The police car reached the corner and didn’t slow for the stop sign. It continued down the street. They watched its rear lights fade in the mist.
Gossitch turned the radio back on. Zager and Evans were singing about the year 2525.
A few moments later Santa Anna asked Gossitch, “Those years I was away, you ever have to do a cop, Frank?”
This caught Boone’s attention. Ever since he’d known the older man he’d known him as Gossitch. Of course he’d known Gossitch wasn’t the man’s real name, just like his wasn’t Boone. It was safer that way. He wouldn’t have thought that “Frank” was his crew chief’s name either. Figured Gossitch for some Jew-name, David or Benjamin or maybe even something super-Jewey like Chaim or Shlomo. But Frank? Fuckin’ Frank? Probably what Santa Anna called the old man, way back when.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Not one? Not even a crooked one?”
“They’re all crooked.” Gossitch flicked the butt of his cigarette out the window of the car. “The kid’s come close on a couple of occasions,” he said, making eye contact with Boone in the rear view mirror. “But we always find a way to walk before that can happen. Right kid?”
Boone didn’t answer.
Santa Anna turned around in the passenger seat so he could look at either Boone or Gossitch when he wanted. “Just like old times.” He shook his head. “And what’s that heater you’re packing there, kid?”
Heater, thought Boone. How long had this nappy-headed fuck been away for? It didn’t sit well with him, this fuck calling him kid. Gossitch could call him kid and that was alright. The old man had pulled Boone out of some serious shit in the past. Because of the old man, Boone was still breathing, had more money than he knew what to do with. He respected his crew chief and felt an attachment to him. Gossitch called him kid, it didn’t register as a slight.
“That’s a Smith and Wesson .44 Mag,” Gossitch answered for Boone, his eyes never leaving the RV. “The kid’s partial to big bore revolvers.”
“Bit much for vamps, no?” Santa Anna considered the 12-gauge Ithaca between his legs, the Glock 17 snug in his jeans against his belly. The shotgun had eight buckshot rounds in the tubular magazine and one ready to go in the chamber. Each shell was a mixture of double-ought silver slug and double-ought coated in silver. Boone and Gossitch carried Colt SMGs and every other round in their 32-round magazines had been silver-dipped, as was every round in the Glock 17s they wore.
The superstition that silver only killed werewolves was garbage. It did a number on vamps as well.
By way of an answer, Boone said: “There’s more than bloodsuckers out there.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck are you looking to bring down with that thing? Hey, you know what? I don’t want to meet whatever it is you’re thinking of taking out with that piece.”
The kid chose not to say anything. He didn’t owe Santa Anna an explanation.It wasn’t that Boone preferred heavy caliber six shooters or even had a preference for revolvers. He didn’t. But he’d run into something once that had made him wish he’d had the stopping power of the Smith M29. One of those times the old man had dragged his ass out of the frying pan. Though he feared little in this world, Boone knew he’d been lucky to walk away in one piece then. He figured he might cross paths with the thing or something like it again one day. And because he preferred to be ready for that occasion, should it ever materialize, he packed the .44.
The question of his marksmanship was an entirely different matter.
The rain had stopped hammering the car and fell in a steady, lulling cadence. The skies were overcast, the day washed out.
A blue and white Anthora cardboard coffee cup was wedged between the dash and the windshield. We are happy to serve you.
“You ever known a bloodsucker to do that?” The question woke Santa Anna some time later. Smoke from Gossitch’s Marlboros hung thick in the air. Santa Anna sat up in his seat and moved the Ithaca from where it had shifted, leaning against the door, to back between his legs.
A tall man had emerged from the front door of the RV and walked slowly and deliberately across the street towards the bodega. He was covered up with an expensive rain jacket and a wide brimmed boonie hat that obscured his face. It would have been difficult to see his face from this distance anyway. The man moved through the downpour in no apparent rush, and Santa Anna noted that his hands appeared to be gloved.
