by P. T. Phronk
It took a few more bites before she violently jerked her head back, the last bit of skin separating with a snap and an electric jolt of pain. Only a stump remained, save for a bit of white bone sticking out of it.
Dalla plucked the finger out of her mouth. She held it at both ends and chewed at the skin and fat around it, like eating a tiny chicken wing. She ripped the fingernail off and threw it away before sucking off the flesh at the tip.
Stan’s vision was fading.
She took some dental floss out of her purse, then wrapped it tightly around the stump. She used another piece to floss her teeth, then smiled. White teeth in a mouth surrounded by red.
“There are two ways to think of this, Stanley. On one hand, we could say you have nine more strikes before you’re out. On the other hand—oh goodness,” she giggled, “I didn’t even realize the pun. Anyways, on the other hand, you could take this as a warning to never try that nonsense again.”
The pain was overwhelming. His whole arm felt like it was burning from the inside. His vision blinked in and out.
“You’re not even listening,” she said. “Thanks for the appetizer, Stanley. The main course awaits.”
He passed out to the muffled, rhythmic screaming from below, and the drip drip drip from where his finger used to be.
Stan said: “Don’t you think you should wash these?”
“Oh, that makes you squeamish?”
He tossed the keys, crusted in half-dried blood, back to her. She caught them without shifting her gaze.
“No,” he said, “because the blood is evidence. These people had family. Don’t you think they’ll be after whoever tore them apart?”
“Oh, wouldn’t want family after us would we?” She smiled, then put a finger to the corner of her mouth. “But maybe you’re right. Having the fuzz after us could fudge up our plans.”
She rinsed off the keys in the kitchen sink. The counter and cupboards were smudged with maroon fingerprints, all hers. Stan was more careful, wiping off any surface he touched with his sleeve; though part of him longed for a squad of policemen to track them down, he also knew that it would only end with more dead bodies and fewer fingers. She tossed the keys back to him, and he fumbled them with his bandaged right hand.
On the way out, he stepped on something sharp. He stooped to pluck his own fingernail from the bottom of his foot.
They pulled away from the old house, Stan driving the farmer’s battered pickup truck. The license plates were replaced with the ones from the Beetle. She insisted he take the wheel. Even in the dim moonlight, the vampire looked like shit. Her face was red and peeling like the world’s worst sunburn. Flakes of skin got caught in her hair. There were purple bags under her eyes, and she looked like she was going to fall asleep at any moment. Not finding a proper place to rest before sunrise had taken its toll.
If he was going to attempt another escape, now would be the time. Stan in control of the truck, Bloody safe in her crate, the vampire dazed. He’d never get another shot at catching her in daylight, but maybe he could ram the truck into a tree. Hope a branch impaled her through the chest.
Of course, there was an equal chance it would impale him. Or that Bloody wouldn’t make it. No. He’d have to keep stalling until there was a better chance—a sure chance—of getting out alive.
He went to push up his glasses, but the finger he’d usually use to do it was now a discarded bone on a dead farmer’s carpet. He used his left hand instead. The glasses were filthy with scratches and specks of blood around the edges that refused to wipe off.
When Dalla was staring off into space, her shoulders hunched, he eased off the gas. Each mile he could shave off their distance for the night meant a few more minutes in which she could slip up. An image entered his mind: the car was a flame, the road was a fuse, and Damien Fox’s smiling face was a bomb at the end of it all.
(TWO)
“YOU REALLY DON’T CARE THAT I’m famous, do you?”
“No sir,” said Morgan. “Met a few famous folks back in L.A., everyone goin’ nuts around ‘em. Far as I see it, they’re the same as anyone else. Just trying to do their jobs.”
Damien Fox nodded. “Yes. Yes. You get it, you really get it. I knew this would work out.”
A misty rain moistened Morgan’s wrinkled face. He leaned on the railing of the spacious balcony, taking in the view of the water. In the distance, the looming forms of mountains were shadows in the mist.
