Nocturnal

by Mark Allen

  The vampire stood there, hands at his sides. There was nothing left for him to say. The human would either wrap his mind around this new reality, a reality that included the existence of vampires, or he would not. He cocked his head slightly. His glasslike eyes regarded Reggie quizzically.

  Reggie dropped his hand to his side, gun barrel pointing downward. He stared at the vampire before him, trying to comprehend how all this could be possible.

  “You’re not bullshittin’ me, are you?”

  The vampire merely shook his head. Then he sat back down, crossed his legs easily. He draped one arm over the back of the chair.

  Then Reggie’s brain began to fire again, recounting the events aboard the freighter. “That quickness. Those claws. The teeth. That explains the Sulu Sea.”

  “They were bad people,” the vampire stated. “You know that. They all wanted to kill you.”

  “They still do.” Reggie slipped his handgun into the worn brown holster attached to the side of his hip at the belt. “Why spare Rudy?”

  “Rudy?”

  “Hispanic fellow,” Reggie described. “Five foot seven. Clean-shaven. Short hair.”

  “Ah yes.” The vampire nodded. “Respect.”

  Now it was Reggie’s turn to be caught off guard. “Respect?”

  “He is a killer. Like me. A professional. He moved like a soldier.”

  “Rudy was a Marine. He did tours in the Middle East.”

  “He has obviously made some bad choices,” the walking corpse replied. “I can identify with that.”

  “I’ve made mistakes in my time, too. So what?”

  “He is in a bad business, but he is not a bad man,” the vampire responded. “Given the proper push, he may opt for a different path.” The vampire paused. “I attempted to supply him that.”

  Why do you talk like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “So.... properly, I suppose. You never use contractions.”

  “Really? I had not noticed.”

  “It’s weird, man.”

  The vampire shrugged. “I have no desire to disconcert you. I simply... speak the way I speak.”

  “He’s still guilty of a dozen Federal felonies,” Reggie recited.

  “Who?”

  “Rudy Valdez.”

  The vampire nodded, then said, “That is your concern, not mine.”

  Reggie’s forehead furrowed again. He shook his head.

  “You are, no doubt, quite hungry.” The vampire said it as a statement of fact. “You have not eaten in hours. In fact, you have not eaten properly since this whole thing began.”

  “How can you know that?”

  “The ‘how’ is not important. Suffice to say, I know.”

  “You really creep me the fuck out,” Reggie said, pointing a finger in the vampire’s direction. “No offense.”

  “None taken.”

  Reggie stood there, looking at the sitting vampire. Vampire? Jesus. If vampires were real, then what the hell else was out there?

  The vampire read the cop’s mind, but did not answer the question. It was better if the young man simply did not know.

  He stood up. “Let us dine an evening repast.”

  “Wait a minute,” Reggie said. “You want to go eat? What kind of vampire are you?”

  “I will not eat,” the vampire grinned. “But you will. I know you have more questions. And I will answer them. I have decided to reveal all to you.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Later,” the vampire assured him. “But first, let me buy you a decent meal.”

  Journal entry February 3rd

  I saw on the TV the news that two misguided souls who, in a fit of misguided religious fervor, decided to swear out a jihad, and stage an ill conceived, poorly planned and executed attack on American soil, in the heartland.

  Simpletons.

  They attacked a convention center in Texas. Yes, just the two of them. Just imagine. Two gunmen, with no backup, attacking a convention center ringed by off-duty cops and private security (read, MERCENARIES).

  It did not end well for them.

  I am reminded there are many soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, coming home from the endless wars overseas with highly honed, lethal skillsets. The type of skillsets that once learned can never be unlearned. And are never fully be put to rest.

  Ever.

  These skills lie just beneath the surface, beneath that thin veneer people call “civilized behavior”. Lurking, waiting, seething, coiled like a spring, begging to be unleashed.

  One.

  More.

  Time.

