The Bloodspawn

by Michael McBride

  “We sell pens.”

  “Pens?”

  “Not just the ball pens that you’ll find in every store in the world, but nice pens. You’ve seen Cross pens, right?”

  “I got a pair for graduation.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, truthfully, they’re not quite as nice. We get them in volume from Taiwan, but in addition to those pens, our customers have the chance to win five thousand dollars.”

  “Hence, International Awards.”

  “Bingo,” Shane said, pointing at Scott.

  “How much do you charge for these pens?”

  “19.95 for a set of four, but they always receive one of our four fantastic awards.”

  “Fantastic?”

  “Sorry, man, I’m in work mode.”

  Scott chuckled, “And what would that award be?”

  “Ninety- nine percent of the time they get a nice feaux opal broach, but one in every twenty thousand wins the big one.”

  “Five thousand bucks.”

  “Right.”

  “So these people are lured into buying the pens by the hope of winning five thousand dollars.”

  “We call them ‘mooks’.”

  “Classy.”

  “Did you come down here to insult me, or what? Not everyone inherits their daddy’s business, tough guy. I make ten percent of every sale. That’s close to five thousand bucks a week. I barely work forty hours and I’m driving a brand new 3000 GT. If you can top that, please do. Otherwise, get to the point.”

  His smile had faded to a scowl, his hands falling to the desk in front of him where he leaned forward, somewhat menacingly towards Scott.

  “Relax,” Scott said, shaking his head. “I just came down here to see what you were up to these days. I ran into your mom earlier today and she said that I could find you here.”

  “Well, okay then,” he said, his smile returning.

  “We’re all just about to knock off for the night. Can I buy you a drink or something?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Can I offer you another form of recreation?” Shane asked with a curious glimmer in his eye as he opened the top drawer of the desk and pulled out a small mirror and a glass vial.

  “Thanks anyway,” Scott said, watching as Shane tapped the contents of the vial onto the mirror in two straight lines of white powder. Capping the vial, he slipped it back into the desk and pulled a one hundred- dollar bill from the desk.

  “We use these as incentives,” he said, holding up the bill momentarily before rolling it tightly into a small straw.

  Placing it into his right nostril, he lowered it to the glass and deeply inhaled the first of the two lines. Sniffing back the run off, he tilted his head back as his eyes began to water furiously. Swallowing hard, he licked his teeth and switched nostrils, inhaling the final line. The welling tears forced his eyes shut as he brought both fists to his face to rub them.

  Finally opening his red rimmed eyes, he licked his finger and rubbed it across the mirror, picking up the remnants of the dust that marred his image as he stared intently down at it. Contented, he rubbed his finger beneath his upper lip across his gums and slid the mirror back into the desk.

  “I prefer my sugar in my coffee,” Scott said somewhat uneasily.

  Shane burst into a laughing fit that boomed and echoed throughout the hollow office.

  “You know, pal,” he said, rising from behind the desk and walking towards him, laying his arm across Scott’s shoulder. “I’ve really missed you.”

  “Same here,” Scott faked, rising from the chair and stepping towards the door.

  “So what have you been up to lately? Found yourself a lady?”

  “Not just yet. I’ve been working a lot.”

  “That’s no reason not to have yourself a woman,” Shane said, opening the door and stepping out into the main room. All of the phone operators were staring intently at the clock mounted on the wall, pensively staring at Shane as he entered the room.

  “I thank all of you for your hard work today, and I expect more of the same tomorrow.”

  None of them moved as they all just stared at him.

  “Who was our top seller today?”

  One of the men in the suits piped up from the back of the room. “I’ve got one with six back here,” he shouted.

  “I’ve got one with seven,” another called.

  “Ten here,” a slender woman in a skirt suit chimed in from just to his left.

  “Can anyone beat ten?” Shane shouted.

  There was a chorus of ooh’s and ahh’s, but it appeared that no one could.

  He pulled the hundred dollar bill from his pocket and straightened it our, folding it lengthwise down the middle and brushing it off on his pant leg. Handing it to the woman, he nodded approvingly as she passed it on to a rather meek looking middle aged man. He rose from the desk, nearly knocking over his almost completely filled ashtray, and gave a curt bow to the rest of the group who clapped and hooted before beginning to file through the side door that opened into the parking lot on the side of the building.

  “Can I talk to you for a moment, Mr. Corso,” the brunette in the skirt suit said, taking him by the arm. Her bright red nails ran up and down his thigh as she gave a gentle tug.

  “Why don’t you give me a few minutes to wrap things up here,” Shane said, looking to the woman. “I’ll meet you outside in say… ten minutes?”

  She shook her head, licking her ruby red lips.

  “Give me fifteen,” he said, allowing himself to be led into the office. Scott could see him walk around to the chair behind the desk and sit down in the chair. The brunette followed him, dropping to her knees behind the oak desk as he opened up the top drawer once again.

  Scott whirled towards the door, a sudden and embarrassed redness rising in his cheeks. Walking past the rows of now empty desks towards the front lobby, only the supervisors in their suits remained, wiping clean their chalkboards and sifting through the white recipe cards that contained their contacts. Breezing through the wooden door and across the darkened lobby, he stepped out into the howling wind once again.

