Evil Dark

by Justin Gustainis

  "Karl," I said, "are you telling me you're hot for Lacey?"

  "Nah, she's too sarcastic for my taste. But following her up those stairs I noticed her legs, and they were first-class. Shapely, and without a mark or blemish. Perfect skin – I remember thinking that at the time."

  "Perfect, huh?"

  "Yup. Apart from that, I'm sure it's not Lacey's face, but that's not proof. The scar is."

  "Christ, she could have picked it up since the summer," I said. "It could've happened anytime."

  "Not this one – the scar I'm talking about is old. See for yourself."

  He pressed Play and the DVD started again. But instead of letting it run, he used the Reverse button to bring the action back to a point before the real action started. Then he paused it again.

  "Look, Stan – it's a long scar, pretty hard to miss, especially close up. And it's old, man. Look at it."

  "Yeah, OK, all right, it's an old scar. Years old, probably."

  "Absolutely. Now, take a look at this."

  He advanced the recording slowly, a few frames at a time. When he hit Stop, the screen showed a good, clear shot of the woman's face.

  "See that? Really look at it. Her face is fuller than Lacey's. In fact, her whole body is at least twenty pounds heavier than I remember Lacey to be, haina?"

  I looked at the image for several seconds, and something inside me that had been clenched hard started to loosen up. "Yeah, I think you're right, Karl."

  "And this chick is older than Lacey, too, wouldn't you say? By at least ten years."

  I looked some more. "I guess you're right about that, too. Thanks, buddy."

  I reached inside my jacket pocket for my phone.

  "What're you doing?" Karl asked.

  "Something I should have done five minutes ago."

  I opened the phone, selected a number in the directory, and touched Call. After two rings, it was answered.

  "Occult Crimes Unit – this is Sandra. How may I help you?"

  "Hi, Sandy. It's Stan Markowski, in Scranton."

  "Well, hi, Sergeant. How you been keeping?"

  I decided to lie. "Not too bad, thanks. I'm surprised you're on the night shift – I thought you worked days."

  "I do, but the night girl is out with the flu, so I'm putting in some OT. Can always use the money."

  "Is Detective Brennan available?"

  "No, she's out on a call, Sergeant. If it's urgent, I can patch you through."

  "That's OK, Sandy, don't bother. But she did come in to work tonight?"

  "Sure, I saw her less than half an hour ago. Care to leave a message?"

  "No, that's all right. I'll give her a call tomorrow."

  "OK, Sergeant. You take care now."

  I put the phone away and said to Karl, "I can't handle watching the rest of this right now. Why don't we go get a cup of coffee – or, in your case–"

  "Yeah, I know. Sounds good to me. We'll watch this shit later. Come on."

  As we waited for the elevator – which, like usual, took forever – I looked at Karl. "Listen, some of the stuff I said to you back there in the room – I got no right to talk to you that way. I was just crazy for a couple of minutes, that's all."

  "Forget it. If it was me, I'd have been worse. A lot worse. But then, everybody says I'm a guttermouth."

  The elevator finally pinged, signaling the car was about to arrive.

  "Do they really?" I said.

  "Fuckin' A."

  After a cup of java – and a lightly warmed glass of Type O for Karl – at the place around the corner, we went back to the squad and made ourselves sit through the rest of the torture video. Apart from the gender of the victim, this one wasn't very different from the one that the Feebies had shown us a couple of nights earlier. Thorwald had been right about one thing, though – looking at that stuff doesn't get any easier with repetition.

  Afterward, we went looking for the two FBI agents, to see if they had any insights they'd like to inflict on us. However, Louise the Tease – whose real name is Louise Brummel, if anybody cares – said the two Feds had left a couple of hours earlier. Probably went off to spit-shine their holsters, or something.

  I checked my watch. We could either find some busywork until our workday ended in twenty minutes, or just leave now. After the shift we'd had, I knew what I favored.

  I turned to Karl. "What do you say – wanna call it a night?"

  "Works for me."

  As we walked through the parking lot, I said, "Hey, you got a minute? I'd like your opinion on something."

  "That business with Christine you were talking about before?"

  "Uh-huh."

  Karl checked his watch. "We're not exactly pushing sunrise, so – sure."

  As it happened, we were parked next to each other, so Karl leaned against the side of his car and said, "What's on your mind, Stan?"

  I had my butt braced against the Lycan. "You ever hear of something called Drac's List?"

  He nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think so. What about it?"

  "You know that it's a kind of, I dunno, dating service that puts vampires together with humans who want to get bit by one."

  "Yeah, that's what it is – more or less. So?"

  "When I got home yesterday, Christine was on her laptop, looking at something. But she closed the computer when I walked in, and gave me some bullshit story about scanning the employment ads in the Sunday paper. Then she went downstairs."

