Savage Beasts

by John F. D. Taff

  Thomas's face, a blur of white skin and black eyes, appeared in the darkness. She saw blood on his chin.

  He pulled himself from the shadows, let it build his tall, black form. She had to look up to see his face and wondered, not for the first time, if he did that deliberately; she didn't remember him being so tall Before.

  “You don't sound it.”

  She turned away, didn't want him to see whatever might be on her face. “Feel better?”

  “Much,” he said. “The motel…left me spent.”

  It shouldn't have.

  “Good,” she said, looking at Route 15. “If we leave now, we can be in LA by morn—”

  Something within her growled loudly, a growl of hunger, but lower, and she winced.

  “Ah,” Thomas said. “Is that what's wrong? I'd been so busy, I'd forgotten about you.”

  She took a hit off her cigarette and couldn't taste it. Now that it—whatever it was; after three decades, she still didn't really know—had made itself known, she felt the hollow inside her, felt it growing.

  Thomas approached, a swath of hovering black. She'd kept up on the pop culture mythology over the years, watched as the '90s and the millennium added to it, twisting vampires into something romantic, lustful creatures of fate to be loved and cherished.

  Thomas's mouth broke into a grin of nightmarish needle-teeth. “I know what you need.”

  I doubt that.

  Thomas extended his hands, tipped with yellowish talons. With a quick movement, he opened his wrist and thick, black blood—almost an ichor—welled.

  She licked her lips and hated herself for it.

  “Drink this, faithful servant,” he said, and he sounded like he was grinning, “in remembrance of me.”

  She tried looking away but only managed to look into Thomas's face, and his fathomless black eyes captured hers.

  Vampires weren't sexy, but there was a lust for abandonment, the desire to give into the nihilistic thrill of nothing; to finally just give up and let go.

  Patty's mind emptied.

  And she lowered her mouth to drink.

  Velvet on her tongue, rapture in her gut.

  * * *

  John ran.

  Blood.

  Down the length of the motel room, kicking in doors, seeing the dark Cracker Jack prizes that lay beyond.

  Blood on the walls.

  Back to his cruiser, peeling out.

  Blood puddled thick on the plush carpet.

  Rocketing down Route 15, not seeing anything, high-beams staking the black night.

  Bodies on the bed and hanging from the coatrack and the sink and-and-and...

  John ran.

  Eric’s head—mouth gaping and eyes goggling—in the busted picture-tube of the 1980s television.

  From the sights, from the mold-and-sulfur stench, escaping neither.

  Eric, staring at John with dots of blood on his eyes.

  John had no idea how long he'd been stopped, shaking in his seat, when he finally noticed the engine ticking to itself. He looked up and blinked against the light from the high-intensity security lamp shining through the windshield.

  He stumbled from the car, rubbing his eyes until the after-images faded, then looked around. “What the hell?”

  He'd parked behind the truck stop a half-hour west of Mae's. His was the only vehicle back here. Around the front, he heard the deep-throated rumble of idling eighteen-wheelers.

  It didn't make sense, but, then again, none of it did.

  He had to lean against the car to keep standing. In spite of the pungent stink of diesel, the smell of mold and sulfur hadn't left him. It seemed stronger, somehow, than before.

  He forced himself to focus.

  I just left a crime scene. I just left the remains of my brother. My brother.

  A rush of warm shame swept him, but he made no move to head back. His gut churned, but he didn't know if it was from guilt or horror.

  Unconsciously, his hand crept to his St. Anthony medallion. His stomach calmed a little.

  He started across the lot to the truck stop, feeling like his legs were wobbling more than they really were.

  The stop was a restaurant-slash-convenience-store-slash-gas-station. Once inside, he ducked towards the restrooms and thanked whatever god existed that they were empty.

  He rubbed water into his face until it hurt then looked at himself in the mirror. Underneath the buzzing fluorescents, his skin had a sickly, cheesy appearance.

