DEAD: Confrontation

by Brown, TW

  So many times, you hear about people turning Were or Vamp—or whatever else there is to turn into—and there is some sort of guide or helper that shows up to at least walk them through those first awkward steps. Hell…even Buffy had Giles. Guess who showed up to help poor little Ava? Nobody. Well, there was that one guy…but that was way late and I mostly had it down by then.

  While I was wandering around my apartment amazing myself at things like how well I could see—even when I stepped inside my closet and shut the door—I smelled it. How do I describe it? Imagine your favorite food is cooking in the kitchen. Now, multiply it by about a hundred so that the smell seems to be seeping into your pores. It’s so thick that you taste it in the back of your throat. Got it? Well it’s like that coupled with a weird homing beacon thingy so you know exactly where to go to serve up a big plateful.

  Here’s where it gets yucky. I could feel my mouth doing…something. I resisted the pull of the homing beacon (which is apparently quite a feat for a ghoul) and ran into the bathroom. Then I did another one of those “Eeks!” only this time it was like I’d seen a machete-wielding serial killer. My mouth had changed all right. A set of razor-sharp chompers had sprouted, complete with fierce-looking fangs—upper and lower—replacing my normally pretty white teeth that mommy and daddy spent a fortune on when I was younger. I don’t care who you are, headgear in sixth grade is far more embarrassing than your first bra or first period.

  So I’ve got this wood chipper for a mouth now, and even worse, my toothy grin could be substituted for a close up from something out of Shark Week. You’ve heard the expression ‘ear-to-ear grin’? Well, I actually had one!

  By now, there is this disgusting strand of drool dangling from my chin. I want to be totally mortified, but that smell seems to be physically pulling me towards it. The next thing I know, I’m in the parking lot of my apartment complex, and in what seems like two steps, I’m past the dozen or so parking spaces and standing beside the big, green Dumpster for use by the tenants. There is a vile, nasty, seeped-in-his-own-filth wino sprawled on the ground. He may as well have been a plate of cheese-stuffed tortellini with pesto and caramelized garlic.

  I stared down at him. He was so grimy and shaggy. He had that uni-bomber beard going on, and the hair on his head was matted, sticking out from under a beanie that looked to have been dipped in motor oil.

  Oh well…presentation isn’t everything.

  Before I knew what was happening, I was chowing on my wino-buffet. When I was done, I gurged up his clothes, shoes, ratty socks, and that beanie like a cat with a hairball.

  I was still in a bit of a daze when I got back to my apartment. My brain was trying to process what I’d done, but I couldn’t muster up even a teensy weensy bit of revulsion. After brushing and flossing and brushing again, I flopped down on my couch. Then, that first beam of sunlight shot through my partially open curtains. It was like a laser trying to burn through my skull.

  I was literally climbing my living room walls to get away from it. My fingernails had become vicious claws. Huh. That’s interesting. I’m fairly certain that was the extent of my thoughts at the moment. That, and Sunlight bad! Ava no likey!

  The lesson I took away from that was, if I’m spooked or threatened, I get all ‘scary monster’ with long claws. Did I fail to mention that my toenails had done pretty much the same thing, ruining a perfectly good pair of Nikes? I tried to imagine the look on the face of that little Korean lady who I went to on the rare occasions when I could afford to treat myself to a mani-pedi.

  Anyways, I spent the rest of that first day in my bedroom closet. Funny thing was that I didn’t actually sleep. I heard everything going on around me. I heard the mailman slide my bills and all the advertisements addressed to ‘occupant’ through the slot on my door. I heard the children in the complex leave for school and eventually return. I heard that sleazebag neighbor, Elliot Richards, kiss his wife—who worked two jobs to his none—as she hurried off to catch the bus. Twenty minutes later I heard Belinda Beatty, the nineteen-year-old slut with two kids from two different fathers who lives off welfare and a little undeclared babysitting money—along with whatever she wrings out of the guys like Elliott who she visits at all hours of the day—knock on his door for a mid-morning bang. I do believe I told you I live in a slummy little apartment complex.

