Zero

by R. E. Carr

  Gail stared at the creature spasming on the floor. At a distance, she might have passed for human. Mud and crusty blood coated her pale skin. Her jeans and “Country Strong” T-shirt were filthy and ripped. A closer look revealed snaggletooth fangs jutting both under and through her cracked lips.

  Gail picked her baseball bat back up. The creature whined and groaned as it tried to escape its impalement with a garden implement. Gail watched it for one second more, until the creature dared to slash its clawed hands at her. Gail brought the bat down onto the creature’s skull with a surprising lack of hesitation. Gail’s fangs surged with pressure, and suddenly she could feel her own teeth pushing over her lip. She looked at her hands and saw claws pushing out from under cotton-candy nails.

  “Mi amor,” Javier said, rushing to her side. He didn’t get too close, however, eyeing the weapon still in her grasp. “Gail? Can you hear me?”

  Gail raised the bat, but this time slammed it into the brick wall. The masonry didn’t just crumble - it shattered as though hit by a sledgehammer. Gail stared in awe of her handiwork.

  “You are definitely your madre’s daughter,” Javier said with a whistle.

  “How did I do that? What the hell are these things? What the fuck is going on, Javier!”

  She stared at all the viscous, oozing blood on the ground and her stomach growled. It didn’t just growl, it roared. She grabbed the headless body with one arm and lifted the stump easily to her lips. A few moments later Gail threw the corpse down and stood there, dumbstruck by the sheer horror show of her arms and chest. She picked little bits of bone from beneath her now massive canines. “Javier?” she whimpered as her vision cleared. “What have I—?”

  She stopped as a terrible gurgling sensation erupted from deep in her chest. Her neck throbbed and pulsed as she felt something hot and sticky rise up from her stomach. A shadow dodged just in time for Gail to projectile vomit a thick, sticky mess of blood and something black and tar-like.

  “Oh dear,” Javier said softly. Before he could say anything else, Gail sprayed again, this time with clear spray. Both vampires watched in a mix of wonder and horror as the liquid began to smoke and sizzle as it landed on the two bodies at Gail’s feet. Gail flopped against the wall she had partially smashed. The body with its head still mostly attached coiled reflexively, and let out a whine like a balloon with a tiny hole in it. The aroma of burning flesh and sudden decomposition made even Javier gag. He eyed a gas can on one of the shelves and quickly doused all four bodies on the floor, making a point to kick the loose head into the pile.

  “Ándele,” he said as he ushered the stunned Gail to the door. As they exited, Javier pulled a matchbook from the strip club out of his pocket. The moment the match landed on the headless body it exploded into flame like a Hollywood car crash. Both vampires stumbled backward and watched in awe as bits of green and lilac mixed into the orange flames.

  “That’s not normal, is it?” she asked as she watched the black goo from her innards burn like a roman candle.

  “Your padre may have been a dragon,” Javier said, not entirely sarcastically. He helped Gail to her feet and gingerly touched the side of Gail’s throat. She hissed reflexively and sprayed more venom onto Javier’s face. He wiped it away just as he started to sizzle.

  “We need to move,” Javier said pulling her away from the burning groundskeeper shed. Only once they had ducked behind a particularly tall monument to some rich Nashville family did Javier dare stop to wipe blood off Gail’s face. “I guess that answers if your venom glands have grown.”

  “Are you OK?” she asked, now clutching her throat. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Shh, mi amor,” he said, continuing to check her out. He pulled back her upper lip to check on her fangs. “I must say, your fangs are even bigger than mine.”

  “What were those things?” Gail choked out.

  “Short answer?” Javier asked.

  Gail nodded. Javier continued solemnly, “They are what either of us could have been if someone didn’t help us when we were first turned. For some reason, the change doesn’t always go smoothly, and the newborn vamp goes loco. They have no will, no reason. They just become feral animals that crawl into dark places to hunt. After a few days, the slow death overtakes their bodies, and they go even más loco. It becomes a race for our kind to find these bestia and dispose of them before they do something really messy.”

  “I just . . . I just killed them,” Gail gasped. “It didn’t seem wrong at all.”

