Monsters in the Midwest ( Book 1): Wisconsin Vamp

by Scott Burtness

  The moment Herb’s eyes connected with Lois was like a rabid dog reaching the end of its tether, the violent yank almost enough to send him reeling backward into the wall behind him. Sailors lost for days at sea and finally seeing the bright ray of the lighthouse, that sliver of hope piercing the gloom, might understand the relief that washed through Herb as he was caught in her smile, watched her run a finger across her brow to replace a stray lock of golden blond hair. A shudder ran through Herb as the music began. Eyes never leaving Lois, he began to sing “Long, Cool Woman” by the Hollies.

  The voice that came through the speakers surprised a lot of folks, but none more than Herb. For a second he thought Jasper might’ve been playing a friendly joke, or maybe enacting a carefully devised ploy to protect the crowd from yet another terrible singer. But when Herb turned to look at Jasper, he saw nothing short of awe reflected back at him.

  Plunging ahead, he continued with the song. His right foot, heel up and poised to drive his predatory leap into the fray, started to tap, his whole leg now counting rhythm to the Hollies and their classic-cool groove. His previously clawed hand, ready moments ago to rip the life out of anyone in arm’s reach, suddenly turned palm-up as his arm tracked across the crowd. Eyes squeezed shut, lost in the song, he swung his head to and fro. Freeing the mic from the stand, he held it close to his mouth while his other hand slapped his thigh, leg still pounding out a rhythm. For the first time in his life, Herb Knudsen sang.

  The crowd erupted in cheers as the guitar riffs cut their way through the speakers, and people started to look appreciatively at Lois. She basked in the attention like a sunflower drinking in a summer afternoon while the brave and the drunk filled the dance floor. Jasper bumped the volume up, and the music forced its way through the saloon doors into the bowling alley itself. As Herb kicked out lyrics, bowlers stopped mid-approach, newcomers froze in the act of passing money to Slow Johnson for a pair of shoes. Smiles caught and spread like wildfire, head’s started to bob. Herb could still sense the thu-thump of the hearts, but now they all seemed to be pounding in time to the rhythm of his song.

  As he cat-walked back and forth across the stage, every pair of eyes that he met was instantly caught up, drawn in, lit to pop like a firecracker and sent spinning back into the world. The fervor of the crowd was quickly becoming a living thing as it writhed and danced on the worn wood of the dance floor, spilled over onto the carpet. Herb dropped to his knees, leaned back, way back until the back of his head brushed the floor. Both hands squeezing the mic, he unleashed the song like a wild thing long chained set suddenly and joyously free.

  Rising up like Dracula from his coffin, Herb faced the crowd again, eyes locked squarely on Lois as he finished the final lines of the song. Sliding the mic back into its stand, Herb felt the song crest, break and start to recede, a tidal wave that had pulled in the unsuspecting and now left the pieces swirling and sweating, bits of flotsam in the pool left behind by his performance.

  The fading music made the thunderous applause crescendo, while cheers of, “Hot damn!” and, “Atta boy Herby!” filled the bar. Herb barely heard the hollers and shouts. His whole world, every ounce of his attention was consumed by Lois. Their eyes held as stepped down from the stage, oblivious to the back-slaps and hollers and Jasper’s eager praise. They held as he crossed the space, slow and certain as the rising sun, held as he took her outstretched hands and stepped into the circle of her arms, widened as she simultaneously moved toward him, finally to close as their lips met.

  As they kissed, Herb felt the warmth of the sun on his face, a gentle breeze ruffled his rusty hair, and clear water washed through him. Lois’s kiss was balm, surcease, benediction. The cool touch of aloe on a burn, a cracked window in a dark, musty room, the early spring rain on the last bits of snow.

  There was a flutter of fear, the tiniest moment of terror. Herb realized there was no way that Lois could possibly feel the same way as he did. His heart bled sorrow through old and heavy scars. This one perfect moment was just that, a moment, one that would end too soon and return him to the unbearable bleakness that was his life before her kiss. Better to just be done with it, he reasoned. It’s inevitable anyway. He opened his eyes to invite the cold shower of reality in, and found her staring back.

