by Alan Spencer
“It’s not a fun story. You won’t believe it.”
His friend stubbed out his cigarette and started smoking another one. “All the more reason to tell me. What killed those people?”
Ted gained the courage to put the story into words. “Flying lesbian vampires are what happened.” The phrase would’ve been humorous in any other setting. “My monsters came to life on the screen. You can ask the witnesses. They were real. They killed people.”
Gary’s expression didn’t shift. “Hmmm. Maybe this is a sign, pal. Mid-life crisis is knocking on your door, and you’ve answered. I haven’t heard anything about killings at, what, Iowa University? No, I would’ve heard about it. And flying monsters?—flying lesbian monsters?—that would’ve been front-page territory. Were the deaths a fake publicity stunt? Stan Merle Sheckler is back, ladies and gentlemen, and he has no scruples—again.”
They’ve blocked it out of the news, Ted realized. He threw up his hands in defeat. “You know, I looked it up on CNN, and nothing. Nothing on the web. No articles. Now it makes sense.”
“Did any of this actually happen? Come on, give up the ghost. You’re fucking with me. Joshing me, right? Nice one, pal. Real good zinger. Can I hear the punch line? I'm waiting for it.”
Ted gave up. Hearing himself explain the truth was as outlandish as it sounded. The police had created a media blackout. And it made sense. Who would believe flying vampires were real?
“Yeah man, I’m just fuckin’ with you,” Ted pretended to joke. “The damn reel snapped during the showing. We made it about ten minutes, and they couldn’t fix the problem.”
Gary sighed in frustration. “Ah, that’s the luck. I’ll buy you a drink. Hell, let me buy you ten!”
Ted accepted the drink. After an hour of banter, they both left the bar. Gary headed west to his studio apartment, and Ted returned to his one bedroom apartment in East End.
Two-thirty, and Ted couldn’t sleep. After his conversation with Gary, everything was coming together. Nobody knew about the event because it was kept out of the media. Fifteen people had died, Detective Vickers told him again and again back at the Iowa City Precinct. He was sequestered at a local Holiday Inn while the police sorted out the bodies and the crime scene investigators tested DNA and blood. Detective Vickers had played it straight with him. “Look, Ted, I have no problems with you. You couldn’t have done,” he cleared his throat, “what was done to those people. And you have witnesses. I’ve had to check my ears, frankly. They say monsters with wings were flying through the screen and slicing up their victims and drinking their blood.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what happened,” he'd insisted. “They looked like they were straight from the film. It’s ridiculous, but it’s what we all witnessed, sir.”
“Ah-hah,” Detective Vickers had said, sucking his teeth. “Then I suppose my only real speculation is that somebody has committed a horrible, violent crime. Very intricate indeed. Maybe you’d know of a fan club or followers of your films that would wish to reenact the attack?”
This was Ted’s lifelong failure. “I have no real fans, Detective. My films were seized in 1979 by the Private Film Coalition of Public Morals. It’s a long story. When movies are banned, they’re often considered illegal property. I haven’t had access to the films in over thirty years, and then one pops up randomly.”
“That’s very interesting,” Detective Vickers said. “You’ve just given me something good to chew on. I can understand your grief and confusion. If you can name anybody who would vaguely be considered a super fan or crazed psycho, please call me.”
Detective Vickers believed somebody had recreated the monsters from his film, but from what Ted saw in the booth, that was impossible.
But maybe it is possible. Anything is at this point. The detective has a legitimate point. Why would your movie suddenly show up after so many years, and then this crazy stunt happens?
He stared at the computer screen in his bedroom. He was reading an article from the Anderson Mills Gazette. He’d read it many times. Edwin Maxwell, Professor and Director of the Iowa University Film School, had emailed it to him months ago to explain the circumstances in which his movie landed in his possession. Edwin’s father was an avid collector who had died a year ago and bestowed the films to his son. Edwin also explained that his father was an ex-member of the PFCPM, and had stolen many of the seized reels throughout the years, including Ted’s. Edwin was a fan and apologized for his movies being seized, and in apology, offered a screening at the university in honor of the only salvaged reel from the Anderson Mills Massacre.
