by Roger Keller
“I stayed there for a while.” She looked away for a second, remembering something. “That shit got old.” She stretched and yawned. “I have my own place. It’s out in the suburbs.”
“Maybe we should be over there.” I looked around the ruined living room. “Instead of a place with a lot of witnesses and lots of ways to get in.” I pointed at the garbage bag covered deck doors.
“So, you want my house to get thrashed?” she said.
“I guess it doesn’t matter.” The rum hit me harder than I was expecting.
“I haven’t been to my place in weeks,” she said. “There’s probably animals living there by now. Like, there’s probably a whole herd of deer sheltering in my living room.”
I took another drink and looked over at the wood paneling.
“We’ll fix this place up,” she said. “We’ll stay here for a while and figure things out.”
“Yeah, we’ll just fix the whole place up, like nothing even happened,” I said.
“Also, there’s that asshole downstairs to deal with,” she said.
“What about him?” I said.
“He’s an asshole,” she said. “He’ll talk too much. Maybe he will get really depressed about his friend, or something, and kill himself.”
“His blood’ll be really nasty,” I said. “His liver has got to be burned out by now.”
“That skinny punk, his kid, they’re both garbage,” she said.
I could feel her shaking. I doubted she usually stayed up this late in the morning.
“What are you going to do with all the paneling?” I changed the subject.
“Replace the carpet,” she said, “put it on the walls, cover the broken door.”
“What?” I almost spit a mouthful of rum out
“Yeah, why not?” she said. “Your place could look really cool.”
“Sure, why the fuck not?” I said. “Let’s make this place into a crazy, plywood ski lodge.”
Heather looked up at the ceiling like she could see the rising sun. She got up and staggered into my bedroom.
“Sleep well,” I said.
“I always sleep well,” she said.
A message flashed on my former roommate’s ancient land-line phone. I hit the dusty play button. Green Valley Estates warned me about the excessive noise coming my apartment after ten o’clock. I made a peanut butter sandwich and fell asleep on the couch.
*****
I woke up in the kitchen, unsure how long I was asleep. It was dark out. Heather had pushed the couch, with me on it, right next to the blood filled refrigerator. Most of the living room was covered in wood paneling. She’d even paneled over the deck doors. The apartment felt empty. Heather was gone and so were my car keys.
I walked out on the deck. Down in the parking lot, Ron and his hoodie wearing friends loitered around and dared cars to hit them. A Toyota rolled up. Ron stood in the way, his back to the car. The driver honked. Ron held up a stiff middle finger. His friends laughed and high-fived each other. The driver shifted hard into reverse and squealed his tires.
I saw my car speeding across the parking lot, now sporting a missing headlight. I didn’t want to know what Heather hit. Ron and his friends had seconds to react. Heather didn’t slow down.
“Shit.” Ron screamed and jumped out of the way. He looked up and saw me laughing. I headed downstairs.
I kicked pieces of Ron’s busted skateboard out of the way as I walked out to meet Heather. Ron and his friends milled around my car. A skinny punk cocked his leg back to kick out one of my taillights.
“I dare you,” I said.
He looked back and paused, one leg in the air. The others stood around Heather, ignoring me. Ron shook with rage. He grabbed her leather jacket and tried to pull her close. The air around Heather shimmered, claws split her fingernails and jagged teeth grew. Ron’s friends fell back, faces white with confused dread, unsure of what they saw. Something had gone really wrong and they couldn’t quite see how bad they’d fucked up. They disappeared into the endless rows of cars, leaving Ron to face Heather alone.
“What the fuck are you?” he said.
She brushed Ron’s hand away. Beads of blood dripped from the claw marks she left on his skin. He reached into his baggy jeans and pulled out a small, chrome plated pistol. Heather’s orange eyes locked on the gun. She laughed. The high pitched, disdainful sound cut right through me.
“You think that toy’s gonna do you any good?” she said.
“Put that thing away before somebody calls the cops.” I reached for the gun.
He stepped back and stuffed the gun back in his pants.
“You invited that thing in here,” he said. “She can enter all of our apartments now.”
Heather grabbed Ron’s jacket and lifted him off the ground. His baggy pants slid down to his knees.
“Disappear from my sight, little man.” Her words came out in a dull inhuman monotone. “Do not speak of this to anyone.”
Heather dropped him on his heels. Ron fell backwards and cracked his head on the broken asphalt. He tried to stand and pull his pants up at the same time. I kicked him back down and put my boot on his chest.
“Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone,” I said. “And stay the fuck away from my car. It’s messed up enough already.”
Ron crab-walked backwards a few feet, then jumped up and started running. Heather laughed. She turned to me and shifted back to her normal form. One claw remained. She used it to slash the rope that secured another stack of paneling.
*****
It took a few trips to get all of the home improvement supplies back up to the apartment. Heather pointed out a shape silhouetted against the venetian blinds of Rick’s apartment while we unloaded the car. She giggled.
“He’s watching us,” she said. “Brave little fucker, isn’t he?”
“Nobody’ll believe him,” I held the security door for Heather.
“Nobody will miss him, if he disappears,” she said as we headed up the stairs.
