by Lewis Aleman
“Yeah,” I answer before I can remind myself to keep quiet and not play his game.
“Well, late in the night we got on the topic of you. Care to guess what she had to say?”
“Wish my friend Ruby were here so we could both strangle this filthy vampire in his sleep.”
Flashes his fangs for a moment and then turns his mouth back into a storyteller’s smile, “How about ‘I only keep her around as man-bait. She’s pretty enough to bring the men in, but she’s so boring that they all end up with me instead.’”
Nights flash before my eyes where that situation did happen. Many times I was sitting at the bar or a booth—somewhere out of the action. Guys would introduce themselves, sit down, talk awhile. Eventually they all danced. They all drank more. I sat. They did end up with Ambrosia. Me with my pillow.
“You were nothing more than a pretty toy for her to wave in front of the boys—she knew you weren’t interesting enough to keep any of them for yourself—knew she’d have no trouble taking anyone she wanted from you by the end of the night. Used you for your beauty—knew she could abuse your plain, boring personality to steal any man from you.”
“Shut up.”
“Whether I’m silent or loud, it’s true. My silence won’t change it.”
“Liar.”
“Well, if I am, you have nothing to worry about, but the troubled look on your face tells me you know it’s true—know she never really cared about you—just a party favor to make her own night better—never caring about you or your night or you meeting someone. It was all for her. Coming here tonight would be all for you. She’d have everything to lose—nothing to gain. Doesn’t sound like Ambrosia—you know it. She’ll never come for you.”
“Maybe Simon will just grab her then. Maybe he’ll pick her up and bring her here. He won’t let her get away.”
“Maybe, not on purpose anyway. But, she’ll run at every chance she gets. Eventually he’ll put his guard down for a second—thinking about you, worrying about what we’re doing to his precious. Even if he makes it all the way here with her, he’ll have to deal with us when he shows. She’ll run then. He’ll never be able to handle us, but he’d have even less chance of fighting us and keeping a hold on her at the same time. Never going to happen. Never pull it off. Never.”
The trouble must show on my face, because he is delighted. Glowing—pleased with himself. Eyes as thrilled as if he’s feeding on blood through my pain. Bleeding my emotions and drinking them.
“You know he’s dying?”
Shake my head—don’t want to hear what he has to say, but too worried not to listen.
“The injections. The first little concoction was a nasty mixture of viruses and bacteria collected from our romps with the dregs of Decatur. Only got a little of that one in him, but it had an effect.”
Roderick bends down to make eye contact. Try to look at the floor, but he’s unavoidable.
“The second injection’s special—stronger—enough to make you wish you were dead.”
“He’ll come. He’ll come for me no matter what you did to him.”
“He’ll try, but dead men can’t walk very far. And, sadly for you, dead vampires can’t walk any farther.”
His pointed smile can’t get any wider, and he rises to his feet, turning away from me and toward the door. He stops with a hand on the doorknob and looks to me over his shoulder.
“You know, Ruby, if Simon dies before he can get to you, I’ll give you a little taste—a little shot of what we put into him. I know you young lovers want to experience everything together; it’d be only fitting to send you through the same hell that killed him.”
Two-story, 10-foot-ceilinged building constructed like a child’s boxy, rectangular popsicle-stick house. Lopsided and leaning, waterline still visible on the side—it’s a stained reminder of the devastation the city’s suffered and a glaring warning that no one who ventures through its rotting doorway ever recovers from their afflictions.
Hard to believe such a giant, rotting mess doesn’t topple over sitting on nothing but cinder blocks.
Ambrosia sits huddled, tucked as far beneath the car dashboard as possible. Doors locked—alarm on. She shouldn’t be in there long. This is definitely going to be messy. Painful. But fast.
The crooked steps creak, bending under my boots. The porch is uneven from one board to the next—rotting and leaving the trespasser feeling like he may crash through its sagging floorboards with every step.