  “You're a handsome devil,” he said. “What's your name?”

  What he had to do, of course, was call it in.

  But how would he explain having been there without reporting it?

  More to the point, how could he face that again?

  He looked down at the sink. “I'll call Steve,” he whispered. “Ask him if he's heard from Eric, yet.” He grimaced as bile lapped at the back of his throat. “He'll assume I fell asleep. He'll believe it. Then...”

  He rubbed his face. How in the hell could he convince Steve nothing was wrong?

  “Because I have no other choice,” he told his reflection and his voice was a little firmer. A little. It would have to do.

  He opened the men's room door and nearly walked into the waitress and cook waiting outside.

  “Jesus,” he cried, grabbing the frame to keep from falling. The door, pulled by its pneumatic arm, smacked his ass, adding the final lunatic touch.

  “You busy, officer?” the waitress said, as if cringing policemen were a common sight. She appeared middle-aged but maintained a 1950s hairstyle and glasses.

  John mentally willed his heart to slow down. “Can I help you?”

  “We didn't know if we should write the guy off or call somebody,” the cook said, his dark face strained.

  John blinked. “Excuse me?”

  “We have a girl—”

  “A woman. Beverly,” the waitress said and, oh yeah, John could imagine her slinging coffee during Eisenhower's reign of benignity.

  I've lost my fucking mind.

  John rubbed his forehead. He almost wanted a migraine to come on, anything to distract him.

  “Beverly,” the cook said. “She went out back to dump some trash and never came back.”

  “Beverly's not the type of person to leave her shift unannounced,” the waitress said. She must've caught the glance the cook shot her because she went on. “Not that we didn't think that was impossible, but then this driver…this driver came in. Said he saw Beverly leave with some woman, but we didn't know if we should believe him. He just came in a half hour ago. Smells like he's had a beer or two.”

  John waited, but when she didn't continue, he said, his patience fraying, “I don't see the problem—”

  “Driver said the woman grabbed Beverly,” the cook said. “Said he thought she put a cloth over Bev's mouth.”

  And John closed his own.

  * * *

  “How do you feel now?” Thomas asked. He'd retreated to the shadows.

  Patty rattled the map across the hood of the car. “Fine.” The hairs on the back of her neck said he was close by. She found Route 15, put her finger on it. “It's only four hours to LA. Put some distance between us and here.”

  “Why?”

  She wouldn't look up. “Do I really have to explain that? Really?”

  “Why not take our time?” He talked like he was grinning again. “We've been doing it for years now.”

  Because I'm fucking tired of your shit.

  “We're only four hours away,” she repeated.

  “Don't you like it here?”

  She beat the map back along its folds. “It's the same as any other goddamn place—”

  Except the motel. Except you went fuckin apeshit.

  “—and I'm tired of them.”

  Silence for a moment.

  Then: “Are you happy, Patricia?”

  A chill swept her.

  He knows. He knows

  “What?” she asked.


  “You heard me.”

  “You haven't called me Patricia in years.”

  Not since the bar and Before and “(I Just) Died in Your Arms”—

  “Answer the question,” he said.

  “What do you mean, Tommy?”

  —on the jukebox and I open my mouth and then it's dark and then it's screaming and we're on the floor and my back's killing me 'cause the table's busted on me and it's the stink of mold and sulfur and Tommy's hands in mine, but I'm still stuck on a moment ago, still thinking, Is he breaking up with me?—

  “That girl,” Thomas purred, and a line of branches broke, too fast for a human to move. “I've always hunted. Why'd you feel the need to come in there and ruin my fun?”

  —and then Tommy's hand is gone and I hear him scream and the stink is unbearable—

  “Because you'd just had a fucking free-for-all at that goddamn motel and, I don't know, it might not be all that smart to hang around.”

