Vamp-Hire

by Rice, Gerald Dean

  “Come to think of it, we need to have a conversation about that,” he said to himself. Nick was about to approach the recessed doors and saw they were shuttered too. Right. After hours.

  Convenience marts and other places of business with extended hours remained open primarily for emergency and other after hours workers. There were also those in dire emergency. These days someone knocking on a neighbor’s door at two in the morning was liable to get the light show from the end of a double-barreled shotgun, but a jealous ex-boyfriend or a thief who wasn’t considerate enough to wait until a house was unoccupied meant that sometimes people had to go somewhere safe in a hurry. Places like the Big Pig were meant to be safe houses in instances like those.

  He approached cautiously. These places always had cameras even though Lucky had told him that the Pig’s hadn’t worked since before he’d started working there. That wasn’t in compliance with local and federal ordinances. Nick peered inside and saw the vest-covered back of either a skinny blond-haired girl or thin-framed boy, leaning in front of a display case.

  The boy turned around—yes, it was a boy— and started tossing the handfuls of cigarette packs into the air. Nick didn’t move, trying not to be threatening. Sometimes not moving at all was the scariest thing of all, like swatting a spider and then it seeming not to notice it had been hit. Nick didn’t remember putting his hands on the glass like he was about to scale the face of the building like Spider-Man. He slowly took them down and waved.

  “Smile,” he told himself and felt both sides of his mouth slowly lift, revealing not-too-much teeth. The boy, who looked around nineteen or twenty, still hadn’t moved. “I should probably say something,” he whispered.

  “Hi. I’m Nick.” He patted his chest demonstratively, speaking loudly as if there was a language barrier between them instead of six inches of Plexi-glass. “Does Lucky still work here?”

  The boy made a face as if he really hadn’t understood. There was a panic alarm no more than three feet away and he’d hit it if Nick couldn’t get through to him. Nick locked eyes with him.

  “It’s cool. Everything’s all right.”

  The boy’s shoulders slumped and he straightened. Well, sort of. The boy had to have been at least six-foot five and had a hooked posture.

  “I don’t know you, do I?” He spoke slowly, his voice deep and somehow still immature. Nick felt his words swirling around in his head. His heart slowed as if matching pace with the boy’s. He felt himself pulling closer, like… like a fish on a line, except it was flipped upside down in his mind.

  And then the boy was standing two inches away from the glass, staring at Nick.

  “Do you have an emergency? I can’t let you in if you don’t have an emergency. If you want I can call emergency services.” He spoke like there weren’t any periods in his sentences, like one long, dream-like run-on sentence. Maybe he always sounded that way. Nick would not have known one way or the other.

  “No, I don’t have an emergency.” The boy, Tag by the name tag on his vest, turned and began walking away. “Wait! I do need your help, though.” The boy turned back. “I’m trying to find Lucky. Is he here?”

  “Who is Lucky?”

  Nick realized he didn’t know his actual name.

  “Lucky is his nickname.” He didn’t want to say they were close friends and then have Tag ask him why he didn’t know his close friend’s real name, so he decided to try a different tact. “He’s Latino, about yay tall.” Nick held his hand up, palm down, about level to his armpit. Since he was about six-two he guessed that made Lucky about five-three. “He’s got a pencil-thin mustache and van dyke.”

  “A wha?”

  “A goatee.”

  Tag nodded, his facial expression never changing. In fact, Nick was pretty sure he wasn’t even blinking.

  “Oh, yeah. I know him. I think he still works here.” He paused for a long second, looking like he’d fallen asleep with his eyes open. “He sells me cough medicine sometimes.” Considering the Pig more than likely sold cough medicine, Nick guessed that was code for something else.

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Well, I dunno. You might wanna try this house over on Blanche. We hang there after work sometimes. I think there’s a quiet party there tonight.”

  “What’s the address?”

  “I dunno.”

