by H. T. Night
Mo came into the ring and he hugged me and looked at my face. “I didn’t notice you were sporting a beard before.”
Huh? That was an odd thing to say. I never grew facial hair in my life. I had an easy routine where I shaved in the shower each day. I felt my face and felt stubble and hair. What the hell? I shaved before I came down here. That was odd.
The announcer said I was the winner by knockout and the referee raised my right arm and I nearly passed out from the pain.
I showered up after the fight and the arena doctor re-stitched my arm and warned me to never fight again without coming clean about an injury. He told me that would be my ticket out of MMA because I put the company in jeopardy with the state by fighting while injured. He told me that luckily, I was still ‘a nobody’ so it wouldn’t make ESPN. It was nice to be considered ‘a nobody’ by his own organization after my two consecutive first-round knockouts.
I headed out to the parking lot by myself. I looked up in the sky and saw the full moon as huge as I had ever seen it. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at it. It was weird. I had never gazed at a full moon—or any kind of moon for that matter. But for some reason, this particular moon on this particular night was almost giving me a religious experience. I felt this intense feeling and it was all directed at this moon that I was staring at in the middle of the Staples Arena parking lot.
I slid into my vehicle and drove home alone, which seemed a bit sad, considering the night I’d just had. I didn’t have many friends and that was just the way it was. I didn’t party or celebrate that much. I was exhausted and I wanted to go home for a long winter’s nap. If I properly set the mood in my bedroom, I had a good 14 hours of sleep ahead of me.
When I arrived at my apartment, I checked on my stitches that were redone by the fight doctor. I knew I was going to be out of commission for a while. This sucked, but that’s what I deserved for getting involved with a girl who was trouble.
I walked in my room, put on my favorite musical soundtrack, Les Misérables, London, on my CD player and went right to bed.
I lay still, listening to the greatest musical score of all time and tried to nod off. But I couldn’t fall asleep. I felt hot and itchy and it seemed like I could hear every single car on the freeway passing by, every car door shutting and every dog barking. It was starting to drive me nuts. One hour became two hours, and two hours became three hours. I had to face it, I couldn’t sleep.
I needed to do something that would tire me out. You would think after fighting an MMA match with one of the toughest motherfuckers in the world at my weight and with a bum shoulder, that would be enough to send me to sleepyland. But that wasn’t the case tonight. I needed a sleeping pill or some NyQuil. I decided to find a 24-hour drugstore. I also felt weary and I couldn’t quite make out what was wrong with me.
I began sweating profusely as I went out to my car. I slid into my driver’s seat and just sat there, staring at the full moon. What was it about this damn moon that seemed to be the only thing to make me feel right?
I looked at the spider-web crack in front of my windshield and it made me even more nauseous. I decided to head out. As I drove, my body felt as hot as it has ever been. It was like I was having a fever and breaking one in the same moment. Then the weirdest thing happened: I didn’t feel like driving to the convenience store. I passed it and turned onto the freeway. Why? I had no idea. I felt sick and gross and the more I drove toward the moon, it seemed to settle me down and made me feel better. I followed the moon all the way down to San Bernardino. Why? I had no idea. I took the 91 freeway east and went on the 15 to Bakersfield. Where was I going? I passed a couple more freeways and could tell I was heading in the direction of the San Bernardino Mountains. I didn’t know what possessed me to pull over to the side of the road, but I did.
The moon lit up the sky like a chandelier. I stepped out of my Mustang and made my way to the right, where there was nothing but desert for miles.
I could hear growling and snarling in the distance. What the hell was that? What could be out here in the middle of nowhere? I had a pair of binoculars in my glove compartment. I grabbed them, jumped out and stood on my hood in about the same place where that asshole had put a dent into it the other night. I looked through the binoculars in the direction of the snarls and moans. I looked on and what I saw nearly made me pee my pants. I saw about a half dozen bonfires, and surrounding the bonfires were the biggest wolves I had ever seen. I kept watching, trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at. There were black ones, white ones, brown ones and others that seemed to be calico-colored. They were all 6 to 7 feet in length. Some were howling and others were wrestling and growling.
