Man Made Murder (Blood Road Trilogy Book 1)

by Z. Rider

  But he did: he needed to find a stake. Assuming stakes actually worked—and why not? Apparently vampires actually had to avoid sunlight.

  Holy shit.

  He was losing his fucking mind.

  He could drag that thing out into the sunlight and then stake it. He needed a stake.

  Downtown turned out to be no help. He got directions to a hardware store from a woman behind the counter at a pharmacy and swung by the gas station to fill up on his way. When he got there, the hardware store was just opening, and he went straight to the back, looking for lumber. He didn’t have anything to shape the stake with himself, so he was hoping for some kind of picket, preferably a small, easy-to-wield one.

  The proprietor asked if needed help, and he couldn’t imagine describing needing a stake, so he said he was fine.

  Finally he found what he needed farther up in the store, sitting in a bin near the plastic For Rent and No Trespassing signs: thin wooden sign posts, about three feet long each, pointed at the end to help you shove them in the ground. He brought a handful to the counter.

  Back on the venue’s block, his spot was gone. The best alternative was two blocks up. He circled for twenty minutes, waiting for something with a view to the alley to open up. He had time—the biker wasn’t going anywhere.

  There were people in the alley now—roadies it looked like, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee in the sunshine. One of them stood not four feet from the thing under the bus.

  Parked in front of the pizza joint, Carl slouched in the driver’s seat, his fingers resting on the bottom rung of the steering wheel, his head turned to watch the alley in the breaks between passing cars.

  Crazy stuff, Soph. Crazy stuff.

  She hadn’t liked vampire movies. Found them too ghoulish. He remembered when she was four, she had this thing where she pulled her sheets all the way up to her chin, because maybe if a vampire came and he didn’t see that she had a throat, he wouldn’t bite her on it. He’d been more of a Westerns fan himself, always wanting to go to the pictures to see the cowboys. Indians—that’s what had scared him, their whooping and tomahawks. Scalping. The thought always made him shudder.

  Vampires.

  As he thought of those old movies, his forehead slid slowly toward the glass of the side window.

  His fingers slipped from the wheel.

  Seventy-some-odd hours with nothing more than catnaps to keep him going caught up with him in the morning sunshine, and he wasn’t even aware of the blackness rushing in on him until it was too late.

  4.

  * * *

  Footsteps approached the bunkroom. In the dark, Dean inhaled, tasting the scent of whoever was heading his way. He found light sweat from someone who’d only had a sink bath after the last show. The subtle pulsing of blood under skin.

  The curtain rustled before lifting at the corner. Shawn crouched, resting his chin on his hand, hanging on to the edge of the berth. Aftershave. Coffee in his exhale. “Hey.”

  When Dean said hey back, his voice rasped like he hadn’t used it in years.

  “We’re sound checking in fifteen. Meet and greet later this afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  “You feeling all right?”

  “Think I’m coming down with a bug.”

  “Are you good for this?”

  “Yeah, just let me piss and wash my mouth out.”

  “There’s a sandwich on the table for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  Shawn didn’t move. Neither did Dean. He’d rather the curtain be pulled shut again—let him lie there in the darkness.

  “If you can’t do it,” Shawn said, “let us know. We’ll have Teddy handle sound check. Anything else—”

  “I’m there.” He rubbed his face. “I’ll be fine. How are you doing?”

  “Fine,” Shawn said, but he seemed tired. After another moment, he said, “See you inside.”

  The curtain dropped back into place.

  Shawn didn’t close the bunkroom door. Faint light filtered through the edges of the curtain.

  Dean dug his hand from under his pillow, leaving the knife for the moment. He rolled onto his side and opened his palm. The skin looked sickly, but the cuts—the cuts were the same dull, dead gray he’d seen in his neck. He was rotting from the inside out—whatever had gotten into him was making its way downward.

  He put his nose to the cuts, inhaling a faint, sweet, fermented meat odor.

  Rotting from the inside fucking out.

