Nocturnal

by Ilia Bera

  “Yeah,” Andrew said with a tone of defeat.

  “One of my buddies is really into curling. Maybe curling could be your thing?”

  “Maybe.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE WILKINSON HOUSE

  The icy midnight winds were strong enough to pierce the thick metal doors of the ’69 Mustang, as Kane sat in the driver’s seat. With a laptop computer made from various second-hand parts on his lap, Kane searched through the regional police database. He’d hacked into a wireless signal from a nearby family home.

  During his short stint in juvy, Kane acquired a number of skills. Hacking was one of many useful skills he picked up from other delinquents in the correctional facility.

  It wasn’t hard for him to find information about Hanna, her father and the mysterious homicide case that plagued the old home.

  People had always written Kane off as stupid and useless—destined for a life behind bars, or behind the counter at the local McDonald’s. What no one realized was that Kane was a genius. He had an incredibly unique ability—the ability to look at life objectively.

  When Kane looked at a computer screen—when most people would see flashy icons and pictures—Kane would see the coding that ran the machine. When he looked at a car, he would see all of its parts and mechanisms.

  It was no different on a larger scale. He could see the inner workings of society as a whole. He could look at a room full of people, and know exactly whom he could manipulate. He knew which laws could be twisted in his favour. He understood money, and the way it moved through banks, traders, investments and back again—Kane watched society as if it was an anthill made of glass.

  With very little effort, Kane managed to pull up the file on the Wilkinson case. There, he conveniently found Hanna’s address and her police history.

  Vroooom!

  He fired up his old Mustang and made his way towards the filed address. He drove slowly, with the headlights of his black car turned off. He stared out the window, taking note of the house numbers as they rose—getting closer to Hanna’s address.

  Then, he came to a stop.

  Out of his driver’s side window was Hanna’s old, decrepit house. Kane had to double check the address, as the rundown house looked as if no one had lived there for over a decade.

  But the address matched the file.

  Kane scrolled through the police file again, pulling up a picture of the house.

  Kane was indeed at the correct house. However, the house in the police photo was in better condition. In the pictures, it looked like a happy family home. There were no plywood boards on the windows, and the lawn was vibrantly green and nicely kept, with flowers and little lawn ornaments scattered about.

  In one of the windows you could see the pink walls of a little girl’s room, with window-decals spelling the name “Hanna”. Everything about the house seemed happy.

  Kane clicked through the police photos. The photos moved inside of the home.

  The house’s living room was pleasant—cosy looking, although you could tell that the residents didn’t have a lot of money. The furniture was dated, but it was clean and organized. There were family photos on the walls of Hanna and her father, as well as older photos of Hanna’s father with his late-wife—a beautiful Russian-looking woman.

  The house wasn’t put together by an interior decorator by any means—none of the furniture matched, and everything looked like it was picked up from the local redirectory. But the home still looked homey.

  Kane flicked through to the next photo—the hallway outside of the master bedroom. Like the living room before it, the hall was lined with happy family photos—in mismatched frames. Down the hall, the bedroom door was open and a hard, cold light was pouring through it.

  There was something evil through that door—something that lingered in those photos.

  The pictures took a stark turn from there. In the master bedroom was blood—lots of blood. The first picture just caught the edge of a corpse—a bloody, mangled corpse.

  The bed was soaked through with dark venous blood, and the walls were spattered with harsh arterial blood. Blankets had been aggressively pulled off of the bed, and lamps were smashed against the cold ground.

  The next photo was of the deceased man on the floor. His jaw had been nearly ripped from his face and his throat had been cut long and deep.

  You could practically smell the decaying corpse through the photos.

  Kane quickly closed the file, exiting the gruesome scene. He took a deep breath and looked back at the threatening old house.

  He buttoned up his pea coat and stepped out into the cold winter night, placing his feet down firmly in the thick, cold snow. He walked around to his trunk and then, cautiously looking around, Kane stuffed a number of stakes into the inside of his jacket. He put a jar of holy water in his front pocket, and he picked up a fancy-looking crossbow-rifle hybrid.

  He pulled back the clip of the speciality weapon, ensuring it was loaded, and then he concealed it under his arm as he closed the trunk.

  He began to walk towards the house. He looked around himself as he approached the door. He took a breath as a cold breeze stung his exposed skin.

  Carefully, he pushed the old broken door open, eliciting a loud creak from the hinge and a loud groan from the rotting foundation.

  The inside of the house was dark—nearly black.

  Kane reached into his pocket and pulled out a small led flashlight. He turned it on, lighting up the whole entryway. Cautiously, he scanned the initial area.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  A GHOSTLY PRESENCE

  He stepped into the cold, evil house. A powerfully cold sensation shivered down his spine as the house growled another threatening groan. The house was tainted with dread.

  Kane felt nervous, as if someone—or something was watching him. The way the cold wind crept through the decrepit house sounded almost like a faint whispering sort of noise.

