This Darkness Got To Give

by Dave Housley

  “Where are we going?” he said again.

  “Just keep walking,” the girl said. “We’re being followed.”

  “Followed by who? The police? Others…like me?”

  “All of the above,” she said, and pulled him along the concourse, following closely in the shallow wake of the Dealer.

  Chapter 30

  July 6, 1995. Maryland Heights, MO. Riverport Amphitheatre.

  Pete could hear music trickling over from the stadium, the sounds of drums and spacey guitar. This is what people are talking about when they talk about noodling. He had only been on the job for less than a week but already “Drums/Space” was his least favorite part of the show. It was much better, he’d learned, high. It was much better on the infield, amid the whirling, dancing mob that would be shouting their delight now, tripping in circles, many of them tight in their own heads, the music perhaps the only connection between their own chemically-altered consciousness and those twirling or spinning or curling up on the ground only a few feet away.

  He had reached the place, was sure of it. Whatever had been guiding him remained steady now. Something was approaching. But now what was he supposed to do? He waited.

  Chapter 31

  July 6, 1995. Maryland Heights, MO. Riverport Amphitheatre.

  Jenkins followed Crabtree, walking as fast as they could without looking more conspicuous than they already were. They swooped along the clumps of Deadheads that gathered near the beer lines and the entrances, pushed past staggering hippies, slipped through spaces where groups of people danced in that ragged, loose-jointed shuffle that Jenkins knew he would never get close to mastering. It was easier moving through this crowd than others—they were malleable, in no hurry. They were stoned, and barely noticed the two poorly-disguised undercover agents currently pushing toward Concourse B, where Tibor had spotted…something.

  “Concourse B. Now,” was all he had said.

  “What?” Jenkins had shouted into the walkie. But the old man did not respond.

  They moved into another crowded area and Jenkins caught a glimpse of Tibor’s black-gray hair receding quickly toward the exit. “This way!” he said.

  As he ran, he kept Tibor’s stately head in his sights: bobbing quickly with the old man’s huge strides. As they grew closer, he could see Tibor’s arm held out at the side, cordoning them behind him. “What?” Jenkins said.

  “Three of them up there,” Tibor said. One like me, a girl, and then…”

  “Then what?” Crabtree said.

  “A blast from the past,” Tibor said.

  “The fuck does that mean?” Crabtree said. He tried to step even with Tibor but couldn’t get around his arm.

  Tibor looked at Jenkins. “This is what we talked about before. The researcher. Portis. The one who…” There was a tone the Jenkins had never heard before. He was scared.

  “I need to know what’s going on!” Crabtree shouted.

  Tibor stopped, turned around. “Ahead of us, on foot, is what I believe to be our perpetrator. He is being led by a young woman and they are both following a man who I believe to be a former scientist and enemy of the state, who compelled me to kill a citizen in Washington, DC seven years ago. The reason I am currently confined to a federal facility.” The old-world accent had kicked in full force.

  Tibor quickened his pace and then he was running. Jenkins followed, Crabtree close behind him. Jenkins felt for his service weapon, thought about taking it out, and then thought again. Best to wait until they were sure there was a situation. You could never tell what the security people would do when faced with a middle-aged man in a tie-dye waving a revolver around.

  They neared an exit and then they were flying down levels, working their way to the parking lot. They exited and all of a sudden it was quiet, the concert a tinkling in the distance, the sounds of crickets and the occasional whine of nitrous tanks echoing across the lot, mixing with their own ragged breathing. Tibor slowed. “Drat,” he said, his own voice even, his breathing regular.

  Crabtree sucked in breath. He laughed and Jenkins remembered that he was still probably high, and maybe a little bit drunk as well. “I lost them,” Tibor said.

  Chapter 32

  July 6, 1995. Maryland Heights, MO. Riverport Amphitheatre.