Fox coughed. “I can feel it, you know? It’s like a—like a sixth sense. Sometimes, I’m out trying to buy some smokes, and I get that feeling.” He cleared his throat. “That feeling, like hairs standing up on your neck. It seems like nothing at first, just a shiver, but you learn to pay attention to it. Usually, well, you turn around, and there’s a whole group of people staring at you, or an idiot with a camera. You learn that whenever you get that feeling, someone wants a piece of you.”
“And you got that feeling now?”
“Yeah. Well, not the same feeling, because, well, it’s not as,” he waved his cigarette up and down, searching for the right word, “acute. It’s dull, constantly there, buzzing at me.”
Morgan shivered. He retracted into the overcoat that Fox had bought him at the airport.
“Do your potions actually work?” asked Fox.
The old man nodded. “Yup. Scientists don’t wanna test it—believe me, I met with a few and they don’t even listen—and it don’t work against everything, I’m straight with you on that. But they work. Based on solid principles, my knowing how things really operate. The things down under, where scientists don’t look. You know what I’m talkin’ about right?”
Fox nodded, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
“That feeling you got, it means you got a problem with one of those down under things.” He winked at Fox. “And I’m not talkin’ about Australia. You understand me?”
Fox nodded again. “And you can do something about it.”
“Damn spittin’ I can. Look,” he said, turning back to the house behind them. Three stories of imported wood and glass. “Let’s be straight. You got more money ‘n you know what to do with.”
Fox laughed; it was a deep, soothing sound. “I won’t disagree with you there.”
“You give me enough to gather what I need, and I’ll keep ya safe. Don’t want more than that. Never had much want for money over ‘n above what I need to do my job. I’ll do my job, and I guarantee, you’ll be safer than if you had a hundred of those bodyguards you pay to hover around all day. You and your wife.”
Fox grinned, flashing the teeth that earned him millions. “Hillary isn’t my wife, Morgan, but I love that you didn’t know that.”
He was used to being cold, so Morgan only felt refreshed by the chill in the air. He was on the roof, wearing a T-shirt soaked through with rain. His tanned, spotted skin stuck to his shirt, and under that bulged wiry muscle built up through years of push-ups and pull-ups whenever he got time. Just ‘cause he didn’t have a home didn’t mean he couldn’t take care of his body. It’s a temple and all that.
He leapt over a skylight to grab his toolkit, his steel-toed boots stomping on the roof loud enough that the whole house probably heard it. He picked out a screwdriver, then returned to the apparatus.
It stood about six feet tall. The centrepiece was a large plank of plywood. Panels of various colors adorned the wood. The material on each panel served a function, either in isolation or in concert with the other panels. He didn’t know if all of them worked. Most of it was based on rumors and stories passed from person to person on the streets, usually from people driven mad by alcohol, drugs, or, worse, from horrors they’d witnessed first hand. Horrors from down under.
But if he threw it all at a wall, or a piece of plywood as the case may be—and was—he knew somethin’ was bound to stick.
He checked the wires, a dozen of them, running from the apparatus down through the knocked-out skylight. He found the one he was looking for, then followed it
back to the motor at the base of the circular platform that the plywood rested on. He looped the wire through the base, then lined it up with the correct panel and screwed it down.
“K, let ‘er roll!” he shouted through the skylight.
One of Fox’s stooges was eager to help with the project; a meathead with close-cropped hair and a bizarrely sloping forehead. The kid was dumb as a post, but he could flick the house’s main power switch up and down when asked. Didn’t even realize he was helping to make his job obsolete.
Morgan flicked his wet gray hair out of his face to examine his work. The antennae and dishes sticking out the top were in place, but not yet connected to anything. They could wait; the traditional electromagnetism sensors could be useful for detecting the usual threats. The ones the scientists studied. But there were far more serious threats that Mister Damien could feel gathering against him, and it would be best to get the parts of the apparatus dealing with those up and running first.
