Stars and Other Monsters

by P. T. Phronk

  “Not often,” she said finally. “There are not a lot of us. Too many in one area, it draws suspicion, and the humans that know of us wish to hunt us down. Well, most of us. There are some who are hip with living a life with humans.”

  “Those actually exist?”

  “Well yes, but they’re not very interesting.”

  “Why don’t you? You turned on by cruelty?”

  She giggled. “Let me try to explain this. You eat meat, right? You could be a vegetarian. You could roam the plains with chickens and cows, all living in perfect harmony. But you don’t. You don’t because it doesn’t feel right, and because you get all the privileges of being part of a species that has dominated nature for centuries. You don’t go back from that; once you have that power, it’s no longer cruel to exert it.”

  Stan burped silently, and the taste of the McDonald’s hamburger on his breath made him feel ill. “But humans aren’t cows. You can’t have a conversation with a cow. You can’t relate with one.”

  “Oh honey, listen, you relate to your dog, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve had conversations with her, back and forth. It’s the same with my babies at home. Do you think a pig would be any different, once you got to know it?”

  “I’ve never gotten to know a pig.”

  “And I’ve never gotten to know a human.”

  She became silent. The airy smile on her face temporarily disappeared, replaced with an uncomfortable frown. A nasty feeling hit Stan’s gut as well, and it wasn’t just the hamburger.

  Hours later, she stopped to piss for a second time at a twenty-four hour diner past Tulsa Oklahoma. She leapt from the car, then turned back, realizing she’d left the keys in the ignition.

  “Can’t have you drivin’ away on me, pets,” she said.

  She ran to the diner, hopping with her legs half-crossed. A pee-pee dance. It was another one of those too-human moments.

  Stan took out the bobby pin he’d been palming.

  “Hope this works,” he whispered to Bloody. “We might only get one shot at this. You ready to do your part?”

  Her tail wagged back and forth, just once.

  Stan bit the little plastic nub off the end of the bobby pin, leaving a flat stick of metal. He found the button that controlled the convertible roof, still open, and wedged the pin between the button and the bezel around it. His fingers were numb and shook from the cold, but he held the pin there with one hand then came down on it with the other. The pin went in deep, accompanied by a satisfying crunch. He repeated the process on the other side of the button to be sure, then bent it to one side, prying the button out from the bezel slightly.

  He prayed it did enough damage to render the button useless. The rest of the plan was all about timing.

  She returned just as he dropped the pin back to the floor.

  “You didn’t have to go?” she said.

  “Nope. We’re stopping soon, aren’t we? I’m more cold than anything.” A little reverse psychology never hurt.

  She glared at him, her eyes narrow, suspicious. “We stop when I say we do, young man.”

  They drove for another hour, her foot heavy on the gas. When the clock read 4:40 a.m., and Dalla was already craning her neck at each road sign to look for a place to stay for the day, it was time for Bloody’s part of the escape plan.

  Stan discretely tapped Bloody’s side to get her attention. Then, under the guise of covering his mouth for a yawn, he gave Bloody the speak signal—the trick he’d taught her so she’d bark for a treat.

  Bloody looked at him, squinting. With her wrinkly face, she looked like a skeptical old woman; you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.

  He did the gesture one more time: pinching at the air in front of his face, like he was pulling words out of his mouth.

  Bloody sighed, then barked. Dalla jumped, then the car swerved onto the shoulder for a moment. She appeared startled again by the sound of the rumble strips.

  “Shut her up,” she said.

  “She’s trying to tell us something. What is it, girl?”

  He did the gesture again, subtly, but Bloody barked before he even finished.

  “We’re getting close,” Stan said.

  “Damien Fox is hiding out in Oklahoma?”

  Stan grabbed the signed T-shirt from the back seat. He held it for Bloody to sniff. Play along, girl. Just play along.

  The dog’s tail wagged. She stood up in Stan’s lap and pawed at the window.

  Good girl.

  “According to her, yeah. We need to pull off at the next exit.”