Door handle is missing—just a hole—dim light leaking through it into the night. Hand slides over the door—different layers—paint peeling like a snake shedding its skin. Shove it open. Door chirps loudly as it squeezes out of its warped frame, sounding a warning like a raven foretelling doom.
Long, narrow room. Couches enclose two sides of a coffee table at the far right corner. Stairwell is off to the left of them. If I know Edgar, he’ll be upstairs.
A large man with a girl sitting at each of his sides stares at me. One other man sits on the other couch, too focused on inhaling what burns in his hand to look away from it.
Large one gets to his feet. Dark sunglasses reflecting the dim light of the lone, hanging bulb in the center of the room.
“Whatchyou want here?” he asks.
“Looking for someone.”
“We don’t do dat here. This’s a invitation-only kinda party, son.”
“I don’t need an invitation, and I didn’t ask you if I could come in—just came in.”
“Can’t come in here like dat, boy—all busted up. How we know you ain’t dripping the hiv everywhere?”
Almost forgot my wounds haven’t healed yet—still look pretty raw.
Walking toward me, stepping over the coffee table, “Don’t want none a dat in here. Nah, you turn yoself round and get right out dat door before sumtin’ bad happens to ya.”
“Don’t want to hurt you, big boy, just need to find someone.”
“Ain’t nobody in here wanna be found.”
“Coming in anyway.”
“Looks like you already been beat down tonight. Sure you wanna go again, punk?”
“Never judge the wounded until you see what they’ve walked away from.”
“It’s yo ass, white boy.”
Hard to resist the urge to point out he’s white too—almost as white as a vamp—almost.
He barrels toward me. Taller than me by about six inches. Heavier. Much. He throws his punch. Slow. Sloppy. But powerful.
Crack him hard in his jaw before his punch is halfway to me. Pain stings through my fist. His arm drops to his side—he falls back toward the floor. Blood runs out his mouth. Must’ve bit his tongue.
Heavy body slams against the wooden floor—causing it to flex and creak. Glasses flop off and land high on his forehead. Eyes shut.
Look to the three on the couch. Girl moves across the space where the big guy was just a moment ago, sitting herself next to the girl on the other end. She extends her hands, waiting for her turn in what they’re passing around. Other guy still hasn’t looked in my direction.
Start up the unlit staircase. Don’t know what horrors lie in the darkness—what twisted souls that might want to harm me—cut me—shoot me—tear into my veins. Don’t really care as long as the one I’ve come for is here. Polluted veins, harsh fangs, and all.
Staring at the blacklit ceiling fan, glowing tape on the tips of its blades, spinning and swirling as a thin glowing ring in the darkness. The last orb of light in the pitch.
All of it is suddenly blacked out by shoulders like mountains wrapped in a thin gray shirt. Its edges glow, illuminated by the black light behind. The shirt is spattered with crimson, a bleak, bloody sky rained down upon by the battered moon of his head—bruised, busted, and bleeding. An angry sky dripping onto a helpless earth.
In a flash, as if an earthquake threw this mountain range of flesh into motion, arms fly at my throat, hands grab my collar and yank me to my feet with the incredible speed of h
aving my name called at judgment day.
The junk that I smoked makes my arms heavy and my knees buckle. Takes all my strength to hold my head up, but those two burning eyes that pierce me demand my attention.
“Too gone to help Roderick jump me tonight?”
Try to talk—my mouth doesn’t cooperate.
“Saw you there earlier—heard you in the alley. Where’d you go?”
“Needed a fix—taking too damn long to take care of you.”
“Thought Roderick gave you your fix. He’s not supplying you anymore?”
Some of his words register meaning as they’re spoken, but it takes a moment to put them all together. He shakes me—trying to knock the words into the right order in my mind. A needle drops out of my elbow and falls to the floor. Don’t remember sticking it in.
Finally the words line up, “Roderick has the good stuff—the new breed. Was gonna give it to me when we had the girl. Was already mad at me because I didn’t report back to him when you sent me after that dead girl—real sweet of you, Simon. Real sweet to screw me like that.”
