by J. R. Rain
Reggie nodded and sat forward. “Leave, boy. Leave and never look back.”
The whistle came again. Judd jumped. He looked down the train tracks, which glowed faintly in the moonlight.
“No one’s ever been as young as you before. This ain’t right. You’re only a kid.”
Judd looked at the old man curiously, then got up and moved across the creaking platform. The monster beneath shifted, and Judd thought he could just make out its shadowy shape.
He stepped off the wooden platform and gravel crunched beneath his sneakers again as he made his way over to the tracks. Cold wind flapped his tee-shirt.
He heard the crunching of gravel behind him. “They tell me it’s an incredible sight to see, this train,” said Reggie. “One man said it looked like a building coming at you. Another said it looked like a great shadow.”
In the far distance, seemingly suspended in mid-air, a bright light appeared in the center of tracks.
“I’m not afraid,” Judd said.
“You should be, kid.”
The whistle came again and with it, the hair on Judd’s arms stood on end. He was shivering nearly uncontrollably.
“I should have brought my ma,” he said. “I could’ve proved to her that I’m not hearing things. See, here it comes now, as plain as day. And you’re right, Reggie. It’s huge. It’s loud. It’s real.”
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and suddenly he felt himself being spun around as if he were playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey. Reggie’s wrinkled and filthy face was just inches from his own. His breath smelled putrid, of mouse blood and bits of mouse fur. “Listen to me, kid. You have to leave. Leave and never look back. Look at me, dammit!”
Indeed, Judd was straining to see the coming train, which now looked like a slow-moving, hulking megalith. “It’s here, Reggie.” Judd pushed the old man’s hands away. “It’s okay, Reggie. It’s meant to be.”
But Reggie didn’t let go; instead, the old man raised his voice, shouting, “Who the hell are you people? What the hell do you want with him? Leave him be, goddammit!”
“It’s okay, Reggie. He’s waiting for me. I know he is.”
“No, Judd. Please go home. Go far away from here. Please.”
Judd smiled serenely. He had never felt so at peace in his life. Why had he been so worried before? “It’s okay, Reggie. I promise.”
And with that, the boy slipped completely out of the old man’s grasp. Reggie dropped to his knees in defeat.
“No, Judd. This ain’t right. Don’t get on the train.”
Judd, however, never looked back. Instead, he reached out for the shadowy hand that was reaching down for his, and took it. Judd ran alongside the slowing train, faster than he had ever run in his whole short life, the silver dog tags jingling inside his shirt like so much heart music. He looked up into the eyes that looked so much like his own, the cheek that looked like his, the chin that looked like his, even the crooked cleft. He held on for dear life to the desert camouflage-jacketed arm.
“Dad!” Judd screamed. “Dad!”
“Don’t get on the train with him!” Reggie screamed and was suddenly at Judd’s side, trying to pull Judd’s arm away from his father’s. “You get on that train and you ain’t never coming back, kid.”
But Judd wasn’t listening. “Do you see it, Reggie? Do you see it?”
The old vampire was keeping pace with him, looking both distraught and oddly curious. He was shaking his great head. “No, dammit. Now get back here, kid. Let go of whatever it is you’re holding.”
“Dad?” asked Judd, still running to keep up. “Dad, is it really you?”
“It ain’t your dad, kid. It’s Death. And it’s come for you.”
“No. It’s my pops.”
Still holding the camouflaged hand, the old man next to him did something unexpected and terrifying. He grabbed Judd’s arm. Grabbed it hard and pulled. He also did something else, he reached forward, grabbing what Judd was holding... his father’s hand.
“Show yourself, goddammit!” yelled Reggie.
And with a final heave, Judd found himself rolling, tumbling head over ass in the gravel. Next to him, Reggie thudded as well. And next to Reggie... was someone else.
Judd didn’t even realize how loud he was screaming until the train screeched to a halt and the man in the camo jacket wrapped his big arms around him and wept as if his heart was breaking. Only it was being unshattered, moment by moment.
***
Reggie stood and dusted himself off. He was quite certain that someone, or something, had appeared out of nowhere. He had just spotted the full-grown man in desert fatigues lying on the ground when he spotted something else. Something that no one could miss.
Rising above, spewing steam high into the air, as big as an iron mountain, was an old-time locomotive.
Reggie had lived a long, long time, and there wasn’t much that surprised him these days. Which is why his jaw dropped, which is why he gazed in wonder.
“Son-of-a-bitch.”
***
“It’s you, Judd. My boy!” the man cried joyfully, then looked around as if realizing where he was for the first time. “But I don’t know who I am, or where I am.” He looked back at Judd, and his confused frown turned into a smile. “But I know who you are, dammit. I have your baby picture... and nothing else to my name.”
“Dad,” said Judd, crawling forward, ignoring the many cuts and nicks from his tumble over the gravel. “I know who you are. And Mom knows who you are, too.”
“Where do I live?” the man said.
“With us, Dad. With us.” He didn’t let go of the man’s hand. He thought his heart would burst with faith, with love, with joy.