  She turned off onto a smaller highway. Bloody continued to pant as they drove for another twenty minutes. 5:00 a.m., lied the clock.

  Stan tapped Bloody’s side. She barked again. “We gotta turn, up here. She’s getting excited; we must be close. Jesus, I didn’t think it would be so soon,” he said, adding a bit of false waver in his voice. He knew that she knew that he knew finding Fox would be the end of the line for him.

  She slowed at the next intersection. Dirt roads lead off in both directions.

  “Which way?”

  “Stop for a sec. We gotta get out and let her tell us.”

  Dalla glanced at the clock, sighed, then pulled over.

  Stan got out with Bloody. He made her bark once more, for effect, then started wasting time. He held the shirt up for Bloody to sniff. He made her sit, then started pointing every which way. Her tail twitched during northwest points, but he ignored them and surveyed both directions. It was difficult to tell by the moonlight, but the road going west looked like their best option: a dirt road leading into open farmland with just a few leafless trees lining it.

  The vampire drummed her fingers on the windshield. “Hurry,” she said.

  “Okay, okay, pretty sure she’s saying west. Again.”

  She growled, then got back in the car. The clock said 5:10. They drove west for half an hour, slower on the dirt road. Stan encouraged Bloody’s faux excitement. The vampire bit her lip, buying into the thrill of the chase.

  “We’re so close now,” he said. “His house must be right up here. Maybe he has family here?”

  At 5:45, according to the clock, Dalla slammed on the brakes and pulled over. A bird chirped in the distance.

  “This isn’t right,” she said. She turned the car around, kicking up gravel as she put the pedal to the floor. Her nostrils flared as she sniffed the cold air.

  “Where are you going? This is the wrong direction.”

  “I’ve gotten much too excited,” she said.

  The clock read 5:55, but it was actually 6:55 when the vampire’s eyes widened with horror. Ahead, in the eastern sky, there was a glow on the horizon.

  “What in the world is going on?” she said.

  A minute later, the sun peeked over the horizon, illuminating the flat, featureless Oklahoma landscape. All green pastures and cows. Dalla screamed in pain. She reached for the button that should have closed the convertible roof. Nothing happened. She hammered on it with her fist until she cracked the dashboard.

  Steam hovered around her face, like mist over a lake. The plan had worked. He’d tricked the bitch into staying up past her bedtime.

  She turned to Stan. “You did this,” she said.

  When she grinned, Stan knew that he was in trouble.

  She wrenched the steering wheel to the left, then took her hands off of it and cackled. Stan reached over to grab the wheel, but she elbowed him in the face. Wetness poured from his nose. He was blind. Bloody was barking.

  Stan felt the car launch over a ditch. He forced his eyes open. He saw black and white spots. The car’s hood crumpled like an accordion. Pain forced his eyes closed again.

  10. Watching the Sun Rise, Holding Hands

  BLOOD, EVERYWHERE. IT COATED THE windshield, now sporting a hole in front of the driver’s side. Everything was sideways. The blood gave the soft morning sunlight a red tinge, like the cotton curtains at Stan’s mother’s house.

  He frantica
lly looked for Bloodhound, then realized his dog was in his arms; he must have instinctively grabbed her when the car was on its collision course. He let go of Bloody, who was squirming to get free from Stan’s iron grip, then checked his own well-being. A trickle of warmth flowed down the side of his head, but he didn’t feel any major holes, gashes, or squishy bits.

  His seatbelt was still fastened. It must have done its job. Dalla’s seatbelt, never having been fastened, was less diligent in fulfilling its purpose. Much of the blood seemed to have dripped from a splatter surrounding the hole in the windshield.

  Ding dong the bitch is dead?

  Stan unfastened his seatbelt, reached up, then flipped the driver side door open. He poked his head out of the door and surveyed the scene, like a tank commander emerging after a battle.

  In front of the car was the unfortunate cow that had brought them to a stop. It looked like a leaky bag of meat, with skin loosely arranged around jutting bones and bulging raw hamburger.

  Dalla lay a few feet in front of the car. Bits of glass embedded in her skin glittered in the quickly rising sun. Steam rose around her, and he could hear sizzling.