Why would the professor create a stunt like that? He’s a fan. He wanted the movies to be seen. It doesn’t make sense.
Then again, maybe the movies did become real.
He relished another nip straight from the whiskey bottle. He read the article about Anderson Mills again—though he’d read it ten times already:
Tragedy strikes the small town of Anderson Mills. Fifteen hundred of the three thousand locals have been declared dead or missing. The sole survivor, Andy Ryerson, has no recollection of the events. Houses are reported to have been broken into and destroyed. Sources claim it to be a terrorist incident, but as of now, any specific information has been withheld pending an investigation…
Andy Ryerson was a familiar name. Detective Vickers questioned him about the young man, but Ted didn’t know the kid until he read the article. The detective asked him why Andy was found brutally murdered outside the theatre. Professor Maxwell had mentioned in the email a prized student had watched the reels in Anderson Mills to write reviews for the DVD release, and that kid was Andy Ryerson.
Did Andy previously survive an attack like the one at the university?
“It doesn’t matter.” He pounded another shot straight from the bottle. “He’s dead now. Nobody believes my story.”
Sometimes I don’t believe it myself.
Ted was drunk enough, his steps weren’t sure, and he stumbled to the closet. Regardless of whether his film came to life or not, he wanted to locate his other seized films. Thirty years was much too long to wait, especially when he knew the property existed.
He removed Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home from the top shelf within the Polypropylene film can and set it on his bed. Then he loaded up the Max-310 film projector. Ted turned out the lights. He flipped the switch to the projector. An uneven white square hit the wall.
He glanced back and forth between the reel and the projector. “Like you’re coming to life, yeah right. That would be truly crazy.” He cackled like a drunk. “Madness.”
Ted pounded back another shot of liquid courage. He wiped what dribbled on his lips and down his chin onto his shirt sleeve. “Thirty-three years of being a broke-ass film critic. I wanted to make horror movies, not write crummy reviews.”
Movie companies were paying out good money for old horror movies for DVD release. Schlock-Shock-Cinema had contacted him to offer a job giving audio commentary on Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home. If he had all ten movies, Ted imagined, he’d make a load. Three-hundred thousand dollars, he thought, would be ample to fund a new picture. After speaking with Gary tonight, he decided he wouldn’t rest until he tried to resurrect the monsters and take them up on their promise to recover his movies. I’ll either prove I’m out of my gourd or that what I saw was actually real. And if they’re real, I’ll play it safe.
Follow the plan, and nobody else will die.
He loaded five shells into the Thompson pump action 12 gauge.
Jesus Christ, am I really going through with this?
This is ridiculous.
Until I do it, I won’t stop thinking about it.
Ted strapped the shotgun over his shoulder and approached the reel. He attached it to the projector, and it played onto the wall.
He braced himself.
There was no warning. In a split-second the shotgun was torn from his hands. He was thrown on
to the bed, suddenly stripped of clothing, and surrounded by four naked women. The darkness carved out by random flickers and the changing colors of the reels displayed his night visitors. He couldn’t focus on defending himself or making sense of anything. Tongues licked his nipples, teeth playfully bit at his neck and lips hungrily kissed him on the mouth. The sweet smell of clean skin, perfume and lust consumed and intoxicated him. His instincts diminished. He put down his defenses.
“You brought us back,” a Kathleen Turner-esque voice purred in his ear. “We were beginning to think we would be shelved forever.”
“Play time,” another rasped, stroking her fingernails up and down his thighs. “Oh, I can’t wait!”
“So many possibilities.”
“Once isn’t enough.”
“This time, it will last forever. We’ll overtake the city, and every city.”
Breasts played across his lips, one pair after another. He tasted, sucked and slopped on what was granted him in unending abundance. Warm bodies lay next to him, cradling him, absorbing him, attempting to put to rest his fears. And then the blonde woman from the booth in the theatre was above him. She played his hands over her milky breasts and then steadily brought her fingers down across her downy pubic hair to her open sex.
