In June, when the rains finally relent, the air is sticky and thick and gets into everyone’s eyes and hair. The stores close early but remain lit, warding off the night like garlic. An old wooden train bridge marks one end of Main Street; a rickety, soot-covered mess that sprawls across the road like a gateway into something terrible. It signals a stopping point for tourists.
Just on the other side of that bridge sits the Old Monk, a brick and mortar restaurant thrown together somewhat haphazardly off the main road.
* * * * *
It was only 8:00 pm. The last of the locals finished their meals as Melanie listened to the soft clinking of glasses and plates, and the dull thrum of conversation drifting from an open window. An empty coffee cup sat untouched on her table. It had been at least an hour since a waiter had bothered to check on her, and that was part of the appeal of this place.
She sat in the courtyard in the back of the restaurant, or rather, what passed for a courtyard – discarded patio furniture and an umbrella or two that had no doubt been washed to the back of the building by the nearby Patapsco River in the latest storm. She sat in the dark, watching the even darker water crest and bubble, half expecting a body to be suddenly cast from its murky depths. She was in that kind of mood. Expecting the worst, and confident that she wouldn’t be disappointed.
Soon they would arrive, in long dark coats and velvety sashes, reeking of Marlboros and skunky beer and opium incense, and maybe that would lighten her thoughts, or at least take her mind off the anniversary of yet another missed year of college, yet another year stuck in this town.
She returned her attention to the black cat that sat cleaning itself on the flat-topped roof. She didn’t mind sketching the little fur-balls, but if it got within kicking distance, she couldn’t be held responsible for her actions. It wasn’t just that she was allergic; there was something in her that seemed to bring out the worst in cats. Like she was wearing mouse-scented perfume.
Melanie tucked a newly dark strand of hair behind heavily pierced ears. She had a heart-shaped face and large, bright eyes that made her seem keenly aware and always interested. Melanie was thin and almost always wore black clothes, which gave her a hungry, desperate look that men seemed to love. She felt old, jaded, and over the hill – she was twenty-three.
Tonight she wore cut-off jeans and a sheer tank top; a hold-over from the sweltering afternoon. Though the night had cooled considerably, her body still felt warm, and she figured she’d most likely be drunk or high soon enough that the evening cold wouldn’t matter anyway.
She thumbed through her sketchpad, looking for a clean page. She’d need another one soon. With stark and sharp charcoal lines, she began to sketch the cat, who preened and purred at the attention. Just before she could add the eyes, always her biggest challenge, the world went completely dark.
Two clammy hands held fast over her eyes.
“Guess who?” a voice said. It was high and shaky. The hairs on the back of Melanie’s neck stood up. “You smell nice,” the speaker said, lingering at her throat and nibbling playfully at her ear.
“Hi Bryan.”
“Lucian,” he corrected. “I told you to call me Lucian.” He slumped in the chair next to Melanie.
Bryan was tall and skinny and seemed skinnier still in his long black overcoat at least two sizes too large. He wore a crumpled black top hat that covered stringy black hair dried out from too many dye jobs. He was pale and powdered his skin wherever his Mediterranean coloring threatened to poke through.
“What happened to your teeth?” Melanie asked, hurriedly tucking away her sketchbook in her worn backpack serving as both a purse and art portfolio. She didn’t mind sharing her photographs, but her drawings felt more personal. They weren’t simply something she saw, but something she felt, and she fully believed in keeping those types of things hidden.
Bryan stuck a long finger in his mouth. “I took them out. They were tearing up my gums. I may get mine sharpened. I haven’t decided.”
Melanie shook her head. She knew Bryan wouldn’t go through with it. He even opted for magnetic earrings instead of full piercings. She herself had five tiny silver studs that ran up and down both ears like Braille, and she had been thinking of adding more.
Whatever the reason, she should be grateful Bryan had ditched his fake teeth. Not only did the plastic vampire teeth he liked to wear make him lisp and drool, but they were the cause of at least two bar fights. It made him look ridiculouth.
“Did you bring anything to drink?”
Bryan produced a small bottle from a tattered backpack, “Wine. Blood red.” He winked.
Melanie smiled despite herself. Bryan could be corny, but it was hard to deny his enthusiasm.
“I like your hair.” He rested a hand on her thigh.
“I figured you would.” She leaned in to kiss him. She liked the way he tasted, like smoke and Chardonnay. He was dry but sweet.
