We walked for a while together, silent. Unable to sense him, I glanced over at him every once in a while to make sure he was really there. I had the odd sensation of walking with a ghost, a figment of my own imagination except for the dust kicked up by his docksiders. The air around us was perfused with the bittersweet aroma of sage. Out away from the clinic and the gas station and the abandoned ruins of its long-lost town, the rough land rolled away before us, broken by the gnarled shapes of junipers here and there, low hills, and sharp fingers and blocks of stone that seemed to have been thrust out of the ground by some angry god. Cloudless, the light blue glass bell of the sky fit perfectly over the ragged foliage and rocky edges of the earth, starkly separating our terrestrial jumble from the pure clarity of the atmosphere. The only sound was the wind and an almost imperceptible whisper of a breeze in the brush.
"Beautiful, is it not?"
"Yes,” I agreed reluctantly. And wiped at my forehead with the already sopping sleeve of my shirt. “But too damn hot."
"Well,” the vampire said, looking over and winking, “it's the sour that makes us relish the sweet, you know.” He paused. “That was quite a slick bit of business back there, I must say, although a little clumsy in the execution."
"At least she's free of you,” I said.
"Oh, yes. Such disapproval. But, really, what was incorrect in my actions? Do tell. She was a lost cause—you know that as well as I. Perhaps better, if my little taste of you was any indication. I did not create her pain. It was already there. I merely profited from it."
"You sicken me,” I said. “You're a parasite."
"Parasite? That seems a bit harsh. I would say, rather, thirsty for pain in a world already full of suffering.” He spread his arms to encompass the terrain before us. “Look around you. It seems barren but, of course, it is not. In fact, this land is filled to the brim with life. Jackrabbits and golden ground squirrels and sage grouse and groundhogs, all snuffling about trying to survive. And the weak are continually culled by the coyotes and the hawks. The endless cycle. And then, behind them come the turkey vultures, carrion eaters who make meals from the detritus of others, who transform trash into sustenance.” He stopped for a moment. “We give meaning to the pain of the world,” he said. “We are the turkey vultures of the human race, transformers of dross into gold."
I laughed. “Very original!” I observed. “How noble of you."
"You jest,” he said, “but yes, in our own way we are the nobility of a pathetic world filled with cringing sheep. At least we do not cringe."
At that point, we came to the crest of a low rise, and I found myself gazing down into a broad depression with an almost unnaturally flat floor, perhaps fifty acres across, with sloping sides except for a low rock cliff demarcating one side. I looked back, and we hadn't really come that far. Even though it felt like we had left civilization entirely behind, the low buildings and ruins were only a few hundred yards away.
"Yes,” the vampire said as he headed down the slope, “you are going to have a rare treat.” After a moment, I shrugged and followed. Why not. I had a syringe of some nasty stuff in my front pocket, and I figured I had as good a chance of killing him in a fight as he did of killing me. But I didn't want to kill him. Not just yet. And I was pretty sure he didn't want to kill me either.
"So,” he said. “What about you? A killer with a conscience? That wasn't the first time. You're too practiced. And you're judging me?"
"I put people out of their misery,” I said. “I'm nothing like you."
"Oh, really?” he said with a flat humor in his voice. “I beg to differ. I would say, rather that I and my friends ennoble pain, the pain of the little meaningless people, the discards of society—only we care about them, when everyone else has forgotten. And afterward, we remember them with reverence, with an intensity that, perhaps, only someone like you, with your special, delicious talents, could understand.
"Whereas, you? You seem dedicated to throwing people away like trash. It would be better for you, it seems, if they did not exist at all. Life is suffering,” he said, with an emotionless intensity, “suffering every moment of every day for everyone. All but members of my clan, of course. To stop suffering, you would have to kill everyone. And how do you decide how much suffering is enough? Is there some neutral scale where you might weigh each person's pain and decide their fate? I do not believe so. This makes you somehow an angel? I think not."