  Still kissing, their eyes met. Lightning struck, thunder sounded, and was that, could that be trumpets, a host of voices raised in celebratory song? At long last, the kiss gave signs of ending. No, not ending, but pausing, allowing the rest of time to catch up, giving the earth permission to spin again, the universe the okay to resume its endless expansion. Their lips separated and Herb drew a deep, shuddering breath. Every feeling that made up the whirling, dancing, joyously laughing dervish in his chest, he saw its measure in her eyes.

  The sound of a far away scuffle was a gnat buzzing by his ear. He whooshed a mental hand at the imagined gnat, hoping it would just go away. Instead, the argument grew louder, claiming more of his attention. Indeterminate noises became words, and words became voices that he knew.

  First Jasper, reedy and nasally, a coddled child ready to cry for mom. “But you gotta wait your turn! Everybody always waits their turn!”

  Then Jimbo, marble-mouthed drunk and conciliatory, his voice first loud then quickly dwindling as he stumbled from the stage. “S’ok. Next time gonna sing. Lovely song. Song-a-long...”

  Finally, like a cinder block dropped on a bare foot, a hammer on a thumb, a voice yanked Herb and Lois firmly back to the present moment, a place that had become much less pleasant now that Dallas had taken the stage. “Well hot damn folks! Helluva night for some kar’oke!”

  Had he not been so caught up in Lois, Herb would’ve smelled him from the parking lot, heard his heavy boot tread as he entered the bowling alley. Instead, Dallas had caught him completely unaware, instantly ruining this most perfect of moments. So Herb didn’t feel too terribly bad when he exclaimed, “Oh for fuck’s sake. What’s he doing here?”

  The bar fell silent, looking from Dallas to Herb and back again. People didn’t cut in line at karaoke. That was just rude. But people also didn’t just toss around F-bombs in public, either. That was also rude. Heads swiveled as the crowd tried to suss out just who the worse offender was in a situation like this. Herb felt vindicated when he saw more and more faces turn disapproving scowls toward Dallas. It really was rude to cut the line at karaoke. Even Herb, a total newbie, understood that.

  Drunk, determined and oblivious to the crowd’s ire, Dallas wrapped a paw around the mic and barked at Jasper to queue up some Roky Erickson.

  “Who?” Jasper asked. “Ropey who?”

  “Roky, not ropey. Rhymes with pokey.” Dallas growled. “Okey doke artichokee? Get on now and play some Roky!”

  Jasper shrugged, shook his head.

  “You can spell, can’t ya? R-O-K-Y. Roky Erickson. Song’s called ‘Night of the Vampire!’” Dallas exclaimed with exasperation.

  Jasper flicked his eyes nervously at the still-speechless crowd watching the exchange on the small stage. “Vampire? But Dallas, it ain’t even kinda close to Halloween yet. I don’t got my spooky song discs...”

  For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So when Dallas leaned in and seemed to grow bigger, Jasper leaned back and seemed to shrivel. “I’m s-sorry Dallas, I ain’t never heard of no Ropey or Roky Erickson or no vampire tonight song.”

  “OK you little piss-ant. Slayer, then. ‘At Dawn they Sleep.’ You’ve got that, right?” Dallas asked, looked at Jasper hopefully. “At dawn they sleep! That’s the title. You don’t got that in your machine?”

  Sweat beads running freely down his face now, Jasper again shook his head.

  Dallas started to pace, dragging the mic back and forth. “Um… oh yeah! ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead,’ Bauhaus. Frickin’ Bauhaus! Everyone knows that one. ‘Undead, undead, undead,’” Dallas sang.

  “Sorry Dallas,”

  “Alice Cooper. ‘Welcome to My Nightmare.’”

&nbs
p; “Nope.”

  “Um, how about ‘Werewolf of London.’ I can change the words. To like, vampire. Of Trappersville.”

  “Uh-uh. I told you, I don’t got my Halloween discs here tonight.”

  The crowd was transfixed by the strange drama. Lois was visibly mortified, while Herb was wracked by fear and rage. Every song Dallas shouted into the mic made more hairs raise on the back of Herb’s neck, made him instinctually want to flee. But the thought of Dallas outing him like this at a karaoke bar, and doing so when he was on his first and, so far, really, really good date with Lois. It was unthinkable. Unforgivable.

  “Neil Young! If this is any kind of real kar’oke, you gotta have Neil Young.”

  Jasper saw his possible salvation dangling from a thread. “Oh, hell yeah, Dallas. I got lots of Neil Young. Lemme guess. You’re a ‘Cinnamon Girl’ fan, right? One for the ladies?”