  I keep reading about these terror groups who threaten to come to the U.S. en masse and kill every man, woman, and child that does not convert to their ways. And to prove their point, they behead journalists, slaughter charity aid workers and priests, rape and torture nuns, or set fire to prisoners who have been confined in a cage and doused in gasoline.

  They are cowards of the worst kind.

  If they do come here en masse to the United States, with so many combat-skilled and battle-hardened veterans walking the streets, these “holy warriors” are in for a rude awakening.

  In 1941, in the days after Pearl Harbor, Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the brilliant naval warfare strategist and architect of the Pearl Harbor attack, was crestfallen when he learned that the U.S. aircraft carrier fleet had been at sea and not destroyed in the raid. Although the Emperor and the Japanese High Command deemed the attack a success, Yamamoto felt it a failure. He considered it to have sealed Japan’s fate. He is quoted as having said, “All we have accomplished today is to awaken a sleeping Giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve”.

  We currently have private gun ownership in this country at roughly 50% of the population, owning roughly 200 million firearms We currently have 1.5 million active duty military. And we have over 22 million combat veterans, itching for a fight.

  God help anyone who thinks they can come here to this country, and wage a war against us on our own soil.

  They too, will awaken a sleeping Giant, and fill him with a terrible resolve.

  They will find a gun barrel behind every blade of grass.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Rudy Valdez left his Banker’s Hill apartment late that afternoon. His footsteps echoed off the walls of the deserted hallway. He made his way down the creaking wooden staircase. The front door opened silently, he noticed. It usually creaked. He supposed someone had finally taken a can of oil to the aging hinges.

  Thick dark blue and gray clouds smudged the sky’s palette, resembling a gigantic finger painting assignment. Cooler already by several degrees, the air tingled. The fading sunlight deepened to burnt orange at the horizon. Swirling shadows elongated, black fingers creeping across the concrete as day quickly fled the night.

  He pulled his coat collar up around his throat as he skipped down the steps to the sidewalk. It felt good, it felt comforting, to have a high caliber handgun strapped inside his left armpit again.

  He did not really know how tonight would play out. Summoned by Rick Oakley, supposedly at Mr. Vargas behest to a meeting at one of Mr. Vargas’s warehouses. Even though Rick had assured him all was well, even though Rudy wanted to believe it, he carried his gun anyway.

  Always plan for the worst-case scenario.

  Rick had never lied to Rudy. In his own brutal way, Rick was an honest man. Unusual, given their line of work. If Rick planned to kill you, you would know. And you would know because, he would simply kill you.

  Rudy considered taking the bus into downtown and running standard counter surveillance patterns for a while. Law enforcement might have put a tail on him since being released. Rudy rather liked the bus and trolley system when moving around San Diego. He liked not dealing with the hassle of parking, which was becoming worse and worse in this city. But if things went sideways later, he would need to beat feet, shoot his way out and affect a fast getaway.

  Rudy moved
towards his car, eyes always darting. One was always vulnerable when paused getting into or out of a car. Try to focus on reflective surfaces, car windshields, glass windows. Look for anyone coming up behind you.

  Parked in a small lot around the back of the apartment building, the metallic gray Mini Cooper waited. Rudy had bought it for cash off the showroom floor about a year ago. A lot of people Rudy’s age drove smaller cars like this. His intent was to blend in, not stand out.

  Plus, he got great gas mileage.

  His handgun still held fifteen rounds to a clip, and he carried four extra clips. So Rudy had seventy-five rounds on his person, just in case. Rudy was aware California had passed a law limiting the number of rounds to a clip to ten rounds each. Good thing Rudy was a criminal. Otherwise he might have gotten worried.

  What the hell good was that law going do? Did anyone really think this was going to stop men like Rudy? The law tipped the balance in the criminal’s favor.

  All in the name of making “the streets” safer.