I didn't respond. I didn't have to justify myself.
We reached the flat expanse that was the depression's floor, and began crunching across hard-packed fine dust that rose up and stung my nostrils with an acrid scent. “What is this place?” I asked.
"A playa,” he replied, “an ancient lake, if you will, long desiccated into alkali flats. Thousands of years ago, you should understand, this was a verdant place. Generations ago, native people lived and loved and worshipped here in what, to them, was a magic land.
"Come and look,” he said, drawing me over to the cliffs. And I saw that they were covered with strange drawings and symbols: sketches of animals and dots and spirals and more. I recognized them from the pamphlet I had bought as primitive pictographs. “The language of the past speaks to us, here,” he said, almost with a kind of reverence. “What we have forgotten is carved in these stones. And they understood, while you do not. Look here!” he demanded.
I moved next to him and peered up where he was pointing. Scratched into the rock, twenty feet above us, were four stylized, life-size figures that seemed to be dancing and leaning back from each other, looking up at the sky. Between the middle two hunched a crude, indistinct creature—perhaps a person, perhaps not—and each of the figures had one arm extended down, resting their spindly hands on its back or on the back of their fellows. And from around their heads radiated what looked like rays of energy. “You see,” the vampire said quietly, “you hate us. But it was not always this way. Once we were revered. Or at least accepted—the archaeological record is admittedly contradictory on this point. But what is clear is that we once had our place in the world just like the hawks, just like the vultures, just like cougars that once slunk across this land."
He turned and caught my gaze, and I found, again, that I could not look away. He reached out and grabbed my hand with a steely grip I could not resist. Again, I felt the sick sense of his perceptions slipping through me and out into the land around us, so that he was just barely able to taste, at the limits of the reach of my powers, the tantalizing flavors of the human lives behind us along the highway.
"You have no idea how special you are, what a treasure. I had not even imagined this might be possible. You would be such a wonderful prize to bring home to the clan. We slink around in the shadows, plucking one by one the few morsels of delectable pain we can safely spirit away from the human world. But with you, through you, we could spread ourselves into the spaces around us, experience the myriad sensations of the bustling mass of humanity."
I wrested my hand from his grasp. “I'm not going to join you. I'm going to kill you. All of you.” Okay, again not the most intelligent thing to say. Too many comic books.
He laughed once more, a bit cruelly this time. “Oh, I truly doubt that. You think you can outthink me? No. You are little better than all the rest of the wretched specks of human detritus that contaminate the skin of this planet. I have taken your measure. You are weak, like all the rest, trapped, even with your special skills, in your sniveling little wretchedness."
He turned around and began walking back away from the cliff toward the highway, but after a few steps he turned to me again. “You will join me,” he said calmly, with quiet certainty. “You will join me of your own free will."
* * * *
Confrontation with a Vampire
I stood for a while, maybe a half-hour, not more, gazing up at the enormous multilayered mural of the cliff. I imagined shamen hanging from fragile ropes, chipping away at the rock with primitive tools. The vampire was full of it.
But I think he was right that those people knew something we have forgotten. They lived in a closer relationship with the earth. They felt close to the cycle of the seasons, to the subtle patterns of the rhythm of life. Huddled together in small communities, everyone was known and rarely was anyone ever lost or alone. In such a world, I thought, perhaps there would be no need for a Doctor Death. Maybe there had been a short period of human history, at least, when there could be death without despair, even amidst the most terrible suffering.
But I also knew too well the horror that all men (and it's mostly men) can perpetrate. I had read about the vicious traditions of the Maya, far to the south. The brutalities of warfare and clan feuds and social conflict were honed to a bright sharpness long before even these people lived in this land. Perhaps the pictograph the vampire had pointed out did depict some of his kin in the far reaches of the past. But I didn't think the shaman who painted that image was celebrating. I think he was afraid.
