by Bryan Smith
Hearing all this was more than a little creepy. It wasn’t every day you learned that a mysterious supernatural creature had been stalking you for the better part of a year. He supposed it didn’t matter much anymore. She’d drawn him in, as she put it. She had turned him. It was done and there was no going back. It was best to just accept it and let her show him the way from this moment forward.
After all, he didn’t want to wind up like that “insolent child.”
She patted him on the cheek again. “Smart boy.”
This time David didn’t even cringe. The thoughts she’d read would reassure her that she’d made a good choice. And that felt really, really important at the moment. Right now he was her prized new pet, but she had him on a short leash. He sensed it wouldn’t take too many mistakes to cause her to reassess her choice.
So don’t make any mistakes, motherfucker.
And yet…
There was one more thing he had to know. “You remember at the mall, when you told me it was my choice, whether to go with you or not?”
Her eyes glittered with amusement. “Yes.”
He forced himself to say it. “That was a lie. Wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Well, that pretty much said it all. It was what he’d suspected. And given the circumstances, pursuing it was less than useless.
She elaborated a bit anyway. “It’s fun to play with helpless things.”
“Okay.”
“You learned that for yourself tonight, didn’t you?”
He grimaced. “Right. Yeah. I guess I did.”
“Good. Now then—let’s eat.”
They got out of the car and started across the parking lot toward the bright lights of the diner. It was a cool night, a fact emphasized by the stiff breeze that roughly brushed his face before shifting direction. He shivered and noted a chill was beginning to prickle his flesh again. It was disconcerting to realize how short-lived the warmth provided by draining out a human body was. Narcisa was “surpassingly” old. It was little wonder her secret place doubled as a mass grave that could rival any other in history.
Thinking of that wretched place prompted another question. “Why are we driving anywhere? Couldn’t you just magic us to wherever we need to be?”
“I find driving soothing. I like the feel of the wind in my face. And I like the throb of the engine vibrating through my body. I like the sound of tires on the open highway. It’s all so very…mmm…sexy. Few things are more sensually satisfying than driving a finely tuned automobile.”
David said, “Huh.”
A doorbell jingled as Narcisa banged through the diner’s front entrance. Heads turned at the counter as they came strutting inside. Well, Narcisa strutted. David followed stiffly in her wake, his eyes darting in every direction, his nerves buzzing even though he knew there was virtually no chance anyone here could harm him. On the plus side, there weren’t many people in the diner at this hour. A pudgy, gray-haired woman sat on a stool behind the counter near the cash register. She was reading a paperback romance novel and didn’t look up as they entered. David guessed she was in her fifties. A younger man dressed in white was visible in the open kitchen area behind the counter. The cook, presumably. A skinny Mexican janitor moved a wet mop in slow circles over the tiled floor at the far end of the dining space. A waitress in a short skirt was bussing tables as they came in, loading dishes onto a black tray. The waitress was a slender woman with tired, red-rimmed eyes and the kind of blonde hair that came from a bottle, age probably just a shade south of forty. The only customers present were the three at the counter, all of whom were grossly overweight. Their massive bottoms overlapped both sides of the stools upon which they were sitting. Their bulging bodies strained the cheap Wal-Mart clothes they wore. Two were jowly, red-faced men, and the other was perhaps the single least attractive woman David had ever had the displeasure of setting eyes on. It was obvious the trio were all related somehow.
He couldn’t suppress a smirk.
The family that dines together, dies together.
The gray-haired woman behind the register glanced up from the romance paperback as they approached the counter. She squinted at Narcisa for a moment, then her eyes went wide with shock. She dropped the book and hopped off the stool, instinct propelling her backward until her back met the partition separating the counter area from the kitchen. The stool toppled over and struck the floor with a clatter.
Narcisa beamed at the terrified woman. “Well, hello. We meet again. Long time, no see.”
The woman opened her mouth wide and screamed with everything she had.
David cringed.
Murder and the joys of sadism were things he’d come to appreciate, but all the screaming that went along with those simple pleasures was a thing he could see tiring of in a hurry.