  "And you snooped."

  "I'm a parent, remember? Not to mention a detective. Bet your ass I snooped."

  "And you found she'd been scoping out Drac's List, instead of the Times-Tribune," Karl said.

  "Yeah, exactly. I was pretty upset."

  "Because she lied to you? Or are we talking about something else?"

  "The lying didn't help," I said, "but what got to me was that she was cruising those ads. You know, looking for a… vamp freak."

  "Stan." Karl's voice didn't sound happy.

  "Look, nothing personal, OK? You know my feelings about vamps, uh, vampires have gone through some changes. I don't look at it the same way I used to."

  "Gee, that's good to know," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "But…?"

  "But she doesn't have to do that. She makes a good salary – she can afford all the bottled blood she needs. Even if she couldn't, I'd buy it for her. I even bring her plasma sometimes. She won't buy it for herself, it's too expensive."

  Karl just looked at me.

  "Dammit, she can drink it out of a fucking glass, just like you do. She doesn't have to act like a goddam…"

  "Parasite? Bloodsucker? Undead leech? Which expression were you looking for, Stan?"

  "That's not fair, dammit! I never think of her like that – or you, either."

  We were quiet for a bit. Then Karl said, "You like fruit, don't you, Stan?"

  "'Course I do. So what?"

  "Apples, oranges, bananas, strawberries…?"

  "Yeah, all of them, and some more besides. Is there a point you're trying to make here?"

  "What if, starting tomorrow, you were told that you could never have fresh fruit again, Stan? No more frozen, either. Only the canned stuff. For the rest of your life. How would that make you feel?"

  "That's not the same thing, and you know it," I said.

  "You're right, it's not. Canned fruit tastes pretty good, if I remember right. But the difference between bottled blood, or even plasma, and the real thing, from a living person, it's like a choice between that powdered orange drink the astronauts used to drink, and fresh, sweet, juicy oranges."

  More silence.

  "I didn't realize it was that different," I said, finally.

  "It is. Just ask any vamp."

  "Karl–"

  "And here's something else for you to keep in mind, buddy. Both Christine and me, we're vamps because of you. Because of choices you made, not us. We weren't even consulted, remember?"

  "Consulted? You were both almost dead. If I could've c
onsulted either one of you, I wouldn't have needed to."

  Karl reached in a pocket for his keys. "Time for me to head home. I wouldn't want to get you all upset by burning to death in front of you." He opened his car door and got in.

  "Jesus fucking Christ, Karl – are you saying you'd rather be dead?"

  "I dunno, Stan. I never got to find out what it's like."

  He closed the door, started up, and backed out of the parking space. Then he drove away, without looking back.

  I got in the Lycan and cruised around town for a while

  before heading home. I had some things to think about. Just as well that a puppy didn't try to cross the street in front of me, though. I'd probably have run it over, then backed up to nail it again.

  When I finally arrived home, Christine was at the kitchen table, reading a magazine. She put it down as I came in and said, "Hey, Daddy." She looked a little wary – maybe my face still showed something of what I'd been feeling after talking to Karl.

  "Hey, yourself," I said.

  "I'm glad it's not fifteen minutes later, or I'd have missed you again. You weren't here when I got up tonight." The way she said it wasn't an accusation, just a statement of fact.

  "Yeah, there's a guy I wanted to talk to without Karl along. Karl and this guy, they don't get along too well. So I started my shift a little early."

  "Oh, OK. How's Karl doing, anyway?"

  "He's all right," I lied. I cleared my throat, which didn't seem to do a lot of good. "Listen, uh, I wanna say something, and I'd rather not have a discussion about it right now. But if you need to talk about it when you get up, we can."

  She gave me a careful nod. "OK, sure. What's up?"

  I'd composed this whole damn speech in my head while driving, and now I couldn't remember any of it.

  "Christine, listen, I don't know what it's like to be a… vampire. I realize that. There's probably lots I don't understand about it, and maybe I never will. But I want you to be happy, babe – or as happy as you can manage to be."

  "Yes, I believe you."

  "So, look – whatever you do when you're out, whatever you need to do, is none of my damn business, as long as you're safe, and you don't hurt anybody else. That's what matters to me."

  Another one of those careful nods. "All right. Thank you."

  "What I'm trying to say is, what happens in the night stays in the night. As far as I'm concerned, it's don't ask, don't tell."

  She gave a little laugh. "You mean like that policy they used to have for supes in the military?"

  "Yeah, I guess. Something like that. I hope it works better for us than it did for Uncle Sam."

  She got up then, came over, and put her arms around me. "I think it will. Those people in the service didn't love each other. And we do."

  "You got that right, kiddo."

  She let go and stepped away. "Well, time for me to hit the hay. Will you still be home when I get up?"

  "I should be, yeah."