  The nervous vampire hunter began to walk through the aged house, scanning every wall with his flashlight. The thick dust on the floor and walls suggested that no one was home—no one had been home in ages. Kane looked down at the ground. His shoes left an impression in the dense layer of dust—but there were no other footprints.

  Vampires don’t leave footprints. They don’t have reflections either. They avoid deep snow, and they avoid mirrors, knowing that they’ll give up their identity if they aren’t very careful. Kane noticed right away that, in class, Hanna sat on the far end of the room, away from the windows. She was always careful to walk in the footprints of others through the snowy streets. She was a prime suspect as far as Kane was concerned.

  Kane approached a closed door—the door to Hanna’s bedroom. On the old door, dust sat on a set of colourful letters, spelling“Hanna” with hearts at the beginning and end. On the other end of the door was faint music.

  Kane grabbed the handle gently, and then took a breath. Then, with his weapon drawn, he swiftly pushed the door open.

  The old door pushed a plume of dust up into the air. Kane held his gun tight, ready to fire. As the dust settled, the room revealed itself to be empty—there was nothing but an old mattress and an old radio.

  The radio had been left on, but was covered in dust as if no one had touched it in ages.

  Kane’s heart was pounding against his chest as he tried to compose his breath. Suddenly, something cold touched his shoulder. He rapidly turned back into the hallway with his gun readied.

  He was alone.

  That powerful sense of dread was quickly intensifying. It was evident that something bad happened in that house—something horrible.

  Another gust of cold win blew against the old house, eliciting another eerie whisper through the loose foundations.

  Afraid, Kane continued his way down the hallway, finding himself in the living room—the same room from that happy family photo. Now, the room was cold and dark. The big picture window was boarded up with plywood, and the rug had beco
me patchy and stained with mould, broken beer bottles and moisture. The furniture was gone, and so were the pictures that had previously hung on the wall. The room was deathly silent and uninviting.

  The house continued to moan and groan in the silent Snowbrooke night.

  Kane looked around. The house had no basement, and there was only one more place to investigate—the attic.

  Kane made his way towards the attic ladder. Another cold sensation grasped Kane’s shoulder, forcing him to spin around. The grasp was frighteningly human, the way it curled around the curve of his shoulders. As the invisible hand pulled away, Kane could feel sharp fingernails glide across his skin.

  Still, Kane was alone. All of Kane’s muscles and bones were tense. His breathing rate was rapidly increasing along with his heart rate.

  He turned slowly back to the ladder.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  A swift thumping noise rattled the house, startling Kane.

  Kane spun around to the direction of the sound—it was coming from the front door. He stared at the door for a moment as his body overcame the initial shock.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Through a crack in the boarded up front window, Kane could see the shadow of a human standing and waiting. Someone was there.

  With all of the windows boarded up, the front door was the only escape from the old small house. Kane looked around. He needed to hide.

  Next to the front door was an old closet—an unlikely place for anyone to look.

  Kane quietly made his way towards the closet, carefully hiding his weapon inside of his jacket. Just before he reached the intended hiding spot, the door swung open. Kane froze—caught. All the blood flowed out of his face as a sharp breeze fell upon him.

  Standing in the doorway was Connor, in his thick winter coat. Connor froze and his expression dropped as he saw Kane standing in the house. There was a moment of tense silence between the two men. Connor was afraid of what Kane was going to do—or what he had already done.

  “H—Hey,” Kane said.

  “What are you doing here?” Connor asked, keeping his guard about him.

  “I was dropping off Hanna’s copy of A Tale of Two Cities. She let me borrow it after class,” Kane lied. He faked a convincing laugh. “Believe it or not I’ve already lost mine.”

  “Where’s Hanna? Is Hanna home?”

  “No. She’s not here.”

  Connor stared at Kane with intense suspicion.

  “I’m not sure where she is—so I just left the book on the table inside.”

  Connor continued to stare at Kane, trying to see through his façade.

  “I would have left it in the mail box, but the mailbox is broken, and I didn’t want the book to get wet from the snow—Are you okay, man?”

  “Where did you get Hanna’s address? How did you know where she lived?”

  “She gave it to me. I promised I would bring the book back tonight.”

  “You just let yourself in?”

  “I knocked, like you—but no one answered.”

  “You can’t just walk into someone’s house, Kane.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Kane said.

  Connor didn’t have a response. He too was guilty for letting himself in.

  “Why are you here?”

  Connor thought for a moment. He wasn’t as good at lying as Kane was. “I just wanted to check up on her. I had a really bad feeling about her.”

  “You shouldn’t be out this late—you know there’s a lunatic running around.”

  “I know,” Connor said. “That’s why I worry.”

  “Well, good on you for keeping an eye out. I need to get going. Don’t stay out too late, hey?” Kane said as he walked past Connor, who was left standing in the desolate doorway of the haunting house.

  TWENTY-SIX

  VISH MUMBAR

  Where Hanna was that night, Kane never figured out. He drove around town, looking for any sign of her—but he found nothing.