  Cain followed the Dealer, the girl silently steering him, out into the parking lot and past the usual in-show scenes—kids gathered in circles, passing around bowls, vendors getting their wares ready for the post-show Shakedown, middle-aged men with short hair getting into cars, making their way back to the suburbs in time to get enough sleep for the morning. They moved past the old buses and the vans and the cars that had obviously been on tour for years, down a few rows and over to narrow path that went into the woods.

  Funny, Cain thought, the idea that he could slip the woman’s grip, make a break for the van and be on the way to New Orleans or Seattle or Mexico, had never even entered his mind.

  His mind. He stopped to think of the concept. He felt…how to describe it. Not high, necessarily—this was not as much fun as he remembered being high or drunk to be. But still: altered somehow. It wasn’t the all-consuming hunger-pain that gripped him now before a feeding, no burn in his head, no tingle in his fingers working outward to all his extremities. But still, not exactly in control, not like before. It was more like being on tracks, led gently but decisively in a certain direction, down a certain path. What he wondered about is what would happen when the tracks were removed: would he have any more control than he did when the pain took over his body and he was compelled to feed.

  He wondered if he had ever had that control, or if all those years of careful living, of scrounging Plasmatrol and sheep’s blood, watching the clock, planning several moves ahead, had all been nothing but folly, the same reckless Hell’s Angel in different clothing, watching the clock until it was time to release the constraints once and for all.

  The Dealer looked around. The girl’s hand was still on Cain’s arm. “What are you doing?” she said. “You agreed that…”

  The Dealer closed his eyes. Something in him seemed to relax. “Soon,” he said.

  The girl released her grip and took a few more steps into the forest. She turned and regarded Cain and for the first time he saw real pity, real fear in her eyes.

  They were in a low forest, just ten or fifteen feet away from the parking lot, a place where Deadheads would slip into the woods for a smoke or a deal or a bathroom break. The moon was full and he wondered about the folklore. He had never felt a pull, but had heard that he should, and now…but that certainly had more to do with the doses he’d taken than any celestial body.

  Cain felt like he was underwater. His fingers began to tremble. It was coming back, but back with something else, some sleepwalking quality, like he was here and he wasn’t here, like the leash had somehow extended to all his extremities, to everything. He could see the entire situation plain as day—the woods, the Dealer, the girl, the stadium lights behind them in the distance. He could hear the music, the shouts of Deadheads in the parking lot, the low rumble of cars starting up. The pain started in his neck and rolled steady up over his head until he felt like he needed to put holes in his temple to relieve the pressure.

  The girl took out a dose and handed it to him. He didn’t think, just put it on his tongue. He thought about all those nights in San Jose, doing just that in some bar or hotel room. Somebody would hand him a pill and he would swallow. They would bring in a girl and do what they would. They would hand him a gun, a knife, and he would use it.

  “Almost here,” the Dealer said. He took a few more steps into the woods. Cain felt something approaching from behind. He was so hungry. The pain would not stop. There was only one thing to be done.

  He closed his eyes, tried to relax. It was going to happen.

  Chapter 33

  July 6, 1995. Maryland Heights, MO. Riverport Amphitheatre.

  Pete heard them coming and slipped back into the woods. They were an
odd group, a small, older man moving purposefully into the woods, followed by a large man with a biker’s face and unblinking eyes being led by a girl who looked, although it certainly couldn’t be her, remarkably like Padma.

  The tingling in his hands increased. He felt a presence in his head, almost like a static, a thin connection to…something.

  After the second group went charging past—two of them clearly undercover cops, the second an older gentleman dressed in strange clothing for a show, with an overcoat that went almost down to his ankles, dark black shirt and pants—Pete slipped along the wood’s edge until he found another path leading parallel, and he crept along the trees until he could see the first group. The woman and the first man were backing up slowly, coming his way as their trails connected. The other one, the biker, was shaking, turning red, hitting himself in the head with balled fists and making guttural sounds. Pete wondered at first if he was going to turn into a werewolf. Then he saw the next group, the two cops and the old man, moving into the clearing.

