The Midnight Order

by Christopher Fulbright

  THE MIDNIGHT ORDER

  Christopher Fulbright

  First Edition

  The Midnight Order © 2015 by Christopher Fulbright

  All Rights Reserved.

  A DarkFuse Release

  www.darkfuse.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Connect With Us

  Find out why DarkFuse is the premier publisher of dark fiction.

  Join our newsletter and get free eBooks:

  http://eepurl.com/jOH5

  Follow us on Twitter:

  http://twitter.com/darkfuse

  Like us on Facebook:

  http://www.facebook.com/darkfuse/

  ++++====++++

  Join the DarkFuse Readers Book Club:

  http://www.darkfuse.com/book_club/

  ++++====++++

  Other Books by Author

  Elderwood Manor

  Check out the author’s official page at DarkFuse for a complete list:

  http://www.darkfuseshop.com/Christopher-Fulbright/

  For Angeline, who makes everything possible.

  1

  There was blood coming from between her legs. From her vagina.

  Nikki’s heart thudded and lodged in her throat.

  She caressed her belly—where the baby had been forming inside her for the last three months—with a growing sense of dread.

  She reached down and touched the wetness, a moderate flow. In the stark white light of the bathroom, the blood glistened on her palm and fingertips. The tears that filled her eyes fogged the vision of her reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  A quick knock at the door.

  “Nikki? Babe, are you okay?” Nolan’s voice was muffled, thick with concern.

  She couldn’t speak. Her insides twisted into a knot.

  “Babe?” Nolan’s voice rose, and he burst in through the bathroom door.

  He stopped dead when he saw her standing there, shocked at the sight of blood. He looked at her hand, then between her legs. Scarlet droplets speckled the floor.

  Nolan’s eyes went wide and dark and deep. “The baby…” He stepped back into the hall. “I’ll call the doctor.” He disappeared and she could hear his urgent voice in the kitchen. When he came back, he was gentle, cautious. “Okay, they said to take it easy. There could be any number of reasons. We just need to get you over to their office right away and see what’s going on.”

  Nikki knew what had happened. She didn’t need the doctor to tell her that she had miscarried.

  “Our baby,” she managed to say, and then everything inside her sagged with grief.

  He held her as she shuddered against his chest.

  She’d always remember that moment in terrible crystal clarity, with sharp angles and brilliant color.

  She’d remember that moment in all the years to come, because that was the start of everything that came after.

  And everything that came after was much worse.

  * * *

  Three weeks later she found the note.

  Nikki walked in the door wrapped in a light overcoat, ready for a long bath. She’d managed to convince herself that the death of the baby was not the end of everything. There was still a chance for her and Nolan to be happy, to make a family and break away from this life she’d felt trapped in for so many years.

  Unfortunately, they needed money, and she knew only one way to do that quickly.

  Nikki had just come back from the L.A. Direct studios. Delly Ray was directing a new film and he’d managed to get her in on a shoot for some extra cash. She hadn’t intended to tell Nolan about it, because they were trying to make it without her having to work. Still, things were tight. She felt bad with Nolan out pounding the pavement, looking for a job and having zero luck. Yes, Nolan hated her line of work, but the fact of the matter was they were two weeks behind on rent and on the verge of having the electricity cut off. So she gave Delly a call to see if he had anything. He was doing a film for L.A. Direct called New Fraternity Dreams.

  At first Delly Ray protested. It took Nikki off guard. She was too old for the role, and he didn’t beat around the bush about it. But she’d done a lot of work for Delly, and he loved her like a sister, so after she explained the situation, he got her in. The “frat boy” on the shoot had given her a little bit of a workout. Thirty minutes of anal sex, two hours of the standard fare, on her back, legs in the air and over the shoulders. The only thing she’d really begun to loathe was the oral work, since it made her jaw sore; with all the new pills guys just stayed rock-hard forever, so there weren’t many breaks. Still, it had been a couple months since she’d worked, and while it was a lot like getting back on the bicycle—hell, it was all she’d done for the past twenty years—something in the back of her mind squirmed at the thought of it, while another part of her reveled in the sheer nastiness of it. She wasn’t sure which part she loathed the most, but she just shut it off and did what she had to do.

