Synthetic: Dark Beginning

by Shonna Wright

  Vaughn clenched his jaw. He hadn’t promised Kora anything and in his mind, he’d done enough to make peace with the imbecile. He turned to go.

  “You're leaving already?” asked Joshua, his voice almost pleading.

  Vaughn walked down the beach, but he could feel Joshua’s eyes on his back and soon heard the thump of feet in the sand behind him.

  “Go ahead, then, you whore.” Joshua ran at Vaughn’s back but the vampire easily turned and knocked him backward onto the sand. Joshua wasn’t injured, but he made no effort to get back onto his feet. Instead, he wallowed on the ground with snot pouring from his nose. “I just want my dad dead,” he cried. “He makes my life hell, day after day. I can’t be a man—not even a fucking human until he’s gone.”

  “Why don’t you just take off?” asked Vaughn.

  “I stay for Berta, but she’ll never see me with your perfect, goddamn ass in the way.”

  Vaughn glanced around at his backside. “You think my ass is that good?”

  Joshua wiped his nose, smearing sand, snot, and mud across his face. Then he laughed.

  Vaughn reached out a hand. Joshua paused before he grabbed it and pulled himself up. “Fucking vampires.”

  “If you move up to one of the mansions on the cliffs, I’ll let everyone know where you are,” said Vaughn. “Maybe I’ll even persuade Berta to come visit you.”

  Joshua’s eyes grew round. “There’s a house up there with a natural spring for drinking water.”

  “Let's go check it out. You need a bath.”

  Joshua scrabbled up the hill and when he was nearly halfway up, Vaughn passed him with an elegant leap. “That’s really annoying,” Joshua said when he reached the top.

  The two men walked across an empty parking lot and hacked their way through a forest of dead brush. They climbed over the rubble of collapsed outbuildings until they reached the edge of an oval swimming pool filled with everything from an overturned car to a shattered statue of David, the decapitated head gazing up into the sky. Beside the crumbled patio, water pushed up through a pile of rocks into a wide pool that at one time must have formed a creek through the lush grounds. Old and looted, the mansion still looked in good shape with a solid tile roof and clean stucco walls that had survived years of earthquakes and firestorms. Joshua washed the grime off his hands and face while Vaughn explored the outside of the building. He stopped at the back door where stacks of broken televisions and computer equipment lay in a vine-infested heap.

  In the kitchen, Joshua thrashed through cupboards, thrilled when he found a can of pinto beans. “You think there’s a can opener around here?” Joshua rifled through the drawers, tossing silverware onto the floor until Vaughn grabbed the can, ripped the top off, and handed it back to him. Joshua stared at the pale beans exposed in a ring of rough, twisted metal.

  “Why did you go to Ruby?” asked Vaughn.

  Joshua tipped the can to his mouth, careful not to let the sharp edge touch is lips. “I don’t know. Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was really pissed off.”

  “Max was right when he said she’d be back for revenge. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Joshua chewed with his mouth open. “I can see now that it was a stupid idea. I wasn’t thinking about what might happen, you know, the larger picture. Just wanted my dad dead.”

  Vaughn looked down at his feet. He suddenly felt unsure where to put his hands so he stuffed them into his coat pockets. “I could have told you that he soon will be.”

  “Soon will be what?”

  “Max will be harmless soon enough.”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “He’s dying.”

  Joshua’s mouth hung open so Vaughn could see half-chewed beans piled up on his tongue. “How do you know? You a freaking witch in addition to a vampire?”

  “As the clan leader, Max offers me his blood at the beginning of every month. I usually pass, but this time I took it.”

  “You tasted his death?”

  The idea sent a shiver of horror through Vaughn. “I guess you could put it that way.”

  Joshua fell silent and stared out the shattered kitchen window at the sea. “It would have saved me a lot of trouble if I’d known that.”

  “You and I don’t chat much.”

  Joshua finished his beans and threw the can out the open door. It bounced on some stones and landed in the empty pool. “I should be sad about it, but I’m not.” He kicked a pile of silverware near his feet, sending forks spinning across the floor. “Don’t feel a goddamn thing. He’s the only man I’ve ever feared and soon he’ll be gone.”