  This was getting frustrating. Nick imagined squeezing the boy’s head like one of the many zits on his face until all the information came out so he could pick through it and find what he needed.

  “It’s a green house,” Tag said. “Take Rochester south three blocks and head west for two. It’s the seventh house in.”

  The boy being helpful surprised Nick. He repeated the directions aloud a few times until he felt he had them.

  “Thanks,” Nick said and left.

  Tag went on staring at the spot where Nick had been, almost as if he’d fallen asleep again. Nick looked over his shoulder, wondering what the boy was on.

  Nick wanted to get there as quickly as possible. He was wide awake, an odd feeling considering how tired he was. He’d walked home, walked to the Pig, and was now walking to a house that may or may not have been where Lucky was. Nick didn’t even know if he’d let him crash. Lucky would want to know how the job went, though.

  Nancy.

  Nick’s mind wandered back to her. That last scream when he was in the cemetery—had Fenton hurt her? The flash of guilt stopped his feet. He briefly thought about going back then thought better of it. Nancy’s problems were her own. Nick wanted no part of the sick game those two had going. He hoped to hell she hadn’t been hurt or worse, killed, but that wasn’t on him. He wasn’t responsible for her being there or her psycho husband looking to kill something.

  That ball of guilt rolled around in his belly just the same.

  Maybe he’d check on her later today. Or better yet, place an anonymous phone call, saying he’d heard something.

  He couldn’t concentrate on her too long, his feet hurt. In an instant, he felt as though he weighed a hundred pounds lighter. His feet still ached, yet the amount of pressure he was putting on them felt significantly less. He moved fast, faster than he’d run, though he didn’t seem to be moving any quicker than a brisk walk. In minutes he was on Blanche Street.

  He remembered Tag telling him the house was the seventh one in and he wished he’d thought to ask which side. Nick counted his way down and as his luck would have it, both houses were a shade of green. At least that’s how they looked in the dark.

  He had a fifty-fifty shot to pick out the right house and even if he guessed right, Lucky may have had a gun. Nick thought he might have been able to talk his way out of being shot, however the noise might attract too much attention. He had to figure out a way to attract Lucky’s attention quietly.

  Wait a second—didn’t Tag say there was a quiet party going on tonight? Nick had never been to one, though he knew what they were.

  The homeless problem hadn’t disappeared from cities, it had gone underground. Once the shelters and other official places there were for them to go were filled up, people who didn’t have a place to stay could go to a quiet party. Sure, abandoned houses were free and plenty to be found, but a quiet party was a place where they could hang with friends and drink before they laid their heads. If Nick guessed right it would be a house full of sleeping people with maybe one minder (Lucky) to make sure nobody sleepwalked or robbed the place.

  Nick thought if he listened at the door, he could tell if there were several people inside. Maybe he could hear them breathing. He imagined they’d be strewn all over the floor once the couches had been taken up. There could have been several people in either house even though these days the Reoccupation had most homes either unlived-in or with one or two people. Human beings had a tendency to spread out, giving each other the most elbow room possible. Why live with your parents when they could have a house down the street or a few blocks over?

  Nick wondere
d if that explained why Phoebe had bought his house. There seemed to be a lot more to her story than that, though. He turned onto the walkway of the green house on his right and jogged up the stairs. For some reason, despite being out well past a federally imposed curfew punishable by up to six months in prison for those caught in violation (and that was for regular humans) he felt wrong about walking across the lawn.

  He stood in front of the door and leaned in cautiously. There was a nasty urban legend going around that some people booby-trapped their houses with shotguns to blast the front door at night if a minimum amount of weight were to register on their front porches. Although he knew better and had read the debunked story on Snopes, he was hesitant nonetheless.

  The floorboards of the porch squeaked as he pressed his ear to the door. In his mind there was a sea of bodies on the other side of the door in various states of undress, legs and arms thrown across neighbors haphazardly.