Narcisa glanced at him. “I didn’t kill them all that night back in the ’70s. This caterwauling hag was barely out of her teens then. Back then she was a hard-working young waitress. But now, apparently, she’s paid her dues and gets to sit on her fat ass all night. It warms the heart to know she made the most out of the second chance I gave her back then. And all she had to do to earn that chance was slit her manager’s throat.” She smiled at the gray-haired woman again. “I suppose you left that part out of your account of the incident to the police, eh?”
The woman screamed throughout this speech.
David glanced around, becoming decidedly nervous again. Everyone in the place was watching them warily now, eyes shaded with confusion and heaping helpings of mistrust. One of the obese trio, the woman, shoved another thick strip of bacon into her mouth as she watched them. David had a sudden urge to seize her and fill her throat with every scrap of food in the place, just keep shoving it all in until she choked on it.
The waitress shot glares at each of them as she hurried to the counter and tried to engage the screaming woman. “Martha! Martha! What’s wrong? Who are these people?”
Martha pointed a shaky finger at Narcisa. “It’s her. The murdering bitch who killed all my friends in the ’70s.”
The waitress’s eyes narrowed with obvious skepticism as she appraised Narcisa again. “Martha…this girl’s barely more than twenty. She can’t be the—”
Martha resumed her screeching: “IT’S HER!”
The two fat men at the counter glanced at each other. One of them wiped grease from his fingers with a well-soiled napkin and said, “Somethin’ funny’s happening here.”
The other one answered, “Uh huh.”
David guessed the trio’s combined IQ might just reach the triple digits.
The waitress managed a strained smile as she addressed Narcisa. “Ma’am, maybe you and your friend should just go. Martha’s overworked and tired and needs to calm down. We’re awfully sorry for the inconvenience.”
Narcisa giggled. “Oh no, we’re not leaving. You see, she’s one-hundred percent right. I killed Martha’s friends way back when, with a little assistance from her, and now I’m back to further reduce the moron population.”
The cook emerged from behind the partition. He clutched a large caliber revolver in a meaty hand. “Get out before I call the police.”
Narcisa rolled her eyes. She leapt cat-like onto the counter, then dropped down on the floor behind it. This happened faster than anyone could blink. She pried the pistol from the cook’s big hand, pointed the barrel at his face, and squeezed the trigger.
BAM!
The bullet blew a big hole through the center of the man’s face and a bigger one out the back of his head. A spray of blood and bone fragments sailed over the partition and splashed on the sizzling oven on the other side. His big body dropped like a rock, toppling backward against a sink and knocking over stacks of just-cleaned glasses, which rolled off and shattered on the floor. Suddenly everything was chaos and noise. The Mexican janitor dropped his mop and made a run for the door. David intercepted him before he could get there. The man fought hard at first, landing a so
lid, hammering punch to the side of David’s head that would have turned his lights out if he’d still been human. But David the vampire was unfazed. He grabbed the man’s wrist and spun him around. The man continued to struggle as David drove him down to the floor. He took the feisty janitor out of the equation by breaking his legs. The loud snapping of bones was very satisfying. He then left the broken man squalling on the floor to deal with the waitress, who was the next to try for the door.
He got there well ahead of her, leering lasciviously as he blocked the door. “Sorry, not happening. We’re just getting started.”
Her eyes filled with tears and looked even redder than before. “Please…I have a kid.”
David smirked. “Your kid had a mom.” He chuckled. “Notice the tense I used?”
She fell to her knees before him, hands clasped together and held toward him. She looked like a penitent in church begging God for forgiveness for some transgression. “Please…please…” She shuffled closer toward him on her knees, tears etching lurid tracks in her mascara. “My baby…”
“You’re pathetic.”
David seized a handful of her hair and wound it around his right hand. She clutched at him and buried her face against his leg, her tears quickly soaking the fabric of his jeans. David tightened his grip on her hair, flexed his fingers, preparing to rip a hunk of it from her scalp. In the last instant before he would have done it, he felt one of her hands slide up his inner thigh and grip him by the crotch.
