by Ilia Bera
He stood up from his bed. You couldn’t tell when he was in his warm pea coat, but Kane was ripped. Thick, rigid muscles covered his entire body. He also had many deep scars—deep lacerations from his head to his toes.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
Kane pulled a pair of shorts over his naked body and made his way to the door.
His bedroom was stocked with plenty of vampire hunting gear—most of which was expertly handmade by Kane. On top of his dresser were boxes of ammunition, and hanging all around his bedroom were long strings of potent garlic.
Outside of his room, his apartment appeared completely normal, although very barren. Aside from the couch and the little coffee table that came with the suite, the place was totally empty—dusty and old.
Keeping the chain lock strapped onto the door frame, Kane opened the door.
A young Indian man, in his early twenties, stood in the apartment hallway on the other side of the door. He was a handsome man, with dark stubble on his brown-skinned face. Her had thick dark eyebrows and dark eyelashes. His hair was thick and messy, in a stylish way. He was casually dressed in a sweater and a pair of jeans.
“Hi,” Kane said.
“Hello Kane,” the young Indian man said.
There was a moment of silence between the two men.
“Who are you?” Kane asked.
“Tarun Mumbar. Vish’s son—your landlord’s son,” the handsome Indian man said in a thick accent, which was a strong mix of British and Indian.
“Vish?”
“Your landlord.”
“Oh—Right, sorry. What’s up?” Kane asked, wiping sleep out of his eyes. It was probably close to three in the afternoon at that point in the day.
Tarun looked at Kane disapprovingly. “Rent was due yesterday,” he said.
“Oh shit—I forgot. Sorry.”
“It’s okay, it happens.”
“Thanks for the reminder, man.” Kane began to close the door.
Tarun stepped his foot forward, stopping the door from closing. “Is there any chance that I could have it now?” he asked.
“Have what?”
“Rent.”
“Uh—I can get it to your dad tonight. I just need to go to the bank.”
Tarun thought for a moment. “Um… Okay. Just please don’t forget that you still owe us the deposit for the place too.”
“Right. How much was that again?”
“Two hundred. Six hundred total, for the rent and the deposit.”
“Okay—thanks, man.” Kane started to close the door yet again.
Tarun stopped the door from shutting again.
“I’ll get the money—I promise. I just don’t have it on me now,” Kane said, getting slightly frustrated with the persistent Indian man.
All Kane wanted to do was to go back to sleep. He didn’t want to deal with landlord politics.
Tarun looked down at the ground and took a breath. “Look—We’re kind of tight right now, with money. You wouldn’t be able to go get it now, would you? It would really help us out of a bind.”
“Now? Like—Right now?”
“I know it’s a pain in the butt, but my dad’s pretty stressed out, and we just got our electric bill. I was supposed to start school this week, but we had to use the money to fix the boiler,” Tarun said. “I’m not trying to be the annoying landlord guy here, but my dad doesn’t feel comfortable asking you. He’s too proud to admit that he needs the money.”
Kane looked at Tarun. “Just let me get dressed and I’ll go get it. Where’s the nearest bank?”
Tarun smiled, and gave Kane directions to a nearby bank. Exhausted, Kane quickly got dressed, fired up the Mustang and took off for the bank.
TWENTY-EIGHT
MAKING ENDS MEET
For the first time in months, Kane was awake and about while the sun was still in the sky—although it was just moments away from sinking behind the tall mountain range. It had been so long in fact, that the warmth on Kane’s face from the sun’s rays felt completely strange and unfamiliar.
When you go so long without seeing something, it’s easy to forget that it even exists.
He pulled up in an empty parking stall, out in front of the local bank.
Casually, Kane stepped out of his car and stuffed his hands into his pockets. He strolled up to the bank where a tall, lanky security guard was standing. Kane smiled at the guard and then looked through the bank’s window. The building looked fairly new, and everything seemed to have been updated semi-recently.
The ATM machines were all labelled “Scotiabank”, which was the name of the bank.
“Can I help you?” the bundled up security guard asked, suspicious of the long haired young man.
“My girlfriend asked me to grab a few things from the store. I’m waiting for her to send me the list so I can figure out how much it will cost,” Kane said, flashing his cellphone. “I want to make sure I take out enough money, you know?” Kane smiled.
The guard smiled, still somewhat suspicious of the young adult.
Kane pretended to wait. He started to whistle a random tune. He turned to the guard. “How long has this place been around?”
“The bank?” the guard asked.
“Yeah. I mean—I lived over here when I was younger, and I don’t remember there being a bank here,” Kane lied. “It’s been a while since I’ve been back to this side of town.”
“It’s newer. Just a few years old,” the guard said.
“So like—in 2011? I was here for an event a few years back. I feel like it wasn’t here then.”
“It opened in 2009,” the guard said.
“Ah—I can’t believe it’s been that long since I’ve been over this way.”
The guard smiled again at the young man.
Kane pretended as though he received a text message. “Ah—Finally,” he said, looking down at his phone. As he pretended to read, he secretly looked up ATM security codes. He opened up a file that he kept handy, and scrolled down until he located “Scotiabank”.