  She got paid twenty-five hundred dollars that night and came home with a promise from Delly that he’d keep her in mind for other side work. But that look on Delly’s face as he lit a cigarette and turned around—it haunted her. She knew what it meant. He was done with her. She’d seen it time and time again with other girls but never thought it would be her. She was Nikki Lane, for godsake, star of more than one hundred and fifty of the hottest porn flicks ever set to film. You couldn’t walk into an adult entertainment store without seeing her face on covers, magazines, sex toy endorsements…she even had her own inflatable likeness. (They’d all joked about the thing after it came out because it looked so hideously ridiculous. Delly had once pulled it out and used it for a floatation device in his pool at the release party for a DVD compilation of her hottest scenes, Untamed Lane, one of L.A. Direct’s top all-time sellers of the 1990s.) She smiled wistfully at the memory. She would have laughed, but somehow even that once-fond memory left her feeling ill.

  She came home, wishing for the silent peace of a hot bubble bath, that feeling lingering deep in her guts. She had to see Nolan. The prospect of telling him what she’d done was suddenly grim but urgent. Funny how it seemed like the perfectly right thing to do before she left, and now…well, she didn’t want to hide it. He knew all about her job and where she came from. They’d agreed they’d try to make it other ways, but she wasn’t going to starve when she could get work that paid well at the drop of a hat.

  She was sorry, but she was also Nikki Lane. Nothing could change that.

  So she walked into the kitchen. Turned on the light. The apartment was quiet.

  Next to the phone was a note. It wasn’t long. It didn’t need to be.

  Nikki,

  I’m sorry. I can’t do it anymore. It’s not the baby. It’s just…everything. I love you, but it hurts too much to go on. I have to go. I think it’s best for both of us. I’ll always cherish our time together. I hope to see and talk to you soon. I’m sorry.

  Love, Nolan

  Nikki blinked at the note. Anger flashed inside of her.

  She threw it down on the counter and went back into the bedroom.

  His things were gone.

  He was gone.

  It took a few moments before it sank in. Then she sat down heavily. She stared at her hands, felt the dull ebb of the aftermath of work in all her sacred places.

  A drink would dull the pain. It always did.

  * * *

  She got some more work from Delly, but it all came to a train-wreck halt when she’d showed up a drunken mess on the set of the latest Linda Lix
film.

  In the throes of a blackout drunk she didn’t remember much about what happened that day. When she thought back, it was just a vague bad feeling, like something her mind chose to keep mostly hidden, revealing just enough of the awfulness that she knew for sure she didn’t want to remember the rest.

  After that, Delly didn’t return her calls.

  * * *

  One more thing Nikki Lane wouldn’t remember in the days to come:

  Lying on the back deck of her home in San Fernando Valley. The rolling sound of an empty bottle of vodka ends with a whispered hush as it falls into a pile of dead leaves.

  There’s an autumn bite in the air. The cottonwood and sycamore trees have turned. Their leaves flutter down to her out of the gray, overcast sky. They rattle across the deck toward her, dried and crisp. She manages to reach out and grab one. It’s only by luck she manages to stop the leaf and grasp it in her hand. She’s lying on the back deck like this because she’s too drunk to stand.

  She grabs the leaf. Slowly folds her arm with the anesthetic numbness of the alcohol coursing through her blood. It’s almost as if she hasn’t moved the arm herself, but some godly creature has done it for her by divine intervention. She brings the leaf up to her face ... looks at it closely. The veins, the flesh ... withered in the season of dying. This leaf would never live again. It fell from the tree. Now it’s done forever.

  Just like her.

  Nikki smiles, tries to laugh, but it just comes out as a sound disturbingly a lot like the coo of an abandoned child. A sick child, with a hurt so deep that mere “aloneness” does not adequately describe it.

  Autumn. A season for dying.