  Finally, when the people of Snowbrooke began to rise for their morning jobs, Kane threw in the towel and made his way back home to rest.

  As he drove back to his little rented apartment across town, the radio announced that the homicide death toll rose yet again overnight, bringing the number of apparent vampire victims to twelve.

  Kane slammed his dashboard with his fist, cutting his knuckle. Every night that Kane came up short, someone else died—and he couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault. He’d taken on a responsibility, and wasn’t fulfilling expectations.

  But his eyes were heavy and his mind was waning. He needed to get some sleep. He was still human, after all.

  Kane’s apartment was small—a cheap little rental on the far end of town. There were only six units in the little building, and they were all empty—all except for two: Kane’s and that of the little Indian landlord who owned the building. During the day, the whole apartment smelled like curry—amazingly delectable curry.

  The cooking smells of all the other apartments Kane had lived in over the years were anything but pleasing. However, this particular scent of Indian cuisine was something else—it didn’t just smell good, but it breathed life into the whole building. It was inviting—strangely homey. It was one thing Kane looked forward to smelling every day when he returned from his investigation.

  Vishvajit Mumbar was a poor old Indian immigrant who have only been living in the country for a couple of years, with his son Tarun Mumbar.

  Vish, as he was more often referred to, didn’t know anything about The West—he couldn’t name any of the States, Provinces, towns or cities. Of course he, and every Indian knew about the great New York City, and the infamous Los Angeles, but there was no way Vish could afford to live in a city with that kind of magnitude. But his son, Tarun wanted to move west for school to pursue an astrophysics degree—a degree not attainable in India, at least not at any respectable schools.

  Before Vish and Tarun moved, he lived in little known Indian beach town called Puri, where he owned a little hotel—the little town’s only hotel.

  His hotel was the most beautiful place you would ever see in your life. It was painted with energetic colours and it was peppered with fascinating tokens of Indian history. Every inch of the little building had immense character. The little hotel seemed to radiate a kind of invisible energy—an energy that lifted the spirits of the townspeople. The hotel had been in Vish’s family for ages, and every generation had left their mark on the amazing place.

  One day, a family of rich Westerners docked their sailboat in Puri, and needed a place to stay while the boat underwent repairs. The Westerners ended up booking a room at Vish’s hotel, where they stayed for almost two whole weeks. The family told stories to the locals about their epic travels, which supposedly lasted four years at sea. They had never stopped in any town or city for more than a couple of days in a row.

  But the white travellers loved Puri. They loved Vish’s little hotel. Despite the town being riddled with poverty, the westerners couldn’t get over the incredibly soft beaches and the vibrant architecture. After four long years of incredible travels, they decided to call Puri their new home.

  The family wanted to buy the hotel from Vish, but Vish wasn’t keen on selling. They offered money—lots of money, but still, Vish wouldn’t sell. After days of bartering, they finally asked Vish, “What is it that you want, and we will make it happen.”

  Vish thought for another few days, and finally got back to them. “I don’t want to sell—not for anything.”

  “One million dollars,” the travellers offered.

  “No—I’m sorry,” Vish replied.

  It was tempting—One million dollars was more than enough to send Tarun out west, and to pay for all of Tarun’s schooling.

  Then, the stars seemed to perfectly align for the wanderlust family. Tarun’s student visa application was denied, and without it, he couldn’t apply for any western schools. Tarun’s life of constant study was seemingly all for
nothing.

  To make matters worse, the Indian government had just declared Puri a tourist destination, and they implemented a new “tourist tax” for all the shops and business owners in every “tourist destination”. Vish suddenly found himself with a monthly bill that he couldn’t afford.

  But it just so happened that the father of the travelling family was a wealthy real estate investor, who happened to own property all over The West. Before the family left on their world travelling expedition, the father sold off all of his properties and retired from the business.

  However, there was one property that he didn’t sell—one property that he couldn’t sell, which was situated in the cold middle of nowhere. He’d purchased the small apartment building years ago, when the government was planning to build a big mill, which was expected to elicit a huge spike in the local economy. At the last second, the government cancelled their plans, and the wealthy investor was stuck with an apartment building on the edge of some little town called Snowbrooke.

  No one would buy it because of its less than ideal location, and the cost to tear it down wouldn’t justify the return. So the wealthy investor just let it sit and rot away for years and years.

  It also just so happened that the real estate investor’s wife happened to be a successful immigration lawyer.

  When the wealthy family learned of Vish’s troubles, they made an offer that he couldn’t turn down—A property for a new hotel, and approved immigration documents.

  Before the end of the month, Vish and his son Tarun were on a plane, destined for a little town called Snowbrooke, where they would find themselves the less-than-proud owners of a little apartment complex.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TARUN MUMBAR

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Kane wasn’t asleep for more than a couple of hours before he was suddenly awoken by a loud series of knocks at his door.