  In reality, he heard the metallic click of what he was reasonably certain was a gun. He pulled back, hands still raised and a moment later a face appeared in the window to his left. Nick didn’t make any sudden moves, waiting for the face in the window to speak.

  The face only went on looking at him, though, until Nick figured to go ahead and ask, “Is Lucky here?”

  The face disappeared.

  There was a hole in the door about waist high. That was too low to be a peephole and then Nick knew the shot was coming. He threw himself down as something twanged and hammered through the door. He rolled to the side of the porch and was midway over the edge when he saw Lucky eating a bowl of cereal, standing on the porch of the house next door.

  Nick hopped off the porch as the front door opened.

  “Hey, Earl,” Lucky said over a mouthful, “what’s going on?”

  “Damn vamper tried to break in the house.” There was some sort of snapping sound and approaching footsteps.

  “Whoa-whoa-whoa. That’s my friend, Earl. Don’t shoot him.”

  “Bull. That’s a vamper!”

  There was a small clattering sound and Nick knew Lucky had put down his cereal bowl.

  “Earl, that’s not a vampire. Do not shoot my friend!”

  “Dammit, Lucky! He was on my porch!”

  “Earl! Earl! Earl!”

  “All right! All right. Lemme… lemme just check on him, then.” A moment later a head peeked over the porch, looking down at Nick. He flinched, holding his hands up in defense.

  “You good down there, little buddy?” Nick was hesitant to put his hands down, gradually relaxing with each passing second the man wasn’t shooting at him with the crossbow in his hands.

  “I’m… fine.”

  The crossbow dropped out of sight and the man leaned over, offering Nick a hand. “No hard feelin’s, m’kay?”

  Nick reluctantly shook hands with him and then the man retreated back in his house, what sounded like several bolts following as he locked back up.

  “Come on up,” Lucky said.

  Lucky finished his cereal while Nick sat on the couch. He was wrapped in a bathrobe and looked like he’d already had a full night’s rest even though it couldn’t have been later than two.

  “What brings you here?” he said. He narrowed his eyes. “How’d you find me?”

  They were two separate, yet related questions. One inviting, the other suspicious. Nick decided he would address the first.

  “I needed a place to crash. I can’t stay at home for a couple days. Tag told me where to find you. Well, almost where to find you. He said you were having a quiet party.” Nick looked around. Unless they were all stuffed in one room or in the basement they were the only two people here.

  Lucky nodded slowly, his eyes locked on Nick.

  “Well, I’m house-sitting for a friend, but you’re welcome to stay here for a while.” Nick knew instantly this was a lie; nobody house sat. “Nobody’s been showing up lately anyway. I dunno, it’s weird.”

  House sitting implied the owner was on vacation or something like that. This area of the city was being resettled like Nick’s. Hell, almost the whole city had had to be evacuated. Before, during, and after the Conflict people had died, relocated, or just plain vanished. It was highly unlikely the pre-Conflict owners still lived in this house. Nick had no intention of asking who Lucky’s ‘friend’ was, so ultimately, it didn’t matter.

  “Thanks, I appreciate it,” he said.

  “Say, aren’t you cold?” Lucky said, moving on. “All you have on is that light jacket and it got down to twenty-five last night.

  Last night. Which meant Lucky had been to bed and was up now. Even though he couldn’t remember what time he usually got up, Nick imagined it was several hours after now.

  “No. No, I’m all right, actually.” Lucky stepped closer and put the backs of his fingers to his cheek. It was odd that the warmth from his fingers felt so wonderful.

  Nancy came back to mind.

  Nick stopped himself before he could pull away and felt that thing inside him stir again. He looked at Lucky and could see trace lines of veins beneath the skin at his temples. Lucky turned away, headed into another room.

  “Come here, I want you to try something!”

  Nick obeyed, listening to something other than Lucky’s words. He followed him into the kitchen where Lucky had his head poked in the refrigerator. Lucky pulled out what looked like a giant crock pot and set it on the counter. Nick glid closer out of curiosity as Lucky took off the lid, but also because Lucky had a particular scent he wanted to smell more of.