  Wait, was that her, or the car?

  He leapt to the ground. He hesitated for a moment, considering finding something sharp and wooden. But with the risk of an exploding car behind him, and the possibility that this was another of her tricks—that the moment he got near, he’d feel her teeth puncturing his neck again—he couldn’t stay a moment longer. He ran, stumbling in the bumpy field of grass, Bloody at his side. His head felt heavy on his shoulders and stars blossomed in his vision, but he ran nonetheless.

  A farmhouse loomed ahead of him. All peeling yellow paint and a rotting wooden porch, what would have been a Texas Chainsaw Massacre moment any other day was, today, a light at the end of the tunnel.

  Stan knew that if he could just reach the house then get inside, he’d be safe. Even if she was still alive, he’d be protected by her inability to go where she wasn’t invited. He could call for help.

  But she was dead. She was lying in directly sunlight. His plan worked. She had to be dead.

  He was almost there. One more minute. He felt close to vomiting and his head was swimming, so at first he wasn’t sure it was real, but he thought he heard laughing from behind him.

  High-pitched giggling. Oh shit, oh God, it was hers.

  He picked up his pace, but it was no use. The laughing drew closer.

  “Oh no oh no oh no,” he muttered. “Girl, run. You can make it. Run!”

  But Bloody stayed by his side as the vampire gained ground. He braced himself for her cold grip; fangs in flesh. Neither came. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a mass of red, purple and pink fly past, a trail of steam behind it.

  Dalla had wrapped herself in a flowery blanket. It covered her head and most of her body, but her exposed ankles were kicking up plumes of smoke.

  Her giggling stopped when she reached the farmhouse and pounded on the door. Stan felt helpless, running as fast as he could, but not fast enough.

  The door opened. A gray-haired man in a loose-fitting plaid shirt and jeans stood there, confused.

  “Mister, you gotta help me,” said Dalla, affecting a Southern accent, for some reason. “I was in an accident, and that man, I thought he was stoppin’ to help me, but ‘soon as I got in his car he tried to touch me. Mister, that man is a monster!”

  “My Lord. Come in, come in,” said the old farmer, ushering Dalla inside.

  He reappeared at the door just as Stan reached it, out of breath, resting his hands on his knees. The man brandished a revolver.

  “You stay right there ‘til the police come,” said the farmer.

  “You don’t” — he breathed heavily — “understand. She’s … lying. That’s not a woman; she’s dangerous.” He coughed, saw a drop of blood fall from his forehead. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t believe me. You’re already dead. Both of us are already dead.”

  “You shut your mouth, you little weasel,” said the farmer. Dalla was behind him, her chin resting on his shoulder. “Ma’m, you can go ahead in and call the police. Phone’s in the kitchen.”

  From behind the farmer, Dalla grinned. In one terrible blur, she’d wrapped both arms around him in a bear-hug, pinning his arms to his body with the gun aimed up under his chin. Her legs wrapped around his waist; the ankles were covered in ugly red boils, oozing and still smoking.

  Then fangs appeared and sliced into his neck. She swallowed a torn-out chunk of flesh without chewing, then suctioned her mouth around the wound to chug the squirting blood.

  Stan preferred to believe that it was an intentional act, rather than an involuntary muscle spasm, that caused the farmer to pull the trigger and blow his brains out.

  The screams from downstairs were, in their own special way, worse than any of the horrors Stan had witnessed directly. Without seeing what was happening, all he could experience was the net effect of her cruelty.

  The farmer’s wife had come home not long after Dalla had finished tying Stan to the bed and cleaning up. She’d come into the house talking about where she’d been, what she’d done, what she’d bought. Assuming her husband was listening, she told him that the market had the cutest cookie jar that would be perfect for Michael and his wife for Christmas. She’d bought a home-crafted board game for Judy and the kids. And she got there early enough to snatch up some of that fresh garlic for the pasta tonight.