“You ever known a bloodsucker to do that, Goose?” Boone asked again.
“No.” Gossitch’s hand gripped the wheel. Light glinted off his wedding band. “Never seen that before.”
“Maybe he’s not a full blood,” offered Santa Anna. “Maybe he’s just a slave?”
“Don’t know…” Gossitch watched with the other two men as the lone figure disappeared inside the bodega. “This crew working the blood drive, they don’t rely too much on humans.”
“Almost guaranteed when we go in there,” Boone was referring to the RV, “they’re all bloodsuckers.”
Santa Anna thought that the kid sounded like he relished the idea.
“But walk outside in the sun?” mused Gossitch. “Nah, vamps just don’t do that.”
“I don’t know,” said Santa Anna. “Not much sun to speak of. And he was covered up.”
“Fuck this.” Boone opened the rear door of the car. He left his Colt SMG on the back seat. “Only one way to tell.”
“You going to find out?” asked Santa Anna.
“Kid, try not to—”
“We go if I call it, okay?” Boone closed the door behind him and walked off down the block towards the homeless man, towards the line of people outside the RV and the bodega.
Gossitch frowned and shook his head, cracking the window and tossing what remained of his cigarette.
“Kids got a hard-on for vamps,” remarked Santa Anna. As they watched, Boone strode down the street purposefully.
“That he does,” confirmed Gossitch. “Kind of reminds me of the way someone else used to be.”
“That was a long time ago.” Santa Anna thought of the way he’d been once, before prison, before the thing in it. Enfermo. Things were different now. “Life has a way of tempering that shit…if you live long enough.”
“Tell you what though, Carter,” said his friend. “Shit hits the fan, there’s no one else you’d want to walk into hell with. Stick with that kid, you’re likely to walk back out. Even if he detours to kick a little red ass.”
“I’d ask if he can be trusted. But I know if he runs with your crew, I don’t gotta ask.”
“He’s thinking the same thing about you,” replied Gossitch, depressing the talk button on his walkie talkie. “All eyes on Boone. We go on Boone’s call.”
2.
5:03 A.M.
Bowie didn’t respond on his radio because he was down on the street in his soaked rags under the sagging cardboard boxes, disguised as a homeless man. His ear piece masked by the stained woolen cap he wore. Answering a radio call would only draw unwanted attention to his person.
He shifted his weight inside the cardboard box. He’d been camped out here overnight, watching the RV. Occasionally he’d catch a cramp and have to straighten out an arm or leg. It hadn’t been comfortable, but he knew when the dawn came they’d do what they’d come to do, and then it would all be worth it.
Bowie had watched the tall cloaked man leave the trailer and cross through the rain to the bodega. Something hadn’t been right about that shit. Bowie wasn’t able to make out any of the guy’s features from where he lay inside his box, not without making it obvious he was scoping the dude. All he’d been able to tell from where he lay was that the guy was extremely tall, was covered up, and there was definitely something nasty about him. Was it a vampire? And how could that be, a vampire out here in the morning like this, even if it wasn’t much of a morning with the rain and all?
Boone swaggered down the block, in his work boots and baggy jeans, flannel jacket shirt pulled closed. Bowie watched him and
wondered where Boone was going. He sure wasn’t heading for the RV.
And then Bowie had it. Boone was going to stroll right into the bodega behind the guy from the RV, check dude out.
Shit. Bowie had to shake his head and snicker because that took balls. And if this was a crew of vamps they had staked out, what kind of vamp came strolling out into the day, even an overcast day like this one? Something they’d never seen before. And there was Boone, going to check it out.
Nah, thought Bowie, the tall guy wasn’t a vamp. Probably just one of their slaves.
Still…
When Boone passed his box Bowie held out his hand and muttered something. Anyone watching would have thought he’d asked for money.
What he’d said was “Man the fuck up.”
The look on Boone’s face, thought Bowie. Like a kid heading down the stairs on Christmas morning to see what Santa had left under the tree. Fuck. He had an idea where this was going, and it wasn’t anyplace good.