  Despite being dunk and agitated, Dallas was still quick as a cobra. In a flash, he’d gathered the front of Jasper’s shirt and yanked his face in so close their noses were touching. Rhonda’s gasp of fear for her only, favorite and well-mulleted son snapped the silence like a broken piano string, but it was quickly replaced by a deeper, tenser silence. Everyone in the room knew Dallas, and usually liked him well enough, but they also knew he had a short fuse and genuinely enjoyed punching things from time to time.

  “Not. Cinnamon. Girl.” His voice ground out like the rusty tracks of an old bulldozer. “You will play ‘Vampire Blues.’ It’s a vampire song about a goddamn vampire and I’m gonna sing it whether you got it in your damn book or not. I ain’t doin’ this for fun. I’m making a point. A goddamn public service announcement.” He paused to slam a closed fist to his chest, standing straighter with noble purpose. “So look up the damn song!”

  Jasper riffled through his books again, crowed triumphantly and grabbed a shiny CD. “Yes! Best K-J ever. I got it Dal. I got it. You don’t gotta hit me now.”

  As Jasper frantically queued up the song, Dallas turned his whiskey-soaked gaze back to the bar, bloodshot eyes roaming sullenly through the stage lights until they found Herb and Lois.

  Herb vibrated with anger, a nest of hornets boiling up inside, but Dallas was too drunk, pissed off and self-righteous to notice. He glared right back down at Herb from over the mic, said in his false-hearty voice, “Well Herb! I’ll be damned. Who’da thunk I’d see you here. Guess I’d better dedicate this next number to my best friend, my bestest buddy. My compadre, Herbert Knudsen. You like Neil Young, right Herb?”

  Jasper, ever the professional, started the song at that exact moment. As it started, Herb’s fury was momentarily diverted. Listening to the opening chords, he was sure Jasper had made a mistake. A Neil Young song? It sounded more like Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, maybe. But when Dallas started to sing in his loud, drunken, almost on key voice, Herb’s icy fright and red-hot rage returned, turning his gut into a maelstrom of emotion.

  Dallas was getting into it, hunched forward, the mic stand pushed over the edge of the platform at a sharp angle. His eyes shifted from Herb’s to Lois’s, who still stood in shock, one arm wrapped tight across her midsection and her other hand pressed over her mouth, as if she was about to gag on a foul taste in her mouth.

  As he belted out the words about a vampire and sucking blood, Dallas brought the mic stand back upright. One hand pointed straight at Herb, indictment plain for all to see. His other hand reached into a pocket, pulled something out and threw it Rollie Fingers style straight at Herb. When the bulb of garlic hit him in the forehead, Herb lost it. No longer able to just stand and fume, he pounced. His body sailed across the small dance floor, arms outstretched, hands clawed. His face was contorted with hatred and rage right up until the moment it met a meaty fist, swung by an arm that was made for heavy labor and bar brawls. The force of the punch pushed his trajectory off target. Instead of slamming bodily into his intended victim, Herb tripped and careened past Dallas into the heavy felt curtain covering the back wall. Growling and spinning, Herb lashed out with own his fist, the glancing blow sending Dallas backward off the platform. Recovering from the fall, Dallas dusted off the front of his jeans, cracked his knuckles and settled into a classic boxer’s pose: knees bent, elbows in, fists up by his face, wide, drunk and angry eyes glaring over almond-sized knuckles.

  “C’mon you hell spawn! That the best you got?” he challenged as the crowd quickly made room for the impending brawl.

  Herb squatted on the edge of the karaoke stage like a gargoyle, arms splayed and fangs bared. He let loose something part growl and part sailor-curse in response to Dallas’s challenge. Leaping down from the platform to the dance floor, the two forces collided. Herb was inhumanly strong and fast, but Dallas was a former football player and current bar brawler. The result was a pretty even match-up, with neither friend gaining the advantage.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, Dallas?” Herb yelled as he swung.

  “Me? You’re the goddamn vamp!” Dallas ducked, slipped, kicked out a booted foot.

  “Both of you stop it! Stop it right now!” Lois’s shrill scream distracted Herb for a split second, and Dallas’s kick caught him in the shin. Falling, he shot a hand out, caught the tail of Dallas’s untucked flannel.