  The flakes had gotten larger since he had first gone in, blowing straight from behind him as the bitter wind raced down the front slope of the Rockies. Rolling, black clouds choked out every ounce of light from the sky, the only dim rays filtering through the night from the street lamp across the street in front of the vacant docking bays of what appeared to have once been a small shipping business.

  His previous footsteps were already filled with snow in the walkway as he bounded towards the Cherokee, his hands shoved tightly into his pockets. He could see Harry watching him intently from the vehicle, his palms raised upwards in a “what happened” gesture.

  Throwing back the door, he hopped into the warm car as the heat burst past him, dissipating across the whipping wind.

  “Well?” Harry asked as Scott closed the door.

  “We’re meeting him for drinks.”

  “Did you tell him anything?”

  “No.”

  “So what’s going on then?”

  “He’s got some, uh, business to take care of really quickly and then we’re going to follow him to some bar or something.”

  “Okay,” Harry said dryly, staring through the front windshield as the wet snow caked the glass in patches, their warm breath fogging it from the inside.

  They sat in silence for several minutes; both of them too tired to try to force the conversation. The green digital display of the clock on the dashboard slowly crept by, fifteen minutes passing as though it had been thirty.

  “How long did he say he was going to be?” Harry finally asked, breaking the silence dulled only by the heat blowing from the vents in the dash.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Scott responded, staring down at the clock.

  Movement to his left, across the street, caught his attention. Rubbing the steamed window with his elbow,
he watched as the brunette who had led Shane into the office appeared through the front door. She turned her key in the lock on the glass door, giving the handle one final tug to ensure that it was locked. Turning back to the night, she lowered her head from the snow the swirled around her as she buttoned the top couple of buttons on her blouse and zipped her jacket up to right beneath her chin.

  “Oh,” Harry mused. “I understand.”

  Scott just chuckled to himself as with Shane that was how it had always been. Growing up, no matter where they had gone, be it the mall, a party, or the youth group their parents often used as a punishment, Shane had seemingly never left alone. It was apparently his gift. He had that certain mixture of confidence and cockiness that most seemed to find irresistible. He’d never been able to understand it, nor had he ever tried to emulate it.

  The woman ducked around the corner and into the parking lot, walking out of view behind the corner of the building. A plume of smoke appeared over the flat roof of the warehouse; the dull glow of headlights appearing just before the car as it drove to the end of the lot, throwing on its right blinker. Pausing for a moment, the car turned onto the slick street, the rear end bucking back and forth for just a moment before gaining traction and heading off into the night, the red squares of the tail lights slowly fading into blackness.

  Glancing at the clock, Scott stared at the edge of the building, waiting for any other signs of movement. Beyond the building, the foothills rose steeply towards the cloud covered mountains, the white capped masses of pines and other tall evergreens standing out sharply against the pinkish hue of the stone quarry carved into the steel slope behind them. One minute turned to five, and five to fifteen, as Scott and Harry took turns staring from the side of the building to the clock to each other. Finally, he shot Harry a somewhat concerned look and shoved the gears into drive.

  Their headlights flashed across the front of the building, reflecting blindingly off of the front glass doors as the popped up slightly on the opposite curb before straightening out and heading in the opposite direction. He slowed at the entrance to the parking lot, staring through the waves of flakes that gusted straight towards them at the sole car in the darkened parking lot. It was clear in the back, nearly around the back of the building at the edge of the eight- foot tall chain link fence that surrounded the snow filled parking lot.

  Climbing over the curb, Scott guided the car into the deserted parking lot, square patches of lightly snow- dusted asphalt lined either side of the lot from where the cars had been parked for most of the day, their tracks matting down the snow in criss- crossing lines.

  A thin line of smoke plumed from the tail pipe of the snow covered 3000 GT. The front windshield wipers dredged back and forth, piling the snow into a thick frame around the window. The inside of the fogged vehicle was completely dark, though they would have seen little through the darkly tinted windows regardless. Hanging drifts of snow sloughed from the roof of the car, exposing small patches of the cherry red paint job beneath.

  Flashing his lights a couple of times as he slowly cruised through the lot, Scott waited for a response. The packed snow crunching defiantly beneath the rolling tires, they stopped right next to the Mitsubishi, flashing the brights through the windows to verify what they could already tell: the vehicle was empty.

  Scott looked over at Harry, who wore the same puzzled expression. “I’ll be right back,” he said, throwing open the door and hopping down into the snow.

  Passing through his own headlights, he cupped his hands to either side of his face and peered through the passenger window of the 3000 GT. A series of red lights glowed from the dashboard within. There was what appeared to be a briefcase on the floorboards in front of the passenger seat, a pack of smokes and a pair of empty bottle atop it. But there was no one up there, or lying down in what passed for the back seat of the car.

  Steering his gaze from the vehicle, he looked towards the side of the building, noting the small door to the side where all of the employees had exited earlier. With a nod back to Harry, he lowered his head and squinted his eyes against the wet flakes that pounded him along the fierce wind as he jogged across the matted snow along the walkway towards the door. Gripping the knob tightly in his right hand, he yanked on it, his shoulder nearly popping out of the socket with his more than adequate force, but the door wouldn’t budge. Turning the knob in the opposite direction, he tried again, this time with a little more subtlety, but it was locked.