In the distance, I heard the lowing of the bus horn and knew it was time to leave. I hiked across the playa and up the slope. I didn't try to hurry. I knew Arthur wasn't about to let them leave without me.
When I came out of the depression, however, I began to sense that something was wrong. As I neared the highway, as my sensitivity increased, I started picking through the different bodies jostling around in preparation for departure. And, after dipping into a few, I fell into a body wracked with terror.
The vampire had been busy. I shouldn't have left him alone. I couldn't tell who it was from a distance, although the body felt smaller than an adult. But when I finally came into the clinic parking lot, the answer was clear. As the other passengers stood in line to reboard the bus, Arthur stood apart, still wearing that stupid hat, with one hand lightly resting on the shoulder of that kid who was traveling alone, the one with the pitiful cardboard nametag hanging around his neck.
I don't know what he'd said to the kid, but it wasn't hard to imagine. “Look, kid, unless you come with me, I'm gonna kill your parents and your grandparents and.... You got any brothers and sisters? Yes? Well, I'm gonna kill them too.” Etcetera.
I stood and stared with rage at the vampire. Arthur just smiled sweetly at me from across the lot. He put another hand in front of the kid's face, and the kid cringed as he flicked a small survival knife slightly open and then closed. He looked down at the kid and then at me and gave a little apologetic shrug. The message was clear. He was offering a trade—the kid for me. And I knew I had to play. There was no way I was going to be able to kill him before he was able to harm the kid. And I couldn't just kill the kid. He wasn't some old lady who was dying anyway, whose suffering was inevitable.
Arthur and the kid got in line, and I stood right behind them, turning over possible responses in my mind and kept coming up blank. I wanted to scream, or even just to reassure the kid that it was going to be okay. But Arthur was standing there between us, and there was nothing that he would have enjoyed more than to plunge that knife deep into the kid. Neither of us said anything to each other as we boarded the bus. There wasn't any point. The game was in play.
* * * *
A Little Accident
Arthur and his captive slipped into the nearest empty row to the front, forcing me farther back where, after nodding to Teflon Boy who was happily reading to a new victim, I found an empty seat a few rows behind. Now, I thought, we wait.
About twenty minutes later, the second part of Arthur's plan went into effect. After a muffled detonation at the front of the bus, the whole coach slewed back and forth. The flopping sound of a punctured tire reverberated through the metal frame as the driver tried frantically to keep us on the road. People screamed. I thought we were going to flip over, but then we tipped back and slid with a heavy thump into the ditch at the side of the road. For a moment, we all just sat there, adults and kids crying, people moaning and swearing. The guy in the vest shouted out, “What the hell is wrong with this bus company?” and I almost laughed.
"Okay,” the army guy shouted from the back, “this is what we're going to do. If you're okay to move without jostling somebody who can't, get the hell off the bus. I'm going to follow behind you and see if anyone's badly hurt. Don't, do not, move anyone if they can't move themselves.” His voice sounded resigned, and when I quested back I could feel his almost amused disappointment. I guess he thought he'd be safer out of the war zone. Welcome to my world, I thought.
I was fine, just a little bruised, and most of the people I passed as we shuffled slowly out seemed to be basically okay until I got to the driver, who was crumpled motionless and bloody over the steering wheel. I gave him a quick mental checkover and decided he wasn't going to die anytime soon—not that I had any plans to help him anyway. Somebody needed to get on the radio and call for help, I thought, or maybe somebody's cell phone would work. But none of that was my problem.
I looked around in the late afternoon light as I exited the bus, but I couldn't see Arthur or the kid anywhere close. Then I looked up the slope of the low hill rising beside the highway, and I saw them climbing. When they got to the top, the vampire looked back down at me, eyes glinting, face Botox calm, and then he and the kid moved out of sight over the rise.
I made my way over to Teflon Boy, who was sitting in the dirt playing with some rocks. He looked up at me, a little trail of blood coming out of his nose. I could tell he was basically unharmed. He smiled up at me, wiping his nose and holding the blood up to show me. “Did you know, Mister, that a person's body is ninety-eight ‘cent water?"
