Midnight Diner 3

by Edoardo Albert

  Gunshots clapped and echoed in the small living space, coupled with the hog-thing’s angry roar. Zabuto and Spencer fired until empty.

  "I’m out!" Zabuto shouted, falling back to eject the empty clip and slap in a new one. Spencer wasted no such time. As soon as her firearm clicked in surrender, she discarded it

  without hesitation, reached around to the small of her back, and pulled out a fully loaded Beretta. With one deft hand, she aimed it straight into the hog head’s mouth and opened fire.

  The creature fell back, dazed, but unharmed. Spencer pulled the trigger again and again, her confidence beginning to falter. "Any time, Jon!" she called.

  "Move!" Jon bellowed from behind her. He rushed past Spencer, using her fire as cover, and extended a hot branding iron. With a growl, he hefted it high and brought its glowing-red end down on the Rawhead’s forehead, right over the brand.

  Flesh sizzled and the clean mark on the monster’s head melted into a garbled mess. Without a cry or rebuke, the Rawhead collapsed to the floor for what it was, loose pieces of bone and meat, Moccus’ spirit no longer bound in the pig-suit.

  Jon stood over the pile of remains, breathing hard and glowing with a savage smile. Spencer cautiously joined him, examining what was left of the Rawhead.

  "That’s it?"

  Jon rasped, "It’s like a golem, right? In golem lore, you remove the mark on the forehead. I thought if we took that hot iron from the pen out back and put it to that brand up on his noggin, maybe whatever hoodoo the old woman’s got on him would be broken."

  "Maybe?" Spencer raised a single eyebrow. "Hey, it worked, didn’t it?"

  Spencer smiled, holstered her weapon and clasped her hands behind her back, professional

  again. "Not bad, Arbigast."

  Jon flushed with exhilaration, looking around the room. "Hey, Zabuto, where—?" Zabuto was kneeling over the body of his great-gramma on the floor.

  The old woman was dead and Zabuto looked on the verge of hot tears. Spencer and Jon moved to his side, but kept a respectable distance.

  "Moccus is gone," Zabuto spoke quietly, "But he took her with him. Punishment, maybe, for failing him. Or for using him."

  The young hunter stood, taking one last pained look at the dead mambo, and walked out onto the front porch. Jon and Spencer traded meaningful looks and followed him. Zabuto simply sat on the porch, his hands draped over his knees, watching the quiet fields beyond the house.

  "She was the last family I had left," Zabuto sighed as Jon and Spencer joined him. He exhaled, trying to make sense of it all. "It’s like I’m cursed or something, you know?"

  "We do," Spencer replied without hesitation.

  Zabuto looked up to face her and saw the conviction in her eyes. She had lost people, too. And Jon. "Yeah. Yeah, I guess you do, don’t you?"

  "That’s why we do this," she said. Her voice was cold, but somehow caring at the same time, a sentiment that could only be shared by victims of like tragedy.

  "If Death follows us," Jon added, with a smirk, "we might as well lead it to the things that need killin’."

  Zabuto tried to smile, but could not. Just sank a bit deeper and went back to looking out over the moonlit countryside.

  Jon scratched the back of his ear, an uncomfortable wince on his face. "Look, ah, Zabuto. Spence and I have been talking it over for awhile now and...well, we’re thinking about putting a group together. A small group, just us and some other hunters that we can count on. Safety in numbers and all of that."

  "What he’s trying to say," Spencer stepped forward, bemused at her counterpart, "is that you’re not alone. Family is more than blood."

  Zabuto sat silently a moment longer, then stood, dusting his jeans. When he turned around to face the two hunters, he seemed a changed man. The color had returned to his face and his eyes were crisp and vibrant again. "Yeah. I’d like that."

  Jon coughed up a laugh, then stuck out his bloody gloved hand. "Well, put ‘er there, partner." Zabuto shook on it, a grin lighting up his face like daylight breaking through a long,

  dreary night.