  “You never feared me?” Vaughn was surprised to hear himself teasing his enemy.

  “Hell no! You’re a pussy compared to Max. And you’re wrong about him. Just cause he’s dying doesn’t mean he’s harmless. I could hardly sleep last night. Kept expecting him to pop up like some masked guy in a horror movie. Even when Max is rotting in the ground, his flesh will poison the maggots.”

  They walked into the living room where a grand piano lay on its back, the keys scattered across the floor like broken teeth. Vaughn picked up a photo of a young girl in a bent frame, her clothing style typical of the two thousand twenties. He dropped it when he heard a loud cry from above. Birds swirled over his head and darted from beam to beam in the ceiling where nests perched in every nook.

  “I like it here,” said Joshua, handing Vaughn a can of pickled mushrooms.

  Vaughn tore off the top of the can. “I’ve turned into an appliance.”

  “About time you did something around here besides look pretty.” Joshua pushed his fingers through the sharp opening and pulled out a brown, slimy mushroom and downed it in one gulp. “I just have to do a bit of cleanup. I noticed some solar panels on the roof so I’m sure I can at least get some hot water going for a bath.”

  Vaughn gazed out at the darkening sky. “I need to head back for dinner.”

  Joshua groaned and tossed the empty mushroom can onto the floor. “I took all that for granted—the food, sitting by the fire getting drunk while watching Berta dance.”

  “It’s your own fault.”

  “I know.” Joshua turned a skeptical eye on Vaughn. “It still doesn’t seem right that you, of all people, hauled your ass up here to visit me. You must really like this blue-haired girl even though she didn’t look like your type.”

  “What do you know about my type?”

  “I’ve seen all the girls you’ve slept with over the years. None of them are small and skinny like her. What the hell is she doing here, anyway?”

  “She’s working on a project for Ruby.”

  “I heard a rumor about that. Ruby’s going to become immortal, and then you get to lick her ass for the rest of your life.”

  “Not if I can help it.” Vaughn walked back through the kitchen and Joshua stumbled along behind him, tripping over all the stuff he’d dumped onto the floor.

  “Maybe you should follow my example and try to kill her before everything goes to hell.”

  “I already tried that and it didn’t work.” Vaughn leaned against the doorframe and looked Joshua in the face. His recent wounds had crusted over, but Vaughn saw numerous scars from years of beatings covering nearly every inch of his young skin. “I understand you better than you think. Your plot against Max seemed almost merciful compared to the violence I’ve dreamed of inflicting on Ruby.”

  Joshua laughed and poked Vaughn in the shoulder. “I guess I’m the lucky one, then. My dad is about to die while your dear old mum is about to live forever.”

  Chapter 22

  Kora paused on the landing to Ruby’s storage floor while Gus continued down the stairs, his voice fading as he chattered on about catacombs and Humphrey’s maps. When he finally noticed she wasn’t behind him, he puffed back up to where Kora stood transfixed, staring down the dim hall.

  “Don’t you think we should go back and rest? We’ll need our energy for when we go in sear
ch of the catacomb,” he said.

  “Just ten minutes,” asked Kora. “You said we could check it out on our way back.”

  “Okay. Anything to cheer you up.” Gus led her down a hall that forked in two directions and swiftly steered her to the left. A polished glass door exhaled a burst of cool, dry air and Kora wandered into a room with clean white floors and electric lights that flicked on automatically. “Ruby bought everything in here off the black market.” He pointed at a Japanese print of a woman reclining in a rocky setting that resembled a mountainous seashore. A large squid crouched between her legs, its arms wound possessively around her naked torso as its oddly human mouth devoured her sex.

  Kora wondered what Ishmael would think if he saw the painting. He was such a prude, he would probably pretend that it wasn't there. “What was down the other hall?”

  “Like I said, just Ruby’s film memorabilia: old cameras, lights, her monster models and sets. It’s pretty gnarly in there.”