He continued to scroll through the various ATM models until he found “2009 Scotiabank ATM”. He looked at the long, fifteen-digit code for a moment as his impressive brain quickly memorized it.
“Of course she wants the expensive ice cream,” Kane lied to the guard, faking a laugh and stuffing his phone back into his pocket.
Kane walked towards the bank. The security guard opened the door for him, and Kane walked towards one of the atms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the guard watching him through the window. He tried to act completely normal.
He needed some sort of distraction. There was no way he could carry through with his plan with the guard looking directly at him.
Then, by some miracle, someone walked right up to the ATM next to Kane, blocking the sight of the curious security guard.
Kane let out a sigh of relief as he put one of his many stolen bankcards into the machine. He punched in the card’s password, bringing him to the bank menu. Then, instead of choosing one of the options from the menu, Kane entered in the long security code that he’d memorized outside.
As he pressed the final digit, a new screen came up, with a list of security features like “lock machine”, “change network”, “access machine balance”, “delete transaction log”, and the one that Kane was interested in, “change cash value.”
Kane made his selection, and was faced with more options. “This machine currently dispenses twenty dollar bills. To change, select from the following…” the options included five, ten, twenty, fifty and one-hundred dollar bills.
Kane chose “five”. Then, he exited the menu and ended his transaction. He put his card back into the machine and punched in his password again. This time, he selected withdraw. The machine asked, “How much would you like to withdraw?” Kane punched in $1,000.
His heart raced—he’d done this one hundred times before, but never with such a large amount. He knew that theft over one thousand meant jail-time�
��this was no petty crime.
“Hey,” a voice said from directly behind him. A hand landed directly on Kane’s shoulder. Kane’s heart sunk into his stomach.
TWENTY-NINE
BANK ROBBER
The colour drained from Kane’s face. He took a breath and looked over.
On the ground next to him stood a pair of tall black leather heels, fitted perfectly to the stranger’s toned leg. Covering her dark-skinned legs was nothing but a thin pair of diamond-patterned nylons which met a beige, flared tutu-like skirt. The fashionable ensemble was anything but weather-appropriate.
The mystery woman’s tall heels pushed her sultry semblance onto the edge of risqué, as the baseline of her short skirt appeared almost impossibly shorter.
The stranger who’d stepped beside him was no stranger at all—it was Brittany.
Kane let out a subtle sigh of relief. “Hey,” he replied.
“Is this your bank too?” she asked.
Brittany was wearing a fitted black leather jacket over her frilly tutu. Around her neck was a thick fur shawl—another expensive accessory from her apparently endless closet.
“Uh—No. I was just in the area and needed some money.”
“That’s brave of you—with all those bank fees they slap you with these days.”
Kane forced a laugh. “Yeah,” he said.
“Processing,” the ATM machine read. After a moment, money started to pour out—twenty-dollar bill after twenty-dollar bill. The stream was seemingly endless. Brittany couldn’t help but notice.
“What are you buying?” she asked curiously.
“Rent. Rent is due today.”
More bills poured out of the machine. Kane began to stuff the money into his pockets. His heart raced as adrenaline pumped through his veins. “I missed last month too.”
“What are you renting? A mansion in Beverly Hills?” Brittany asked as she watched thousands of dollars come out of the machine.
Kane had tricked the ATM machine into thinking it was stocked with five dollar bills, instead of twenty dollar bills. So for every five dollars the ATM charged his bankcard, it dispensed a twenty—thinking it had just dispensed a five. In this particular case, Kane had it dispense two hundred twenties—four thousand dollars in cash. As far as the bank knew, he only took out one thousand—three thousand dollars of pure stolen profit.
Finally, the stream of bills ended.
Kane forced an awkward laugh. “I missed a few payments on my car insurance as well. I’ve been pretty lazy with my bills lately.”
Brittany stood and stared at Kane. Brittany wasn’t stupid—she knew that Kane was manipulating the system. Kane could see in her eyes that she knew—and he was nervous.
“Show me how you did that,” she said.
“How I did what?” Kane said with a blank look on his face.
“Give me a break,” Brittany said. “I’m not going to tattle. Just show me.”
Kane stood motionless for a moment. He looked around, and then sighed as he turned back to the machine. “Step closer,” he said.
Brittany took a step closer to Kane.
“Closer,” Kane said again. “Right up next to me.”
Brittany pushed her body right up against the muscular hunter. His body was warm.
“Whisper. Some of these security cameras record sound now,” Kane whispered softly.
“Okay,” Brittany whispered back.
Kane began to punch in the security code. His stubbly cheek was rubbing against Brittany’s impeccably soft face. Kane couldn’t help but notice the sweet scent of vanilla on Brittany’s soft young body waft up his nostrils. He looked over at the prying girl, noticing her devilishly curious smile as she bit her lip.
“You need to know the security code for the machine. You can find them pretty easily if you know where to look on the Internet.”
The security menu popped up.
