by P. T. Phronk
There was a deafening crash, then howls from Dalla’s babies. The howls were cut short by hundreds of pounds of wood and steel shelving toppling on top of them.
“—show my appreciation,” finished Fox. He sighed.
Stan felt his shelf fall. He managed to hold on as it hit the ground, but then he was toppling forward. The shelf was falling over. He managed to scoot up on it as it fell, narrowly avoiding the adjacent shelf colliding where his legs had been. He lost his grip, then rolled onto his back.
He prayed that Bloody was safe in her cupboard.
Through a haze of dust, he spotted Dalla. She was among the rafters of the ceiling, silently drifting toward the front of the store.
When she was above Fox, she kicked off against the rafters. She was a streak until she made contact with Fox and her fangs were in his neck.
Before she could rip out his throat, Dalla was tossed away by Fox’s unseen force. It was so great that she was sent back to the ceiling, leaving a dent in the corrugated steel.
Fox gripped his neck. “There you are. Nice try, bitch. All of this, really, bravo.” He still had a bit of a lisp, and his jaw was so puffy that he looked like a busted-up comic-book version of himself. “You thought you could be with me. You thought you could be with me. Like any of my millions of sad, sad fans. You’re worsh—worse—than a monster. You’re a desperate, lonely old woman trapped in a repulsive tiny-titted horrorshow of a body.” He had to bend over he was laughing so hard.
Her blue eyes shone from the shadows of the rafters. “What does that make you,” she hissed just loud enough to resonate in the barren store.
“Better,” he said.
“No,” she said. “You’re a child with a new toy.”
Stan felt a tinge of pride in hearing his words come from her mouth.
“I may be an old woman, honey, but I know how to work what I’ve got. And you want what I’ve got, baby. It’s just the two of us now, finally. Come and get it.”
Fox continued to grin, but Stan could see his Adam’s apple bob up and down. He was nervous. After a moment’s contemplation, he left the ground. He neglected to push off as he did so, the way Dalla would have. He was slower.
As he approached her, she swung from her perch. He overshot, and she swung around behind him.
He whipped around in time to block her next blow. Both of their flight faculties cut out as they tangled, falling as a mass of fangs and fists. When they hit the ground, a wave rumbled through the store, sending shelves, boxes, broken glass and produce bouncing. Stan held onto his shelf, staying low to avoid being seen.
Fox blasted Dalla away again, this time sending her sideways. She hit a concrete wall, her head slamming against it with an ugly thunk and a squirt of blood like a stomped ketchup packet.
She peeled herself from the wall, then casually hopped to the ground. “Nice trick, that, but you’ve only got one.”
A shelf flipped itself over, clamping down on top of Dalla. Instead of climbing from under it, she stood up behind it then sprung on top. Yep, she was fast.
“More of the same trick,” she said.
Fox’s puffy jaw tightened. He lunged, flying over the rubble toward the vampire. She grabbed a nearby kettle—one of those heavy steel fuckers—and with a flick of her wrist it smashed into Fox’s oncoming head. The bong echoed off every wall, bong-bong-bong-bong.
He somersaulted backwards, then landed on a pile of action figures. His perfect hair was interrupted by a gouge of missing scalp.
Fox didn’t have time to sit up before Dalla was on him. She straddled his waist and grabbed him by the neck, her long fingers digging in so tightly that if he blasted her away again, he’d be ripping out his own throat.
“Oh Damien, we could have been so happy together,” she said in her sing-song voice. “Kiss me before you die. At least one of our dreams can come true, right?”
“Yes,” said Fox. “Kiss me, you ugly vampire cunt.”
She forced his face into hers. Their lips mashed together until Fox began to laugh, sending a bubble of blood from his nose.
His hand snapped from his pocket covered in transparent goo.
“Get aw—” Stan began, but it was too late. A purple ball of flame erupted from Fox’s hand. Dalla staggered backwards, on fire immediately.
“One more trick for you,” he said. “Learned it from a dear departed friend.”