  Monster models. Kora both dreaded and hungered to see them. “That's where I want to go.”

  “What about her surrealist paintings? Disturbing scenes of darkness, death, and hell?”

  “We sleep in the dungeon, Gus. We’ve seen enough of hell.”

  “I rather like the dungeon. It’s cozy.”

  The door sealed automatically behind them. “I’m surprised how easy it is to just walk in there,” said Kora. “Seems like we could have just loaded up and left.”

  “Walking in and looking is fine. It’s when you touch something that the lasers fly.”

  They traced their way back to the fork, this time taking the bend to the right that curved for a hundred feet before hitting an old door that looked ready to bust its hinges. Gus and Kora both pushed an inch at a time until they could finally slip through the narrow opening. Inside, the door was blocked by a tide of junk that made even Humphrey’s shack seem tidy.

  “You realize we might get trapped in here forever,” said Gus, kicking aside a stack of old boom mikes as he attempted to clear a path. “I think Ruby found a decomposing body under a bunch of crates a few years ago. Someone from the Food got in here looking for loot.”

  Kora climbed a tower of boxes and surveyed the room. “What’s back there? Looks like a gigantic spider.”

  “That’s where the models are but I don’t think we can make it over there. Too dangerous.”

  Gus looked desperately around. Kora knew he hard enough time maneuvering over solid, level ground but she was too caught up in her search to feel sorry for him. She scrambled over to a clear spot of cement and hiked toward the giant spider.

  “I had no idea you were so interested in movie making,” said Gus, crawling after her.

  They explored a forest of clothing racks, overflowing with black gowns, lingerie, and swimsuits with massive bite marks out of them.

  “I’m sure Ivan would love to get his hands on some of this stuff. I’d love to see what he could do with this feathered bustier.” Gus held the garment under his head and wiggled his hips.

  Kora glanced up at the ceiling where she could no longer see the hanging spider. “Do you think we’re headed in the right direction?”

  “This way,” said Gus, leading her between metal shelves piled with disturbingly realistic corpses.

  She paused before a disemboweled werewolf that lay on its back with its snout drawn back in a mournful howl. “There’s something familiar about this.”

  Gus lifted the arms of a fake, rotting skeleton and wiggled them in the air. “Reminds you of your youth hanging out in monster morgues?”

  At the end of the shelves, a huge sea monster sprawled on the floor with a panel of controls hanging from its neck like a leash. Unable to resist, Kora picked up the panel and switched it on. A shudder went through the beast and its jaws gaped impossibly wide so she could see the machinery spinning inside like the organs of a great watch. She cranked on a lever that made the contraption roll sideways where it got stuck on a flipper. Kora pressed another button and the mouth struggled to close on teeth that were so long, they kept the jaws propped open. “This thing is ridiculous.”

  Gus snatched the controls away from Kora. “Ruby used to have a mechanical squid from some old movie that was pretty sophisticated. It was hooked up to a computer and everything.”

  Kora felt a tingling behind her ears as if she'd seen such a contraption in another life. “What happened to it?”

  “Not sure, but Ruby still goes on about it sometimes even though it was lost a billion years ago.” Gus dropped the controls and the beast sank back into an untroubled slumber. “Hope it was better than this thing, though I suppose all this jalopy had to do was flop around in the water a bit. Add some scary music and a bikini-clad babe twisting in its jaws and presto, crappy horror film.”

  “I’m surprised Ruby's into such dumb movies.”

  “Every science nerd's got their thing. Ruby just took fandom to the next level and decided to make her own monsters.”

  Kora followed Gus into a graveyard of cameras pointed at odd angles like a swarm of mad insects, trying to avoid looking into each other’s singular eyes. She could now see the spider dangling from the ceiling not too far ahead, and climbed a pile of coffins to reach the creature. It was disappointing up close. Two of the legs were broken and what Kora took for part of its thorax was actually human, male genitalia that hung down in a manner that only teenage boys could appreciate.

  “I think that spider is a robot, too,” said Gus, pointing at some controls that dangled from its neck.

