Sundown Rising

by T. A. Bradley

  As I stood there thinking about the situation, a woman came out of a small corner store. She was almost to her car when a man approached her from behind. I could see the knife he was holding at the small of her back and could hear his demands. They got into her car and drove off. I followed.

  Just outside of Philadelphia, a small place called Banderman Falls, they turned onto Northwestern Avenue and went down to a parking lot that was part of Fairmount Park. The man with the knife was convinced that he would not be disturbed there. He was wrong.

  I watched from above for a few minutes as the woman struggled to retain her clothing and life. She would have done neither had I not intervened. I felt no compassion for her, and my intervention was purely self-motivated. I was not saving her from her attacker; I was saving her attacker for me.

  I touched the ground, the gravel crunching beneath my feet as I walked toward the car. I rapped on the window with my knuckles. I could have ripped the door off and grabbed him, but I wanted the confrontation. His expression was, at first, surprise. When it melted into anger, it amused me.

  I stepped back from the car, giving him room to get out. It made me laugh when he told the woman, "Stay right there! I'm not finished with you."

  "Actually, you are," I said, taunting him. I let him approach, keeping my eyes averted from his. I didn't want this to end too quickly. I needed to savor the moment.

  He ran toward me; I could feel his rage. When he was a few feet from me, I spread my arms out to my sides and let him shove the knife into my belly. That's when I grabbed him and let him look me in the eyes. I watched as he sank helplessly into their fiery depths. I fed. When I was done with him, I snapped his neck and let him drop.

  I walked back over to the car. The door was still open and the woman was huddled in the corner of the back seat. I leaned down and looked in at her.

  "You have a nice night, now," I said, "and drive carefully."

  I hadn't gotten very far on my way home when I felt it – felt her. I turned, sniffing the air and tasting the mix of life and death. It took only milliseconds for me to get back to the car, but I was too late. The woman was dead and my counterpart was already gone. But not before leaving me a message that was all too clear. The heads of the victims had been placed on the hood of the car facing each other. Our meeting would soon be face to face.

  15

  It was a week to the day after the message that the first overtures to our meeting took place. As the sun set on a cold January evening, I rose and greeted my four-legged guardians. I did not anthropomorphize them with names, nor did I speak to them in any of man's languages. I communicated in their language – grunts and growls. They had made a nice den for themselves within the perimeter of the brambles that surrounded my crypt. They remained inside that perimeter, except to hunt in turns for their food on the expansive wooded property. They told me we had a visitor.

  As I entered the rear of the house, Adam and our friend rose. Marco was a rather large man, someone I would have picked as a guardian. He and Adam had been having a beer and, most likely commiserating their fates.

  Our guest was well schooled. He avoided eye contact with me as much as possible. I tried to put him at ease, telling him that I had no desire to initiate hostilities, either with him or his mistress, but he was still wary.

  "So..." I said, taking a seat at the far end of the kitchen table, "what can we do for you?"

  "My master (he stumbled with the word) wishes to meet with you. She sends her greetings and offers you the choice of locations for such a meeting." His mouth was dry and he kept licking his lips. His discomfort at being in my presence was measurable. Adam sat quietly, looking between the two of us.

  "I welcome such a meeting," I said dryly. "I have wondered much about your Mis-tress." I stressed the word, drawing it out, knowing it would make him just the slightest uncomfortable. Although I wanted him to understand that he was in no danger, I didn't want him to report that I was, by any means, weak. "When does she propose the meeting take place?"

  "I am told," he stammered, "to request a time within the week. My master has much she would like to discuss with you." He coughed nervously before continuing. "As she is sure you have much to ask of her."

  I sat back and stroked my chin, as if I were contemplating the situation. In actuality, I had been prepared for this for weeks. At length, I sat forward and caught his gaze. This would ensure that my message was in no way corrupted when it was delivered.

  "I shall meet with your mistress tomorrow night at the same cemetery where we first encountered each other. I shall be there three hours before dawn. You will accompany her, as Adam will accompany me." I drew him in deeper. "It is absolutely imperative that your mistress comply with my next condition. There will be no feeding in that area tomorrow night. She may feed elsewhere, but the cemetery and the surrounding town are off limits. Naturally, following our meeting, she may feed where she pleases."

  There was no reason to ask if he understood me clearly. I knew that he did, just as I knew that my message would be delivered intact.

  "Adam will now show you out," I said, standing from my chair and raising myself to its fullest height. "When you leave, you will go straight back to your mistress. You will not stop along the way."

  He repeated my last instructions as someone might repeat a telephone number they wanted to be sure was correct. I bowed at the waist – a useless gesture, but it added to the atmosphere I thought. A kind of Stokerism. He left immediately under Adam's watchful eye.

  "Well, my friend," I said to Adam, on his return, "it appears as though there will be the long awaited meeting of the minds."

  "Yes sir. Is there anything special you need of me in preparation?"

  "Yes. I leave nothing to chance, as I am sure is true of her." I told Adam what I wanted from him. I needed to take extra precautions on this, as I was the one at the disadvantage. My counterpart still had the ability to be about in sunlight. I could not allow a situation to develop in which she delayed my departure, allowing the sun to rise before I could leave.