  “Your instincts took over, mi amor. You recognized that it was a monster, and you attacked. Whether you like it, or not—”

  “I’m a vampire,” Gail whispered.

  “Well . . . sí,” Javier said, pulling her close. He seemed oblivious to the gore now sticking to his once-white shirt. “You are indeed a vampire, a hunter—”

  “A killer,” Gail finished for him. “That’s what she said to me.”

  “Yes, we are predators, we hunt and we kill,” Javier said softly. “I know it can be difficult when you are young, but . . .”

  Gail shushed him. She stared at the dark red talon that slid out from under her nail, using it to toy with Javier’s lip. “It wasn’t difficult at all,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “That is what scared me. I might have even enjoyed watching the head bounce against the wall. What does that say about me?”

  “That you are a vampire, mi amor, possibly the most beautiful vampire I have ever laid eyes on, and if we were not dangerously close to a burning pile of corpses, I would do terrible, wonderful things to your body,” he said before kissing her passionately. He smacked his lips as he pulled away. “Your breath tastes like a cigarette lighter, you know.”

  “I’m starting to wonder about the dragon thing,” Gail whimpered. “I feel like I have the worst case of acid reflux ever.”

  They crept through the rows of graves, keeping a lookout for any reaction to the flaming groundskeeper’s house. The Tennessee night air was humid to the point of sticking to the vampires, and Gail could only watch in horror as a blanket of mosquitoes descended on her blood-caked arms.

  “Cuatro, all pretty fresh,” Javier muttered. “This is shameful.”

  “When we are back home, I want to know more. I want to know why those things are mindless monsters, while we’re not. I also want to shower for, oh, ten . . . maybe twenty years.”

  They slipped into another, older part of the cemetery, where a few mausoleums peppered the landscape amongst the graves. Javier froze as they saw one of the tombs with its door propped ajar.

  “Oh, that can’t be good,” Gail said as a whiff of more rotten, bloody musk drifted into her nostrils. Gail froze as she heard the distinctive popping sound of a firearm and a thud.

  “Maybe the deputy didn’t leave town after all,” Javier said, slowly approaching the mausoleum. “If there really is a nest of animals buried in here—”

  “What?” Gail asked. She froze as a strange aroma wafted her way. Her heart locked up in her chest, and her jaw quivered as panic overcame her more and more with each breath. Javier grabbed her arm.

  “Run!” he said, but Gail’s legs remained frozen in place.

  “Freeze,” a new voice commanded from the doorway. Gail followed the second piece of advice, and stood in front of the door with a baseball bat and an outfit worthy of Carrie cosplay. A pair of luminous, dark eyes stared from the shadows.

  “Hands where I can see them, now!” a strong voice with a distinctly southern accent barked. Gail whipped her bat behind her back. Javier tried to fade into the shadows, but the creature in the doorway warned, “Uh, uh, ahh, little bloodsucker. You take one more step and I fire.”

  “We can survive a few bullets, mi amor,” Javier hissed.

  “You wanna bet on that, Fangs?” the stranger asked, her voice now dangerously low. The woman stepped out of the shadows and showed off what looked like a tranquilizer gun in her steady hands. “How about a hit of tetracycline popped into your
ass?”

  Gail stared at the gun, and at the black claw poised on the trigger. This stranger stared back at them with eyes that seemed to have no corneas, and patches of fur blurred the lines between her dark skin and even darker hair. The only thing that broke this creature’s image of stone-cold killing machine, was the fact that even Gail towered over this pint-sized assassin.

  “Please, we have no quarrel with you,” Javier said.

  “No quarrel? No fucking quarrel?” the stranger snapped. “How do I know you didn’t just drop those animals in here?”

  “Because we just fought them!” Gail blurted out. “Oh my god, you’re a . . . you’re a . . .”

  “You know what I am?” the stranger growled. “Good, well if you know what I am, then you know not to try any funny business, OK? You aren’t animals, but you’re still bloodsuckers, and I’m real tempted to start shooting if you don’t have something real interesting to say in the next thirty seconds.”