“Just trying to keep you out of trouble, Edgar. At least for a few hours.”
“Found it anyway—just off Bourbon.”
Hands squeeze tighter on my shirt, stretching fabric—he crisscrosses his hands—digging the collar into my throat.
“Where were you going to take the girl? He has Ruby now—where are they?”
“If—if I tell you, Roderick’ll kill me—you know that.”
“What makes you think I won’t kill you now?”
“Too soft, Simon. Always been too tender. Shame—you coulda been one of us—if you’d only toughened up. You could’ve been the greatest of us all—so much potential, but you’ve turned your back on what you are—what you were destined to be—and instead you’ve become the opposite of your true nature: the anti-vampire. So hung up on Eleni all those years—ruined you. Ruined yourself over some silly girl.”
Hands like lightning at my throat—lifts and throws. My body flings through the air about to crash into the wall above the mattress that lies on the floor—the mattress that I was comfortable on before he came in here.
Head smacks a stud, body cracks into the sheetrock. The dust it stirs up from the wall smells like moldy disease.
Before body hits the mattress below, he’s already struck blood—running from the back of my head.
Speaks in my ear before I even know he’s over me, “That’s right, junkie. All those years. All those years over one girl. One that was taken away from me—one that was gone. I spent all those years in misery over her memory. Imagine what I’ll do now for one that I can still save.”
“What would you do, golden boy?”
“I’d dim the sun to keep it from scorching her, leaving the whole world in the coolness of an eternal autumn. I’d scar the whole earth for her.”
“Do things you’d never dream of just to get another taste of her—would you?”
“You might find out tonight.”
“Slave to it.”
“What?” he asks, his impatient hands grabbing my collar again and yanking me to my feet.
“Slave to love—you’re a slave to her. Are we all that different, Simon? You’re a slave to your emotions—I’m a slave to my chemicals. Is one any better than the other?”
“Mine fills me. Makes me feel alive when all hope should be gone. Makes me know all of this is worth it. What does yours leave you with? What but misery? What but some selfish obsession that helps no one but yourself—reducing you to cowering in the shadows of a falling-apart building filled with the horrors of people ruining their lives and the stench of walls rotting with the diseased fungus of a storm that passed years ago?”
“And what does yours leave you with but sad poetry?”
“Fulfillment, Edgar. Happiness that doesn’t fade. Fire that doesn’t go out. You should try it sometime—if you could keep your veins clean long enough to feel it.”
I try to laugh derisively but choke on blood and the sting of truth.
He pulls me nose to nose, my feet just leaving the floor, “You’re going to help me, Edgar. You fought Roderick once—for a minute you were real—a real person. You know how ugly he is—what he wants to do.”
“He gives me what I need. No one else knows where it comes from—this new breed—you just don’t understand,” not liking the sound of my own voice as it hits the eerie air, glowing with the black light reflected and spinning in the fan blades above.
“One way or another—you will help me,” holding me entirely in the air with just his palms pressed into the base of my neck, his fingernails tap against my throat, threatening my flesh, the black light reflecting in his exposed fangs making them look otherworldly and ferocious, “Starting with where they are now.”
“I’ll take you there. I’ll take you into their little hell, but I can’t get you back out again.”
“Maybe there’s hope for you, Edgar, but if you betray me before I have Ruby, I swear I’ll kill you. I swear it.”
Maybe I can be free of this. Maybe I can have a life—my life, unchained from this craving. I could lead Simon into the house—help him save the girl, bring him to Roderick’s room on the second floor—let them fight it out. Just above—the third floor. Ooh, the things that are on the third floor—the good stuff. Maybe I can find the secret to the new junk—the new breed—have it for myself forever. The girl has something to do with this. I’ll make her tell me. Never need anyone else—just the stuff.
By terror or tooth, I’ll make her tell me…Make her tell me everything…
Ear-splitting, wailing cry.