  Funny thing, while I was sitting in my closet, avoiding sunlight, listening to a forty-year-old perv play out some sort of sick fantasy with a nineteen-year-old hussy, my nails sprouted. It’s like my Hulk powers! I get scared or angry and my hands and feet go all switchblade.

  I was going just a little crazy when I discovered that I can dial my attention around like a radio. I even have a bit of a SEEK function. My downstairs neighbor had a home visit by his parole officer. The Hispanics four doors down were watching one of those over-the-top telenovelas. The managers were making a list of all the folks who were late with rent. I wasn’t on it…

  Yay!

  So I sat there all day doing the equivalent of channel surfing. At some point, it struck me: my phone hadn’t rung. I didn’t recall seeing the little flashing light indicating that I had voicemail. Nobody had knocked on my door to see if I was okay.

  I didn’t matter.

  At some point, I had fallen through the cracks. I was indistinguishable from all the other anonymous faces in the crowd. Not even my work had called. At some point, you’d think that at least my place of employment would be… aware?...concerned?...something.

  I tried to cry again…but nothing happened. And even more interesting, my claws didn’t come out. I couldn’t muster the tiniest bit of anger over the lack of reaction that my possible disappearance had created…or not created?

  Finally, darkness fell and I ventured out of my little closet. I went into SEEK mode just to get an idea of what everybody around me was up to. It turned out to be a whole lot of nothing.

  It was weird. In my neighborhood, women didn’t just go out for a casual stroll. In fact, any female out wandering the streets around these parts is either apparently looking to score drugs or turn tricks. Now, in my defense, I was not really aware of those facts when I left my apartment.

  I heard a few “Hey, baby!” and “How much?” comments along with a laundry list of non-prescriptions available for “reasonable prices” or an exchange of services. Half I’ve never heard of and a quarter that I don’t believe are actually possible. (The services, not the drugs.) The drugs I’d mostly heard of from the high school kids that live in the complex.

  So…you ever go to the mall and wander around for no reason? What am I saying…of course you have. Anyways, you walk past the food court and you aren’t even thinking about food. Then…you see all those neon lights and perfectly placed display pictures that show burgers with a thick slice of tomato that has a curious beading of moisture even though it is jutting out from a bun that has oddly symmetrical sesame seeds seductively toasted to a perfect shade of tan. You totally weren’t hungry. Yet, before you know it, you’ve got a hubcap-sized cinnamon roll, a triple latte, and a bag of jelly beans in every flavor known to man, woman, or beast.

  Apparently, people who are dying—whether it is from the slow poison of drugs and alcohol or the silent killers Hep C, AIDS, or an undiscovered, soon-to-blow aneurism—are like giant crock pots giving off the scents of simmering goodness. Normal people who bustle past those undesirable folks who wander the streets of the city have no idea how much death or near-death they brush past every single day.

  It might surprise you that, of the newspapers that still actually print obituaries, only a small percent of the people who die each day are given a mention. First off, somebody has to care enough to tell the voice message of whatever poor sap is assigned the thankless job of writing them.

  Let me take a moment to make a point. How many of you actually know the names of your neighbors? On both sides? Now…a step further. What about the person two doors away? See what I mean? I’m just as guilty. I mean
, I knew faces, and sometimes I would realize that I hadn’t seen a particular face for a while. Not that I ever followed up on where he or she or they disappeared to. They were usually replaced by a new person that I wouldn’t ever know.

  The fact that I’d not been seen or heard from in three days and nobody noticed was an introduction to just how easy it is for people to go missing without it mattering. And that’s when I realized that I’d never go hungry. Sorry…I just went full-blown activist for a moment there; back to my walk.

  I was amazed at the sights and smells. And even stranger, I couldn’t smell body odor or people’s woodstoves and fireplaces. I could smell the dead and dying. At the moment it was just the dying. That’s when I passed by a couple of regular old garbage cans. As a former self-professed chocaholic, I could almost tell you just how dark or milky a chocolate was by smell.

  Coming from those garbage cans was the most sugary sweet smell I’d ever experienced. I mean I wasn’t even a little bit hungry…I guess from the previous night’s wino. Still, there I was digging through the coffee grounds, empty cans, eggshells, and razor blade cartridges.