“You have nothing to be afraid of,” she moaned, biting her lip with a groan of pleasure. “We are indebted to you. Our bargain will be honored. Without you, we are nothing.”
“But you slaughtered innocent people,” Ted said, muffled when the raven-haired beauty to his left shoved her fingers into his mouth. “Mmmuh—but you’re monsters. Ki-wuahs.”
“Deep down you wanted the world to see us again,” the blonde insisted. “You wanted us to be alive when you wrote that screenplay, when you hired the models. You wanted to fuck every one of them…and now’s your chance.”
“We won’t hurt anybody,” a strawberry-haired wanton said before she kissed the blonde on top of him, tongues mingling, fingers teasing flesh, nails raking blood between fits of delight, their kisses and masochistic sex worthy of any lesbian vampire tramp. “We only want to play. It’ll be fun. You’ll see. You can watch. I like it when you watch, Teddy.”
“You’ll find my movies then.” He was unable to resist them. He relaxed and allowed their pleasures to bloom. “And you won’t hurt anybody else, right?”
The blonde stroked him, playing with his hardening shaft until Ted was full, and then she took him between her legs, warm and wet and deeper than any woman he’d ever experienced. His argument was snuffed dead. Impulses and shudders ran throughout his body, bringing orgasms that weren’t real to life. Electric. Repeating. The sex was illusion. Manipulated by the ghosts of the dead who wielded magic beyond any living master’s abilities. But Ted didn’t know that. He couldn’t think past the four delectable beauties gratifying his every male impulse.
He also didn’t see the fifth vampire exit his apartment and fly into the Chicago night.
Chapter Two
The Claims and Lost Possessions Branch of Chicago was a ten-floor skyscraper, a dark brown and black brick building. The building was unimpressive against the backdrop of dominating cityscape, compared to the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center, and in the further horizon, Lake Michigan and the ever-glowing lights of Navy Pier. The branch was designed for acquired properties from the recently deceased, repossessed items from debtors and five floors of offices for the processing of the goods. An avid buyer could buy a dead man’s leather couch for less than a hundred bucks if the auction on the second floor had low attendance. The basement level was a different entity altogether. The hall, with its freshly waxed tiles, contained private storage rooms. Four keys were required to enter the premises. Each corridor harbored steel lock boxes by the hundreds. One key was designed for the entry door, another for the private room, and two for each individual lock box. Two guarded sentries roamed the basement floor at all hours. Security cameras scoped out every angle. And still, the auburn-haired vampire managed to slip through the shadows. She was in human form, clothed in a tunic and pleated pants she stole from a late-night raver bumbling out of the Excalibur nightclub. The monster had snapped the woman’s neck and heaved her into a dumpster. Not a single drop of blood had touched the outfit. Now she sought the reels that once belonged to Ted Fuller. It wouldn’t be long before Al Denning, the late-night security guard on the east wing of the basement floor, would cross paths with her, tossing his silver Maglite from hand to hand to keep himself occupied.
When Al Denning came upon the woman walking, two thoughts crossed Al’s mind:
Why is this woman here so late?
She better have a key, or I’m giving her ass the boot.
Al cleared his throat to soften his tone. Many investors and clients used the basement for a variety of reasons. The upper class stored jewelry and valuables, others spare cash, while others stored keepsakes and copies of wills or other official documents. The woman who was roaming about lost—perhaps she’d forgotten in which room her storage lock box was located—was curiously attractive. Slim hips, wide thighs, firm buttocks, a pair of tits that sang songs to a man’s libido and a flawless and smooth white face and healthy lips. Her scent was alluring.
“Good evening,” Al said. He checked his watch: 5:58 a.m. Wow, it’s late. Or should I say early? “What brings you here at this hour? Can I direct you somewhere, ma’am?”
The woman turned around, offering him a confident smile. “I’m looking for Lock box #4213. This place is a maze. I’ve got a key. It’s an emergency.”
He waited for the woman to expand on the meaning of “emergency” but didn’t push the issue when she kept it to herself.
“Absolutely.” He walked her to the west end. Number 4213 was a seized property section. He wasn’t briefed on the details. His supervisor said some things kept here he was better left in the dark about. “It gets really quiet in this place late at night. Eerie sometimes.”