“Wow,” Brittany said.
“You need to change the bill amount so it thinks the money in the machine is worth less. I changed it from twenty to five. Now I’m going to change it back to twenty.”
Kane made the changes. Brittany looked over at Kane, surprised by his secret bad-boy skill set.
“Now I’m going to put a thousand back in, so my account returns to even,” Kane said as he selected “deposit” and began to stuff one thousand dollars into a bank envelope. After the money was through, he punched in the security code again. “Always delete the transaction log before you leave,” he said. “Or they will trace the missing money back to your card.”
Kane finished the shady banking business.
“I’m impressed,” Brittany said.
“When we pass the guard, pretend to be my girlfriend,” Kane said.
“Why?” Brittany asked.
“Just do it,” he said. “And tell me why the expensive ice cream is better than the cheap stuff.”
Kane reached down and suddenly took Brittany by the hand. He gripped firmly, eliciting an unexpected jolt of elation through Brittany’s body. The two walked towards the bank door, and they stepped outside. The suspicious guard looked over at Kane.
“I don’t care if you have to take out another god damned mortgage—I’m not eating that skim milk crap you bought last week,” Brittany said, suddenly convincingly in character.
“They taste the same! They’re probably made in the same factory.”
“They do not! Besides, I refuse to be seen eating no name brand ice cream. Do you have any idea what people think when they see you eating no name brand ice cream?”
“Oh—enough about the ice cream already!” Kane said as he opened the passenger door to his car for Brittany.
Brittany hopped inside. Kane walked around and got into the driver’s side. He fired up the car as Brittany looked over at him. She smiled.
“That was fun,” she said, biting her lip to contain her excitement.
“Thanks for that—If that guard was any more suspicious of me, he would have shot me right there in the bank.”
Brittany laughed. “You need to cut your hair!”
“Why? What’s wrong with my hair? You don’t like my hair?” Kane asked.
“I like your hair—I think it looks good, but it probably isn’t the most practical bank-robbing hair. If you’re going around doing that, you need to look more professional—like you just got off work at your articling job.”
“Well I suppose I’m not the most practical bank robber,” Kane said, looking over at Brittany. The two looked into one another’s eyes for a moment. Kane looked back forward and put his car into drive. “You won’t tell anyone, right?” he asked.
“No—Of course not,” Brittany said. “Unless you really piss me off,” Brittany joked.
Kane smiled. “Where are you headed? I’ll give you a ride.”
“The library.”
“The library? What are you doing at the library?”
“Finishing the rest of that assignment.”
“Shit—The assignment. I forgot about it.”
“You’re welcome to come to the library to do it.”
Kane smiled, but then remembered his promise to Tarun. “I’ll drop you off—but I have to run a quick errand. Will you still be there in an hour?”
“Yeah.”
Kane drove Brittany to the library, and then made his way back to his apartment building. He parked his car out front, and made his way to Vish and Tarun’s suite.
Knock! Knock! Knock!
He knocked at the door. After a short moment, the door opened, and Tarun stepped out. The young Indian immigrant closed the door behind him.
“You’ve got the money?” Tarun asked.
“Yeah,” Kane said, reaching into his pocket. He pulled out multiple stacks of cash and handed them to Tarun.
Tarun stared at the money, speechless. He looked up at Kane and then back down at the money.
“You’ve miscounted,” Tarun said.
“No—That’s for the place.
”
“There’s way more than six hundred here...”
“It’s for the place.”
“But—”
“—It’s for the place, Tarun. Just take it.”
Tarun stared at the money in total silence.
“What’s wrong?” Kane asked.
“This is too much—how much is this?”
“Three thousand,” Kane said.
“T—Three thousand?” Tarun had never seen one thousand dollars before—never mind three thousand.
“Yeah—Take it,” Kane said.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Rent—the deposit.”
“This is way too much.”
“Why?” Kane asked.
“Because—Because it is. It just is.”
Kane smiled and patted Tarun on the shoulder. “Just take it, man.”
Tarun looked back at the money. “Where did you get it?”
“My dad was a famous brain surgeon. I got all of his money when he died,” Kane lied. “He had more money than I could ever spend in my lifetime. Just take it. Pay the bills. Go to school. I’d rather see it get used than just sit pointlessly in my bank account.”
“Thank you so much—Thank you so much,” Tarun said. “This really means the world to us.”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s fine. Look—I’ve got to go. I’ll see you around.”
“Thank you so much, Mr. Patrick.”
“Bye Tarun.”
THIRTY
THE HOPELESS ROMANTIC
With his homework finished, and a few hours to spare before class, Andrew was looking for something to do to fill his spare time. He sat at home, on his computer, mindlessly surfing through the same social media pages over and over.
He sat back in his chair and sighed. He stared back down at the screen, thinking.
Then, he curiously searched a name into Facebook:
Brittany B—
He didn’t know how to spell her long Polish last name. He thought for a moment, testing out different combinations, and scanning the different names that popped up as suggestions.
Then, he saw a familiar face—Brittany’s.