  Preacher Man

  Libby Cudmore

  Part One: Derringer

  I don’t trust the Preacher Man. I don’t trust him from the instant he gets out of the cab in front of the Warren orphanage, black overcoat slung over his shoulder, paperback Bible in hand. He looks too young, maybe early thirties, hardly old enough to handle a houseful of screwed-up kids. I dry dishes and watch out the window as the cab driver sets down his hard shell suitcase on the porch and he pays him in crumpled bills out of a cracked leather wallet. I stack the last bowl in the cupboard and eavesdrop on his conversation with the redheaded nurse in the hallway. Since the last headmaster hit the bricks, the city sent a steady stream of overworked nurses through the house while the state frantically searched for someone to take over the least-wanted job in town.

  There’s almost no point in hiring a new headmaster. Fifteen years ago Warren converted the empty church into a dumping ground for kids left to the kindness or otherwise of strangers, but these days, with only a handful of kids left, it’s barely worth the cost of keeping the electricity on. What used to house thirty beds and a handful of cribs is now nine beds and a single crib, the office, the Headmaster’s bedroom, the kitchen, the dining room and the den. I’m a leftover from that last full class; I got here when I was seven, gave no one my real name or my sad-sack story. These walls have too many sad-sack stories and mine would be like trying to whisper over sirens. I’m nineteen now; I should have left at eighteen to become a beat girl or a lap-girl or a late-shift waitress at Mary’s, but, even with my stringy hair and small tits, I’m still too pretty to work the midnight shift. Besides, I’ve known too many names on the fourth page of the paper under the headline Dead Hooker Found in Alley. The only real choice is to stay here; I’m the only solidarity in the lives of children with gypsy friends and dead parents. I’ve been sixteen for three years now and no one cares enough to catch on.

  "Who’s that?" Lydia asks, jumping up from her chair. She doesn’t like being more than five feet from me, not since she showed up two months ago after her mother’s pimp beat her head in while Lydia pissed herself in the closet. It’s only been in the last few nights that I’ve convinced her to sleep in her own bed. At least she helps put the plates away.

  "I don’t know," I say. "You want to go find out?"

  She nods and scampers out of the room. When she doesn’t return, I follow her presumed path to the playroom, where the Preacher Man has the kids seated at his feet and his illustrated Bible open. Lydia pushes ahead to the front, staring up at him with wide grey eyes. He smiles down at her and tousles her hair.

  "Make yourself at home," I mutter to Saul. He’s the oldest after me, my unofficial second-in- command. He just shrugs and keeps listening to the story of Noah’s Ark, like he’s never heard it before.

  Jennie and Heather are staring from the back of the room with that stupid glazed look teenage girls get when they fall instantly in love. Brittany is asleep in the sling around Heather, but that doesn’t stop her from swaying back and forth.

  "Don’t you have homework to do?" I sneer. Jennie curls her lip and Heather rolls her eyes. I

  give them that look and they sulk off.

  The Preacher Man looks up at me and smiles with a genuine kind of warmth I haven’t seen since my dad died. I can’t help but smirk back. This’ll be too easy.

  "What do you think, Derringer?" Heather asks on her way out the door. "You think this one will stick around?"

  I shake my head and turn into the hallway. "I think I’ll have his head by the end of the week."

  ~

  After dinner, when everyone breaks for the TV, I leave a stack of dirty dishes in the sink and take Brittany to the back hallway to rock her to sleep. She’s at that stage where she won’t go down easy, and the back hallway, mostly unused, is the only place where the floors didn’t squeak. And yet somehow, the Preacher Man manages
to find me.

  "Dinner was delicious," he says. "You’ve done a really good job taking care of these kids." "Yes, I have," I say before turning back to the whimpering baby. "Shh, Brittany, shh." As

  cringe-inducing as the baby’s cry can be, I’ve come to almost enjoy this new bedtime ritual. I like Brittany’s warm pink skin, her weight against my shoulder, the maternal comfort swelling in my chest.

  "I can take her, if you want," he offers, reaching out his hands.

  "No, you can’t." I kiss the baby’s fuzzy head and hold her closer, as though he’s going to rip her out of my arms. "She doesn’t like strangers."

  "I won’t be a stranger for long," he says.

  "Yeah, because you’ll be out the door in a week." Brittany starts to fall asleep. So does my arm. I hum softly, a lullaby my dad used to sing.

  He leans against the doorframe and folds his arms. "What makes you say that?"

  "No one sticks around here," I say. "The city burns you out, the kids burn you out, you get tired and move on to something easier."