  It was all so fast. Too fast.

  The biker grabbed the first cop and pulled him into the woods, the man’s head wedged into the crook of one arm like a football. It was a wonder the guy’s head didn’t pop off, he thought, and then he heard the noises, the sounds like leather ripping, the screams and cries and gurgles, and he realized it would have been better if it had.

  And then it was over and he could hear the tinkling of music coming from the stadium, the older cop swearing and calling for an ambulance on his walkie-talkie. These men were obviously police. The biker was a vampire, and dangerous. And what was the girl who looked like Padma doing there, and the other older man who looked like some kind of professor? He took a step back, and then another. There were sirens in the distance. He made his way slowly back toward the parking lot.

  Chapter 34

  July 7, 1995. Washington, DC.

  “I don’t understand,” Jenkins said. He looked at Tibor, at the two scruffy, Deadhead-looking men on the other side of the table, and the one who refused to sit down, who stood at attention like a fed in a movie with his three-piece suit and fedora. His mind was still processing, spinning, struggling to put these new pieces of data into appropriate places. “I mean,” he looked at Tibor. He knew he was transferring all his feelings about Crabtree, the guilt and the anger and something else that he didn’t want to think about just yet, onto the old man. But still, he couldn’t help it. He was pissed off. “Throw me a fucking bone here, man. “

  Tibor was calm, measured, as always. “I had heard rumors. But I didn’t know. Not for sure.”

  “We are a deep operation,” the one who seemed to be in charge said. The other two, the Deadheads, nodded. “The fact that we’re here in this room is due mainly to a field decision that I would not have approved. And of course, the terribly unfortunate circumstances behind Officer Crabtree’s…”

  He let whatever it was that had befallen Crabtree linger in the air. Jenkins fought the urge to shout, throw a chair across the room. He had watched hundreds of people in this situation and had always wondered at their anger, the primal need to assign blame, to start with whoever happened to be in the room at that particular time. He knew he was acting just like them, that everybody in the room knew as well. Still, a secret government agency tracking the vampires, working on the same case, with people inside the community? It would have been good to know. Maybe Crabtree would still be dead if they had known. But maybe not.

  “I don’t think it’s his fault,” Tibor said. Everybody turned.

  “Really?” the older undercover agent said, the doubt thick in his tone. He was standing near the window, turning a pack of cigarettes over in his hand. This one really did look like a Deadhead, hard like the older ones seemed to get, like the constant touring, whatever kind of lifestyle they were leading, had sharpened up all their edges. “You would, though, wouldn’t you?”

  Tibor ignored him. He was writing on a legal pad. Jenkins had seen this before. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Jenkins said. He knew what it meant, but he was ready for a fight. God, he thought, that would feel good. To just let everything out, turn off his editor for a moment and just give himself over to something physical. He hadn’t punched somebody, been punched, since he’d been promoted to desk sergeant, since David had been born and he’d stopped going out to bars. It had been years and years and all of a sudden it felt too long.

  “I know the man,” Tibor said. “Portis. Doctor Everett Portis.”

  “What are you saying?” Jenkins said. He wanted to give Tibor an out, a way to go back to his quiet life.

  “I know that man,” Tibor said. “From a long time ago. The sixties. He is, or maybe he was, a researcher. A scientist out of Stanford. He was doing work with LSD, some other psychotropics, effects on the normal population, effects on those like us. The differences. The theory, as close as I could tell, was there was something in the differences, something that could provide some answers.”

  “And?” the older undercover guy asked. He put a cigarette behind his ear and sat down, his leg pumping. Jenkins wondered how long he’d been on the road.

  “This is where it connects,” Tibor said. “Maybe. One of the things he was working on was mind control. Combine the right psychotropics and the power of suggestion becomes more than that. That kind of thing. For our kind, there is something there, maybe. In the folklore it goes both ways: those who can control the mind, those who can be controlled. Again, I believe the theory was that there was something in the differences, something chemical that would allow him to…”

  “To do what?” Jenkins asked.

