Stars and Other Monsters

by P. T. Phronk

  He took in a deep breath of the chilly autumn air, shivering.

  “Here we go, girl.”

  It was difficult to act casual with the insane mission a few blocks ahead. But he swung his arms, tried to whistle happily. Yup, just a guy and his dog, out for a stroll. With a bag full of vampire extermination supplies.

  His shivering intensified with each block, as if he could feel Dalla’s presence; those icy eyes watching. What if she let him free as a sick joke? Gave him the illusion of freedom to make it all the more unpleasant when she ripped it away again.

  Or maybe she just needed to hide in the daytime and had no idea he was able to track her.

  The corner that Bloody had pointed out was an average Manhattan city block. No trek through a Moorish wasteland, no climbing up a winding mountain path. Nope, just a street corner dotted with people going about their business.

  “Okay, Bloodhound, do your hounding,” he said. He reached into his bag of tricks to pull out the gore-smeared dish cloth. Bloody gave it a good sniff.

  This was business as usual: find the general area using Bloody’s gift, then hone in on the exact location. She sniffed at the air, then trotted west along Franklin. Stan kept expecting her to turn into some abandoned lot, or to paw at the decaying door to a forgotten basement. But she stayed on the main road, occasionally raising her scrunched face to the air.

  Just after crossing Broadway, she stopped. People who had been following behind Stan and his dog had to dodge around them. “Good one, jackass,” said a man in a chef’s uniform.

  An alleyway veered off from the sidewalk, but Bloody didn’t approach it.

  “You think we’re there, girl?”

  Bloody’s eyes narrowed in concentration. She looked from the building to the left of the alleyway, to the building to the right, then back left again. Both of them were nondescript blocks of apartments with businesses on the ground floor.

  “Okay, well, I’ll check it out.” He looped Bloody’s leash around a nearby pipe. The dog had never run off, so it was more about appearances than actually tying her down.

  The comic store at the base of the left building contained row after row of densely packed books. Action figures lined the walls. He couldn’t help but snort out a laugh when he passed a display full of plastic vampires. Roughly chiseled depictions of beautiful actors, with special paint that made them sparkle in the sun.

  Stan regained his composure, pushed up his glasses, then approached the counter. A young man with curly hair sat there, playing a game on his phone. He slammed it on the desk when Stan approached, then asked if there was anything he could help with.

  “I’m, um, looking for someone. A woman, early thirties, a bit taller than me. Wearing a dress and a hat. Funny looking but also pretty, you know?”

  “This lady in some kind of trouble?” asked the clerk.

  Stan laughed shakily. “No trouble. Just need to have a chat with her about some business. Insurance stuff. Said she lived around here, but ungh, stupid me, I lost her address.”

  The clerk looked at him warily. “Nah. Haven’t seen her.”

  “I’m also looking for vampires,” he said, leaning over the counter and looking over the top of his glasses.

  A frown tugged the clerk’s face down. “All the teenage vampire shit is right at the front.”

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  “Not so much.”

  “Great.”

  When he left the store, Bloody’s leash was pulled taut, still attached to the pipe in front of the store but disappearing around the side, into the alleyway. He jogged to the mouth of the alley. Bloody was hunched, pulling against the leash and growling.

  “What’s got you bothered?”

  It was unusual to see Bloody riled up. He pulled her back so he could untie the leash, and then it was wrenched from his hands. Bloody darted down the alley as fast as her little legs could move her chubby body.

  Stan jogged behind her, running out of breath quickly. He supposed that’s what being awake for over twenty four hours and losing a significant percentage of his body’s blood would do.

  Stan recognized the alley from movies. Hollywood’s version of New York was full of shady canyons between buildings, but in reality there were only a handful of them, so they were all movie stars. This one was surrounded by iconic graffiti, shuttered windows, and a rusted dumpster.

  The object of Bloody’s attention sat on the dumpster. A cat. Its fur was a mottled mess of earth tones, all matted to its skin with grease and dirt. It sat with its tail swaying back and forth, sternly staring at the barking dog.