  16

  Adam arrived at the cemetery forty minutes before the scheduled meeting. He sat out front in the Chevy Suburban with the darkly tinted windows that I had procured for him. When his counterpart arrived, thirty minutes later, they took up their positions at opposite gates, ensuring we would not be disturbed. I did not arrive early, nor did my counterpart. That would have violated the rules of trust. We were each bound by certain etiquettes peculiar to our species.

  At precisely the appointed time, we both arrived in the center of the cemetery. There was a familiarity about her appearance which I could not immediately place.

  "Good of you to come," I said.

  "Good of you to come," she replied.

  "I have many questions," I said, standing with my hands in my pockets. I could still smell the life force in her that allowed her to move through daylight.

  "I am not sure I have, or am willing to divulge, all the answers you seek."

  "Who made you? It is generally accepted as inappropriate to take a child."

  "He that made me hunts also in this city," she stuck her hands in her back pockets and kicked lightly at the dirt. "You should not blame him for me, for I believe he is unaware of my creation at his hands."

  "That's rather cryptic. I find it difficult to believe that he could have given you the life you have without knowing. It is a conscious decision that demands deliberate action."

  She giggled – a forced and sardonic giggle. "His actions were deliberate, that's for certain. And I'm sure, at the time, of a very conscious nature. Still, he does not know he created me."

  "Why do you hunt here, when you know I am here? You understand the danger in that."

  "I hunt here because he hunts here. I watch and learn."

  "How is it you are part mortal?"

  She giggled again. "That is an answer I am
unwilling to give you...for now."

  I took a step closer to her, drawing her full attention. Our eyes locked and I could feel her strength. It was the strength of youth. But I could also feel the weaknesses of youth, the inexperience. Yet, she held my gaze and did not flinch. She was reading me as I was reading her.

  "You will not, then, consider changing locations?" It was a rhetorical question. I knew her answer. "I cannot force you to do so. And if, as you say, there is another...one I cannot sense, then our hunting grounds are well overcrowded."

  "I understand the danger you foresee. Many bodies, many questions. I do not believe it will be a problem. He is very careful, as am I."

  "Still," I continued, "three in the same area will eventually draw unwanted attention."

  "I repeat, you need not concern yourself with that. Things will become clear to you...but you must be patient. I am not ready to tell you all you want to know."

  A sudden seriousness swept across her face and it was she who locked eyes with me.

  "Do not underestimate me because of my...youth." The word made her giggle again. "I am equal to the challenges I face, and have a better than average ability at reading thoughts."

  She turned and looked over her shoulder at the street behind us. "For instance, I know you feared I would detain you. I assure you, I am not prepared to battle with you, nor do I wish to...at this time. So, you do not need the four-legged guardians that stare at us through the darkness from within your manservant's vehicle. I can see them in his mind. I can smell them."

  "Your statement implies that you are contemplating such a battle in the future," I snapped.

  "That is, as with all things, possible. We have yet to see where our respective roads will cross. I will have a proposal for you...soon. In the interim, we can coexist by agreeing, as you would like, to hunt carefully in different areas. Is that satisfactory to you?"

  I nodded my agreement, although I was far from satisfied. I knew that pressing the matter further would be fruitless. She smiled and kicked lightly at the dirt the way a horse will paw the ground for want of activity.

  "I will give you this much," she said, a wry smile on her face, "you knew my mother...a long time ago...before I was created. She was never anything but mortal, so you needn't worry about a fourth in the area. She has since passed beyond our reach, so do not try to find her. What remains of her is...perhaps...only a distant, un-jogged memory of yours."

  She turned slightly, allowing the moonlight to reflect off her face. And in that moment, I saw the unknown familiarity that I had felt before. And still, it was beyond my reckoning.

  "We should go now," she said. We have yet to feed and your resting hours approach."

  She said nothing more. I watched as she vaporized and drifted across the cemetery and out the gate, like a slow moving mist on a damp morning. At the far end of the cemetery, I saw her guardian nod to mine and then disappear down the street into the darkness.

  "Take the children back," I said to Adam. "I shall be along shortly."

  17

  Although confined to the blackness of my crypt for the day, I did not sleep. I lay in my casket, the child's face circling in my mind. Desperately I tried to bring its familiarity into focus – to recognize it. It was close, but still eluded me.

  I also attempted to understand her comment about her mother. But that, too, remained foggy. There were so many mortal women I had known, both as a daylight walker and after. I sorted through the faces locked in my memory: casual passers-by; female victims; faces I'd seen on news stories or television. But I could not make an association between any of them and this girl.

  I pondered the other, too – the one she claimed made her. I wondered how he could be here and I not know it. Why couldn't I sense him as I had the girl? These questions and puzzles kept burning through my mind.

  With the sunset came my hunt. I had not rested and was weakened. I would need more than one victim tonight - maybe more than two. I could already feel the dead tissues of my body degenerating. My first attack would have to be swift. I would need young blood.