  “Control us all,” Tibor said.

  “Mind control? The vampire just said mind control,” the undercover agent said. He put the cigarette in his mouth. “Can I smoke in here?” he asked.

  “Outside,” Jenkins said. It would be fine with me, he thought, if this guy never came back.

  “Have you ever heard of Project MKUltra?” Tibor asked.

  “Rings a bell,” the undercover said.

  “It was federal. CIA. They were researching mind control and one of the ways they thought it could be done was through LSD. They were giving it to hookers, to johns, scientists for some reason. People like me.” He paused and looked around the room. “Had people jumping out of buildings. There were hearings in the seventies and they shut it down, destroyed almost all the records. It was bad.”

  “That’s fucking insane,” Jenkins said.

  “There’s a lot of fucking insane stuff out there,” the undercover said. The other one was drifting over toward the windows. God, he was young. Jenkins had called for an inside man. Is this who they had sent?

  “I caught a case,” Tibor said. “A murder. The suspect had been, or was still, depending on who you talked to, a subject in one of Portis’ studies. Funded by the government. MKUltra. The deceased had been a rival of Portis’, some academic dustup that none of us understood. Seemed to me like they were arguing over nothing, words on a page, but, well, academics… Anyway, we had a lot of dots and couldn’t make them connect, but most of them pointed back up. To the CIA. To MKUltra.”

  Jenkins thought about his own revelation. “It’s sick,” he said. “The vampire.”

  “Same as me,” Tibor said. He looked at Jenkins and nodded. So it was all going to come out.

  “I wish I knew what the fuck you guys were talking about,” the undercover said.

  “That’s not the only time our paths crossed,” Tibor said.

  “Can we do some police work now?” the undercover asked. Jenkins balled his fists but kept them at his side.

  “I was a subject in a test,” Tibor said. “I thought maybe they could, I don’t know, make me normal again, back to being just a person, just a cop. But Portis was up to something very different and I think he’s still working on it.”

  Finally, Jenkins thought, a direction on this case, the pieces started to come together. He turned to Tibor. “If w
e find this guy, you think there’s a chance we can find out how to, I don’t know, reverse whatever he did to you?”

  Tibor nodded. “I would be remiss if I didn’t note,” he said, “that there’s also a chance that he could…”

  “Yep,” Jenkins cut him off before anybody could catch up. “There’s a chance of anything. All the more reason to get back out there.”

  Chapter 35

  July 7, 1995. Outside Chicago, IL.

  They were moving, rolling, when Cain awoke. They were in a car. His compartment, whatever it was, was dark and close. He lay on his back. It was perfectly black, or almost so, a dark gray hovering over everything. He reached a hand out to feel the roof above him, the walls to the left and right. They were solid, covered in some kind of fabric. They were driving, could feel the bumps in the road, hear the traffic sounds mixing with low conversation behind his head.

  He tried to remember how he had gotten here. The show. The Dealer and the girl, the feeling coming on in the middle of the woods and then…

  He hoped the people in the clearing, the man he had killed, weren’t cops, but knew in his gut that they were. Something in his brain had registered them even in the middle of everything that was happening. Something about their clothes, the way they ran, clutching walkie-talkies or badges or hidden service weapons. In his years with the Angels, the art of spotting a police officer had been a much-valued skill—second only, perhaps, to fighting or riding or dealing. Since the change, he had used that skill more than he would have guessed, although always to slip away silently, remove himself from a situation instead of starting one.

  He almost laughed. There had been a time when his biggest problem was trying to maintain life as an unregistered. Now he needed to stop killing people. He was a cautionary tale, the exact situation the right-wingers would trot out to make the case that integration hadn’t worked, that his kind needed to be put away, locked up in a place where there was no such thing as unregistered. They would ensure that for his kind there would be no such thing as the open road, or another show next week, or any of the careful but free life he’d been living for the past twenty years.