by Drew Stepek
Eldritch grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me along. “Come on.”
When we reached the sink and vanity area of the room, he pulled closed the sliding door that separated the sleeping and living area from the bathroom. Then he pointed to the toilet. “Sit.”
“Here,” I said as I sat on the throne and held up the head shop bag.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A gift,” I announced. “For her.”
He took the bag and looked inside. He sighed again. “Why?”
I continued to look at my feet. “I don’t think she likes the wig. I thought maybe this would make her feel cool.”
Without responding to the gesture, he dropped the bag in the corner, under a clothes hanger bar on the other side of the sink.
“Look,” I started.
Apparently I got some barf on the bag when I was hiding out next to the dumpster, trying to cool down. Eldritch turned on the sink and furiously washed it off his hands.
“Look,” I started again. “I’m really shaken up, dude.”
He shut off the sink. “Do tell. I am curious where this could possibly lead. I have only heard from you through a series of volatile text messages over the past forty-eight hours.”
I scratched my neck. “Well, I was hiding out under a tarp after we separated at the drug store.”
He guided my head up and over with his finger again. “I want to see your eyes.”
“I got into a fight with a huge opossum. Then, I fought off a pack of guard dogs. After that I met some sober cheeseball who runs all the cocaine in the Southwest through a jet ski rental business.” I blinked but looked him straight in the eyes. “Then, I met up with the BBPs and we were attacked by some gang of psycho bitches called the RTL. Apparently, Linnwood thinks he can just take over the coke business in Austin without starting a gang war. Well, that didn’t work out.”
He turned around and cupped his hands together behind his back. “Is he still among the living?”
“Yeah, he’s still alive.” I stretched my legs out. The top of the toilet tank behind me shook loose. “Only three Perrys still alive, though.”
“Unfortunate,” he said as he paced a few steps to the hanger bar.
“I met the Minutemen. They’re a fun bunch.” I grabbed some toilet paper and stuffed it into my mouth in an attempt to dilute the gross smell of my insides. I threw the conversation back on him. “Any word from Rodderick?”
He side-stepped back to the sink and turned on the water. He then lathered up his hands again and scratched at his skin. “I do not believe that I have his most current number.”
I stood up, stretched my arms up to the ceiling and bent my back toward the tub. “I do have some possible good news.”
“Do tell.” He turned off the water and wiped his hands on a towel. Then he laid the towel on my shoulder.
“Linnwood knows him.” I grabbed the towel and wiped my face. It was semi-moist and I could smell hints of the generic cheap motel soup lacing the terrycloth. “He and the Perrys come down here every year for South by Southwest.”
“Everyone comes to Austin for South by Southwest.”
“So I’ve heard.” I backed up to the toilet and sat down again. “He sent Rodderick a text. He said he’ll give him our message and then get back to me.”
Eldritch stepped to the threshold between the vanity room and the bathroom. “Will he betray you?”
“Hard to say.” I put my elbows on my knees and rested my cheeks on my hands. My body creaked after every movement. “The catch is that the Perrys just took down Ride the Lightning. Ride the Lightning was running cocaine for Rodderick. Linnwood is starting a war in Austin because he said Los Angeles is over.”
His boots turned away from the bathroom and he walked back to the sink. “Yes. I concluded as much. Linnwood has a habit of taking things that do not belong to him.”
“I’ve been thinking, Eldritch.”
“You have? That seems amusing to me.” For the third time, he turned on the faucet. “It sounds like you just returned from a celebration all over Austin.” He chuckled to himself. “RJ has been thinking.”
“Fuck you, asshole.” I stood up from the toilet and faced him. “I didn’t come back here to fight with you.”
He grabbed the soap and covered his hands and wrists with froth. “I’m quite surprised you came back at all.”
I stood in the bathroom doorway and looked at him in the mirror. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know damn well what it means.” He slammed his fist on the porcelain sink. “Killing the girl’s parents was your idea. But taking the girl was my idea.” He flicked a long stand of hair out of his face and stared back into the mirror. “She does not understand our world, RJ.”
“That’s what I was thinking about.” I lightened my tone, reached over and turned off the water. “If we don’t hear from Rodderick tomorrow, I think we should hand the girl over to the police or firemen.”
“How dare you!” He turned from the mirror and shook the foam off his hands.
I pointed toward the other room, reminding him that Pinball was asleep. “How dare me, what? We need to do something.”
“I do not want to betray the trust that I have built with the child. I will not make her a ward of the state. Those people are monsters.”
“What the fuck are we? I take that back.” I handed him the towel. “What the fuck am I? Surely the authorities are better than me.”
He wiped his hands. “Yes, they might be better than you.”
“You act like I had a choice in what went on over the past few days. Your good friend Rodderick hasn’t gotten back to you. I’ve been attacked by three different gangs since we got here. We need to cut our losses and head home.”
“Cut our losses? Cut our losses? You are acting like you lost a game.” He turned back to the vanity and began sopping up the water overflow from his three hand washings. “Maybe it would be better if you returned to L.A. and cut your losses.”