Bowie gathered his army surplus blanket around himself and over his shoulder, concealing the Colt SMG muzzle down, taut on its sling pressed against his side. His cut-down assault rifle was loaded with a 20-round magazine, which made it easier to conceal out on the street.
He sat up on the sidewalk and watched as Boone walked into the bodega, then he stood slowly and purposefully limped towards the end of the line of people outside the RV.
3.
5:04 A.M.
“He’s just going to walk in there like that, huh?” It sounded like a question, but Santa Anna was talking aloud to himself and Gossitch didn’t answer.
“How tough is that kid anyway?”
“He can control it, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
4.
5:05 A.M.
A normal person would be terrified to know for a fact that vampires and other creatures of myth actually existed. The relatively few who were aware that vampires did indeed walk the earth would have been bewildered and frightened by the idea of a vampire that could walk outside in the day, even on a clouded over, rainy one. A normal person would have high-tailed it away from the bodega, the block, and this entire afflicted neighborhood.
Boone was not normal.
With near to a thousand milligrams of exogenous testosterone pumping through his blood stream, fueling his muscles and aggression, he sauntered into the bodega, looking for trouble.
“Eh, son, give me a pack of Marlboro, box,” he told the turbaned clerk behind the plastic shield that encased the register area of the store. From the safety of his bullet-resistant cage the man was watching the two white men in his store and listening to some kind of music Boone had never heard before.
The song didn’t interest Boone much. Just more towel-heads yakking on in their own bullshit language.
While he waited for the smokes Boone cased the joint. There were no aisles, just a room with four walls, two shelved from top to bottom with a variety of dry goods, bagged chips, and household cleaning products. The dust on the shelves and the products was thick and undisturbed.
Boone knew there were hundreds of bodegas and little delis like this around the city. Slip the guy a fifty under the glass and if he knew you and trusted you he’d slip you a half gram of coke just like that. Everything else was to keep up appearances.
Boone considered slipping the guy a fifty but decided against it. Neighborhood like this, white boy like him might be mistaken for an undercover. He already had what was left of an eight-ball back in his apartment anyway, if Stash hadn’t hid it. Where was Stash anyway? He had a way of showing up when Boone was thinking of doing something stupid.
Mohammad here or whatever his fucking name was had one eye cocked all warily on him and the other guy, his alert up.
There was a soda cooler plugged into the wall near the door where Boone had walked in. He’d passed it and the cloaked figure that stood before it walking over to the clerk. The man from the RV was standing in front of the cooler and Boone wondered if it was figuring out what it wanted to drink or if it was checking Boone out in the reflection from the sliding door.
Boone had his back to the thing now and he didn’t much like the feeling, but he figured the vamp wouldn’t attack him here in the bodega. It had no reason to.
Even if it did, Boone had his shirt jacket unbuttoned, the Smith & Wesson under his arm accessible, his hand hovering near the silver-dipped stake hanging from the lanyard off his shoulder, concealed inside the flannel. He had knives sheathed grip-down under each pants leg and he wore a Glock 17—identical to the ones Gossitch and Santa Anna and the other guys in his crew carried—at the small of his back.
Boone figured he could plug the bloodsucker before the fucker knew what had happened. By the time homeboy comprehended its situation it would be too late, the silver coursing its way through the vamp’s blood to its heart and brain, the vital organs, homie dead right there, just like that.
A heap of dust on the floor. That would be that.
The clerk asked Boone if he wanted anything else in heavily accented English.
“Yeah, chief, one second.” Boone turned and walked over to the cooler. The vampire wasn’t going to attack him. Unless it was provoked.
“Yo homes, pass me a chocolate milk, a’ight?”