“His family might,” I said.
“Nobody would miss them either.” She kicked my door open, balancing an armload of supplies.
I looked at her and raised an eyebrow. She smiled.
“We might find some kind of use for him,” she said.
I sat in the kitchen while Heather worked. She didn’t stop until everything was covered in fake wood. When she was done, she reassembled the living room furniture and stood back to admire her work. It was horrible.
“How’s it look,” she said.
“It’s interesting,” I said.
“Yeah it is,” she said.
A thin, black vein appeared on her forearm, looking like a mark from an ink pen. Heather ran her fingers over the blemish and it faded to blue.
“I think this might be a problem,” she said.
“Maybe.” I had no idea how to help her and I didn’t want to imagine her turning into one of those freaks.
“I wonder if the ones we killed were really trying to fight it once,” she said. “That’s what the refrigerators and stuff were for. One day they just gave in. It caught ‘em right in the middle of whatever they were planning. I mean some of that stuff wasn’t even hooked up. You probably couldn’t feel it, but they’d been in there for years. I might have a long time, or maybe it happens tonight.”
“I doubt anything will happen tonight.” I hoped.
“I’ve already lived way longer than I thought I would.” Heather paced back and forth, faster and faster, until she seemed to appear and disappear on opposite sides of the room.
“None of it makes any sense.” She stood behind me for a second. “I washed off the blood. I didn’t drink any of it.”
“I doubt there’s a medical explanation.” I turned around, she was in the kitchen, then by the deck. “It’s probably supernatural. We should ask Lee.”
Heather stopped cold, halfway across the living room. The wood paneling under her feet creaked.
�
�Are you fucking kidding me?” She shot across the room and grabbed my shirt. “We are not going anywhere near Lee or any of the others until I figure this out.”
“OK.” I pushed her hands away.
“Sorry.” She smoothed my shirt out.
We sat down on the couch and Heather put another British gangster movie on.
“Micheal Cain’s pretty awesome,” she said.
Chapter 6
I woke up just before dusk. Red light poured through the few windows that Heather hadn’t paneled over. I threw a frozen pizza in the oven, hoping it wasn’t contaminated by Heather’s blood bank refrigerator.
I walked into the bedroom while the oven warmed up. The room felt different, I could sense Heather. It was like a cave now, with a wolf lurking somewhere inside.
After I ate, I gathered up the trash that had accumulated over the last few days. None of it was vampire related, so I took it to the dumpster. Before I left I clipped the axe to my belt.
I got halfway across the parking lot before I saw the thing on the dumpster. For a second I doubted my perception. It looked human, like a giant homeless man. I dropped the bags in an empty parking space and unsheathed the axe. The thing looked up with semi-normal, non glowing eyes and smiled at me. He clicked his teeth and went back to rummaging through the garbage.
“You’re not a vampire?” I said.
The thing wiped freakishly long fingers on it’s ratty bearskin coat and offered me a jar of pickles. The jar was empty except for brine and a few stems.
“No thanks,” I said.
He took a sip of pickle juice and resealed the cap.
“I know what you are, vampire hunter,” he said. “Hear me. I shall not be as easy to destroy as you may think.”
The thing leapt to the ground. He stood at least seven feet tall with arms that almost reached his knees. Carved bones held his long, braided black hair and beard in place. Huge twitching ears stuck out from the sides of his head.
“I am Monroe, vampire hunter.” He inhaled deeply. “Yes I can smell it on you. I suspect that more than one vampire has met a proper end by that axe.”
“What the fuck are you?” I held the axe in both hands now.
“It matters not,” Monroe said. “I have given it little thought. I exist and have existed here since before The War of Independence. My memory was damaged, over one hundred years ago.”
Monroe ripped another trash bag open and found a yogurt container. He scooped the leftovers out with a long crooked finger.
“Aw shit.” I said, as I watched him lick up the moldy goo.
“Delicious,” he said.
“Why are you here?” I said. “Why are any of you fuckers here?”
“I suspect that you are now noticing a great many things that you had ignored before,” he said.
“I get it, any normal person driving by will just see me talking to myself,” I said. “Or maybe they won’t see anything at all.”
Monroe laughed and tossed the empty container back into the dumpster.
“There are worse things than vampires in this world,” he said. “If common, God fearing folk could see everything in this world, they would go quite mad. The vampires and revenants that you have seen are nothing compared to the abominations that await you.”
“Great,” I said. “Look, uh, Monroe. Maybe you can help me. I’m kinda workin’ in the dark here. Nobody seems to know what’s going on, or they don’t want to tell me.”
“Of course, by they, you mean the foul vampires that infest this city,” Monroe said. “You have been doing business with them, working for their interests?”
“More or less,” I said.
“I sense that a vampire has boldly left one of it’s victims here.” He pointed at the place where Heather dumped Ray. “The body was laid out in the open, likely to mock the authorities.”
“I don’t think that was the idea,” I said.
“Beware hunter. Do not trust a vampire.” Monroe raised a bushy eyebrow. “I know their ways.”