There was a panel of silver. There were two-layered panes of glass with mixes of herbs and oils between them. Variously colored panels of wax, topped with gas pipes poked with tiny holes that would emit a low, steady flame. The flame would slowly evaporate the wax until it needed to be replaced; it wasn’t quite the same as traditional candles, but it would serve the same purpose.
A panel of gold near one edge had cost more than everything else put together. Wires were soldered to its surface, leading to each of the candle panels. Thin strips between each panel held crudely soldered circuit boards—sensors for monitoring and support.
A plastic umbrella covered the whole affair. It was rubbed down with a blend of animal fats and imported monkey placenta.
He hoped the mountains wouldn’t block too much of the signal. Who knows if mountains could even block the sort of juju he meant to be pickin’ up on.
“I didn’t miss it, did I?” came Damien’s voice from behind him. He climbed the ladder onto the roof, bundled in a cheap rain jacket.
“No sir, just about to turn ‘er on.”
Damien lit up a cigarette. Morgan noticed an odd symbol tattooed on his hand. An upside-down pyramid with an eye in it. “Let’s see this baby in action.”
Morgan kneeled, pushed a button on the control panel, then flipped the switch on the main motor. The entire apparatus began to rotate. It looked like a cross between a radar dish and a solar panel.
“All good?” came a deep voice from the skylight. Damien’s dumbass stooge.
“All good,” said Morgan.
“So these panels on the front, they’ll pick up on anything getting close?” asked Damien.
“Uh huh. Anything I know of, and I know a lot more ‘n most people.” He pointed to the control panel, with dozens of blinking lights on it. “All the transmissions go to that box—looks like it’s already pickin’ up signals—then it goes down to the computer, where the number crunching happens so we know just what’s happening out there.”
Damien’s jaw dropped, releasing a puff of smoke. “Amazing. A few years ago I wouldn’t have known any of this was possible.”
“There’s a whole world most of ‘em out there don’t know nothin’ about.”
Damien pointed when the back of the apparatus faced them. More rare materials jammed together with metal structures, all in a ball, like a high-tech hornet’s nest, were stuck there. “What’s this new stuff on the back?”
“Ah, just, experimental,” said Morgan quickly. “But when the main panels pick anything up, you’ll know about it.”
“So this gets me information,” said Damien, his eyes narrowing. “Once I get this information, well, what can I do with it? What measures can we take?”
“Got a few more things to build. A few potions I can fix up for ya after your little helpers get back with everything on my list. But if you want some real protection, you’ll need someone else on board. Someone else who knows what’s what and can do something about it.”
“Like who?”
Morgan grunted. A frown forced its way onto his face, and for the first time the rain felt cold against his skin. “I know someone,” he said.
11. Candlelit Dinners
STAN WINCED.
“DON’T BE A baby,” said Dalla. She dipped another Q-tip into the iodine, then continued cleaning the stump of his finger. The skin around it was an angry red. Infection could kill him before Dalla finally got around to it.
She held his hand gently while she bandaged it, her movements precise and comforting. Another one of those human moments that made it hard to believe she was the one who tore the finger off with her teeth.
When she kissed the stump, he shivered.
“All better,” she said.
Bloody came up and licked Stan’s clammy face. “Thanks, girl,” he said.
They’d only driven for a few hours before the vampire told him to find a motel. After bandaging his hand, she watched television for a few minutes, then turned to Stan with bloodshot eyes.
“Be good, pets. Don’t die in your sleep, kay?”
He dreamed of being home. Even though his mother and Bloody had never met, there they were, all together, Bloody sitting at the dinner table with a little bib around her neck. His poor old mother, he didn’t like seeing her on her feet when she was so sick, but she brought a steaming plate from the kitchen and set it on the table.
Mom, I have really good news, said Stan as he grabbed a chicken wing. One of the projects I’ve been working on has been hugely successful. I’ve made enough money to get you into the best community home.