  Harry rolled down the window of the car and leaned his head out, cringing momentarily as the frigid air nipped at his bare face.

  “Locked?” he called over the wind.

  “Yeah,” Scott responded, jogging back over to the car, stopping just shy of the open window.

  “What do you think?”

  “He’s got to be here somewhere.”

  “And you checked the car?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The back seat?”

  “You couldn’t squeeze an adult back there if you tried.”

  “Do you think he ditched us then?”

  “The thought crossed my mind, but he wouldn’t have left his car, especially with it running.”

  “Did you try the doors?”

  “No,” Scott said, looking back towards Shane’s car. “But I guess I’d better.”

  Turning, he could hear the whir of the raising window behind him as he loped around the front of the car and onto the curb, hopping back down on the other side of the car and standing at the driver’s side door. Giving one last look to Harry, he grabbed the handle and opened the door.

  A wall of heat rushed towards him from the inside of the vehicle as he stared within. The windows were completely fogged now, making it nearly impossible to see out of the vehicle. Grabbing the headrest of the driver’s seat and using it as leverage, he leaned into the car, not sure of exactly what he was looking for. It was always possible that Shane was so doped up that he had forgotten his car and had just ridden of with the brunette. That wouldn’t be completely unlike the Shane that he had once known.

  Shaking his head, as he saw nothing that would be of any help whatsoever, he pushed himself back to his feet. The fingers on his right hand innocently rubbed his damp palm as he stared down at it, innocently wondering what would have caused it to become wet. The thin patch of fluid on the tough skin of his palm was much darker than he had expected to see, figuring that it had just dampened from the falling snow.

  Leaning back under the roof of the car, he inspected the seat, but the dark cushioning just blended into the darkness of the car. The dim rays of the overhead light did little more than just swell into a light globe around the bulb. Reaching towards it, he flipped the switch next to the light, turning it off before finding the third position that made it brighter. Looking back down at the seat, he could see it this time. Large splotches of red that nearly covered the entire seat, sloppy handprints of the dark fluid dripping from the leather steering wheel.

  “Harry!” he shouted, slamming his the back of his head against the rim of the door before finally pulling his head out.

  Harry just stared at him through the front window of the car.

  “Harry!” he shouted again, this time flailing his arms.

  Scott could hear the dim hum of the window as Harry rolled it down from the inside, so he shouted once again.

  “Harry!”

  The whirring of the window ceased as the door popped open and Harry clambered out of the vehicle, jogging over to where Scott still stood by the open door of the car.

  “Jesus,” Harry muttered, slipping past Scott to get a look into the car.

  Scott scanned the white ground, the only light from his headlights as it crept beneath the 3000 GT, dully passing through the tinted windows, but there was nothing. Walking away from the car, he had gone a good ten feet before finally finding what he was looking for.

  There was a matted portion of snow that almost looked like a snow angel, the arms and legs flounderin
g in the packed snow. There were droplets of red throughout the impression, and surrounding it on the pristine snow. Following the red trails, he headed straight towards the tall chain link fence, following the metal ringed surface towards the top. A coiled roll of barbed wire looped through the top rungs of the fence, the sharp points of the metal spikes glistening in the night.

  Tattered shreds of clothing hung from the wire where the body had been raked across the jagged barbed wire.

  Shedding his jacket, Scott jumped, throwing it over the barbed wire atop the fence and began it climb. Scaling it as quickly as he could, he threw his right leg over his jacket, using it as a shield between his privates and the sharp metal as he climbed over, hopping down to the frozen earth beyond.

  He could hear the rattle of the fence as Harry hit it full tilt, climbing up and over just as Scott had done. Glancing back over his shoulder as he dashed across the snow covered field into the foothills, he made sure that Harry was over the fence. Hitting the first grove of pines, the ground beneath his churning legs rising more steeply with each successive step, he wove between the densely packed trunks. Darkness closed in from all around him as whatever dim light pierced the heavily cloud infested night sky was blocked by the thick mat of needles above his head.

  There was nothing to go by; no red spotted ground or a channel carved into the crusted snow from the dragging of a body, just the ghost of a voice in the back of his head that urged him on. His legs burned as the cold night air rattled icily in his lungs. Frantically scanning from one side to the other, his eyes tried in vein to peel back the darkness enough to make out even the most vague outline of his vanished friend.

  “Scott!” he could hear Harry’s muffled voice cry from somewhere behind him, but he didn’t have the time to stop, or enough wind in his heaving chest to respond.

  He knew that if he had any hopes of ever seeing Shane alive again, he had to find him right now as he had seen first hand the speed with which Matt was capable of killing. Somewhere, deep down, he already knew that he was too late.

  Throwing his hands in front of his face, he burst through a mass of scrub oak, the barren branches covered with a thick shield of ice. His clothing snagged on the sharp extensions, raking his forearms as he hurdled the clusters of thin trunks, nearly falling flat on his face in the pristine snow of the clearing beyond.