  “Leave it, Bloody. Bloodhound, leave it. Shoo, cat.” He waved his hands at the dirty thing. “Get outta here.”

  He shook his bag of goodies in the cat’s face. That seemed to bother it. It turned tail and jumped behind the dumpster. Bloody took off after it, but Stan managed to grab the leash in time. It took considerable effort to keep her from wrenching free again.

  “What has gotten into you, girl?”

  As they walked out of the alleyway, Bloody sniffed the air. She looked up at Stan with her big sad eyes, and sighed, frowning so that her lower teeth jutted up over her lips.

  “Aw, it’s okay. You did your best right?”

  Stan searched the ground for any sign of blood. Nothing. Just trash-littered pavement. Not even potential for a trap door leading to a vampire hidey-hole. He arched his neck, causing pain both where he’d been bitten and where it had been wrenched in the car accident. Above was a grid of windows, all of them covered in metal shutters. Fire escapes. Doors to both buildings. None of it made any sense. Every time he’d asked Bloody to find someone, the dog had led him to the exact building, then the exact room, that their prey was in. She had never looked so defeated. No wonder she took out her frustration on that cat.

  He crouched and scratched her behind the ears. “It’s okay,” he repeated.

  There was a break in traffic. Bloody’s floppy ears perked up. Her head turned sideways.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I hear it too.”

  It was nearly imperceptible with cars going by, but in moments of silence, he could hear it. A high-pitched whine, at the upper range of frequencies he could hear, though surely much more audible to Bloody’s doggy ears. Traffic slowed down again, and he noticed it was punctuated by brief pops. Like an old record playing the hum of a refrigerator. It seemed to come from no particular place.

  When he got distracted by a gaggle of girls walking by on the street, he tried to listen for it again, but it was lost. He heard only the echoing sounds of the city. Bloody still listened intently with her nose twitching. When Stan took a deep breath, he could detect the faint, far-off tinge of decay. Like rotting vegetables—and maybe that’s all it was—but it was sour, pungent.

  A shiver wormed its way up his spine.

  “Let’s get out of here, huh girl?”

  Bloody seemed eager to leave. They headed back home, making a brief stop for burgers—one for each of them. The walk back felt much colder than the walk there. Stan walked past Mrs. Olson, then collapsed in his bed, defeated. Bloody shivered in his shaky arms.

  Just a few minutes of rest, to figure out what to do, where to go. Somewhere far away, where the vampire would never find them.

  “Oh God, Bloody, that smell. Mrs. Olson smells just like that alleyway did.”

  He could see her from the bed, through the open doorway. Her slippered feet stuck out from the roll of carpet. Her bloated ankles were turning purple along the bottom.

  He couldn’t keep his eyes off her ankles. Veiny and prickly and purple. He figured there was no way he’d ever sleep. Not now, not ever.

  Somehow he did sleep, deeper and longer than he had intended to, and only woke up when the flames had started to lick at his face.

  (ONE)

  “ELECTRICITY IS MURDER!” SCREAMED THE old man in the patched-up overcoat. “It was written in the stars.”

  “Remember the C.N.
Tower!” he bellowed at a woman pushing a baby stroller. She frowned and quickened her pace.

  “Excuse me, sir!” He pointed at a young man sitting by a fountain eating a hot dog. “Did you know—did you know—that the West was never actually won?”

  “I just want to eat my hot dog,” said the young man.

  Morgan scratched at his graying beard. He stomped over to his shopping cart, waiting for him just outside the Kodak Theatre.

  A man dressed as Spider-Man sauntered past. “Do you know who created you?” said Morgan, pointing a shaky finger at Spider-Man.

  “I’m not into religion, man.”

  “I’m talking about Stan Lee!” Morgan winked. He assumed he’d made Spider-Man smile. Morgan smiled himself, momentarily lost in memories of his childhood.

  Then Cole showed up. Fuckin’ Cole. He planted himself a few feet away from Morgan, then immediately began shouting his routine.