Oh, Stanley, said his mother, you don’t need to do that. I’m perfectly fine here on my own. She bit into a wing, the skin stretching away from the bone.
I know, mom, but wouldn’t you like to have other people around to talk to? Someone to help you with the cooking and cleaning? He took a bite. Sauce smeared onto the corners of his mouth, but he didn’t care. He’d been waiting so long to tell mom the good news.
I suppose.
He picked a string of meat from his teeth. Then let me arrange it for you. We can even keep the house, in case you don’t like it and want to come back. And I promise that we’ll come and visit all the time. Me and Bloodhound.
Bloody looked up from her plate and barked happily. The plate had Princess Diana’s face on it and was piled high with human fingers.
Oh, Stanley, said his mother, her beautiful smile wide on her face. She stood on her frail legs and wobbled over to give him a hug. When she got closer, he saw that her mouth was filled with jagged fangs, and smelled her rotten-sweet breath. Bloody leapt down from her chair and circled around their feet, tail wagging. His mother embraced him, squeezing, harder, harder, until he felt his back snap.
He awoke to Bloody crying in her crate.
“We’ll get out of this, girl.”
The dog sighed.
“We will. We tricked her once, right? She’s strong, she’s fast, but she’s only huma—well—she’s not perfect.”
It was comforting enough to make Bloody stop crying. When dusk came, Stan was surprised by how well-rested he felt. He was almost anxious for the freedom of the road.
Dalla untied him, then tossed the Damien Fox T-shirt to him. He rolled his eyes, and did his ritual, pointing in each direction, watching Bloody’s body language. North, east, south, nothing. Did they even need to do this anymore?
West. Nothing.
Northwest?
Bloody got an odd look on her face. Her wrinkled face scrunched up even more. She sneezed.
Stan pointed in each direction again. Again, at northwest, pointing off the path of the highway they’d been following all along, she cocked her head, then sneezed.
“I … I guess it’s northwest now,” said Stan.
“You guess? How can that be?”
“I guess Fox has moved since last time we checked.”
She looked amused. “Either your pooch’s ability is better than I thought, or she’s broken.” She pinched Bloody’
s whiskered cheeks as the dog tried to pull away. “And you know what we do with broken pooches?”
“She’s fine. Let’s just get on the road. Northwest.”
Stan awoke to find Bloody licking at the skin around his bandaged stump of a finger. Dalla was staring off into space, lost in whatever thoughts vampires had, beside him, in the passenger seat. Ahead, the shoulder of the road.
Fuck! He wrenched the wheel in front of him, pulling back onto the highway. Luckily the road was empty; all he saw in the rear-view mirror was a cloud of dust.
Dalla snapped out of it. “Hmm?” she said.
“I’m falling asleep. We need to pull over.”
“I’ll say when we need to pull over,” she said. A moment later, “pull over.”
They’d made a few hours of progress across the flat nothingness of Western Kansas. They rented a motel room, where Dalla sat beside Stan on the bed, Bloody at their feet, the television the only source of light. With his hand tied to the bed post and her head resting on one of his arms, Stan imagined himself looking like a kid casually putting an arm around his girl on a first date.
She flipped through the channels, barely paying attention: some infomercial, Conan O’Brien, a nature show, Jon Stewart, a home renovation show, David Letterman, an old science ficti—
Both of them leaned forward on the bed at the same time, then looked at each other. She giggled. Stan suppressed a smile. She clicked back one channel. A post-monologue skit was just finishing up. It riffed on a political gaff that Stan had never heard of.
“This is a new episode,” he said.
Dalla nodded, then turned up the volume. Bloody sighed. She must have still hated the sound of Letterman’s voice.
“He’s actually not dead.”
“Did you think I lied?”
“Yes,” said Stan. “Of course I did. I saw his blood. Your car ran right into him.”
Letterman was behind his desk, introducing the guest coming up after the commercial. His skin was less wrinkly than it had been. Tanned with a sort of orange tinge. His eyes sparkled with a youth that had been declining with each year.