He smiled at her. “Ooh, now you’re speaking my language.”
She gave his balls a gentle squeeze and looked up at him with hope shining in her eyes. “Please…I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll make it nice. I promise.”
He kept smiling. “I bet you would. You look like you know what you’re doing down there. Then again, most shitty dive waitresses double as whores, don’t they?”
She didn’t let the abuse sway her, just kept stroking him through his jeans. She made sounds that mimicked sexual arousal. It was irritating. He’d never heard anything so transparently fake.
He snarled and yanked his arm up with sudden, devastating force, ripping fake blonde hair from her head along with a large chunk of ragged, bloody scalp meat. He had an instant to savor her wails of agony before something started hitting him. It felt like getting punched repeatedly. Hard. He heard the reports of the gun an instant later.
Holy shit, I’m being shot.
The blasts propelled him backward against the door. His knees buckled slightly but he didn’t fall. He glanced down. His chest and stomach were riddled with oozing holes. Another shot whizzed by his head and ricocheted off the doorframe. He looked up and saw the obese, bacon-gobbling woman he’d regarded with such disdain aiming an automatic handgun at him. An open handbag sat on the counter near her almost empty plate. There was a look of smug satisfaction on her jowly face as he gaped in disbelief at her. Of everyone here, she was the last one he would have expected to offer any serious resistance. She squeezed the automatic’s trigger again and another hole punched through his chest and exited through his back. He felt unsteady on his feet and realized the bullets had blown the glass out of the doorframe. The fat woman squeezed the trigger one more time, but this time the only result was an empty click.
David summoned a shaky smile.
The woman’s smug look began to crack as she realized he didn’t seem to be dying. To her credit, she didn’t immediately lose her cool. She ejected the gun’s empty magazine and reached into her purse. David frowned. How much ammunition could this woman possibly be carrying around?
He didn’t get to find out.
Narcisa leapt over the counter again and landed agilely next to her. She seized the big woman from behind in a chokehold and gave her neck a powerful twist. There was a loud snap and she released the woman’s body, which toppled forward and crashed into a table, sending chairs, condiment bottles, and salt and pepper shakers flying. The dead woman’s male relations remained glued to their stools, their mouths hanging open in shock, their eyes shiny with grief and disbelief.
Narcisa looked at them. “You two won’t be trying anything stupid, will you?”
They looked at each other.
One of them licked his lips and said, “No, ma’am.”
The other one said, “Nuh uh.”
Narcisa smiled. “Good. Stay where you are.”
She moved past them, reached over the counter, and seized the still-cringing gray-haired woman by the front of her blouse. Martha started screaming again as Narcisa hauled her over the counter and began dragging her toward David.
David’s head tipped backward as he watched them draw nearer. He felt achy all over, throbbing twinges in his joints and at the back of his head. It felt sort of like having a bad case of the flu, minus the fever. He would’ve welcomed a fever right now. His bones felt like they were turning to ice. His heart began to slow as a crippling lethargy overtook him. It felt like he was dying.
Narcisa said, “You’re not dying. Not yet.”
She was a few yards away now. Martha was still struggling, but Narcisa controlled her with impressive ease, propelling her forward with one arm bent behind her back. David’s head lolled forward as the two women came to a stop within a few feet of him. Martha changed tactics, lashing out at him with her free hand. Sharp fingernails raked across his face, opening gashes in his flesh that only dribbled a small amount of blood. David blinked slowly and dragged numb fingers over his shredded cheek, frowning at the miniscule flecks of crimson visible on his fingertips.
He blinked again and squinted at Narcisa.
She looked…fuzzy. Like something from a fading dream. Yet the intensity of her ice blue eyes allowed him to maintain some semblance of focus, penetrating the cloud descending over him like a halogen lamp penetrating dense fog.
“You’re hurt, David. You need to drink. Now.”