  He clenched his hand shut. He was dying inside, and he was damned if he was going to do it lying on a thin mattress while some other guy played his guitar. His songs.

  They’d talked about pulling out one of the Mercy songs for this tour. A jab at the record label.

  They should do that tonight, while he still could. Who knew where this fucking thing was going.

  He rolled out of his bunk, the boots he’d never bothered taking off hitting the floor with a thump. He needed smokes, and he needed to get his hand covered up before anyone saw it. Wouldn’t be a bad idea to change the bandage on his neck too. Aside from being filthy, the tape wasn’t holding so well anymore.

  He popped a cigarette between his teeth and wrapped his hand around the bandaged part of his neck, one eye sneaking toward the sunlit front lounge. It irritated him, just from here. He slipped his gas station sunglasses on before heading out of his cave.

  He’d been engulfed in the dread for so many hours it had become part of him, so he was surprised when he jumped off the bus and the dread eased up a little. Just a little.

  Enough to make him rub his chest, like he could feel congestion breaking up in it.

  He banged the venue’s back door, the sun hot on the back of his neck, and slipped inside as soon as the opening was wide enough.

  The congestion broke even more when the door closed behind him, and by the time he’d found his way to the stage door, he could almost breathe again.

  Shawn’s voice was saying, “Check, check,” through the mic. He swung the stage door open.

  Yeah—tonight was definitely the night to do that song from Mercy.

  “It lives,” Jessie said. He had his guitar strapped on, a plastic beer cup in his hand.

  Dean picked up his guitar, slung the strap over his head. “What are we doing?”

  “Boiler,” Shawn said—and to Janx behind the soundboard on the other side of the room, he said, “Can I have a little more in my monitor?”

  “How about ‘Sidelined’?”

  Shawn looked at him. “Yeah?”

  Dean shrugged. “Fuck it, why not?”

  “I’m game,” Jessie said.

  “Game with what?” Nick was recapping a water bottle. He set it on the floor.

  “We’re pulling out Mercy apparently,” Shawn said.

  “All right. ’Bout fucking time.” He bounced the hi-hat pedal. Shawn tweaked a peg. When he was ready, he gave Dean a nod.

  With a nod back, they started into it.

  They’d run through it in rehearsals the week before, so it was still fresh in their fingers. It came off easy. Smooth. Real.

  When they finished, Janx called out, “Heavy,” from his board, and Dean could hear the smile in it. It was nice. Fuck High Class Records.

  5.

  * * *

  Carl jolted awake to the sound of idling engines. He sucked back drool pooling at the corner of his mouth. Dried spit tugged at the skin on his cheek. He sat up, cotton-headed and sweltering, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

  The afternoon sun beat through the windshield. The back of his shirt was soaked through. His brain had been replaced with steel wool, prickly and irritable. He was confused for a few seconds over where the fuck he was or what was going on.

  A bicycle whizzed by, one of those gazelle-like ten-speeds.

  His bladder set off an alarm as he shifted. He straightened a knee that felt like a rusted-shut hinge. Shoving his hand through his greasy hair, he squinted towa
rd the alley. Bus still there, so there was that.

  He needed to piss. Needed to get a fucking drink before he died of dehydration, and maybe eat something.

  He stepped out of the car and into the street. He looked like a fucking bum. No doubt he stank like one too. He straightened his back with a grimace. The pizza place was in full swing, the aroma of baked dough and melted cheese making his insides twist with hunger. He ducked back into the Cougar to grab a change of clothes.

  After a sink bath in the tiny stall of a restroom at the back of the building, after deciding the clothes he’d been wearing could just go in the trash—especially the undershorts—he sucked down two colas and a couple of cheese slices, sitting at a table right in the window, where he couldn’t see far enough into the alley to keep an eye on the bus but could see fans stopping at the mouth, lingering to talk amongst themselves before moving around front—to get in line, he guessed, or get their tickets before finding their own dinners before the show.