  His smirk is like something the devil painted on his face. "That sounds like a challenge." "You think this is a game?" I turn my back and glare at him over Brittany’s head.

  "I didn’t say that," he counters. "But I think you’re ready to chase me out of here without letting me give this place a shot."

  I turn around and let out the breath burning in my chest. I don’t like admitting that he’s right; I’m embarrassed that he picked me out so quickly. "Why would a guy like you even want this job in the first place?" I demand. "It doesn’t pay very good and you’re stuck raising a bunch of brats no one else wants. You some kind of creep?"

  "I’m here because my church sent me," he answers. "I’m here because these children need someone to watch over them. Just because they lost their parents doesn’t mean they’ve lost their family."

  More logic I can’t argue. After a moment of silence, he clears his throat and changes the subject. "Derringer’s an interesting name—is it a nickname?"

  "Nope." By now anyone who knew my real name from my folder was long gone. I only answer to the nickname my dad gave me—my little pistol, he used to say. My little gun street girl. At thirteen, in between headmasters, I sneaked into my file and retyped the forms so that my name read Derringer, no last name, just Derringer. I’ve gotten puzzled stares from social workers, but no one cared enough to investigate further. It’s no longer a nickname, it’s my identity.

  He smiles, that same warm smile from this afternoon. "I like it. I think it suits you."

  The hallway can’t go on forever and I have to turn back to him. "I’m so glad it makes you happy," I snarl. By now Brittany is asleep and I have an out. I carry her upstairs and tuck her. In the boy’s room I find Saul and Nicholas reading car magazines, Harley in the corner playing with his action figures. "Lights out in an hour," I tell them. In the next room I give the same message to the girls—Heather and Jennie are giving each other manicures and Lydia is coloring in the corner.

  He’s waiting for me in the living room, reading the newspaper. I pick up the cardigan I’m knitting and turn on the TV to the new episode of Murder by Law. He’s smart enough to wait for a commercial before he tries to pick up the conversation. "I understand that you’ve been here a long time," he says. "You’ve been sixteen for, what, three years now?"

  I clip the needle on my wrist and hope he doesn’t notice my break in cool. "Are you threatening me?"

  "Not at all," he says with an easy smile. "I’m not going to tell anyone because I could use your help. I need you to stick around—let’s face it, I’ve got a lot to learn. These kids look up to you, and this transition will go a lot easier if you’re on my side."

  "And if I don’t cooperate?"

  "I’ll pray for you to change your mind."

  He couldn’t have irritated me more if he said he’d kick me out on my ass. I know I can’t win this round by direct methods; I’ll have to try a roundabout way. "Their day starts at six," I recite. If that doesn’t scare him off, nothing will. He keeps listening."You have to be up and ready by five, cooking breakfast. The older ones leave for school at seven-thirty, you walk Harley and Lydia to the elementary school at eight and meet them at two-thirty. In the interim, you clean the house. Saul, Heather and Jennie get in at three-thirty. Nicholas is a math tutor, so he comes home at five. Dinner at six, bed by eight and ten, respectively. It doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, between the laundry and the grocery lists and the tantrums and the bedtime stories and homework help, it’s more than enough."

  He stands up. "Up by five? Guess I’d better get some sleep. You should too." At the door he pauses and adds, "Goodnight Derringer."

  I turn with my mouth agape and he winks. "Lydia told me," he says. "I just wanted to see if you’d tell me yourself."

  ~

  I don’t set my alarm. If the kids don’t have breakfast, they’ll come and wake me, giving me the leverage I need to send him packing. It’s nine when I wake up and find him folding sheets in the laundry room. Brittney, the baby, gums her teething ring in a playpen at his feet, while Harley and Lydia play in the corner with a cardboard box and the felt farm animal puppets I made last summer.

  "Good morning," he greets me with a smile. "How did you sleep?" "Fine," I answer, rubbing my eyes. For all I know, I’m still unconscious.

  "There’s still oatmeal in the slow cooker," he says. "And when you’re finished with breakfast, if you’ll bring me your sheets, I’ll throw them in the wash."