  Adam had done his job as usual, but the targets were too old for what I needed immediately. I would have to find my own first kill. And it would have to be made early, much earlier than I usually killed. There would still be many mortals up and about, unlike the small hours of the morning.

  From a street corner in Manayunk, I watched as the late evening shoppers bustled about their business. I watched them come and go, my eye on the lookout for the perfect target – alone.

  At the end of the block I saw a young woman emerge from her row house with a small dog. I watched her as she made her way down the street, cooing and coaxing the dog to complete its business so she could go back home. When she turned the corner, I followed. Halfway down the street she turned into a neighborhood park. It was empty and would serve my purposes well.

  As I approached her from behind, keeping my distance at first, the dog began to sense me. It turned and snarled at me, growling and jumping at the end of its leash. The woman should have been unnerved at my proximity, but I think that it was my suit that put her at ease.

  "I'm terribly sorry," she apologized, pulling back on the leash as hard as she could. "Tippy usually doesn't act this way. She's usually a very friendly doggie."

  "That's quite all right," I said smiling, as I walked closer to her. "She's just protecting her master."

  I was standing directly in front of her when the attack came. It was swift and merciless. Had I not been what I was, I would have been unable to follow it.

  A dark shape swooped down and grabbed up the dog. It was so fast that the dog had no time to cry out before it was dead. From a mortal's standpoint – the woman's – the dog vanished momentarily, only to reappear as a headless carcass.

  I reached out and grabbed the horrified woman before she could scream, and in another moment, my first kill of the night had been accomplished.

  "Thought I'd help out," said the girl, standing beside me.

  "We should not be feeding in the same area," I said sharply.

  "You can hardly call a dog feeding. I was just giving you the opportunity you needed." She kicked the Pug and it went sailing through the air like a gutted stuffed toy. Her hands were in her pockets and she swayed her hips from side to side. A mortal male would have instantly been sexually attracted to her. I was angry.

  "I do not need help...and we had an agreement."

  "I'm keeping to the agreement. I didn't feed. I just killed the stupid mutt."

  I was about to continue the chastisement when she lifted up and drifted away. I let her go. There was more to her than I had at first assumed. How much more remained to be discovered.

  Later, I took a young couple making love in a secluded area of the park. I was satiated and my strength was back to normal. I could once again sense the cohesiveness of my dead flesh.

  As I returned to my resting place for the day, I stretched out my mind, seeking the whereabouts of the girl. What I felt did not comfort me. She was close. Very close. Yet, there was nothing I could do. The sun had already crested the horizon and I was once again a prisoner of the undead's curse.

  It was another restless day for me. I could not afford too many of these, they severely weaken me. But I could not sleep. I could feel her – closer than I wanted her. It was only because of the wolves and the powers I'd given them that made me feel safe. I knew she could not breech the surrounding thickets. And I knew that she knew it.

  When I arose that evening, Adam was waiting for me just outside the perimeter. His face was anxious and strained. I had reached out and touched his mind and knew what he was going to say.

  "I know," I said, calmly. "How long was she here and what did she want?"

  "About fifteen minutes. She really didn't say much of anything. She mostly looked around and wandered through the house."

  "She came
alone, too, didn't she?"

  "Yes. At least, I think so. I didn't see her bodyguard."

  "She wouldn't have needed him and she knew it," I said. "She knows I am confined and you are impotent against her."

  I grabbed Adam by the shoulders and looked into his mind as deeply as I could. I needed to see what he saw. The images I got were blurred, distorted. I could not get a true feel. I had hoped to discern her purpose for being here through the sights and feelings Adam had had while she was here. But she effectively blocked them. She was much stronger than I had guessed.

  18

  I fed voraciously that night. My last of four victims was a security guard isolated in a small guard shack outside an apartment complex. As I finished with him, I turned and she was standing there. Her long brown tresses dancing lightly in the night breeze brought back a memory long buried. For the briefest of moments I saw in her features and mannerisms my former human wife, Ronnie. But the moment faded, and I saw only another nocturnal killing machine.

  "Feeling a bit weak lately?" she asked, sarcastically. "This is your fourth tonight. A bit piggish, isn't it?" She laughed.

  "What is it, exactly, that you want from me? Why are you so fascinated by me?"

  "You present a conundrum. Two sides of a coin," she replied, matter of factly.

  "What kind of conundrum?"

  "A conflict between my desire and need." Again, she stood, hands in her hip pockets, kicking lightly at the cinders of the driveway. The action was so familiar. I had seen it before – and it wasn't she I was vaguely remembering. It was someone else that I had known.

  "What desire, and what need? Can you be more specific?" I folded my arms across my chest. "I don't think this is the time or place for lengthy discussion. Do you?" I cocked my head quickly over my shoulder, indicating the corpse I'd left slumped on the floor of the guard shack."

  "Perhaps not." She giggled. It was a little girl giggle, but it was far from a human sound. "The cemetery," she added, and vanished.

  Some of the tales and legends are true. We can transmute. But it is a costly expenditure of energy. But because I was over satiated with my four victims, I had the energy to spare.