“OK,” I said. “So you’ve been around for a while. Maybe you can help me. I need to know about the revenants. I killed a few of them and burned their nest.”
“You know how to destroy them. What more do you want?” Monroe paused to stroke the filth out of his beard. “Well, I suppose there may well be hundreds left for you to kill. They add to their ranks rapidly and with little regard for being discovered. Typically the more responsible members of the vampire covens exterminate them. The revenants possess strange, primitive senses and any survivors will likely be searching for you, even now.”
“Yeah, they don’t waste much time,” I said. “Will I end up like them if I-”
“You are more or less human, so you need not fear being infected with their sickness,” he said. “As long as you remain human, you should be safe. The affliction spreads among vampires without rhyme or reason. Likely their fear is motivating them to employ you. I do certainly hope that the vampires are paying you for your services.”
“Lee paid me in gold coins,” I said.
“Lee. Lee Stoner.” Monroe bellowed and hopped up and down. I looked around, then remembered that no one could see us. I hoped. “You may as well be working for the papists in Rome. They, at least would offer you more gold.”
“This just keeps getting better.” I squeezed my eyes and groaned. “Look, I already know Lee’s evil and he’ll probably try to kill me at some point. What I need to know is how to cure a revenant.”
“Interesting,” he said, “do you mean to use a cure to weaken them?”
“Something like that,” I said.
“I was an alchemist once,” Monroe said. “I attempted to discover the secrets of life and death. I traveled far beyond this sphere. When I returned I was changed, as you can no doubt see. So much of my knowledge was lost. I feel I must have once known such things as could be helpful, the history of vampires and such.”
I relaxed my grip on the axe. Monroe stroked his beard, trying to find memories lost in another dimension.
“I had, in my travels and studies, met a sorcerer named Marcello. He claimed to be nearly a thousand years old. A rare feat for any sorcerer. They usually go mad after living too long in magically altered flesh. He may have some solution to your revenant problem.” Monroe eyed my axe. “Whether he will want to help you, is another matter entirely. You have the advantage of being a hunter. Marcello’s magic will be of little use against you. His servants and the, uh, creatures and constructs he may call upon could present you with a problem.”
“Where can I find Marcello?” I said, hoping he didn’t live in some far off place like Europe or a mountain in Tibet.
“It should take you a few weeks walk or a short trip by automobile,” Monroe said. “The roads have changed over the years, but I can give you sufficient directions. When you reach the town of Franklin, if it still stands and has not been abandoned, you will begin to see his influence.”
“OK, give me the directions,” I said.
“Perhaps you have something to barter with,” he said.
I held out the axe.
“Ah yes, you must have read my mind,” he said. “I have been meaning to acquire a stout kindling axe.”
“It’s yours,” I said.
Monroe attached the axe to his belt. He reached into his coat and produced a pink, spiral notepad and pen. Monroe sat with his back to the dumpster and rested the notepad on his knees. I looked over his shoulder as he wrote paragraph after paragraph pausing only to add illustrations.
“I must repeat, it has been so long since I have seen Marcello that I do not know what condition you will find him in, or what company he may be keeping. So arm yourself accordingly.” He stood, shaking dust and debris off his filthy, handmade clothes.
“Great,” I said, trying to avoid the dust.
I took the spiral pad and looked over the short novel he’d written. It was all shockingly legible.
“Good luck, vampire hunter,”
he said. “Perhaps we shall meet again.”
Monroe offered his hand. I sighed and took it. My knuckles popped under the pressure.
“Yeah, sure we’ll hang out some time,” I said and rubbed my hand.
I looked back and realized the sun was gone. I could see Heather’s glowing eyes on my deck. Hopefully Monroe couldn’t see her. I turned around to see him loping across the parking lot.
*****
“What the fuck was that thing you were talking to?” Heather said, as soon as I walked through the door. “It was fuckin’ huge.”
“You saw him too, huh?” I said. “He said his name was Monroe. He doesn’t really know what he is anymore.”
“Damn,” she said.
“He was telling me about a guy named Marcello,” I said. “You ever hear that name?”
I leafed through Monroe’s spiral pad. I would have settled for a street address, but Monroe seemed to have written a short history of Marcello’s house.
“Never heard of him,” she said. “Why?”
“Monroe said the guy knows about vampires. He might know how to help you.” I wondered if he could make Heather human again.
Heather raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms.
“So, a homeless, garbage picking monster told you to go find a guy named Marcello.” Her lips drew back over gleaming white fangs. “Never mind how fucking crazy that sounds. You told a weird creature, that I didn’t even know existed until now, about me.”
“I didn’t even mention you,” I said. “I told him I was working for Lee and that I was going to cure the revenants to weaken them.”
“That’s actually, like, really smart.” She relaxed. Her fangs receded into her gums. “Lee would be pissed if he knew you dropped his name to that freak.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I said. “Lee should have told me more, if he wanted me to do a job. You both should have.”
“I keep telling you, I don’t know anything,” she said. “Lee could take care of that thing anyway.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I’m not sure Monroe can die.”
“So we’re going to find Marcello,” she said. “What is Marcello, like what does he do?”