As I step out the doorway onto the creaky porch with the large sunglasses-wearing gatekeeper knocked out a second time on the floor and Edgar’s arm grasped tightly in my fist, I think how wrong the sound is.
Always heard of the hounds of hell—the three-headed Cerberus, Lovecraft’s Hound, and Gytrash—fangs hungry for human flesh—equally lusting for those that attempt to leave the underworld and those foolish enough to try to enter. As I walk out of one layer of hell, getting this pathetic creature—Edgar—to lead me into an even deeper level of the fiery hive to rescue Ruby, I expect to hear the howl of devil dogs. Their growling and barking would fit—would make sense here. But, this is no dog. Possibly not a natural animal at all.
Its shriek is definitely feline. Unmistakable and chilling—spine-startling—slicing through the late night air.
Ambrosia sits up in the front seat, peering backwards over
the headrest, clasping it in her hands, out the hatch window at something down the street. Told her to stay tucked under the dash. Not a good neighborhood to leave a young, petite thing in an unattended sports car late into the night. Fast car and a girl built to go fast are a tempting combination on this street. Hell, a urine-soaked one dollar bill would be an irresistible temptation to the inhabitants of this street.
Ambrosia was all too eager to tuck herself under the dash before I left her—inside the locked doors with the alarm on. She’s been trembling since I found her in the upstairs bathroom, but her shakes increased when we turned into this neighborhood.
The cat-like wailing has proven too much for her to ignore—even stronger than her fear. Or maybe she just wanted to get a look at what monster might be coming for her.
Press a button and disarm the alarm. Lights flash. Reach for the handle—keeping Edgar’s arm in the other hand.
The shrieking comes again. It is from down the street where Ambrosia stares, but it’s coming closer. Long black gown, skimming the sidewalk at the figure’s feet. Like many New Orleans sidewalks, this one ruptures—rising and falling over the powerful oak roots beneath it, and elsewhere sinking down with the swamp mud below it. The sad figure rises and falls with the terrain—paying it no mind—while its spirit stays low, wounded, and loud—wailing into the night.
Gray and black hair braids begin to come undone underneath frantic fingers trying to hold
the remaining sanity inside the figure’s head.
Katrianna—it’s Katrianna. What on earth has driven her out of her house?
“Katrianna!” I call out.
She responds with nothing but wail—doesn’t even seem to look at me. Looks like she watches a nightmare in the air just in front of her face.
I feel Edgar wiggle in my grip.
“Karianna!” I call again—this time getting her name right.
“Katrianna,” she replies, “Call me what I am—the crazy cat lady.” The sobbing shakes her body.
Let his arm slip away. Rush toward her.
Put my arms at her shoulders. She shakes them away. Her hair hangs in her face, covering most of her eyes that gush beneath them—all of it looking like branches dangling over a moonlit lake.
A quiet, high pitch continuously emanates from her mouth—sounding like her soul leaking out of her. She moves her lips to talk—no words come, but the sound stays constant.
Footsteps behind me. Stumbling and walking away from us down the sidewalk. Point my finger at the sound.
“Stay right there, Edgar. Will be nasty if I have to chase you down again.”
Footsteps stop.
Car door opens and slams.
Point my finger at that sound.
“Ambrosia, stay where you are. Only be a few minutes.”
This sound is disobedient—continues to walk right up to me.
“Simon,” trembles the voice beneath the gray and black dangling strands, “Killed them, Simon—all of them.”
“No,” comes out my mouth with all the breath from my lungs.
“Killed who?” asks Ambrosia, now stopping at my side, “Who got killed? Ruby! Did you kill, Ruby, you witch?”
Putting my hand against her shoulder and pushing her back, “No, Ambrosia, she didn’t kill anyone.”
Katrianna stirs at the sound of Ambrosia’s name. Her hands rising to her hair, parting it in the middle like a curtain opening.
Ambrosia stares at Katrianna’s face—surprised to see such a young-looking woman beneath hair that’s seen so much trouble. Bruises mark her face—already fading, but still there.