  It struck him that he was going to be around for a Man Made Murder show, and three years ago—man, he would have loved to go to a Man Made Murder show. Bands didn’t come where he lived; you had to drive up to Albuquerque for that, and he hadn’t had the Cougar then. He did have two parents and a sister, though. Wished he’d appreciated that a little bit harder at seventeen.

  Yeah, he was going to be around for a Man Made Murder show, but it wasn’t likely he’d see it.

  So he wondered instead what it looked like when you staked a vampire—was it going to burst into flame and disintegrate to a pile of ashes, like in the movies? Was it even going to be as easy to stake him as they made it look?

  The leather jacket was going to be a problem—another reason why he couldn’t just stake the fucker where he was. It was zipped up, and the zipper was pressed against the belly of the bus. As he wiped pizza grease off his fingers, Carl decided you could technically stake a vampire from behind, but the leather jacket was still a problem.

  Three guys huddled at the mouth of the alley, nodding toward the bus, bumping each other with their shoulders.

  In all likelihood, Carl thought, when you staked a vampire, he bled and he died, and everyone would think you’d just killed a man. And then you’d go to prison, and everyone there would think you were off your rocker when you told them your story of revenge against the vampire who’d killed your little sister. They’d probably fuck him up the ass while they made fun of him, and that would be his life, for the rest of his days, however long that lasted.

  But he’d know. He’d know what he’d really done.

  He dropped a tip on the table.

  6.

  * * *

  Sound check ran long. They were having too much of a good time—they pulled out a few more Mercy tunes, ones they hadn’t rehearsed, laughing as they lost their way, fumbled back. The longer they played, even without the heat of stage lights, the more they perspired. The stronger they smelled. By the third time through “Josephine,” Dean had an edge in him—restless and pacing, like a caged lion. He wiped his brow, grabbed the cold beer Teddy brought him. Tried to drown the restlessness with a big gulp of it.

  It hit his throat and he started coughing, his stomach lurching. He spat what hadn’t gone down his throat onto the floor.

  “All right?” Shawn asked.

  “Fuck. I should’ve started with the harder stuff.”

  Nick grinned from behind the kit.

  His stomach rebelled. He hoped to fuck the harder stuff didn’t do the same because right now he needed a fucking drink. He coughed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “I think that’s a good sign to let the other band have a few minutes of their sound check.”

  The others were grinning as they set their equipment down.

  Teddy was there to take the guitar. His fingers brushed Dean’s shoulder as he lifted the strap.

  The edge inside Dean reared up, and Dean pulled away, slipping free of the strap and guitar, walking away fast without a word. Clenching his damaged hand just to feel something besides the demon rocking in him.

  “Food’s on the way,” Jessie said as Dean passed through the dressing room.

  “Save me some,” he said, his stomach wrenching at the thought.

  He found Nick around the corner, chatting up a chick with Farrah hair and a beauty mark on her cheek, her lips like pink raspberries. Sidling up to him without getting close enough to touch, he said, “You got any of that JD left?”

  “Hi!” the girl said with a smile, the gum she was chewing even pinker than her lips.

  “Nada,” Nick said. “Mike’s got drink chits, though.”

  Dean wondered if Mike had enough chits to get him a whole bottle.

  “Oh, hey, I like that,” the girl said, reaching toward Dean’s wristwatch.

  He slipped away before her fingers could touch it. “Thanks,” he said to Nick, getting away from the bubblegum and the sweet berry scent of her lip gloss, the dark earthy notes pulsing underneath.

  Thieves’s sound check bled through the walls.

  He found Mike, asked for chits.

  “You look like shit, you know.”

  “Yeah. It’s just a bug.”

  “So you’re going to use these for orange juice?” he said about the two tokens he dropped in Dean’s hand.

  His stomach clenched as the cloying sweetness of that thought splashed through his brain.

  “Sound check was good. You’ve got a meet and greet in a few,” Mike said, and before Dean realized what Mike was doing, Mike had a hand to his forehead.