  Oh, the streets were safer, Rudy smirked as he unlocked his car door. Safer for guys like me to do what we do. Do those idiots in the Legislature truly believe we get our weapons and ammo from gun stores?

  He inserted the key into the ignition, twisted it all the way to the right. The engine roared to life. Rudy shifted into reverse, backed out of his parking space, shifted again, and sped off. Spinning tires kicked up gravel as he disappeared into the street traffic outside his apartment.

  It was dark now. Rudy turned on his driving lights. No rain today. The pavement was dry.

  Having grown up in the Midwest, Rudy had learned how to drive in all kinds of weather – wind, heat, rain, snow, ice, you name it. But out here where it only rained about twenty days out of the year, local drivers turned into maniacs at the first raindrop on a windshield. They either drove thirty miles per hour under the speed limit, or they drove eighty-five on the freeways, passing on both the left and the right, whizzing by sane drivers who know to slow down, hydroplaning be damned.

  Rudy glanced in his rearview, put his blinker on as he traveled south on Fourth, heading downtown. He turned right, now heading west. He stopped at a red light on Third. The light changed to green, and Rudy hit the gas, let the clutch out, and moved forward. Heading west, he saw the glittering lights of San Diego bay. He could see the lights of Anthony’s, a local seafood market and restaurant, sitting where it had sat for fifty years, built on stilts out over the water.

  Just north of that was the Maritime Museum with its menu of period ships and boats. Tall ships, rigged masts, a couple of submarines from eras past, even a large steam-powered ferryboat that had ferried passengers from San Francisco to Oakland from 1898 to until the early sixties. Hell, they even had recently restored and out on display a Coastal Patrol boat that had seen combat action from the Mekong Delta to the DMZ during the Vietnam War.

  But the real jewel in the Maritime’ Museum’s crown, was the iron-hulled tall ship, the Star of India. Moored at the pier closest to the road and less than one hundred feet from Anthony’s, Rudy could see her red and black sides and her creamy white sails, fully deployed and lit for dramatic effect. No matter how many times he saw her, bobbing gently at her moorings, he was always impressed. She was a beautiful ship – a work of engineering art, really – and an important link between the present and California’s maritime history.

  Unfortunately, Rudy had other, darker things on his mind this night. He put on his blinker again, and turned left onto what the locals called PCH – the Pacific Coast Highway. Heading south once again, he glanced into his mirrors. He did not notice any cars following him. He inhaled deeply, breathed out a huge sigh of relief.

  He could turn left onto Broadway, head through downtown. It would be a more direct route to his final destination. But things were starting to get jumping in the Gaslamp, and traffic could get snarled at a moment’s notice. He did not want to be late. These were not people who took kindly to being kept waiting, and the excuse of “I got stuck in traffic”, even if true, simply would not fly.

  So Rudy kept driving, past the intersection of PCH and Broadway, heading south. He shifted into the left hand turn lane at Harbor Drive, and stopped, anticipating the protected green arrow. As he waited, his eyes drifted around him. Across the broad intersection was the entrance to Seaport Village. He could see the one hundred year old carousel spinning, carrying delighted kids and indulgent parents, going around and around.

  Rudy had no children of his own. His occupation pretty much precluded a so-called “normal” lifestyle.

  But Rudy had made his choices, he knew, and did not feel too much regret. His life was what it was, and by and large, he was good with it. There were consequences to every choice made in life, his uncle used to tell him, so make your choices wisely, be man enough to face the consequences, and you’ll be okay.

  Rudy’s uncle would not approve of the choices he had made. But they were his to make, and he had made them. He had lived with them, and their inevitable consequences. Like getting arrested and thrown in jail.

  But even Rudy had to admit, things were getting old. He did not want to be in the drug smuggling business forever, and he had been frugal with his money.