  “We don’t want to fight,” Javier said, now holding up his hands in surrender. The stranger eyed their gore-spattered clothing. “I mean, we don’t want to fight you.”

  “He knows Lorcan,” Gail blurted out.

  “Usually I work up to that, mi amor,” Javier hissed. “But sí, I do. Would you happen to be one of his lob hombre friends from Tennessee?”

  The stranger kept her aim steady, but cocked her head at Gail. She narrowed her eyes and muttered, “I’ve seen you before.”

  “Well, it’s quite possible I’ve forgotten you,” Gail confessed. “I’ve forgotten a lot.”

  “Gail Filipovic,” the stranger said. “You were one of the missing persons I was looking into . . . from Boston. Damn, you’re a bloodsucker? I thought I’d find you in a giant blender by now.”

  “Can we skip the posturing for a change, and maybe just talk like civilized monsters, por favor?” Javier offered. “Perhaps in a place not so close to rotting corpses.”

  “How do I know that if I turn my back to clean up the last of the mess, you won’t just go all vamp on me?” the strange werewolf asked.

  “And if we walk away, you might just shoot us in the back, Ms. . . . um . . .?” Gail retorted.

  “Toy, just call me Toy,” she replied. “And the answer to your question is because I know Lorcan too.”

  Javier took a slow, steady step backwards, keeping his hands in the air. Gail mimicked his motions, but kept the bat in her hand. Toy slowly lowered her gun. “OK, we’re all being cool,” Toy said calmly. “Now, let’s keep it that way. You wanna talk? You two get cleaned up, and I’ll meet you at the Waffle House near the Airport in about an hour.”

  “A Waffle House?” Gail asked incredulously.

  “Yeah, it’s easy to find, public, and damn it, I’ve just cleaned up a half-dozen pieces of your kind’s trash, so I want a pecan waffle and some bacon, damn it. I’ll see you at four AM. If you chicken out, I still get my waffles.”

  Gail and Javier both nodded, before turning and running through the cemetery at full speed. The dove into their car and hurried as fast as the speed limits would allow toward their motel near the airport. Gail peered nervously out the window as she saw some drunk guys stumbling on the landing near their room. She finally looked in horror at her clothes.

  “Are we really going to meet a werewolf at a Waffle House?” she finally asked.

  “Would it really be the strangest thing to happen to us, all things considered?” Javier asked.

  “I guess not,” Gail said as they made a beeline for their room. Javier rushed ahead, and Gail had to tiptoe over two unconscious gentlemen to get to the door. “Damn, I hope I can do that someday,” she said with admiration in her voice.

  They stripped the moment they got inside, and saved time and water by hopping into the shower together. Gail lifted Javier over the edge of the tub so he didn’t have to struggle over with his one leg.

  “You are getting very strong,” he remarked.

  “You’re just skinny,” Gail dismissed. She distracted him by washing his back and continuing down. He returned the favor. Once cleaned up but not dressed, Gail ran her fangs slowly along Javier’s arm, stopping at his wrist. She gave him her best puppy eyes. Javier responded by pushing her teeth into his skin. Both of them moaned as she started drinking.

  Gail soon flopped on the bed, blushing and happy as Javier’s blood coursed through her veins. Javier smiled as he got dressed. “Sorry, I needed a fix,” she said in her sweetest little voice. She then pouted as she stared at her skinny, rather unassuming body with just enough padding around her thighs and hips to make her insecure.

  “What is it, mi amor?” Javier asked as he noticed her scowling at herself.

  “I can smash a brick wall and play croquet with a skull. Hell, I can even lift you up now, but I still look so . . .”

  “Beautiful?” Javier offered.

  “Scrawny,” she finished. “I mean, I feel different, but I don’t look any different. Well, other than these . . . these are new,” she said as she flexed her talons.

  Javier tossed her some clothes. He did sigh sadly as she slid on a camisole. He then slouched to give the illusion of a pot belly then showed off his protruding ribs and pathetic gun show.

  “Well, I’ve been alive for a very long time, and I never transformed into the body of an Adonis,” Javier said. “We are cunning predators, mi amor. While we may be strong and quick, we always try to look unassuming. Our outer weakness conceals our inner strength.”