  A baby.

  No! I didn’t eat it. I’m a ghoul, not some sort of mindless eating machine. Well…unless my hunger reaches a certain point apparently, but that is a story for another time. The tiny thing was blue from cold, but my senses told me it was still alive.

  I scooped up the poor thing and loped (I know! It’s crazy. Ghouls don’t really run…we lope) to a nearby gas station. I think the young man behind the register made dirty in his underpants. Yep. I forgot all about my eyes…the whole ‘all black’ thing. That along with my primer-gray skin tone and the fact that the yummy smell had made my teeth go all Bruce-the-Great-White-Shark.

  “I found this in a garbage can.”

  At least that’s what I tried to say. Ghouls can’t talk when their teeth drop and the jaw widens. Who knew! I imagine it sounded more like grggh-mmph-shrush-grnglz. The kid did something fairly predictable. He fainted.

  Fortunately, I spent eight months in a job just like this. So, I ripped the vest off of Mister Sleepy and wrapped up the babe. I tucked it in the kid’s armpit and moved the little plug-in heater close enough to keep the infant warm. Next, I went to the backroom, snapped off the doorknob and took the digital video recorder. (Wow. It was a VHS back in my day.) Then I flipped the phone off the hook with my claw. Oh…didn’t I mention that I was very angry? Why? Are you asking me why? Seriously? The whole finding the baby in the garbage can thing…hello? So I dialed 911 and then I split. It was the best I could do. (Good news…the next day…on the television…Mister Sleepy was getting the hero treatment and the baby was reported as “recovering nicely” in a local hospital.)

  Once that little chore was handled, I went back to the scene of the crime. I wasn’t an expert, but the fact that the little baby wasn’t dead meant whoever (Is it ‘whoever’ or ‘whomever’? I never know which one to use) had done such a terrible thing should be close. Well…unless it’d been some sort of drive-by ordeal. But at the time, I was fairly certain in my belief that the responsible party was near. Standing in the shadows, I went into SEEK mode.

  “…can’t stop the crying, I’ll give you a reason…”

  Bingo

  Something told me that I’d found what I was looking for. Now I got my first chance to practice a couple of those skills that I’d unwittingly discovered I possessed. I kept my focus on that voice and locked on to the blood trail.

  “…don’t think I’m supposed to bleed like this.”

  “Have a lot of experience squirtin’ out babies, do ya?”

  “Well…no…but—”

  “Just put on an extra pad and quit’cher damn blubberin’.”

  I so didn’t like this guy.

  “I still don’t know why we couldn’t have taken the baby to a church or hospital,” the female voice managed through sobs.

  “And answer a bunch of questions? Probably end up talkin’ to the cops? How you think that ends up?” Hating him more every second. “Or maybe you want the cops to take me in.”

  “No, Greg,” the girl whimpered.

  I’d found them. It was one of those pay-as-you-stay hotels. Or is it motel? I never really knew the difference. Anyways, they were on the ground floor and towards the back. A few of the units had the soft glow from a lamp shining in the window. Not a single one had their curtains open even a crack. I fought to maintain my focus, but I was getting bleed over from nearby rooms. Great…it was like scanning a porn channel.

  Thankfully, once I was right outside the door, I could keep out everything but the couple…or as I was coming to think of them…dinner.

  “…at least put him on somebody’s porch and rang the bell or something?”

  “It’s done, Lisa!” Greg-the-bastard snapped.

  I heard more crying start up. A few seconds later, the television clicked on. The inane chatter and yelling in those stomach churning voices told me that they were watching that ridiculous Jersey Shore show. That was the last straw… somebody had to die.

  I tried the doorknob. No surprise, it was locked. Plan B. I knocked. I heard the blessed muting of the television and a bit of scuffled movement.

  “Keep your ass in the bathroom,” Greg-the-bastard whispered. Too bad for him that I have this freakish hearing. I actually felt him lean his body against the other side of the door. Remembering my eyes…and teeth, I dropped my chin and let my hair fall down into my face a bit. “Who is it?”