  “I’m somebody now! People like me. They like me!” Herb wrenched on Dallas’s shirt, pulled him to the floor. Dallas continued the momentum and rolled on top of Herb, wrapping his hands around Herb’s neck.

  “Like you? Who the hell are you kidding? You’re a damn loser! And now you kill people! You think people are gonna like you if you drink their blood?” A fist hammered down piston-like. Herb jerked his head to the side at the last moment, and heard Dallas’s knuckles crack hard against the floor, followed by a sharp intake of breath as Dallas pulled his bruised fist back.

  “What are you talking about, Dallas? Herb hasn’t killed anyone! Are you crazy?” Lois screamed from the front of the growing crowd of on-lookers.

  “...just called the cops, you assholes! So you’d better get the hell outta here, both of you!” Rhonda yelled from behind the bar, phone still in hand.

  “Say it Herb, tell her! Tell her how you killed that guy in the woods. Probably Helen and them other folks, too. How you tried to kill me! How you tried to kill her!” Dallas still had one hand squeezing Herb’s neck. With a violent thrust, Herb shoved him back and up. The blow lifted Dallas off the floor, sent him reeling backward toward the pool table in the corner. Dallas his the rail with a grunt and a curse. Reaching behind him, he grabbed a pool cue and swung right as Herb was charging.

  “I didn’t try to kill Lois!” Herb blocked the swing, the pool cue snapping in half as it cracked against his forearm. Barreling into Dallas, he screamed, “I love her!”

  Shocked silence followed as Herb and Dallas embraced. For a moment, it looked like the two had suddenly decided a good hug would settle everything. But then Herb heard the gasps and someone whisper, “Holy crap. Did you see his teeth?” Leaning back, he pulled his open mouth away from the side of Dallas’s neck. As he shifted his weight back, he was caught by a strange cold-hot sensation emanating from his chest. Someone’s hand caught his as he stumbled back.

  Mouth agape, fangs on full display, Herb looked first at Dallas. His best friend gaped in wide-eyed, horrified amazement, his breath coming in short, sharp puffs, his hand still holding the haft of the broken cue.

  Head feeling like it was dangling from a palsied puppeteer’s hand, Herb looked haltingly down. The strange, unidentifiable sensation in his chest slowly resolved as his eyes followed the broken cue extending from Dallas’s hand to its terminus in his own increasingly bloody shirt. His head lolled to one side and he saw it was Lois who’d caught his hand, who was helping him fall back as gently as possible to the floor, surrounded by fading whispers and a growing cacophony of voices.

  “Oh god, oh Herb! Someone... someone help!” Lois pleaded, looking around frantically at the confused, scared faces of the crowd.

&
nbsp; “But what the hell’s wrong with his teeth,” he heard someone say.

  Another voice chimed in with, “Dallas said he killed a guy? That guy they found in the woods?”

  “For real?” someone else gasped. “He ate someone?”

  “What’s wrong with you? He needs an ambulance! He needs help!” Lois screamed back, sobbing.

  “All them vampire songs,” another voice added. “Holy shipyards. Dallas is right. He’s a vamp. An honest-to-god vamp’er. Right here in Wisconsin!”

  “Hey, did you see that guy? I think it was that guy from that movie. He was just over there, in the corner. Where’d he go?” a woman asked.

  “Geezuz, he’s burning up! Wait, no. More like smoldering....” another voice added.

  “Call an ambulance! Dallas, someone, please call an ambulance!” Lois screamed again, eyes frantic and wide.

  “You say Herb’s a vampire?” someone a little slower on the uptake asked.

  “Vamps can’t be bowling champions, right? We gotta redo the finals, right?” Fancy Dan’s distinctive voice chimed in from somewhere near the back.

  “Christ! He’s burning up like embers in a fire, he is. No, don’t get to close!” another voice cautioned. “That shirt looks to be polyester and it’ll melt right to your skin,”

  Herb tried to listen to the words, but someone was cramming cotton into his ears and filling his chest with molten lava. His neck was a noodle, his head too heavy to lift. Eyes roaming, he saw the fear, the disbelief, and the blossoming anger in the faces leaning closer and closer. All the old faces that had become new friends after they saw him bowl, ate his food, listened to him sing. They liked him, they really liked him. Don’t they? he wondered. Why were they so angry now?