He slammed into the flaming vampire, then he was on top of her. She struggled, but her face was twisted in pain. Her dress and flesh disintegrated around her.
“Well, isn’t this hot,” said Fox, giggling. He reached into his coat and produced a wooden stake.
She moaned.
Stan scrambled over the rubble, but there was no way he could cover the distance in time.
A drop of blood from the gash in Fox’s scalp ran past his toothless smile, then arced in the air as he raised the stake. It splashed into Dalla’s mouth.
The flames died. Her eyes flicked open, blue on black, then she had Fox by the crotch of his pants. She hissed through gritted teeth as she used her last bit of strength to squeeze. Pink wetness stained Fox’s pants, and his cry of pain echoed through the store. He dropped the stake. By the balls, she tossed him off of her like he was an action figure.
Fox landed hard, then balled up, curled tight like a dead spider.
Dalla’s eyes closed, black on black. The air around her filled with smoke from her smoldering skin.
Stan scrambled to Dalla. He patted the parts of her naked body that still glowed purple with flames. She convulsed, her back arching. Stan hunkered down behind her and rested her trembling head on his chest.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’ll be okay.”
She tried to say something, but even her tongue was crusted in ash, cracked and brittle, as if any movement would cause her whole body to disintegrate into dust. Her eyes rolled back in her head.
Fox began to move. If the past was any indication, he’d be back on his feet any second, strong enough to use his power. That’d be the end. The disappointing finale. Bye bye cruel vampire, bye bye cruel world.
The cruel vampire whispered something in his ear. He stopped breathing when he realized what it meant. An idea popped into his head.
Down the aisle, Fox’s voice started with a moan, then rose in pitch and volume into a cry of unfiltered pain and frustration. He uncurled, tried to stand, but crumpled to his knees, grasping at his blood-stained crotch.
Stan picked up the stake that Fox dropped.
“Don’t move,” he shouted at Fox.
The actor tried to stand again.
“I said, don’t move.” He held the needle-sharp stake up to his wrist, hovering over Dalla’s face. “You saw what a drop of blood did. I don’t think you’d like her with a whole lot more.”
“You really want her to win this?” asked Fox, his voice weak.
“I want to make a deal.”
“A deal?” His voice was stronger. He rose to one knee.
“I want some of what you’ve got.”
He guffawed, then coughed. “Of course you do. Stan Lightfoot, amateur paparazzo. You people.” He spit. “You people want everything from me. You don’t even know what I’ve got.”
“No, but I know what you want. Solitude. It’s why you ran to Canada. It’s why you built the house in the woods. It’s why you killed the kid, so you could disappear. The attention was killing you, wasn’t it?”
Fox said nothing, which was itself a sign that Stan was on the right track. The actor got to his feet, breathing heavily.
“That other stuff—the power—that was just gravy, wasn’t it? And God damn, you can take a beating.”
An image of Stan’s mother flashed through his head. Her papery skin, her legs crawling with varicose veins, the tubes in her nose keeping her alive. He’d had the thought before: Dalla’s death-defying power without all the downsides. One act of depravity traded for a lifetime of avoiding it.
“T
hat. That is what I want,” continued Stan. “Just a bit. Just enough for the strength. I don’t even want it for myself. It’s for … someone else.”
“Why would I give away any of that?” growled Fox.
“A few reasons. One, I won’t pour my blood into this vampire’s mouth and let her kill you. Two, because you can use me. Give me what I want and I’ll help you. You know that I can track anyone, anywhere. I’ll give up the paparazzo stuff, and offer you the flip side of it. I can cover your tracks so people like me will never find you again.”
Fox stroked his chin in thought. He nodded his head. Stan could see the hesitation before each movement; the telegraphing; the lack of spontaneity. Fox was acting.
“Yeah, okay, deal,” Fox said.
Stan was sweaty. “Okay, good. But before I let you have her, I need a little assurance. We need to work out some details.”