  Crap. I just realized I can’t talk when I’m rocking the shark mouth! I made a garbled, slurring noise and hoped that maybe I sounded like a junkie or a drunk. If I guessed correctly…

  The sound of a lock being turned was quickly followed by a door being yanked open. How I love it when I’m right.

  “What the fu—”

  My head popped up and his voice just simply stopped. I reached out and grabbed him by the throat before he could finish peeing his pants. What is it with people and their bodily functions around me? My claws sank into the flesh of his throat and I had no problem stepping into the room and shutting the door with my foot.

  By now, Greg was flopping and jerking like a fish on a hook just pulled onto the dock. It made me briefly remember back to when I was a little girl. My dad’s idea of a father-daughter outing was a trip to a river where we would spend the day not talking while holding a pole with a line in the water, waiting for a fish to bite. How come I hated that so much, but when he died of a heart attack shortly after I turned fourteen, I missed it so much? Hmm…

  But back to Greg. As his blood gushed from the holes in his throat, he began to smell like fresh baked bread. I’m pretty sure I started to drool. Then he did that jitterbug shake and went limp in my grasp.

  Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

  At some point I sat down at the foot of the bed to enjoy my meal. I was ‘gurging up socks, pants, tenny runners and underpants when I heard the muffled shriek followed by the thud. It seems that Lisa had poked her head out of the bathroom and promptly fainted. She wasn’t dead…just…resting. I went back to eating.

  After I finished, I went over to the prone figure sprawled on the stained and over worn carpet. I felt my mouth changing back and my claws were retracting, which got me to wondering. I guess I wasn’t hungry or mad anymore.

  I took a good look at the girl I’d laid on the bed. She seemed awfully young. I began poking around the room and eventually found her purse. A driver’s license! Ah-ha!

  Lisa Jenkins. The girl in the picture had that I-just-passed-my-driver’s-test grin on her face. Her sandy blonde hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she looked every bit the age of seventeen. The girl sprawled on the bed was sporting a bad dye job. The unnaturally red hair was in need of washing, and the face had grime in some of the creases around the eyes and where the dimples poked in around her cheeks. But under all of that, I could see hints of the seventeen-year-old in the picture.

  Then I found the wallet be
longing to the currently-digesting-in-my-belly Greg Pitts. Well, well…it seems Greggy-poo was forty-one. Now isn’t that special. Things were starting to get clearer.

  I went into the bathroom and washed my hands and face. The shark mouth and the claws were gone, but the icky skin tone—slate gray—and the scary black orbs where my eyes should be were still a problem. Wait! I’d seen something on the nightstand. I hurried over and scooped the dark sunglasses up and put them on. Next, I dimmed the lights and then sat down on the ratty, burnt-orange chair beside the bed and waited.

  After about an hour, Lisa began to stir. She rolled onto her side facing away from me and I heard her yawn. After a little stretching, she eased onto her back again. She must’ve thought it’d all been just a bad dream.

  Then she saw me.

  “Please don’t scream,” I said, trying my best to sound as unthreatening and non-ghoulish as possible.

  “Y-y-you…b-but—”

  “I can explain.” I can? “But you need to calm down and not get crazy.”

  “W-where’s Greg?”

  “Ummm…” I wasn’t stammering like her, but all of a sudden, I was the one tongue tied.

  “Take off his glasses.” Lisa was struggling to sit up. Just a hint of attitude was poking through the surface.

  “You probably don’t want me to do that,” I cautioned, folding my hands in my lap.

  “I don’t know who you think you are, but—”

  “I’m the one who found a baby in a trash can last night,” I snapped, cutting her off. Great, I could feel my fingertips and toes starting to tingle. Deep breath, Ava. Wait…do I breathe? I pressed my lips together and glared daggers through the dark lenses of the sunglasses. I held my breath and counted. When I hit twenty without feeling anything, I distracted my anger by marveling at my lack of need when it came to respiration. Meanwhile, Lisa was building up a new head of indignant steam.

  “…saw you doing something to Greg. But your face and your hands…” She was trying very hard to reconcile in her mind something she knew for certain that she could not have possible seen.