How did they find the bonfires? Did these beasts kill the humans who left the fires?
From above, I heard a horrid sound—the sound of a thousand birds screeching across the sky. I looked up and I could barely make out what appeared to be a huge flock of black ravens circling the wolves below.
I looked on as if I was watching the most bizarre episode Animal Planet had ever aired. All the birds landed about 500 feet away from the wolves. Only sand and tumbleweeds separated the birds from the beasts.
Then I saw something that made me feel I had fallen asleep and was now dreaming. The birds seemed to be transforming into human beings. The hundreds of black birds became an army of humans. They were all dressed in black clothing and made up of all races. There was an exceptionally tall one that seemed to be the leader. I zoomed in and this guy looked eight feet tall and from this distance, he looked like the guy in that Crow movie.
What the hell was I watching? I pinched my arm, and my shoulder moved, so I knew I was wide awake. Then I saw something that looked like a scene out of Braveheart. The hundreds of men charged the wolves.
The wolves caught a glimpse of these crazed people and charged at them also. It looked like a battlefield scene from every gladiator movie ever shown on the silver screen. The only difference was that it was humans versus wolves. I noticed that all the humans seemed to be holding silver spears in their hands. They were shorter than spears; they were the size of daggers or stakes.
What I saw next nearly made me jump in my car and pray to God. As the humans and wolves battled, the wolves were biting into the necks of these guys and the humans were piercing the wolves in their hearts with their silver weapons. Then what I saw made me clearly think I had lost my mind. As each wolf and each human apparently died—they just disappeared into thin air. As I looked on, I noticed that they weren’t all men fighting the wolves. In fact, there was a redheaded woman doing a lot of damage. She literally walked to injured wolf after wolf, stabbing them in their hearts to finish them off. She was merciless about it, too. No expression on her face, at all.
There was an exceptionally large wolf that was fighting the eight-foot, beanpole giant. They were having an epic battle. It reminded me of an MMA match. The tall motherfucker wouldn’t allow the beast to get a hold of him. The beast would claw and grab at him. The tall man did a series of kicks and punches to keep the wolf at bay. He still had the silver stake in his hand. I could tell he was waiting for an opening.
The wolf leaped on top of the statuesque man. Then, the man found his opening and pierced the animal right in the chest. Then, the wolf was gone. Poof. Vanished.
In a matter of minutes, half of the wolves had disappeared and the humans seemed to have only lost a couple of soldiers. The remaining wolves all took off running. The black-clothed humans all jumped up and cheered.
Who the hell were these people and why did they feel the need to attack these animals minding their own business in the desert?
I returned to my Mustang. I couldn’t get over the fact that I could have sworn the humans were birds before they fought. My mind was playing tricks on me. I was tired and had lost a lot of blood in the last 24 hours. That had to be it. None of this was real. This was a hallucination. That had to be it. I started my car and flicked on my lights. Right in front of m
e stood two black birds. I honked at them to get out of the way. The birds flew on top of my hood. I tried to shake them off by reversing and getting right on the freeway. I headed down the 215 and went from lane to lane, trying to shake the birds off my Mustang. Those little fuckers wouldn’t fly off, even though my speed reached up to 90 miles per hour.
I pulled off the freeway and went into a Union 76 station. I opened my door and jumped out.
“Where are you going?” said a voice on top of my hood. The birds were gone and two men were sitting on the hood of my car. I was obviously losing my mind. I needed to get home and go to bed. I ignored the illusion and began to walk into the service station to buy a bottle of water.
Within seconds, both men stood before me. I decided to just continue to walk; after all, they were just a figment of my imagination. Or so I thought. I walked right into one of them.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” the man said.
Great, these fuckers were real. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“You most certainly did. You made direct eye contact with me and you gave me and my friend a nice little ride on the hood of your car for the last 10 miles.”