  “I have no desire to see what that thing does when it’s switched on,” said Kora.

  “Really? None?” asked Gus, picking up the controls.

  Before he could flip the on switch, Kora waded toward a rave of monsters huddled together in small groups against a mountainous backdrop. She wove through the frozen crowd that seemed too absorbed in hushed conversation to notice she’d crashed their party. A zombie feasted on the back of a woman’s head as she chatted with a man whose lower half resembled a platypus. A cyclops lingered along the wall with sagging shoulders, his eye fixed on a five-headed hydra that was busy tormenting a ragged little troll that was the spitting image of Ivan.

  “Kora?” called Gus from somewhere behind her. “You should come check out this spider. It’s pretty outrageous.”

  “I’m over here with all the models,” she said loudly, then snuck to the back of the party. She nearly ran into the prototype for Humphrey, his jowly face comically fierce above polished white tusks. His bare chest, which in real life seemed doughy beneath the flannel, sported a perfect six-pack.

  Kora spotted a massive hand reaching out from behind a curtain as if attempting to steal someone’s wallet. She pushed through the crowd and drew the curtain aside to reveal a perfect model of Caleb with hooded eyes that gazed out across the room like a bored child. Unlike the real Caleb, this creature's black hair was long and matted over a dusty coat with a silk boutonniere. Kora thought it strange to see him so slovenly, wearing clothes several sizes too small, instead of Ivan’s meticulously tailored suits. While circling Caleb, she nearly tripped over a woman’s Victorian boot sticking out from the other side of the curtain. She bent down, yanked on the shoe, and a body slid out topped by a gray face covered in an intricate web of scars.

  “There you are. I swear you’ve been trying to avoid me,” said Gus. “Do you realize I counted at least four hunchbacks at this shindig and every one of them was beastly. And just look what we have here—Caleb.”

  Kora tried to tug the curtain closed over the figure gaping up at her from the floor.

  “Who is that?” said Gus, jerking back the curtain.

  “No one.” Kora pretended to examine a Minotaur dressed in a furry loincloth with a Gucci purse hanging from its horns.

  Gus squatted down, grabbed the model around the waist, and hauled it up to a standing position beside Caleb. “Holy shit. Take a look! It's the chick from the drawing.”


  Kora turned back as if facing her executioner.

  “It’s Caleb’s bride,” continued Gus. “That's why he drew a picture of her and stuffed it in his toy. Maybe it was like a keepsake.” Kora cringed as Gus brushed a hand over the heavily scarred cheeks that were smeared with rouge. “Just look at that face. This is what plastic surgery was like in the nineteen nineties. I bet if we dug up Joan Rivers, this is exactly how she’d look.”

  Kora’s throat went dry as she gazed into the dark eyes. If the creature were alive, it would be impossible to tell where it was looking or what it was thinking. Like the model of Caleb, its hair was black, wiry, and the skin a deathly pallor. She wanted to look somewhere else, block the face from her mind forever, but no matter how hard she tried, Kora couldn’t tear her eyes away.

  “Her wedding dress is fantastic,” said Gus, holding up the white lace skirt stained yellow in large patches from years spent lying on the floor. “Do you mind if I cut in?” he said to the model of Caleb, then dipped the bride back before dropping her on the floor with a loud clunk. Gus burst into laughter that was cut short when he noticed Kora’s stricken face. “What’s wrong? Am I getting too saucy with the models?”

  “I’m just tired. We should get back to the lab.”

  “Those two look so cute together. Too bad Ruby never made Caleb's little wife. Or maybe she did, and the girl died which would explain all the drawings. Would have been sweet if she was still around, don’t you think?”

  Kora walked away without answering, shoving through the crowd of models who all seemed to stare at her, their glassy eyes accusing as their arms blocked her way.

  “Will you slow down! What's wrong with you?” said Gus, struggling to keep up with her.

  She came to an abrupt stop and he slammed into her back. “I'm not what you think I am.” Her lips trembled and she wiped a hand over her dry mouth. “I wish I could tell you, but—”

  “I already know everything,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  Kora turned around. “You do?”