“I can’t get back to L.A., dude. You know that. I’m agreeing with you. If you would stop washing your hands for a second and listen to me, you’d realize that my purpose is to get the girl safe. Safe and away from us.”
He stopped drying off the counter but didn’t say anything. Instead, he just looked at me in the mirror.
“I was wrong,” I admitted. “This whole trip. This whole thing. It’s wrong. I know that. Have you seen the news? They aren’t far behind us, Eldritch. We either have to get the girl to the actor now or we have to turn ourselves in. I don’t care if it’s the cops or the fire department. Anyone is better for her than you and me.”
“Speak for yourself,” he whispered. “I have not seen the news. I do not want the Little One to hear what is happening.”
I stepped closer to the mirror. “Why are you resisting this? I am trying to do the right thing. We put the girl in the center of a zombie apocalypse at a drug store.”
He starred back. “They are not true zombies.”
“They sure as fuck looked like true zombies to me. And let’s be honest.” I tapped on the soiled drywall. “While you were hiding out in this room, I’ve been out there on the streets getting batted around like a piñata.”
He reached toward the hot water lever.
I slapped his hand away. “How do you pay for this room, anyway? How do you pay for everything?” I put my finger to my chin as if I had solved a crime. “That’s right. You have credit cards. You had a family. This vampire thing is only a dress-up game to you.”
“You know nothing about me,” he insisted. “You know nothing, little man.” He spun around and grabbed me by the throat. “The only game here is the one that you started.” He lifted me up to his face. “Do we need to go through this again? Do we need to relive these moments constantly where you question my credibility?”
I gasped for air. “I’m not questioning your credibility, friend. I am questioning your intent. Why don’t we just go l
eave the girl in the office of the hotel and get in your rental car and be on our merry way?”
He tightened his grip. “As I said before and I will say again, this was all your doing. I led us to Austin because I have a strategy. I have a plan that will enable the girl to have a real life after this.”
“And then?” My larynx fought his fingers. “Share the plan.”
He let go. “You will sleep in here tonight.” He pointed to a pillow and a blanket under the hanger rack. “You will shower and then you will go to sleep.”
I coughed and dove under the facet. I twisted open the handle and let the cold water sooth my throat.
He crossed his arms across his chest. “I will share the plan with you in the morning. Hopefully, your collaborator will send a message tomorrow. Please leave your filthy rags on the other side of the door and I will launder this evening.” He turned around, slid the door back open and left the room.
As he was closing the door behind him, I heard Pinball ask, “What’s going on in there?”
“Nothing, Little One,” he responded. “Uncle RJ and I are having a disagreement.”
She yawned. “Oh, he’s back?”
“Yes. He slayed more evil creatures in your honor.”
“Okay.”
I took off my clothes, balled them up and set them outside the sliding door. Before I got in the shower, I also put the bag from the head shop outside next to my laundry.
I struggled to fall asleep to the metronome drip of the Golden Aces’ facet. I got up several times from the hard floor that was covered by a thin layer of mangy, damp carpet to try and shut it off to no avail. I heard a lot of movement outside in the main living quarters, which I guessed meant that Eldritch was doing my laundry. I knew better than to open the door again to ask any questions. It was better to sleep off my drug-logged body and try again to appeal to his senses in the morning. Finally, after rolling around in my cell, I fell asleep.
I sat alone in the circle. I was in the gymnasium again, but the rest of the band of dreamtime regulars were nowhere to be found. I felt relieved.
Dez entered the meeting and sat down across from me. “He’s right, you know. This is your fault.”
“I admitted it was my fault,” I said.
He walked around and took the seat next to me. “I sure didn’t help. Did I?”
I tried not to look at him.
“Ignoring me isn’t gonna help you,” he said.
I put my fingers in my ears and closed my eyes.
“I said, that’s not going to help you.”
I looked back across to the other side of the chairs, still trying to avoid talking to Dez. The Cloth leader Fat Mac was sitting across from me now. He had one of the dog collars on that The Cloth used to keep vampires restrained. His arms were where his legs should have been. “He’s right, you know,” he said as he tried to loosen the collar with one of his feet hands.
“Adstringo gutter!” a voice on the other side of me shouted.
The priest winked at me. His head didn’t explode.
I turned to my left, where the new voice was coming from. It was The Habit again. The lights flared on in the gymnasium and melted mutant Fat Mac in his chair. The collar spun like a ring on the floor under the chair as my attention returned to the papers.
I kicked the chair over and a waterfall of sludge splashed everywhere. “It’s your fault. Why didn’t you just let us all die? Why did you need to bring us to life?”
“That’s not gonna help,” Dez said a third time.
I turned to face him. “What happened? What happened, Dez?”
He got up from his chair and walked over to the leftover plasma dripping off Fat Mac’s chair. He plucked up a dollop and snorted the priest’s remains like they were coke. “What happened when?”
I jumped on top of him from behind and began bashing his face against the dirty linoleum floor. “You know when, you fucking traitor. When you killed Bait.” I bashed and bashed and bashed and all he did was laugh until his entire body turned to dust.