“Do you get scared by yourself?” The query came off as too interested.
“Wayne is on the other side, so no. We talk, chat the hours away, and keep a good eye on the place.” Al removed a tape measure from his back pocket. “At the end of my shift, I tell the boss I measured every corner, and I say ‘Sir, the place hasn’t moved an inch’.”
“That’s funny.” She touched his shoulder. "You’re cute.”
“Huh?” Al was confused, the spot she touched panging with the same intensity as his blushing cheeks. “Y-yeah, but the boss doesn’t laugh. His sense of humor is, well, lacking.”
“You do a good job,” she said, placing her fingertip on her tongue, her hazel eyes penetrating his. “It’s really quiet down here. It’s too bad Wayne’s nearby. We could, you know, rearrange the walls—it all depends on how hard you wanna fuck me.”
“Excuse me—?”
Nothing changed about the woman’s face except the jagged-tipped fangs that tore through her gums. Before Al could duck or dodge, his trachea was clamped through and torn clean. A rip in his neck belched blood. Al flopped to the ground, seized by a heart attack at the sudden loss of blood. He clutched the wound, his fingers entering inches deep and touching the wet, slick walls of his esophagus. The woman then slashed her nails across his chest, licking and sucking up blood. Then she released Al’s flaccid body.
The rest of her turned plated, metamorphosing into a reptilian vampire creature. Her feet clicked on the tiles. Her fist slammed like an iron bludgeon into the nearest door. The hinges exploded from their posts, the wood caving in. She scanned the walls for box #4213. The Private Film Coalition of Public Morals had used the building to store Stan Merle Sheckler’s and dozens of other directors’ banned films seized throughout the late seventies to 1985. This lock box was larger, three huge Greyhound bus lockers combined. She hurled her fist into the front until the lock dented to the point it loosened and clanked to the ground. The door opened by itself. She snapped her fingers, and three more of the snarling vampires entered the
room. Working together, they each carried out rubber bins containing hundreds of reels. They were unmarked, the dust unsettling from the tops.
Each of the five vampires looked down upon Al’s body, his left leg twitching randomly.
The blonde laughed. “He wants more, doesn’t he?”
“You didn’t kill him good enough.”
The five hunkered down upon Al and finished him off. Afterward, they flew from the halls and into the night and swiftly returned to Ted Fuller’s apartment to plan a horror film marathon. One vampire stayed behind to finish the final part of the job.
Security guard Wayne Carton froze in place. The wicked blood-boiling roars of agony carried from the opposite end of the corridor to him. His first impulse was to sprint to the source, but first he phoned the police. Then the whup-crash sound of bending steel caused him to hesitate. He wasn’t dealing with the average late night visitor trying to gain access to their lockbox. The shaleehs and schaws and outright jaguar-deep growls wrenched beads of sweat from his flesh. His instincts begged him to turn around and run. Twelve thirty-five an hour and a decent pension weren’t enough to run headfirst into harm’s way. He was fifty-eight, and what could an old man do with a bottle of mace, a pair of handcuffs and a walkie talkie?
Before he could strategize, a rush of wind struck him. He was punched in the chest and thrown five feet onto his back. Three ribs snapped upon landing, and his pelvis shattered. His sternum remained intact, but he was bleeding heavily from the chest. Three quarter-inch slashes exuded red, the muscle tissue beneath glossy and wet. Wayne’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, and he issued a silent prayer for Al and one for himself before passing out.
Chapter Three
Forty-five minutes after the security guards were attacked, Billy Carton, Wayne’s son, had signed on for work. He was the meter man on the surrounding blocks of Corporate Square. He drove in a modified golf cart with a four-cylinder engine. Billy rubbed the Batman sticker symbol he placed on it on his first day of work. He rubbed it every morning for good luck. Batman fights crime in Gotham, and I fight parking violations in Chicago. Secretly, he patted the Batman sticker on the headboard of his bed before he made love to his live-in girlfriend, Jessica Prager. It was a superstition that amazingly worked wonders for his sex life.