They met in a summer art class. Night school, of course, because traipsing about in daylight would ruin his finely cultivated pale complexion. Bryan was deeply appreciative of Melanie’s series of photographs of garbage cans. Of everything about Melanie for that matter.
On their first date, he stood nervously at the door and waited for her to invite him in. Later he would ask permission to kiss her. She chose what movies they saw and where they went to dinner. She decided when they were finished making love, even if he hadn’t. He made her feel strong, and if that meant pretending tomato juice was blood and swearing off garlic, then so be it. Besides, this strange relationship gave her the days totally free to herself.
While Bryan playfully nipped at her lips like a puppy, she studied the turrets from an old castle-like house or church that rose dizzyingly above the legacy oaks on the hillside. Though the way the building sat precariously on the edge of the cliff sickened her, Melanie felt obsessed with locating the property. She imagined climbing into the house on a rope of spun gold, a wealth of untold treasures awaiting her discovery, but subsequent attempts to find it despite detours deep into the woods had proved fruitless.
Tonight, she noticed smoke pouring from a chimney, the first sign she’d ever seen of anyone living there. She had assumed it was long abandoned.
A not so distant howl interrupted them.
“Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make,” Bryan said, doing his best Bela Lugosi.
Melanie snapped back to attention. “It’s just Carl.”
“You have no imagination.” Bryan slumped in his chair and searched his pockets for a cigarette.
Melanie did not understand why so many of her dates had to include Bryan’s minion – or posse, or whatever he was calling him these days.
Suddenly, a large black shape landed on the patio, taking out a rusted metal chair. Melanie’s cat, sleeping peacefully now in the shadows, screeched and ran up the nearest drainpipe. Melanie didn’t even flinch – God help her, this was becoming an all too familiar routine.
“What’s up, suckas?” Carl picked up the broken chair and hurled it as far as he could. It landed on the soft ground by the river’s edge. He watched it, disappointed, and brushed rust from his hands.
Tonight he was wearing a frilly white shirt and purple velvet pants. His naturally dark curly hair was bleached nearly white. Yin to Bryan’s Yang. Melanie often tried to imagine Carl as he was in the Marines; scrubbed, shaved, and pressed into a uniform. The mental image always went up in a cloud of dust when presented alongside the real thing.
When Melanie met Bryan, he and Carl were already inseparable. Carl waited for Bryan after class, and the three of them would drink coffee at the student union or catch the last showing at the Golding Theater. She began to wonder if she were dating both of them and how sex would work.
Back then, Bryan seemed pretty unremarkable. He and Carl shared an apartment near the community college, volunteered nights at the local homeless shelter, and even wrote an article or two for the local paper. His hair was
blonde and close cut, and without the goofy plastic Halloween teeth sticking out of his mouth like ill-fitting braces, he might be considered pretty attractive, or at least normal enough to sit next to on a bus.
Bryan always had a fascination for all things morbid – zombies, ghosts, werewolves, serial killers – but his first love was always vampires. After a recent ‘pilgrimage’ to New Orleans with Carl, he returned completely caped out, looking like a cross between Inspector Gadget and Count Chocula. Melanie hoped it was just a passing phase and that he would soon find something else ghoulish to obsess about. Maybe even her.
In order to appease him, Melanie began ditching the long, flowing hippy dresses she loved for tighter, darker clothing. She painted her bright turquoise eyes with black liner so they’d look more baleful, and took right away to the endless supply of drugs and liquor that Carl provided. Melanie suspected visits into Bryan’s albeit limited fantasy world might be the closest she’d come to an exotic getaway.
“What’s the plan?” she asked. Though she already knew the answer, she hoped, just once, Bryan might add a change of venues to his limited repertoire. Maybe they could even leave the city, if only for just an evening.
“Where else?” Bryan grinned. “Anybody got any ‘shrooms?” He rummaged through his backpack.
“Better.” Carl dropped a small plastic baggy filled with white tablets on the table. Ecstasy.
His choice of drugs was getting progressively bolder but he had yet to produce something Melanie refused. She wondered if she had any limits; if there was nothing she wouldn’t swallow.
Bryan smiled, and he and Carl let the small pills melt on their tongues, then washed it down with swigs of wine. Melanie secretly dropped hers in the back pocket of her bag – she needed to be clear-headed for the walk to Hell House.
###
Blood and Sunlight is available now through Penumbra Publishing
www.penumbrapublishing.com
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America's Galactic Foreign Legion - Book 5: Insurgency Page 15