  He lived below his means, had close to mid-six figures in the bank, and as much more neatly tucked away in various instruments. He rented a safe deposit box filled with cash, physical gold and silver, both in ten-ounce bullion ingots. Also included in the deep box was a nylon duffle bag, neatly rolled up and tucked into one corner of the box, and a .45 caliber automatic handgun, fully loaded with an illegal clip that held fifteen rounds, and with three extra clips, also illegal, also fully loaded.

  The red light went out, immediately replaced by a green arrow. Rudy put the car in gear and turned left as he accelerated through the intersection. Now on Harbor Drive, he drove east, the expensive hotels and the expansive Convention Center to his right, and expensive high-rise condos and the bustling beehive that was the Gaslamp to his left. His boss lived in one of those high rises, he mused. Very high up. Very posh. Great view from the balcony, as he remembered.

  Rank had its privileges, even in the drug trade.

  He motored past the Gaslamp and Petco Park, the baseball-only stadium built several years back for the Padres baseball team. Then the buildings blurring by got scarce. More undeveloped land. Train yards to the right. He continued on, leaving downtown and the East Village, crossing a bridge into Logan Barrio on the left, and Port of San Diego docks and warehouses to the right. Lots of heavy industry here now, some large defense contractors like NASSCO who built ships for the Navy, and smaller businesses that supplied them or subcontracted work from them.

  He slowed the mini down as he came to a red light intersection. If he turned left, he would be a on a surface street that served as a feeder to an onramp for the Coronado Bay Bridge. But he turned right, into what appeared to be an industrial park, heading towards the docks. He made a few quick turns, winding his way through a maze of weathered, nondescript, colorless warehouses that all looked alike and all looked like they had seen better days.

  He made one last, slow turn, and inched down the narrow drive, barely wide enough for two cars to safely pass if going in the opposite directions. As he moved down, the headlights throwing yellow pools of illumination out in front of him, he scanned the warehouses to the right with increasing concentration.

  He was close now.

  He knew where he was going. He stopped his car, parked it beside another larger, splashier car, a red late-model Mercedes. So Rick Oakley was going to be here, he mused. This should be interesting.

  Rudy got out of his car. Usually, Rudy felt he had nothing to fear from Rick. And

  although Rick had been good natured and reassuring earlier, Rudy still felt ill at ease. He never felt he could ever really trust Rick, because he had seen Rick be nice to someone one minute, and jab an ice ick into their carotid artery the next as if it were nothing. Just part o
f the job, a function he sometimes performed. Nothing more.

  How does anyone ever truly trust a guy like that?

  Rudy felt better knowing he was packing heat himself. He hoped he was just being paranoid. But sometimes, when someone had been nicked, “upper management” decided it prudent to eliminate any potential security leak.

  But Rudy had proved himself, hadn’t he? He had put his life on the line in gunfights, knife fights, and close-quarter hand-to-hand combat for Mr. Vargas. Hell, Rick Oakley and he had fought side by side more than once.

  That shit had to count for something, right?

  Rudy locked his car, pushed a tiny button on the key ring to set the alarm. A loud squeak erupted from somewhere under the hood, and his headlights blinked twice in rapid succession. Then the car went dark and silent, resting, awaiting his return.

  He turned his head and scanned the area as he deposited his keys into the right front pocket of his jeans. He saw no one else around. The warehouses were dark, silent, and squatting. Dark pane-window eyed gargoyles, bursting to take flight into the inky night sky. No noise, no light, no movement.

  Creepy as shit.

  If someone was out there watching him, a sniper, maybe, with a high-powered rifle and a laser scope, Rudy could not detect them.

  Hell, he thought as he began slowly walking towards the door of the warehouse in front of him. If they’re that good to set up on me, then they deserve the shot.

  The bullet would come from behind, and aimed at the center of his upper back, over the spine, between the shoulder blades, center of mass. Most likely either a 30- or 50- caliber round, traveling at over three thousand feet per second. Even at over a quarter mile away, the bullet would take less than two seconds to travel from the end of the rifle’s muzzle to impact. Even at a half mile, it would take less than four.