So they did. The stake in Stan’s hand remained pressed to his wrist, with Dalla in his lap like a human shield, or more accurately, a weapon. He proposed ways for the two men to escape each other with mutual assurance that one wouldn’t kill the other, gather the “materials” needed for their agreement—a euphemism for finding Fox’s newborn kid again, or kidnapping another one if she was already too old—then pull off the ritual.
None of the ideas could very well accomplish that, let alone ensure that Fox would follow through with his promise and be able to save Stan’s mother.
It didn’t really matter. The negotiation served its real purpose just by occurring: it passed time.
Dalla was still unconscious, but he hoped the last thing she whispered into his ear meant what he thought it did: “I feel my blood getting closer.”
“Okay then. You back out of here with that creature, then stake it when you’re out of sight. Gather the, well, the materials we need to do this again. Then you prove you can track me down, and I agree to sit down for a hearty meal to perform the ritual for whoever you want in exchange for your services. We have a deal. Shake on it?”
Fox extended his arm. Stan jerked his head back; you come here. Fox rose from his knees and gently rubbed at his crotch, wincing with pain. That part wasn’t acting.
As Fox approached, the hair on Stan’s arms tingled. The actor was building up power. As soon as he was close enough, Stan and Dalla would be blown away and splattered against the nearest wall.
A stream of sweat ran down his face. He desperately glanced around. He needed to delay longer. Details. There had to be more details to twist to his advantage.
The grin on Fox’s face was fake. His hand was a stiff board, ready for the lethal handshake.
Then his arm was flying through the air, still posed in handshake mode but no longer attached to his body.
Stan’s phone call had worked. David Letterman—Dalla’s own flesh and blood—landed beside Fox. He held a sword.
25. Show Me Your Teeth
MORGAN WALKED THROUGH THE SHATTERED doors to see the strangest thing: that funny guy from the tee-vee was hacking at Mister Fox with a sword. The one with the late night show Morgan used to watch, when he watched television. Not Johnny Carson, but the other one. Letterman! That was it.
Letterman’s sword dipped and dove around Fox. He hissed and lunged like an animal. His mouth opened, and it was full of fangs. God damn, he was one of them. The things from down under.
His sword moved so fast that Fox couldn’t push it away with his mojo. Fox deflected each blow with a tiny burst of that new power he somehow had; the sword always bobbed out of the way just in time to miss, like it was bouncing off an invisible magnet.
They roamed the store—which was a blood-blanketed wasteland—as they jockeyed for position. A flurry from Letterman sent Fox tripping over an overturned display counter, into what was left of the electronics section.
“Nice to see you again, Foxy. Remember our last interview?” asked Letterman. “I mocked you to your face. I called you a pretty-boy hack and you were too cuckoo to notice.”
Fox grunted. A flap of flesh hanging from his head jiggled with each deflected blow.
Letterman continued: “And hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but the gap-tooth look really doesn’t suit you.”
“Can’t say much for the fang-tooth look either,” said Fox with a lisp.
“Sir, I am feeling better than ever as a matter of fact. I am pumped, buff and cut.”
He flexed one arm while the other one continued to swipe with the sword.
Fox used Letterman’s momentary distraction to charge a larger burst of mojo. Something went horribly wrong. Letterman managed to get through Fox’s defences, slicing his gut. Fox misdirected the force. The men flew in opposite directions, pushed by a misplaced expulsion of dark mojo.
Letterman tumbled over a mess of broken shelves, glass and wood splinters jabbing into him before he fell in a heap near the front of the store.
Fox flew vertically. His intestines spilled out below him as he was tossed into the air. He landed on a pile of broken televisions. As his blood spilled into the rubble, he began to shake, then there was a loud electronic buzz before he became still. Evidently some electricity was still flowing down there.
“Death by stereo,” Morgan muttered.
Fox coughed. Not so dead after all. He grabbed at the loops of puffy flesh spilling out of his gut and stuffed them back into the gash.