  Dean reared back, stumbling over his own foot. “Don’t think I’m gonna make it.”

  “You don’t feel warm.”

  “I’m just wicked run down. Vitamins and some rest, and I’ll be good for the show.”

  “All right. Get on the bus. I’ll send someone with juice. Go on.”

  He went on, straight through the door to the main hall, music blaring as he crossed into it. Ignoring the band on stage, he made a beeline for the bartender, who was pulling bottles out of a cardboard box.

  “Whiskey, double. Put it in something portable.”

  While he waited, he watched Thieves start then stop a song, their electric piano cutting out on them.

  He slid the chits across the bar and took his drink. Headed back out the door while the other band crouched around the Wurly, trying to get it running again.

  The sun was an orange tint low in the sky when he shoved open the venue’s back door. He ducked his head, keeping his eyes on the ground. He made it to the bus with only traces of an irritated headache, fumbled his bus key out of his pocket, got himself inside, half stumbling up the steps. Dread tightened his chest again. Fuck it. Fuck it—he was alone. He could sense no living thing on the entire bus, and he was closed in on all sides. He could live with the dread if it got him a respite from the restlessness.

  The bunks, once he shut the doors on both ends, were blessedly dark, and the low throb of the nascent headache at the back of his eyes went away as quickly as it had come. He raked the curtain open and sat on the edge of his bunk. Tossed the whiskey back and closed his eyes at the trail it warmed down his gullet. No queasy stomach from that. Thank God for some favors.

  When the whiskey stopped burning his nostrils, he picked up a smell again. One he’d gotten used to overnight. He lifted his palm to his nose, sniffing the bandages. It was that—but it wasn’t from that. It was all around him.

  Actually, it wasn’t a smell at all; it felt like one because it was high up in his nostrils. Not like the tickle of a sneeze. Just…a sense.

  He pulled to his feet and walked toward the back lounge. The sense in his nostrils faded a little—even more so once he yanked the flimsy door between the lounge and the bunks shut. He sat on the couch, feeling for his cigarettes, still holding the empty plastic cup in one hand. He was going to need more of what had been in that cup. A lot more. When the orange juice showed up, he’d send the runner back to the bar.

&
nbsp; Why did it all have to get fucked up now? Those fucking Mercy songs—they were going to blow people away. And here he was falling apart, just when they were ready to start bringing them out.

  He had to hold it together for this one show, just one fucking show. Then maybe check into a hospital. Find out what was wrong with him, before it really did kill him. He was fucking losing it.

  7.

  * * *

  Evening bled across the late afternoon. Traffic congealed. Activity around the bus, if not at the bus, picked up. One of the guys from the band had staggered out of the venue, not looking too well, and climbed on board about ten minutes ago. And in the time since, Carl had paced. And watched. And gritted his teeth in frustration—a roadie came out the back door and opened one of the bays under the bus to dig for something. Fans stopped, some of them brave enough to walk right up to and around the bus, their sneakers passing where the biker was nestled.

  Carl wondered if maybe he was wrong and the biker had maybe in fact bled to death there under the bus. He’d hunkered down to the ground—a good thirty feet back from the bus—to take a look, and he couldn’t tell anything from that distance.

  No, he wasn’t going to know until he reached under there again and tried to grab him out.

  Three more goddamned fans wandered into the alley, talking about the bus, wondering if the band were inside. Daring each other to knock.

  Given what had happened last time, he was thinking it’d be best to go for the biker’s feet. If he could get the ankle that was hooked around the under-workings of the bus and pull that out from under the edge of the bus, he’d have the leverage of the bus itself to brace against as he struggled to drag the rest of him out.

  The plan of exposing him to sunlight, however, was rapidly getting away from him.

  The three stakes leaned against the wall of the building opposite the venue in the alley, a women’s clothing store with white mannequins in its windows—dresses, hats, and gloves in the browns, yellows, and oranges of autumn, with a scattering of construction-paper leaves around the toes of their smart shoes.