. Others were with them and he could smell something sour. Something in his mind told him it was fear, and again he wondered how he could smell such things.
From beyond the rising door came Rachelle’s voice. He saw her face peeking in at him. “What the fuck? You can’t do anything right can you? Where’s the girl? Where’s Nicolette?”
Vincent felt a growl rising in his throat. He moved into a crouching position, ready to spring on Rachelle as soon as the door was open just a bit more. Blood thrummed through her, he could hear it. Her heart hammered and it caused a thrill to rush through Vincent. He needed her.
He opened his mouth and ran a tongue across his teeth. They seemed sharper somehow. His muscles tensed and just as he was ready to leap forward, several bluish-white beams of light hit him. Vincent howled and shielded his eyes. Both he and an Robens retreated to the back of the storage unit. Blisters rose on his skin from where the light had burned him. Once he was out of the light’s beam, the blisters began to heal. They still hurt like a bitch though.
The pain angered him and made him want to kill. Yet he didn’t know why. Somewhere in his brain, he knew he should be frightened. But he wasn’t. Maybe the gnawing hunger pushed away the fear. He didn’t know and he didn’t much care.
The doorway was completely open now, and Vincent could barely make out silhouettes of about half a dozen people beyond the lights. One of the shadowy figures was small and slender, curvy and tasty. It was Rachelle. Another was tall and bulky, and he was sure that was Carlos.
Rachelle cocked her head at Vincent. “Looks like the girl took a chunk out of you. Or was it our big friend here?” she asked, gesturing toward Robens. “How much of you still lives in that head of yours Vincent? That’s something that the girl would never tell me no matter how much I hurt her. Has the monster taken hold of you yet?”
Vincent opened his mouth to tell her to go to hell, but only a growl came out. It surprised him, and he saw a shudder run through Rachelle. He could hear her heartbeat quicken. She was afraid and he’d cause that fear. He liked that. He liked it very much. He’d never before been able to intimidate anyone.
“Tell me what happened here,” she said. She already seemed to have regained her composure. Vincent figured the men who bore those burning lights help to provide her with that confidence.
He didn’t know about any girl, and he didn’t give a damn about Joey anymore. All he wanted to do was to rip into Rachelle, lights be damned. He needed to eat. If he couldn’t have her, he’d just find someone else.
Of course, if they were going to eat, then they needed to get out of the storage unit. The only way out was through the enemy. He and Robens both surged forward, moving on animal instinct more than any rational thought. The lights burned flesh, but still they moved onward. Robens was by his side as they plowed into the unsuspecting light bearers.
Time seemed to slow, and the shouts from Rachelle and her men sounded dull, far away. The burning on his skin was painful but he was expecting it this time. To get to the blood, he could endure the pain. He tore into the first man, causing him to drop the flashlight. Vincent bowled the man over and followed him to the ground. He used his hands to tear out the man’s throat. Vincent realized suddenly that he knew the man. His name was Freddy. He’d come over to smoke and shoot the shit at Vincent’s apartment a few times. Vincent hesitated for only a moment. Didn’t matter that he knew the man. Old Freddy was just food now.
Gunfire roared and the sudden pressure of what felt like half a dozen tiny mallets smashed into him. The bullets hurt but they were m
ore of an annoyance than true pain. He turned his head to see Rachelle and Carlos fleeing to their car. Their running made him want to give chase, but his prey was already down and feeding was more important. Robens was already devouring another of the gunmen. Rachelle’s two remaining thugs turned and ran to their own vehicle.
The fear was wonderful. Vincent wondered if that was what made the blood taste so sweet. He laughed, but it came out throaty and rough, more evidence of whatever change was taking place within him.
The kill and the scent of human blood combined with gluttonous feeding were the only things that mattered. He lowered his face to Freddy’s ripped throat and began to lap up the blood. It was a hell of a lot tastier than the burrito.
Chapter Seven
“What the fuck happened back there?” Carlos asked, when he slowed the vehicle at a stop sign.
“Never should’ve went there at night. The girl lied, that’s what happened,” Rachelle said. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it with trembling hands. The wiper blades worked furiously to push away the rain. When the car started moving again, the kaleidoscope of colors rushing by almost made her sick.
No, that wasn’t quite right.
The speed of the car and the streaking lights didn’t sicken her. The attack from Vincent and Robens weren’t what made her hands shake. She was pissed. The little dead bitch had lied and used the opportunity to escape. Even worse, Joey was still out there and walking around, very possibly still quite human. Rachelle had wanted him changed and subjugated, an immortal that she could play with and torture for years. Nicolette had promised her that. Then the little vampire had lied. What was the monster’s agenda?
“Dios me pardone. We let the devil out,” Carlos said. “What do we do now?”
“We go home,” she said. She dialed the house to let them know to expect her and she made sure to tell them to set up the lamps she’d bought from Del as a precaution. “We’ll figure the rest out later.”