The Habit, now dressed in one of her teeny bopper outfits from her show Dag Nabbit, stood over me. She put her hands on my shoulders. “That’s not gonna help.”
“What’s not going to help? I don’t understand.” I pulled away from her embrace and got back to my feet.
She walked in front of me and I reached toward her face. “You evil piece of trash!” I yelled. I balled up her head in my hand and ripped it from her body. Like Fat Mac’s body, her head melted in my hand.
As I shook her goo off, a voice called out from the circle of chairs. “Hey, you, scumbag.”
I felt around in the air for the door and then snapped at the voice. “Just a fucking minute!”
“Hey, scumbag. Come on over here and help us.”
I looked back to the circle. It was Bait and Pinball’s parents.
The mother lifted a giant syringe over her head. “Can you get over here and hold this cunt down?”
I ran over to the circle. The mother knelt next to little girl as she used her knee to nail her to the ground. “Let’s get high.”
The father pulled a knife out of his back pocket and started combing his greasy comb over. “Yeah, man. Let’s get high.” Not realizing that he was using a knife to comb his hair, he stared peeling skin from his skull.
I looked at the mother, who started kissing the little girl on the ground.
“I want some of that,” the husband said. He handed me the knife. I hadn’t noticed that he was naked when I first saw him but as he closed in on the captive, his skin started to shed, revealing a bloody blob. “I want that bitch to suck my balls.”
For a minute, I couldn’t move. I had to sit there and watch.
He walked over and kicked the wife out of the way. She started hissing as her face morphed between human and opossum features. As he stood over the child and prepared to dip his pelvis onto her, his body liquefied and dripped into a thousand babies who started nibbling on the body. The body didn’t move. It just laid there.
The opossum lady laughed. “Worthless piece of shit,” she said.
I looked at the knife.
Dez reappeared next to me. “That’s not gonna help.” He walked over to the girl on the floor. Not paying attention to where he stepped, he squashed the babies. One by one they shrieked. At one point he bent over and picked one up. Like Fat Mac, he turned to me and winked as he took a bite of the baby’s face. He bent over next to the mother. “It’s not going to help you, RJ. It’s not going to help you because you’re a fucking waste.” He unbuttoned his pants.
The opossum mother started kissing his neck as she hissed at me. “You fucking poser,” she said. “You fucking derelict.”
Suddenly, I was able to move. I ran at them and pulled the blade back behind my head. When I reached the circle, I started to carefully jump around, trying to avoid the sea of babies that covered the floor. Every other step, I would smash one and it would scream. I would bend over to pick them up, hoping that they could be saved but they would dissolve and drip out of my hands. Furious, I took the knife and began slaughtering Bait and Pinball’s mother and father, just like I had in their trailer.
Then, the lights went out.
When, they came up again, I was sitting in the meeting alone.
“It’s not going to help you,” I told myself.
I felt the metal of Eldritch’s grip my throat from behind.
“You’re right. Nothing you can do will help,” he said. He flipped me over the chair and started strangling me on the floor. I grabbed on to the leg of one of the cheap plastic chairs.
Before I knew it, the naked husband and the opossum mother where on top of me. She pressed her knee into my neck as he started unbuttoning his pants.
“Hey, you, scumbag,” she called out.
The husband’s skin had returned. He dangled his dick over my face and started dripping cum and blood into my face.
My eyes shot open, bringing me back to the
other shitty world that was just marginally better than my nightmares. I got up and shoved a full-sized towel into the sink. The dripping stopped.
My phone buzzed me awake and I uncurled myself from being a ball rolled up under the sink. I always had such lovely dreams. The cracked screen was adhered to my chest. I rarely slept naked but Eldritch insisted that my clothes should be washed.
I peeled the phone from my body. A piece of glass remained attached to my left nipple. Without waiting another second, I yawned and swiped it unlocked.
The message was from Linnwood.
Talked to S-Rod. He wants to meet with you. Alone. He knows who you are.
I texted him back.
Why doesn’t he want to meet with Eldritch? I’ve never even met this fool.
He responded again.
He only wants to meet you. Maybe he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself by being seen with a gigantic goth vampire. He did just survive an overdose. The press is all over him.
I held the phone up to the light, trying to read between the cracks and messaged back.
That’s weird but it makes sense. Does he want me to come to his compound or something?
I scratched my sack and yawned again.
I could see the three dots blink. Then they stopped.
They started again.
Compound? LOL.
I pulled my foot out from under the paper-thin blanket and started picking at my big toe. I typed:
I don’t know. Cobra and the Battlesnakes had a compound. Why would it be so weird for this guy to have a compound? He has a lot of money. Money equals compound.
Finally, he wrote:
Don’t be such a dumb junkie. I’ll send you the details later and then come pick you up. I’m going to need you to smooth things out for me. You know. After what YOU did to the RTL. Peace.
My knees popped as I pulled myself up to the sink. I put some toothpaste onto a brush that Eldritch left for me and looked into the mirror. My reflection didn’t laugh at me. It didn’t even seem to want to look at me. Maybe real vampires never saw their reflection in the mirror because they didn’t want to see themselves. More likely, they didn’t because they didn’t fucking exist.