The fingernails of Narcisa’s right hand lengthened and became talons, then ripped open the captive woman’s neck. Blood jumped from the ragged wound, splashing the front of David’s stolen shirt. Narcisa’s nostrils flared as she glared at him over one of the dying woman’s shoulders.
“Drink. Take her. Now.”
David didn’t need to be told again. The smell of the blood was powerfully intoxicating. The heady aroma made his eyes pop wide open as it filled his nostrils. He grabbed Martha by the front of her shirt and yanked her toward him. She managed one more gurgling scream before he snapped his mouth open and clamped it over the still-gushing wound. He lapped up blood with an eagerness and greed that far exceeded even the horrible, aching need he’d experienced after being released from the chains. He made hungry sounds deep in his throat as he drained the blood from her in barely more than a minute. Martha’s corpse fell away from him and dropped to the floor with a heavy thud. He wobbled a little as he pushed away from the ruined door, grinning broadly as the infusion of hot blood woke up every nerve-ending in his system. He felt instantly wired and eager for more, as if he’d just snorted up several lines of really high quality cocaine. It felt like he had lightning in his veins. The rush was incredible. Mind-blowing. He had to have more, more, more, now, now, now.
He touched his face, felt thin scars where fresh gashes had been mere moments ago. He ripped his shirt open and examined his belly and chest. There were puckers of raw, healing flesh where once there’d been holes. The wounds continued to heal as he stared at them, the puckers fading and giving way to unblemished, healthy skin. It was a miracle. He frowned. No. That was the wrong word. It was a religious word, purely the province of the holy. And he was unholy. He should be dead, but he wasn’t. No, wait, he was dead. He started laughing. It was so confusing. And yet liberating. The most glorious thing about it was that he didn’t much care. Life and death? Those were mortal concerns. He was like Narcisa now. A vampire. He was going to live—well, exist—forever. And he could do whatever he wanted. That kind of made him a god, didn’t it? He laughed harder. So maybe it was a mira
cle after all.
Narcisa was laughing, too. Giggling, really. She sounded more like a naughty schoolgirl than an ages-old mass-killing supernatural creature. She was staring at him, very intently, and he realized she seemed to be reacting to the mad gleam in his eyes. One thing was very obvious—she liked what she was seeing.
She abruptly spun away from him and fell atop the wailing janitor. Her mouth opened and her head snapped toward his neck. There was a sound of ripping flesh and soon bright red blood was flowing all across the white floor tiles. He watched her slurp blood from the twitching Mexican for a moment, feeling the hunger grow inside him again.
Then something caught his eye.
He grinned.
The waitress.
He’d almost forgotten about her in the wake of the fat woman’s assault, but now he was pleased to see she was still in play. A bullet had winged her in the shoulder—nice aim, you stupid dead cow—but she was still alive. And still possessed of enough fighting spirit to make another go at escaping. That also pleased him. It would make things more fun. He remembered the feel of her hand caressing his crotch through his jeans and decided he’d make her finish what she’d started. Then he’d kill her. Maybe he’d kill her first and then violate her. He grew even more excited at the thought, thrilled by how wickedly decadent and powerfully evil it made him feel. There was no reason he couldn’t do that. He wasn’t human. He was beyond morals. He could do anything at all and it wouldn’t matter one fucking bit.
She was crawling across the floor, making slow but steady progress and leaving a trail of blood behind her. She was nearly to the counter. Poor thing. He imagined the tentative beginnings of hope she must be feeling now, how it must be burgeoning inside her, becoming more real with each passing second, with each hard-gained inch of ground. Her likely escape route wasn’t difficult to deduce. She would stay on the floor once she got behind the counter, then make her way into the kitchen and flee via a rear exit. She might even have made it if she’d been just a little bit faster while he was distracted. He trailed after her, treading quietly, not wanting to draw her attention just yet. He wanted that hope to grow inside her just a little more, until it was a fire consuming her—right up to the moment when she was certain freedom was in her grasp. He tingled with anticipation at the thought of crushing that hope.