  I don’t know what to say. The grateful part of me is quashed by my refusal to believe that my day of rest had finally come. "If you’re running the washer, I can’t get a shower," I snarl. Immediately I regret my snark. I’m not used to anyone making me breakfast, let alone being this cheerful so early in the morning.

  If I hurt his feelings, he doesn’t show it. "This load will be done by the time you finish break- fast," he says. "Don’t worry, I washed them in cold water—you can take as long and as hot a shower as you want."

  I go to the kitchen before I say anything else obnoxious and help myself to oatmeal and coffee from the percolator on the stove. A few minutes later he comes in, Brittney in hand, Lydia and Harley toddling behind him. He pours himself a cup and asks, "Mind if we join you?"

  "Sure," I say, pretending to busy myself with the newspaper. I’m not ready to apologize yet. He and I don’t talk. He tells the kids a story about Adam naming the animals and Brittney

  falls asleep in his arms. Our silence goes on for half an hour before he stands and whispers, "I’ve got laundry to fold."

  I may not trust him yet, but he’s won this first battle. I stand and set down the paper. "I’ll help."

  Part Two: Salvation

  I catch the Preacher Man putting on his black overcoat one Thursday night in early December, after he’d tucked Harley and Lydia into bed. "Where are you going?" I demand. It’s too late to go to the grocery store and I know for a fact we have milk.

  He gives me a smile that makes me uneasy when I know it isn’t intended to. "I thought I’d try preaching at the bars on Torte Street," he says. "I’ll be late, so you don’t need to wait up for me."

  Something’s not right, but it’s not as though I can hold him back. He says goodnight and walks off, whistling what could be a drinking song as easily as it could be a hymn.

  ~

  I can’t sleep. I put away the dinner dishes, I set the table for breakfast and stare out the window into the city streets. More snow. It’s pretty while it lasts, but it never lasts long.

  I’ve finally gotten so use to the space that he occupies that his absence leaves a tangible hole. He’s been here two months and he hasn’t mentioned street preaching, unless he was going out after I went to bed. I try to remember the sound of a door closing in my dreams, a pair of muddy boots by the door in the morning. Nothing comes to mind

  The clock chimes two and he still isn’t home. I read a chapter in a novel I found in a
recently- donated box of dead girl’s sweaters. I knit a potholder out of the leftover yarn from my cardigan. I cross into the den to work on the miles of mending and the endless buttons to be sewn back on, work usually monotonous enough to put me out cold. Not tonight.

  Glancing out the window, I see a figure stumbling up our walk, and when the mandarin porch light cuts across his face, I realize it’s the Preacher Man. I should have known. Preaching indeed, preaching to Bacchus! I bite the inside of my mouth to keep from crying. I’m ashamed that I believe him, furious that I let him stay on past my one-week promise.

  He beats me to the hallway, leaning against the wall as though it’s all that holds him up."Help me," he gasps.

  I grab his jacket with the intent of making good on my threat and my hands come back bloody. His glassy eyes roll halfway into his head and he pitches forward into my arms. "Derringer... ." he pleads thickly. "Please...."

  Blood drips between my breasts and I try not to collapse under his weight. There’s no liquor on his breath. This wasn’t a bar brawl, he was attacked. Now I’m glad he got to the door before I did or else I’d have the impossible task of explaining to six traumatized children why there’s a dead Preacher on our front porch.

  I get up under his shoulders and we stagger down the hall. He moans with each step; I hope he’s not loud enough to wake the children. He struggles to breathe, but as long as he’s breathing, we’re okay. I guide him onto his bed and leave him alone for only a moment while I dig around in his bathroom the first aid kit. For every step I’m gone, I fear he’ll be lost by the time I get back.

  I peel off his jacket and something heavy hits my foot. I bite back a word that didn’t seem right in the presence of a preacher and kick whatever it is aside. I unbuckle his belt, take his wallet out of his back pocket and unlace his boots, trying to make him more comfortable while I prepare myself for the worst part.

  I slowly open his shirt. I suppress a gag at the sight of the wound, a long cut stretching from his shoulder to the bottom of his ribcage, fringed with thick black clusters of dried blood. I remove the silver medallion from around his neck and notice it’s a pendant of the Blessed Gregory. His chest is a mess of scars, most of them smaller versions of the one he sports now, white as clean pavement against his flushed skin.