  Lucky reached into the crock pot and produced an egg.

  “Try this.”

  It was so startling and so mundane at the same time that it surprised Nick out of whatever state his mind had entered into. He looked at the egg sitting in Lucky’s palm for a moment before taking it. He held it between his fingers as if puzzled what to do with it. Lucky smiled at him and made a gesture as if to say ‘go on’ and Nick reached over to the counter to lightly tap the egg, cracking the shell.

  He peeled it, still eyeing the thing suspiciously as if he weren’t totally familiar with what he was holding.

  “Go on, take a bite.”

  Nick did so, lopping off the top and getting a mouthful of egg-white. It tasted like nothing at all, but his stomach groaned. Nick hadn’t eaten in hours and this little bit of food had awakened his appetite. Part of his therapy had been to eat on a regular basis and he hadn’t had a bite since lunch.

  He popped the rest of it into his mouth and bit down, immediately regretting it. Thick, cold liquid exploded across his tongue, running to all corners of his mouth. Nick barely managed to get to the sink before retching and spitting. He turned on the water and rinsed his mouth several times.

  “What the hell was that?” Nick asked.

  “It was a boiled egg.”

  “I know that. It was raw inside.”

  “You like it?”

  Nick stared at him.

  Lucky didn’t miss a beat; he left the kitchen, Nick dragging behind. There was a big, official-looking cardboard box on the of the dining room table, strips of tape dangling off the sides.

  “What’s that?” Nick said, his hunger and anger instantly forgotten.

  “That’s a box of bananas.” For Nick to say it wasn’t would put his response in the running for obvious statement of the year. It looked like papers had exploded out of it—they were strewn about the table, save for the few dozen on the other side in neat, overlapping columns. Nick lingered a moment, reading a few of the non-redacted lines before Lucky spoke.

  “Say, what happened with Nancy?”

  Nick looked at him, remembering Lucky was the one who had set that whole thing up.

  “What do you know about her?” he asked.

  “Nothing. She wanted the vampire experience. She contacted me through my website. Did you do the do?”

  Nick narrowed his eyes. Lucky didn’t appear to notice.

  “She tried to kill me.”

/>   “What?” Though Lucky looked legitimately shocked, Nick couldn’t say he knew him well enough to know if he could fake such a reaction. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, she led me upstairs and… we started to do things when she told me her husband was coming home.”

  It was Lucky’s turn to narrow his eyes.

  “She has a husband? Then what the hell did she want with you?”

  Nick gave him his best ‘you tell me’ face.

  “Okay, so she’s some kind of swinger. Did you misunderstand her or something?”

  “No, no. It was perfectly clear. Fenton has always wanted to kill somebody and they thought I could be a treat for the both of them.”

  “That’s sick! So you did it or no?”

  “Hello? Am I not walking and talking right now? I almost got shot!”

  “Almost?” Lucky raised an arm and pointed at something on Nick’s body. He looked down at himself, his hands reflexively rising to pat down him down. There was something wet and thick and tacky between his fingers. When Nick looked, he saw a big patch of red high up on his thigh that he was certain hadn’t been there before. He felt a buzzing sensation in his head and his fingers looked a thousand miles away. It didn’t seem as if he was looking at his hand, like he was in the passenger seat of his own brain.

  His vision blurred and he felt the brief rush of wind in his ears.

  Night wrapped a blanket around him and for a brief flash, the stars came out.

  * * *

  “Holy—I did that?”

  “Shut up and get over here and help me.”

  “Where’d I get him?”

  “In the thigh there. It went clean through.”

  “Nice—I mean, dang.”

  “Earl, if he dies, we’re in it huge.”

  “Well, yeah. If there’s a body. Okay, okay. So, you say it went through, right? Then all we have to do is feed ‘im and he should come right out of it. At least, that’s what I read.”