I bent over and grabbed his arm. “Come on, big boy,” I said, “we're going on a little trip."
"Okay, Mister,” he said as I helped him lumber to his feet. “I like trips."
I saw his battered novel lying in the dirt where he'd been sitting and I retrieved it for him. “Don't forget your book,” I said. He was going to need it.
Nobody was really paying attention to us as I pulled Teflon Boy down the ditch away from the bus. I could still sense the kid, although increasingly faintly as they walked away from us. After we'd gone about a hundred yards, I had to help Teflon Boy climb up out of the ditch, and we skirted around the base of the hill that the vampire had crested.
I stopped to orient myself to where I'd last sensed the kid. His terror was so intense that even though they were maybe half a mile ahead of us, he still stood out in my mind like a flickering candle. At least he was still alive.
Before we headed out after them, I did what I could to prep myself with what I had available in my valise for the coming confrontation. I also checked to make sure my cell phone had a signal, and I cut some branches of sage away with my knife. Then Teflon Boy and I started trudging into the desert, wending our way around the gnarled proliferations of sage that jabbed and scratched at us at every turn, sometimes slowing down so I could brush away my footprints with the branches where they seemed especially obvious. It was slow going. But I didn't think we had that far to go. The kid ahead of us had stopped moving, and we were beginning to close in on him. Teflon Boy kept chattering away in his familiar low mumble. “Are we playing a game, Mister? I like games. Me and my grandma used to play games....” When we were still a few hundred yards away, far enough that I hoped Arthur wouldn't hear him, I sat Teflon Boy down and told him to wait and to “shut up” if he could, which I doubted. But it didn't really matter.
* * * *
A Rock in the Head
Leaving my branches of sage behind, I headed on alone. I didn't bother to keep quiet. There didn't seem to be any point. But as I headed toward the kid, whose terror became more palpable with every step, I kept a close watch for the vampire. I had almost reached the kid when I heard the crunch of a step behind me. I tried to turn but something hammered into my head, and the next thing I knew I was sprawled on the ground.
He hadn't knocked me out. That's just stupid Hollywood drivel. Very few people have the skill to do that without finishing someone off at the same time, but I was dazed a
s Arthur moved quickly behind me, tying my hands and then flipping me roughly over.
He chuckled coldly, looking down on me. Then he reached down and placed his hand over my face, seeking through me the kid who lay shivering on the ground some twenty feet away. “Oh, yes!” he said triumphantly as he reveled at a distance in the kid's pain. “Oh, you are going to be so popular. I can't wait to get you home."
"What about the kid?” I asked.
"Hey, it's a twofer, stupid,” he said.
"Yeah,” I said, “that's what I thought.” And then I lifted my right leg and swept it as hard as I could sideways into his calf.
He lifted the hand from my face and smacked me on the side of my head, setting my ears to ringing. “Be good,” he said flatly, “or I can make it very uncomfortable for you."
He looked down and he laughed at the dark stain spreading across my pants leg, and on his as well. “Brave killer wets his pants,” he giggled. And then, surprised, he sat down heavily. “Oh,” he said. Then he keeled over.
That's the key failing of vampires, I thought, as I reached into my left sleeve with my right hand and retrieved the scalpel I'd taped there. They tend to be a bit overconfident.
Careful not to touch any of the wetness on my pants leg, I slowly stood and stripped off the gloves I'd been wearing, just in case I'd punctured them in the fall, and pulled another pair out of my back pocket. Slowly, keeping an eye on the collapsed figure of the vampire, I stepped out of my pants and set them aside, grimacing. The rest of this adventure would be conducted in my boxer shorts. I'd forgotten to bring another pair of pants. Not exactly distinguished. I started stripping off the protective garbage bag panels and the fluid-filled Ziploc that I'd taped to my leg and over my feet.
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