  —and I grab something, a piece of table, and I throw myself at where I think Tommy is and I'm stabbing and Tommy's screaming and I'm screaming and that whatever's screaming, but we learned what it was, didn't we, Tommy?—

  Another line of branches, right to left. “Ah, the motel. Didn't stick around for that, did you, Patricia?”

  —and a fire's broken out and I can see and when I get the thing off you, your chest is torn to shit and covered in what looks like slime and all I can think of is fucking scouts and snakebites, like I'm still a fucking kid—

  “I was moving the cars,” she said. “I don't feed. I'm not a vampire. Remember?”

  A thick branch snapped, like a mortar shell. She couldn't help wincing.

  “Every time I look at you,” he said. “Why move the cars? Why move the cars and not turn off the light?”

  —so I try draining the venom, its enzyme—

  “I need something to do, Tommy,” she yelled. “What the fuck am I supposed to do? We agreed on LA years ago, but now we're so close and we putz around?”

  —and it's like cold honey without the sweetness and we figure, later, it must've been sick to come into a college bar like that—

  “Call the police maybe?” he asked.

  —and I get you out of there, and you die, and then come back and kill someone and we know what you are, don't we?—

  Blink, and Thomas stood in front of her, gripped her chin with his solid-cold fingers, so cold it hurt.

  “That's when you came back,” he said, and his black eyes seemed to pulse. “How coincidental.”

  —and when I go to a church, like I'm a little girl again, just to get a moment to fucking clear my head and think this all over, the door handle burns my hand and I know what I am, don't we?—

  Blink, and she was flying, crash-landing, gravel going down her shirt. She looked up and Thomas was much taller, much darker.

  “Aren’t you happy, Patricia?” he asked and his voice was as cold as his skin. “Aren't you?”

  —and for just a second, before I remember how absolutely fucked I am, I consider running.

  And so, thirty years too late, she did.

  * * *

  They led John back to his car, and he felt his brain strip a gear, even as the mold-and-sulfur stink slapped him anew.

  The cook coughed. “You, uh, parked where the guy said he saw Bev get snatched.”

  He was going to scream. His circuits were already fried and this was just too much juice. “Excuse me,” he said, and couldn't help the strangled sound he made.

  He walked back to his cruiser, feeling as if someone had buried a steel-toed boot in his ass. The asphalt around the car was blameless, aside from tar used to seal cracks, but he stayed there, hands on his belt, trying to appear as if he was studying something. He hunkered down, and it was the same view up-close.

  What the hell is going on here?

  The stench was stupendous, cramming his nostrils, but the waitress and cook hadn't seemed to notice it. He'd smelled it as soon as they'd walked around back, and it was only worse here.

  A quiet voice spoke up:

  Only I can.

  He cocked his head. “The hell?” he murmured.

  “You see anything?” the waitress asked, and he winced, tried blocking her out. He felt the end of a thread, dangling right in front of his mental hands, and if he could only grab it.

  I can smell this, but they can't.

  It made his gut churn. His hand went for St. Anthony.

  Did it follow me here? On my clothes? The car?

  That quiet voice spoke up again, the part of him that had stepped aside when he'd gotten out of his car at Mae's. The cop part, the objective part.

  I followed it here.

  He stood up so fast his knees popped.

  “The hell?” he said.

  “Everything all right, officer?” the waitress called, and he winced again. Shit.

  John walked back to the waitress and cook, ignoring their curious expressions. He didn't want to know what they were thinking.

  “Folks,” he said, trying his best a-policeman-is-your-friend grin. It made his face feel molded out of clay. “I'm gonna need you to step inside for a bit while I call this in. I'm designating this area a crime scene until we can fully see what's what.” He dry-coughed, avoiding their eyes. “Don't go too far, though.”

  I sound like an asshole.

  “I'm gonna need your statements, and one from the man who initially reported it.”

  They didn't immediately move, and John was aware of sweat—itchy and distracting—along his hairline. He wanted to shove them, scream at them, get them as far away as humanly possible.

  With agonizing slowness, the waitress said, “Of course, officer,” and she led the cook around the corner.