  Then she’d seen Dalla, and she’d been first inquisitive, then accusatory, then frightened. The screaming started a moment later. He tried to avoid imagining which horrible act each scream corresponded to. Whatever Dalla was doing, she was dragging out the inevitable longer than she needed to.

  When the vampire came back upstairs, there was blood smeared on her face, and even more on her legs. Her white socks were soaked red.

  “I don’t know if it helps with the burns,” she said, “but it sure makes my gams feel better.”

  Stan shook violently. There was no way she would let him live. Bloody was locked in the bathroom; she’d probably kill Stan, then take her chances with trying to train the dog herself.

  “Fuck you,” he said. “You were outsmarted by a human. You think you’ll find Damien Fox? You think you’ll ever get anywhere near him? Your obsession is repulsive. You’re given this power and all you do with it is become this … this pathetic celebrity-worshipping cat lady.”

  “Oh Stanley!” she said, holding her hands to her face and laughing. “I’ve never seen you so feisty!”

  “Bitch,” he said. It wasn’t a word he used often—it was nasty, sexist—but if there was ever an appropriate time for it, it was now.

  She was on the bed beside him. “Give me more. Talk dirty to me, Stanley.”

  He spit on her face. She rubbed her cheeks, mixing Stan’s spit with the farmer’s wife’s blood. “Yes,” she said. “More!”

  His eyes glazed over. He slumped in the bed, as much as he could with the handcuff around one hand and rope binding the other.

  “Aw, hun, you’re no fun anymore.”

  She slinked up beside him, then tapped him hard on the head. “That was quite the trick you pulled, boy. Turning the planet’s star against me. Almost got me, didn’t you? Well no, not really. You think I could bang out a century if any joker could knock me off so easy?”

  Stan couldn’t help himself. “Only a century? I’ve climbed trees older than you.”

  She smacked him across the face. “Yes, Stanley! Good boy!”

  Bloody barked from the bathroom. Her little claws scratched furiously at the door.

  “I’ll hand it to you, it was a nice trick, but it was very bad. You don’t try to kill me, hear? And since you’re such a bad boy, I need to punish you.”

  He half expected her to rip his clothes off. Instead, she slithered to his rope-bound hand. She took it delicately in both of her own hands. She held his fingers to her face, admiring them with those big blue eyes.


  He tried to raise his middle finger, but she grabbed it before he could move a muscle. She picked out his index finger instead.

  “Have you ever felt a fang as it extends? It’s quite shocking when you first experience it, believe me. Few humans ever know this; if they do, they don’t live long enough to relish it.”

  She placed his finger in her mouth. He felt her tongue, wet and hot against his fingertip.

  “Feel up here,” she said, pressing his finger to the roof of her mouth, just behind her teeth.

  He felt the skin bulge, something hard pushing on it from the other side. It retracted, then pushed again.

  “You feel it?”

  “Yes,” he said automatically, lost in the grip of curiosity, all fear momentarily gone.

  He felt the skin stretch, then the fang pushed its way through, sharp as a needle. She allowed him to pull his finger back, tracking the point. A trickle of her blood ran down his finger. When the fang was fully extended, she tightened her grip on his hand then angled forward, pricking the tip of his finger.

  Their blood ran together down his hand. Hers was thicker, darker; it formed streaks in his blood where the streams met.

  “This is why you’ll never leave me,” she said. “My blood is running inside of you, and I always know where my own blood is. Once I’ve had a taste, my prey will never escape. It’s the final evolution of the carnivore. Speaking of which, I’m getting peckish and you need a punishing.”

  Stan’s fear returned as she put his index finger back into her mouth. It slid past her soft lips, rested on her warm tongue. Then she bit down.

  He screamed. Bloody barked in the bathroom. From downstairs, he heard a thump, then muffled moaning. Oh God, the lady was still alive.

  She opened her mouth, then drove a fang through his crushed finger just above the knuckle. He struggled helplessly, the bed shaking. Tears ran down the side of his face. She retracted her fangs, switching back to her front teeth to gnaw until he heard the chalky sound of tooth against bone. Then splintering. A deep pain Stan had never felt before surged through his arm.