  She gave me a smile that didn't show her fangs. She's gotten pretty good at that, but if the fangs appear now and then, I'm going to try not minding. "I was just wondering. I don't have any discussions planned."

  "OK, fine. Goodnight, baby."

  "'Night, Daddy."

  After she left, I realized I was famished, the first time I could remember feeling hunger all day. I checked the fridge – good, we had eggs I could scramble.

  As the pan was heating, I idly picked up the magazine Christine had been looking at, which turned out to be the "Super-Special Undead Issue" of Cosmo. I started to smile as I looked at the cover stories: "7 Clues He's Batty Over You," "Is Your Coffin Clunky?" "A-Positive Or O-Negative: How To Know If He's Your Type," and "Sharpest. Fangs. Ever." Then I saw the one on the top left: "That Secret Place He Really Wants You To Bite Him."

  I haven't laughed so hard in quite a while. Too long, really. Too damn long.

  The next night, I came in to work a little early. I was hoping to have a quiet word with Karl, but he didn't show up until our shift was due to start. When he plopped down at the desk opposite mine, I opened my mouth to speak but he beat me to it.

  "You seen the paper today, Stan?"

  "Just glanced through it. The comics, mainly. Why?"

  "There was an article about some company that's found a way to sell blood in powdered form. Just add water, and you've got yourself a nice snack, if you're a vampire."

  I didn't know where he was going with this, but I suspected I wouldn't like it when he got there.

  "That right?" I said, just to say something.

  "Yup. They've even got a name picked out for it."

  He was waiting, so I said, "What's that?"

  "Fang," he said and grinned at me, vampire teeth and all. "Gotcha!"

  He made a fist and slowly extended his arm across the desk toward me. After a second, I reached out and bumped it with my own fist. "We cool?" I asked.

  "We cool."

  "If you two soul brothers are done signifying," McGuire said from his office door, "I've got work for you."

  After last time, I knew better than to protest being assigned another case. Besides, a glance at the assignment board showed that every detective team, on all shifts, was carrying four or five open cases. Things were busy for the Supe Squad these days, and it wasn't even Halloween.

  We went back to the office, and McGuire handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. "Looks like a vamp, er, vampire attack. There was one last week, in case you didn't hear – Aquilina and Sefchik caught it. Compare notes with them, when you get a chance. Maybe we've got a serial fanger on our hands."

  As we walk out of the squad room, I said to Karl, "Think the boss should get some of that sensitivity training?"

  "Nah," he said. "I bet you could teach him all he needs to know."

  In the elevator Karl said, "You check your email yet tonight?"

  "Haven't had time. Why?"

  "I was just wondering if you heard from the same guy that I did – Mitchell Hansen."

  "That name rings a bell," I said, "but I can't remember why."

  "Dude's a reporter for the T-T, does a lot of their crime stuff."

  "That's right – he was bugging me about something a couple of months ago. And what does the Times-Tribune want to know this time?"

  "He was asking if I knew anything about snuff films," Karl said, deadpan.

  "Uh-oh. The Feebies are gonna shit when they hear about that. What'd you tell him?"

  "That, far as I knew, it's an urban legend. I said he should stop wasting his time – and mine."

  I nodded. "I'll tell him something like that if he writes to me. Good answer, by the way. You ever think about a career in PR?"

  "As a liar, I'm strictly amateur, man. Not ready to turn pro just yet."

  The elevator door opened, and we headed down the corridor that led to the parking lot.

  "But talking about public relations," Karl said, "always reminds me of this dumb-ass I knew in high school."

  "Did the dumb-ass go into PR?"

  "Nah, he had this idea that he was gonna move out to Nevada and run one of those legal brothels they have there."

  "Interesting career path," I said. "Don't know about the pay, but I bet the benefit package is outstanding. So, what'd the guy do – head out west after graduation?"

  "Uh-uh. He wanted to go to college first, so he applied to the U. He said they had a degree program that would be good preparation."

  "He really was a dumb-ass, then. The University of Scranton is a Catholic college, and I'm pretty sure the Church still discourages prostitution."

  "Yeah, I know. Turned out he'd read their catalog wrong."

  "What do you mean, he misunderstood the catalog? It's written so high school seniors can understand it, for Chrissake."

  "Like I said, he wasn't too smart. He thought they offered a degree in Pubic Administration."

  There are several nice apartment complexes just outside of Scranton that spread over sev
eral acres, allowing quite a lot of people to live there while creating the illusion of open space. But in town, real estate is too expensive for stuff like that. There are plenty of apartments, but they're mostly in buildings like Franklin Towers on McEvoy Avenue. Like a lot of these places, it doesn't live up to its pretentious name. There may have been somebody named Franklin involved in the design, but there wasn't a tower to be seen – just the usual big concrete rectangle on its side with a bunch of windows.