  John made himself wait until he was sure they were gone, then pelted back to the spot, diving into that awful smell.

  I followed this here?

  No dissent was raised, no alternative theory given.

  How?

  He felt the medallion in his hand and looked down. St. Anthony, finder of lost things.

  He'd lost his brother tonight.

  But a person, slaughtering an entire motel and then plucking this waitress? Who could pull that off?

  Doesn't matter. Not yet. That will sort itself out when it needs to.

  That was the cop part talking.

  He took a great big whiff and smelled the mold and sulfur. Could he still find her and whatever answers she might have?

  He ran for his car.

  * * *

  Now she knew how that stupid bitch had felt.

  She vaulted over a downed trunk as branches and trees broke all around her.

  “Why?” Thomas yelled, as directionless as the destruction. “Why, you bitch?”

  She kept the moon to her right, thinking this godless little patch of nowhere scrub forest couldn't last forever, not in fucking Nevada.

  And go where?

  She ignored that. Eventually she'd break cover and, ironically, she'd have the advantage over him. Thomas was strong, but Thomas wasn't direct. And then he proved her a liar by coming out of nowhere and shoving her. Her feet left the ground, still running. She crashed, somersaulted so hard her neck creaked, and got checked by an outcropping of rock. She felt the give of ribs breaking. The pain, the jaw snap of a great monster, was instantaneous. She screamed.

  Thomas's icy marble hand grabbed her neck and hoisted her off the ground, choking off her cry and whatever wind she still had in her lungs.

  “Who do you think you are?” he bellowed. Blackness had eaten most of his face. “When did you become my keeper? When did you get the right to say what I can and can't do?”

  He shook her roughly. She gagged, his coldness burning her flesh. Black poppies bloomed and died in her eyes.

  “I rule you, you dumb twat,” he screamed. “Own you like chattel! You are my servant, to keep or to throw away!”

  She could feel her tongue protruding from her mouth,
and the ridiculous image of a cash register with its money drawer extended wouldn't leave her mind.

  I'm going to die with that in my head.

  She grabbed the sides of Thomas’s hand. She swung back as hard as she could and then pile-drove her sneakers into his center. It was like slamming her feet into a brick wall, and her broken ribs stabbed inward. Still, the move surprised him and he dropped her. The air her lungs sucked in was cold and delicious. Her hands found a tree, used it to pick herself up, aware of the irony of this; nothing totally human could still stand up. Her limbs shook like over-tightened guitar strings, a heady mix of adrenaline, pain and rage.

  She felt the .38 in her pocket and pawed for it.

  Thomas was entirely black, a hole cut into the fabric of reality, and his voice was that of crushing rocks. “Look how well this has worked out for you.”

  She pulled the .38 from her pocket and raised it.

  “Fuck you, Tommy,” she panted around a mouthful of blood, and pulled the trigger. Thomas doubled over, more from shock than anything else, and she took her chance, bolting to his left and back to the car as best as her ribs would allow. Still, in spite of the pain, in spite of the rage, a lightness grew in her chest, like a candlewick beginning to catch, and she, at first, had no idea what the hell it was.

  The air cracked open with Thomas's bellow. “I’ll rip your fucking throat out for that!”

  It wasn't a tug in the back of her head this time, but an all-out yank that she thought would sweep her feet out from under her. She put more speed on.

  You have to catch me first, you prick.

  * * *

  The cruiser ate up the road, taking curves with barely a touch of the brakes, as John held onto the last vestiges of his conscious mind.

  The mold-and-sulfur stench was all around him now. All his other senses had funneled into his sense of smell, and it made thinking incredibly difficult. A door had been opened at the bottom of his mind and what was clawing out was an instinctual creature, wanting nothing but to rend and destroy.

  Get you. I'll get you.

  But he didn't even know what those words meant.

  In his free hand, he clutched St. Anthony and felt the medallion grow warm.