The talk show host wasn’t as fast as Dalla, but in his weeks as a vampire he had progressed further than her other children. It was apparent to Stan that Letterman’s facial features had come to resemble hers. He was still the old man Stan had watched as he grew up, but his eyes had taken on some of her soft coldness. His chin had compressed to match her thin features.
In a way, he sympathized with the vampires’ commitment to family. As he’d been convincing Fox to save his mother, he’d almost convinced himself that it was a good idea.
He watched the old man fight and wise-crack, his body and mind restored. A bizarre image of his mother popped into Stan’s head: tossing away the oxygen tank, the tube ripping away from her face. A pair of fangs springing from her mouth, followed by one of the smart-ass remarks that she used to be so damn good at.
He tightened his grip on the stake, still held to his wrist. In his lap, Dalla stirred.
As Letterman was launched across the store, Stan dragged the vampire into the back room. They needed some privacy.
Mister Fox didn’t look so good: most of his teeth missing, big gash on his scalp, one arm gone, guts spilling out, a bacon-like smell of scorched flesh wafting up. Was a wonder he still breathed. Morgan felt like he barely could, since every time he inhaled, his burned back felt like it was crackin’ apart. Dark mojo certainly had its benefits.
“Morgan,” whispered Fox as he fumbled a slippery loop of his own guts. “Help me. Get your little healing kit.”
“Help you? Seems to me like anyone that gone ’n helped you has ended up dead. So no sir, Mister Fox sir, don’t think I’ll be helpin’ you right now.”
“Fuck,” muttered Fox. He tried to shift position, but a shard of glass poking through his shoulder kept him pinned in place.
“Really appreciate what you done for me, sir. Gettin’ me off the streets and into your fancy-ass cottage, lettin’ me practice my craft. Probably thought you was using me for your own good, but truth is, I was using you all along. Got your money to build my sensor and get it up and running. And assumin’ that mutt is still alive somewhere around here, mission accomplished.”
“You filthy piece of shit,” said Fox. “Should’ve known better than to hire a bum. I could’ve done this myself.”
“That’s all you wanted, ain’t it? To be by yourself? Boo hoo, Mister Fox. Too many people adorin’ you. What a shame.”
“Get the hell out of here while you can.”
“Sure thing. Just gotta say goodbye first.”
Fox must have seen something in Morgan’s eyes. “No,” he said. He smiled, remaining teeth gleam
ing white against his blood-covered face. “Come on, after all we’ve been through?”
Morgan could’ve done it kindly, painlessly. Some of the vials back on the truck could make a lovely poison if mixed in the right proportions. But sometimes, the fancy stuff just wasn’t as satisfying as the old classics.
It was time to put his prized possession—the steel-toed boots that had been his foundation through all the years’ ups and downs—to good use.
“Goodbye,” said Morgan. As his boot came down, Fox closed his eyes, and for the first time the smile on his face looked genuine.
A few stomps later and Fox’s remaining teeth—those pearly whites that powered a smile that launched a career—were just nuggets among a stew of blood, brains, eyeballs, and hair.
Stan laid Dalla’s naked body on the floor of the Wal-Mart storage room. Her blackened skin made a crunching noise when she rested on the concrete.
She was barely breathing. Did she even need to breathe? Stan still wasn’t sure how they worked—these creatures. These inhuman things.
His mom. If he could convince Dalla to turn her into one of them, somehow, maybe by turning Stan first, she could be saved. The vampire would probably do it—she did love him, after all.
His mother could live. But not really. What Dalla did wasn’t living. Even she didn’t consider it living.
She did live once. He could see it. He could see her reflection in the scuffed metal panel at the bottom of the doors to the storage room. He could see her humanity. But she couldn’t. She’d told him once that most of the time, she couldn’t even see herself in mirrors.
“Stanley,” she whispered.
He squeezed the stake in his hand.
“Stanley. Help.” Her voice was like paper, dry and thin.
He couldn’t breathe; Stan couldn’t breathe. Tears felt cold rolling down his sweaty face.
He raised the stake, point down.
“I don’t want to do this,” he said.
“Don’t, Stanley,” she whispered.