  “Well, that werewolf girl was ripped. Her biceps made Linda Hamilton in T2 look like a pansy,” Gail muttered. “I don’t even know why it bothers me so much. I just tore people apart and all I can think of is that I have chicken arms.”

  “Think of yourself like one of those teenagers from the TV,” Javier explained. “Your body is going through a lot of changes—”

  “Please, never, ever use that voice with me again,” Gail begged with a shudder. She crawled over to the mini-fridge and pulled out a bag of pigs’ blood. She made sure to sip carefully as her new top was a lovely pastel floral. Before she knew it, she had sucked down the whole bag. “Wow, I guess that took a lot out of me.”

  “You’re a growing girl,” Javier said with a wink. Gail rolled her eyes.

  “So, we’re really going to talk to this werewolf? I don’t even know what happened. When I first saw her, I froze. I’ve never felt fear like that. It was involuntary.”

  “Just like we have our miasma, the lob hombres have theirs. The first time you experience it, it can be paralyzing, mi amor. The stronger and more into the change the monster is, the more terrifying. You, you are still very young. The fact that you recovered so quickly speaks of your strength. I mean it.”

  “She was fighting the animals. Is that why?”

  “Exactamente!” Javier said with a smile. “Now you know why our kind fears theirs. If she really wanted to kill us, I’m not sure we would both survive.”

  “I think I’m going to take some self-defense classes. I’ll add that to the list. If this goes badly, um, do we have anything with silver bullets?”

  Javier burst into laughter. “I am so sorry, but that only works in the movies, mi amor. If you want to kill a lob hombre, regular bullets will work, you just need a lot of them. Then you also really should destroy the brain, the heart, and puncture both lungs. Finally, you set them on fire and they should stay dead. Should.”

  “But the vampires won, right? They made the werewolves almost extinct, right?”

  Javier wrapped his arms around her. “Sí, we did, and we found a humane way to prevent them from ever being a force to be reckoned with again.”

  “You did?”

  “We have been promoting vaccines for ages. It’s brilliant!” Javier spent the majority of their trip explaining the history of vampire involvement in the development of various vaccines, as well as their encouragement of the spread of chicken pox around the world.

  “So that’s why they cared about the titer tes
ts,” Gail muttered as she pulled their land barge into a spot behind the designated Waffle House. “I just put it all together now. Chicken pox makes you immune to becoming a werewolf . . . weird.”

  “The human immune system, our biggest blessing, and biggest bane since the dawn of time,” Javier said. He paused as he saw a lone woman sitting in a booth right by the window. “Are you sure you are ready for this, mi amor?”

  “We’ve faced three werewolves before,” Gail said with a brave smile.

  “Sí, but you were human, and I don’t know . . . something about this one is a wee bit more frightening even than Sam Black in his fits of anger. He is a monster that rages and thrashes, but that you can easily outsmart. This one . . . this one uses a gun and wants to talk.”

  “But . . . she looks so . . .” Gail muttered, as she saw Toy now dressed in a frilly little tank top and some jeans. She also had steak and eggs, hash browns and a pecan waffle laid out in front of her, with an empty plate already waiting for the waiter. “. . . Hungry,” Gail finished as she slipped into the restaurant.

  Toy smiled a frighteningly bright white smile as Gail and Javier entered. She motioned to the empty seats across from her, the ones with the backs facing the door. Javier and Toy both sniffed the air cautiously.

  “I went ahead and ordered you both steaks, extra bloody,” Toy said. “Something in my gut said that you would show up, but, hey, if you didn’t, I get more steak.”

  Gail and Javier settled down awkwardly. They waited for their food with smiles plastered on their stiff faces. Once they had straightened out that Gail wanted water and Javier chocolate milk, Toy planted her elbows on the table, rested her head in her hands, and smiled sweetly at both vampires.

  “I guess we can talk now. How did you put it? Talk like civilized monsters? I must say it’s a refreshing change from my never-ending shit-storm this past month,” Toy sighed. “So I’m Toy, you’re Gail, and you are?”