  “Maps to the stars’ homes! Cheapest in town! Can’t find these ones on the Internet, folks. We got your Britney Spears, your Baldwins. Your Paris Hilton. Your Janet Jackson, your Julia Roberts, your Johnny Depp. George Clooney, George Takei. Did I mention George Clooney?” He pointed at a pretty young girl walking by.

  God damn Cole.

  “Cole,” growled Morgan. “Can’t you take your act over there?” He gestured to the building across the street, all giant doors and majestic stone columns. An inscription above the entrance read FREEMASONRY BUILDS ITS TEMPLES AMONG THE NATIONS AND IN THE HEARTS OF MEN. Below that, on banners covering the face of the building, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE. ABC.

  Cole ignored him. “Your Nicholas Cage, your Keifer Sutherland. Starting at only twenty-four ninety-nine.”

  Cole. What an asshole.

  Morgan dug through one of the garbage bags in his shopping cart. He took out a stack of cue cards with hand-written scrawl on each.

  “Don’t’cha worry about the lives of celebrities,” he shouted, louder than Cole. “Worry about your own. Potion recipes available here. Protection from the unseen forces that are surrounding you now. The West was not won! Donations accepted but not required.”

  Cole sneered, but refused to look directly at the old man. Oh, no, that would acknowledge that he existed. Wouldn’t want that. Little asshole.

  Cole shifted closer to Morgan. He inhaled, then, shouting over Morgan’s voice, “I’ve got maps to the homes of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie!”

  He flicked Morgan a brief, smug look. A group of tourists, cameras around each of their necks, stopped to take a look at his maps.

  Morgan sighed. He continued his spiel—his essential, life-saving spiel that none of these vapid fuckers appreciated. Screw ‘em. He did what he could, and if they didn’t wanna listen, screw ‘em to hell.

  There was a chill in the air. It was a cloudy day, which was never good for business. The crowd slowed for a moment, and that is when a man approached wearing a sport coat, a baseball cap, blue jeans, and some of the biggest sunglasses Morgan had ever seen.

  “… recipes. Protection potions, good against a range of forces. Lots’a other recipes available. Ask me,” he continued as the man passed.

  Cole pointed at the man in the sunglasses. “You! Don’t you want to know where Julia Roberts lives?”

  The man stopped. He stared at Cole, rubbing his stubbly chin. “Can you get me her phone number?”

  “That,” said Cole, “I can probably manage. Take one of my maps today, give me your deets, and I can get back at you about it.”

  “Is that right? How about her social security number? Can you get me that?”

  Cole laughed shakily. “I don’t think I ca—”

  The man whacked Cole’s hands. His maps fluttered to the ground, covering Julie Andrews’ Walk of Fame star.

  “What the fuck, man?” screeched Cole.

  “Oh, sorry, nervous twitch. Guess I shouldn’t have gotten so close to your personal space.”

  Cole’s maps started to blow away and unfold in the wind. He scrambled to snatch them all up.

  A cop had jogged across the street. Morgan recognized him: another one of the fuckers always giving him grief, telling him to move along, no loitering here, move along.

  “There a problem here?” the cop asked the man in sunglasses. He jabbed his thumb at the old man. “This guy bothering you?”

  The man got between the cop and Morgan, then lowered his sunglasses. He looked the cop straight in the eyes. “No sir,” he said. “Everything’s all right here. No problem.”

  “Ah, yes, okay sir,” said the cop, the swagger gone from his voice. “Right. I’ll leave you be, sir.”

  The man in the sunglasses turned to Morgan. “Listen, I gotta jet, but: what is it you said you were selling?”

  “Protection potions. Recipes for them. Not sellin’, though, I go by donations.”

  The man reached into his pocket. He took out a one hundred dollar bill and a Sharpie pen, then scribbled something on the bill.

  “Here’s a donation. I don’t need your recipe just now, but, well, listen, I want you to call this number later tonight, okay?”

  Morgan nodded, staring at the money and the phone number written on it.

  “Okay?” asked the man in the sunglasses.

  “Okay. And thank you.”

  The man patted him on the shoulder, then walked away.