A conductor with glowing eyes came to the open vestibule of the shimmering train, looked at them and said authoritatively, “At every stop, there must be one boarding passenger. One of you must board. All aboard!” he called out.
“No!” Judd shouted. “No!” He looked anxiously at his father who gave him a sad smile.
***
Reggie didn’t know why he could suddenly see the steaming locomotive, but he knew what he had to do. He’d lived long enough in this godforsaken shack. He’d lived long enough on mice and rats and other filthy critters.
But he knew what was right and what was wrong. The man with his boy was right. The boy hugging his pops and weeping into his shoulders was right.
“All aboard!”
Reggie stepped forward and raised his hand in a silent salute. The soldier on the ground saluted him back. Reggie nodded once at the boy, and stepped on board the night train.
The End
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Vampire Rain
The night is full of wonder.
The air is suffused with streaks of silver and flashes of light and incandescent marvels that few will ever see or know or even believe exist.
But it exists, and I have known such wonders of light for a long, long time. Centuries.
Too long.
It’s time to rest.
It’s time to move on.
I’m weary. Too weary.
Ah, the wind feels good on my skin. I’ve always loved the wind on my skin. My cold skin. My lifeless skin that is animate, too.
The cliff is a good idea. I’m happy to be here overlooking the sea, the jagged rocks, the sand that sparkles with phosphorescence from the tiny sea creatures that release their energy. My favorite place, and I have seen many, many places. In many, many lifetimes. But this is where I want to do it.
It is time.
Soon. Not yet. I will do it soon.
I’m scared.
Oh, God. I’m scared.
It is okay to be scared. It is natural to be scared.
It is time.
Did you think you would roam the earth forever? Did you not know this day would someday come? I heard that voice in my head again.
So scared. Of it. Of me.
Maybe I s
houldn’t do this! I don’t have to do this. No one is forcing me to do this. I pushed down the fear with denial.
Okay, good, I feel better. I won’t do this after all. I won’t. I will go home to my dogs and run with them. They’ll wag their tails and I will find solace in their joy. In their pure love.
Aw, I love the wind. I love how it touches me and caresses and whistles in my ears like a bright song.
Good God, I’m tired. My legs are suddenly trembling.
Let me sit.
Better, better. Sitting now.
I have been tired a long, long time.
Too tired.
Look at the ocean, perpetually moving, constantly crashing, crumbling boulders into sand, and shorelines into oblivion. Its ebb and flow has always been mesmerizing to me. As if it is alive. And not. Like me.
I am like the ocean. Never resting, always moving, from place to place. I crash on this shore one year, and that shore, another year. I travel the face of the earth, always, perpetually, never ceasing, but always tired. Never able to truly rest.
Aw, it’s raining.
Yes, yes. That feels good. On my face, the back of my neck. Ha, even in my ears. I am refreshed by the rain that falls on me like cool tears from the weeping sky. I cannot tell if my tears are joining the rain that streaks down my face because my tears are just as cold as the rain.
The wind and rain and fog and sun and silvery moonlight, they know me.
The night knows me well, too.
But Death does not know me. Death has searched for me. Death has waited for me. Sometimes impatiently.
Trying to breathe deeply, trying to fill my lungs, always trying, centuries of trying, but never can I find that rich, full-bodied breath. Always, it eludes me. Always. Why can I never fully engorge my lungs with rich air?
Is it because I do not need it?
Yes, that must be it.
Air is not important to me. Something else keeps me alive. Something that has little to do with oxygen or natural laws.
So, what is it? What possesses this ancient body of mine? I don’t know. Few of my kind do know. And those who do aren’t talking. But I know it is something dark. Something ancient. I do know this. I feel it living in me, a primeval entity, crawling inside my flesh like a keeper.
I am its host, and I live by its rules.
Aw, it’s raining harder. Hair is soaked. Feels good, feels good. Like a mantle of wetness cloaking me with coolness. Clothing soaked, too. Don’t care. Listen to it. So soothing, so peaceful. So gentle, so calm. Rain is serenity. It is sweeter than music.
I cannot go back to my dogs.
I cannot go back.
I cannot.
I cannot do this anymore.
The woman I killed last week. She had children. How, how could I do that to her? How could I take her away from her kids, her family, her life?
So many like her. Too many. I can’t do this. Not again. Ever. No more. Taken too much. Time to stop. Taking.
It is time.
Yes, it is time.
The rain, the fog, the moon, the wind, the ocean, the waves, the night. It is all so magnificent, so beautiful. But I am tired to the core. Even the primeval thing crawling inside of my skin, just under the surface, is tired. And quiet.
Too tired. Rare quiet.
The dogs will be taken care of. I’ve made sure of it. I have no one else, nothing else. No one will miss me or care that I’m gone. The world will be a better place. One less predator. One less killer. One less ungodly, unholy creature.
I need to be stopped.
It is time to end this and take my leave. I wonder what peace is and if it will come when I take my leave. And end this.
My body is eternally sick. Strong, but sick. Dead, but alive.