The vamp—Boone had no doubt this thing was a bloodsucker, he’d known it as soon as he’d entered the bodega, its presence, he had a sixth sense for i.d.-ing these things—it just stood with its back to him. It didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“Homeboy.” Boone stood behind the thing, turned to his side, presenting less of a target if it struck. He kept one eye on the cloaked freak and one eye on Saheeb. The camel jockey had to think something was up—two Caucasians in his shit hole of an establishment at once? What were the odds…
“Yo, I’m talking to you.”
He voiced it as a challenge and if the bloodsucker wanted to throw down here, Boone was ready to pin its undead ass to the fucking wall with the quickness. The thing had four inches on him but Boone carried more muscle on his frame and had no doubts in his mind that he could take the fucker out.
“Hey, please,” the clerk behind the glass had a Pakistani or Indian accent. Boone couldn’t tell which and couldn’t care less. He didn’t see much difference between those peoples anyway. “No problems in my store, okay?”
The thing at the soda cooler turned slowly and faced Boone. Even from a distance of less than five feet its face was cast in shadow from the boonie hat it wore. The shadows seemed to be swirling around its face, inviting Boone to look and get lost in their hypnotic gloom. Boone knew vampires, knew what they were about, knew how they could suck you in if you weren’t careful. So he watched its hands as he stepped up to the soda cooler. Its hands were gloved in thin black leather. Looked like calfskin.
Boone watched the vampire’s gloved hands and walked right up to it and now he could smell it. Its odor was rank, sweat and something else…the grave? Boone didn’t think it was his imagination but the air around the thing was chillier than the rest of the room. He had to be sure, so as he rolled the door to the cooler back and leaned over slightly to reach inside, he looked into the shadows of its face as he spoke.
“Damn son. No Quik.”
The thing by the soda cooler said nothing as Boone retrieved a Coke, walked back to the counter, paid the clerk for his drink and smokes under the glass, took his change and left the store.
5.
5:08 A.M.
Boone hit the street and his adrenalin was pumping. Party time! He turned the corner out of site of the K-car and walked a couple of yards before stopping and leaning against the side of the bodega. The Christmas lights blinked overhead.
He slipped the pack of smokes into one of the outer pockets of his flannel and saw the nose of the Pontiac poking around the side of a boarded-up beauty salon. Hamilton and Jay waited in it for Gossitch’s go. Somewhere beyond them Madison waited in the van.
Boone checked the bottle cap.
It thanked him for drinking Coke. He hadn’t won shit. He took a slug of the carbonated sugar water and thought it would taste better in a glass with ice and Bacardi.
Boone looked up and spied Stash on the corner across from him. The apparition was just standing there like it often did. Stash had a way of just showing up and hanging around. No one but Boone could see Stash, a fact that didn’t bother Boone. Stash had always been coming and going, as long as Boone could remember.
He’d wave but the ghost would ignore him.
The little bell on the bodega door chimed and Boone casually turned his head. The tall vamp was making its way back across the street in the muted glow of the morning, through the rain, which wasn’t as heavy now.
Boone saw how Bowie was in line about five people back from the RV’s rear door.
He spat out a mouthful of the soda and upended the bottle, pouring the amber liquid out onto a sidewalk already darkened with rain. He looked across the street to the corner but Stash was gone. Boone drew his M29 and held it straight down by his side in his right arm where no one in the RV or on the line could see it.
The vamp disappeared through the front door of the trailer and the lights of the Pontiac flashed twice.
It was a go.
Boone’s black work boots destroyed the red and green reflection that the Christmas lights cast in a puddle as he stepped from the sidewalk to the street and strode to the RV.
6.
5:10 A.M.
“It’s a go!” Gossitch repeated into the radio, cranking the K-Car up and shifting it into drive.
The Pontiac’s engine roared to life, its tires squealing as it caught on the rain-soaked asphalt and darted forward through the intersection.
The front door to the RV opened and a black woman, all skin and bones and kinky hair, stumbled out of it to the street, stuffing a wad of greenbacks into the pocket of her daisy dukes.
I Kill Monsters: Fury (Book 1) Page 2