  Cole stood up with a ball of bunched-up maps in his arms. “What the fuck?” he squeaked, but the man was already gone, lost in the crowd. A beefy man with close-cropped hair, also wearing sunglasses despite the clouds, sauntered past both of them.

  Morgan didn’t know celebrities too well—none except the real famous ones he happened to see when he wandered by a television—but the guy in the sunglasses was familiar. That strong jaw, those white teeth, that gravelly voice, he could’ve sworn the guy was Damien Fox.

  6. Head in the Clouds

  SMOKE FILLED THE ROOM. BLOODY’S barks were muffled as she pulled at the leg of Stan’s pants.

  Even in the momentary confusion of waking up from a blood-loss-induced coma, he had the sense to first grab for his bag of goodies, dropped on the bed beside him. It was dark outside. Flames slithered over the other side of the bed. He smelled gasoline. He cried out for help.

  When Dalla came through the door, the smoke parting in whirlpools around her, he unscrewed the cap from the holy water, then splashed it on her chest.

  “Oh Stanley,” she said like she was talking to a child, “that’s very sweet of you, but I’m not on fire.”

  In one motion he was wrenched from the bed and hoisted over her shoulder. He struggled, but she squeezed so hard that it hurt, and he still felt weak. She carried him from the bed to the window. With her free hand, she unlatched it, then, with one finger, flicked the heavy window pane open.

  She was going to toss him from his own window. Oh God.

  Bloody wailed hysterically.

  The vampire turned to face her. “Miss Bloodhound,” she said, “I’d like to invite your master for dinner at my house. You are more than welcome to join us. I assume you know the address?”

  She leapt from the window. Stan clenched his eyes shut. He flipped upside-down, then felt cold air rushing past his ears. Memories of his childhood—of his mother—flashed before his eyes.

  When he didn’t feel concrete smash his skull into a dozen shards, and still felt the vampire’s vice grip around his waist, he opened his eyes. He was falling up, not down.

  Falling up was indeed the best way to describe the sensation. They tumbled upside-down, then right-side up, though Stan’s vestibular system didn’t seem to know which was which. He had the queer notion that Manhattan, quickly getting further away, was a three-dimensional tapestry on the ceiling of the Earth.

  They broke through the clouds. A full moon dominated the sky above them. Stan’s ears popped painfully, and the air was freezing. He cried out in pain.

  “Yes, beautiful, isn’t it? Not many humans get to experience this, do the
y?”

  “Yeah, I feel like Lois fucking Lane,” Stan muttered through clenched teeth.

  Something suddenly switched, and they were falling the right way again, back at the ground.

  Stan’s bag of goodies was still clenched in his hand. One of the stakes tumbled out of it and veered off on a different path to the ground.

  “Ah, what have we here?” Dalla grabbed the bag. She let go of him, forcing him to loop his hands around her to keep from falling. She pulled out the other stake and tossed it away.

  “Oh deary, we won’t be needing instruments of violence. Oh, look at this, how cute.” She pulled out the pewter cross, the chain fluttering in the wind. “Which god did you pray to for that ‘holy’ water, Stanley?”

  She hung the cross around his neck. It tugged, putting painful pressure on the bandage there, as the city twirled below. “I’ll let you in on a little secret, honey. There’s only one type of god that actually exists, and you’re clinging to one of them.”

  They were getting dangerously close to the sea of concrete below. Their descent slowed. Dalla overturned the shopping bag, and the rest of its contents continued to the ground. A bulb of garlic splattered on a car’s windshield.

  They were at the corner of Canal and Broadway. They drifted south, along the same path Stan and Bloody had traveled earlier in the day, floating through the air as if suspended by a parachute.

  Stan’s heart dropped when he saw it. He felt all hope seep from his mind then dissipate into the freezing air; madness was so close he could feel it gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.

  Where there had been only a featureless alleyway before, now stood a towering mansion. Like most New York buildings, it was narrower than it was tall, but unlike the buildings around it, it was adorned with intricate arches around the windows, a gargoyle above the doorway, and a circular tower at the top. It fit perfectly between the two buildings around it, with a bit of space on either side, splitting the alley in two.