The rain, I will miss the rain. I will miss my dogs, too, but I will miss the rain most of all. The rain has been the one constant in every place I have ever been. The rain has been more of my home than any shelter. The rain was the one thing on which I could always count. The drops coming down to wash me, to renew me, to let me cry when it cried.
The stake in my own hand is heavy. It is a good, solid stake. Made of the finest silver. I made sure that it was without flaw.
I will not miss the sun. How do you miss something you do not see?
I will miss the wind, I think. Its music is a song of the earth.
No one will miss me. No one.
It is time to go.
I must do this thing. I have to. I cannot kill another human, another mother. Another animal. I cannot hurt another creature.
No more dead mothers or fathers or sisters or brothers.
No more killing.
It is time to end this taking.
Forever.
So, what will happen to me? Where will I go? What will become of me?
I’m scared. So scared. I can’t do this. I can’t.
Oh, God.
Do it.
Please.
Do it.
The rain feels so nice, so nice. I love the rain. The patter and the pounding of it, the splashing of it speaks to me that I, too, will splash my offering into the Earth and let it drink. As I did.
I am a monster. But no more. No more.
I will miss the rain. Besides blood, it was my only drink. Rain.
I’m really doing this. Now!
Pull harder, both hands.
Harder.
The stake! It hurts!
I’m really doing this.
Oh, fuck.
Oh, fuck!
Harder. No. Yes!
Oh, sweet God, what am I doing?
Oh, shit, oh shit, oh shit.
The light is coming, it is spreading, it is taking me inside the sparkling droplets of rain.
The rain, so nice.
So sweet... the rain.
The End
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Castle for Sale
Once upon a time, there was an old vampire.
He lived in a big castle in a forgotten forest, far, far away from any humans… and any unhumans, for that matter.
He lived a quiet, uneventful life, feasting on the rodents unlucky enough to inadvertently reveal themselves or to even squeak behind a nearby wall. The old vampire could, after all, command them to show themselves… and, once compelled, they would scuttle right up to him, usually shaking with fear. Yes, mice can shake with fear. The old vampire had seen it and, secretly, quite enjoyed it. Perhaps too much.
However, the old vampire did not enjoy death, which is why he killed the vermin quickly, plunging his teeth into their necks and biting off their little heads, flinging them off to the side, where they would roll about like so many marbles.
Okay, maybe he liked death sometimes, but certainly not enough to kill humans. Okay, that was a lie. He loved killing humans, too, which is why he had forced himself to live in this castle, far away from anyone, especially humans. The old vampire, you see, loved seeing fear in the eyes of men—and women and children, too, for that matter. He also loved to see the sweat on their brow and loved, perhaps too much, when they sometimes pissed or shit themselves in fear. He would, of course, never admit to the latter.
Anyway, he loved death and killing and fear too much… so much so that he had nearly wiped out a small village in a remote Alaskan harbor. Which is how he ended up here, in a castle in the forest, far, far away from all those lovely humans who could sweat and show fear and piss and shit. The old vampire thought he was doing a noble thing, giving up human blood. In fact, he had convinced himself he could live without it. And so far, he had lasted, precisely, nine hours.
This was, after all, his very first day in his new castle in the damnable woods that were just too far away from prying human eyes. Eyes that could show fear. Blessed fear.
Once upon a time, there was an old vampire who lived, precisely, nine hours and fifteen minutes in an old castle in a forgotten forest far, far away from any humans… an old vampire who put said cast
le on sale just before feasting on his real estate agent… and everyone else in the office.
The End
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Vampire Road
Once upon a time, there lived a man who wasn’t really a man. And for that matter, he wasn’t really alive, either. Let’s start again...
Once upon a time, there was a vampire...
***
Now, this vampire was a curious vampire. For one thing, he enjoyed driving and seeing new places. In particular, new roads. Oh, how he loved finding new roads to drive down. Oh, how he enjoyed driving his Range Rover and exploring. Most of all, oh, how he enjoyed looking for his next victim, too. Yes, the feasting was fun, but the looking was even more fun. Who would it be tonight? Young, old? Male, female? Really, it was the not knowing that gave him the rush.
His name was Jack Hollywood. Yes, that sounded like a fake name. But it wasn’t. Okay, maybe a little. He’d had it for so long, that he could barely remember his real name. Anyway, he loved the name, especially when he’d lived in Hollywood. Back then, just as his young and beautiful victims were breathing their last, they had been consumed by Hollywood.
Now, Jack Hollywood lived alone in a very large home overlooking a very busy road, in a suburb just outside of Seattle. From his study in the second bedroom, he watched the cars drive by and wished he could join them. He couldn’t, of course, because most of the time, the drivers were driving in the early morning or the evening, times when he had to stay inside behind his special protective curtains. Jack Hollywood was a restless sleeper, too.
You see, he would rather be driving than sleeping.
And so he watched the drivers in their cars, going to where they had to go, and wishing he could be part of the stream of traffic, the flow of life. Sometimes the drivers turned and looked at him in his house but they couldn’t see him. No, they were looking at his house and wishing it were theirs, wishing they were either already home, or wishing they made enough to own it. Jack knew this because he could read minds too. And reading minds up to the street in front of his house was about the limit of his range.