I had surely lost my mind. I was now communicating with an imaginary person. A man walking out of the station looked over at me. “Sir!” I yelled. The man looked up at me. “How many people are over here?” He shook his head and continued walking. “No, I’m being really serious, please tell me.”
The man said, “There’s three, counting your crazy ass.”
I nodded and knew I was fucked.
The man across from me then said, “Oh, we’re most definitely real.”
I looked at him, perplexed. How did he know that was what I was thinking? I decided to treat this like any kind of street fight. I needed to forget what I’d seen and get to the bottom of what these assholes want.
“So, what do you need?” I asked.
“Need?” the man laughed. He was a light-skinned, black man that had bleached-white hair and two hooped earrings. The other guy was about an inch or two shorter and seemed to be this guy’s sidekick. He had black hair and very pale skin. Both seemed in pretty good shape. “I don’t need anything,” he continued. “I just want to know if you enjoyed our party?”
“You mean the battle of humans versus wild animals out in the desert?”
“Humans?” The man laughed again.
“Hey, Patrick. You hear that? We’re Tandra.”
“He obviously has no clue, Nero,” Patrick answered.
“Huh?” I asked, surprised. “What are you then, aliens?”
“He’s cute,” Nero said. “It’s a shame he knows too much and we have to kill him.”
My heart sank. I had never heard that phrase come out anyone’s mouth before in my life. Kill him.
“Look, man. I saw nothing and I know nothing so if you have a piece, just put it away.”
“A piece? This guy is a crack-up. We don’t need guns to kill you, silly rabbit.” He then leaped on top of me, opening his mouth. That was when I saw two little fangs protruding from his mouth. HOLY SHIT! I threw a left cross and caught him in his right temple and he went flying to the left. The other guy leaped on me and tried to bite me also with his fanged teeth. I smacked him in the head and he slid across the pavement. As I did so, Nero jumped on me and bit into my arm. What the fuck? What the hell is going on with all this biting?
I grabbed a hold on Nero and clamped down on his neck and began choking him out. I clamped down harder than I had ever done in my life. This would have killed anyone else. At least I made him pass out. He gasped for air. But I cranked harder on his neck.
Patrick then jumped on my back and tried to bite into the back of my neck. Holy shit! I jumped up, still holding Nero in my vice-grip choke hold and swung him around; his legs belted Patrick in the face. I dropped Nero on contact and watched as he slid across the pavement and a silver stake flew out of his pocket. I grabbed the stake off the ground before he could get to it. As I did so, the white-haired devil jumped on top of me, grabbing the stake from my hand. This guy was trying to kill me with the fucking stake! I did the only thing I could. With all I had, I turned the stake around as we both had our hands around it and crammed that motherfucking piece of metal into the guy’s neck. He instantly let go of me and rolled over with his face in the pavement.
I jumped up and looked down. He gasped for air and rolled to his back, trying to breathe. But the stake was all the way through his neck. His eyes locked on mine.
“You’re not a Tandra,” he said. “I should have known.” Then poof! He was gone. He just disappeared into thin air and I had no clue what had just transpired. The second guy was waking up and gasping for air.
I jumped on top of him. “Who are you guys?” I screamed in his face.
“Please don’t kill me,” he said. “I’ve only been a Mani for a week. I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Mani? What is a Mani?”
“I’m a Mani! It’s what I’ve become.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he said. “I think I ruptured my larynx.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, helping the guy up. “Patrick? Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Patrick, you shouldn’t attack people if you don’t want to get hurt yourself!”
He put both his hands around his neck. How he was still alive, I didn’t know.
“What’s your name?” he coughed out.
I looked over at the empty ground where his friend once laid. All that was left was the stake that was once lodged in his neck. “I guess my name is Killer,” I mumbled.
“Kyro?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “My name is Kyro.”
Chapter Eight
I don’t know why, considering he had just tried to kill me, but I trusted Patrick. I knew in my gut he was being real and not conning me. This poor guy had obviously gotten caught up in something he couldn’t handle. I was still questioning if any of this was real, but at this point, my safety was more important than my sanity.
I helped Patrick into my car. He was pretty jacked up, but then again, this asshole had tried to kill me. What was I supposed to do? I shut the passenger door and went behind my vehicle, staring at the silver stake that still laid in the middle of the 76 Station’s parking lot. I decided to pick it up. After all, it did have my fingerprints all over it. I jumped into my Mustang and felt as much pain as I could ever remember experiencing. My shoulder was killing me and I was pretty sure I had busted out a few more stitches. And now, compliments of Nero, my arm was killing me. I backed my Mustang out at the driveway and headed back to the freeway.
“Where am I taking you, Patrick?” I said. Patrick was pretty fucked up, to say the least. He was spitting up blood all over my interior. I felt bad, but I had to keep reminding myself, he and his friend had attacked me first. I had been minding my own business.
That was two attacks in three nights. Not to mention that I had an MMA fight, too. I had to admit, I was an American Bad Ass who had clearly lost his mind.
I looked over at Patrick and this poor guy was coughing and wheezing. He might have been choking to death. I didn’t know what to do. If I took him to a hospital, I’d get arrested because I was the one who kicked his ass and my fingerprints were all over him. I needed to take him back to my apartment. I looked at my clock. It was almost 5:00 a.m.
I had so many questions for this guy. I had seen him become a bird, and then a man. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating on the pain pills, but this motherfucker had, most definitely, been a bird. If I had lost my mind, I needed to continue to believe my hallucinations. Just like anything else, when your mind spirals out of control, if you quit fighting it and ride it out, you can usually figure out how to steer it in the right direction.
“Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.
“Don’t let me out in the sunlight. It’s almost morning. I need to ge
t indoors.” I think I heard him right. Sure, why not?
Patrick grabbed my right arm with his left hand. “Kyro,” he said. “Help me, I’m hurting real bad.”
“I know you are, dude. I’m taking you to my place.”
“You do understand what I am, right?”
I was afraid to answer.
“I’m a vampire.”
After a moment, I said, “Of course you are.” That was when my brain went numb. I put my foot on the accelerator and I was suddenly going 110 miles per hour on the freeway. He said vampire, I said to myself. Of course he’s a vampire, I mumbled. He’s also a fucking bird and some other kind of thing called a Mani.
Patrick squeezed my arm with his left arm and then passed out. Was he dead? I didn’t think he was, I could see him breathing ever so slightly. Plus, the other guy had disappeared when I killed him. Then, it dawned on me: I fucking killed someone! A horrible dread spread through me.
I went to my apartment and helped Patrick into my room. I laid him on my bed. I could see the sun peeking over the horizon. How was I going to keep the sun out? Could he seriously be a freaking vampire? And if he was... what the hell was I doing nursing him back to health?
I had some cardboard boxes in my backyard and I grabbed some nails and a hammer. I covered my bedroom window with the cardboard and I nailed the sides in the drywall surrounding the window. I must have put a hundred nails in that cardboard. There goes my deposit on the apartment, I thought. No outside light was coming in, I made sure of it.
I rolled Patrick on his side and grabbed him some water and some ice. I wasn’t sure if I could fall asleep or even rest. I definitely couldn’t stay here, I needed answers. I looked in the mirror and my beard was gone. Did I shave before I left? I had no clue about anything. I decided to go to the only place I knew to go. After all, she did say she was a werewolf.
I jumped into my car and headed back to the Radisson Inn over on Beach Boulevard. I parked my car and went up the stairs and to room 202 where I had left Sasha. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I yelled out, “Sasha!” Nothing. I knocked as hard as I could, and then I heard some rustling from inside the room. In a few seconds, I heard the door unlatch. It opened a little and I saw Sasha. Her hair was soaked. She must have just taken a shower.