  She feels the crawling sensation then, like snakes, ropy tendrils of flesh wrapping her legs, slithering up her thighs, probing her sacred places. Ghost tentacles massage her, violate her. It feels good, but too soon they dissolve.

  Her eyes roll back in her head. With her last bit of effort before letting go, she crumbles the leaf and lets a mild wind carry its remains from her hand.

  Her hand falls limp to the deck. She closes her eyes.

  “Nikki, oh my God, Nikki!”

  Footsteps pounding out across the deck. The smell of a thousand garish perfumes.

  “Nikki, Nikki…wake up! Oh my god…”

  And Death passes by, despite the season.

  Too bad, she thinks. It’s all she has left to give.

  2

  Three weeks later in the heart of November, her heels snapped smartly against the concrete sidewalk along Ventura Boulevard. After a tearful phone call in which she confessed she had to make some serious changes before her life came crashing down around her, she agreed to meet an old friend, Deana, from the business. Deana, who’d managed to get out of the business. Deana, who’d come back from a coke and sex addiction that almost sank her like the deep end of an iceberg.

  Deana promised her salvation. But she hadn’t done so lightly.

  I’m where I am now because of the Midnight Order, Deana said. They made it possible for me to get on with it, Nikki. Made it possible for me to have a personal experience with a supernatural being. And it changed…everything. If you’re ready for that, then you’re ready to talk. Do you really want everything to change, Nikki?

  Oh, she was ready. She wouldn’t give up, wouldn’t let the world have its way with her for the last time. The alcohol, the sex…it had all been so much bigger than her for so long she didn’t know how to live without it. The only thing that would work for her was a dramatic shift in the paradigm of her existence. But recognizing this and making it happen were two different things. She was willing, but she couldn’t do it alone.

  She’d reached out to Deana. A personal experience with a supernatural being sounded like powerful medicine indeed. It also sounded frightening, but fear couldn’t enter the equation. Not where salvation was concerned.

  She was ready to live again.

  Her dark hair flowed like an exquisite stole over her shoulders. She wore Bolle sunglasses and carried her Hermes Berkin bag over her shoulder. She walked down Ventura Boulevard with a vengeance, stiletto heels snapping out a rapid cadence, and she carried herself like a queen because, damn it, nobody had to know it was over for her in the business. Once upon a time, she’d walked these streets as royalty, but the streets knew what she tried to deny. A few more years with no shoots and she’d just fade away. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be remembered for what she’d done, and that was a sad fucking commentary on her life.

  Good-bye yellow brick road, hello to the long sunset.

  The sidewalk was a little crowded, enough to make the world seem alive and vibrant with folks enjoying the cusp of Thanksgiving holidays fast approaching. The scent of spiced coffees was in the air.

  Nikki didn’t walk to her appointment with Deana—she marched.

  Past India West. Past the shoe store, the clothing store, the coffee shop and the CD store. She marched past Vixen Video, and didn’t look twice at the Linda Lix movies prominently displayed in the adult entertainment store’s front window. Nikki was on the door poster of a film from ten years ago, Sinful Affairs, her first five-figure role.

  A man who’d been browsing the window art watched her reflection. She strode purposefully, heels snapping, tight blue jeans hugging every nook and curve of her womanly shape, a light sweater and bra doing what they could to contain her bosom.

  Nikki Lane marched on by.

  Finally, Café DeLuce appeared on the left. Her friend Deana sat at one of the tables there, an umbrella shading her from the sun. Nikki made it the rest of the way to the café feeling the stares of men like heat. It was a mixed feeling; part loathing, part desire, and she did her best to bury it deep.

  Deana stood as she saw her old friend coming down the walk.

  Nikki smiled and waved.

  At the table together they hugged in a tight embrace.

  “Oh my god,” Deana said, “Nikki you look amazing. But I expected nothing less.”

  When they came apart, Deana looked her up and down, not with disdain, but as if to say, Are you really done? The look brought tears to Nikki’s eyes. Until that moment she didn’t realize just how raw she really felt. Maybe she wouldn’t take off her sunglasses just yet.

  “You look fantastic, too, Deana. I mean it.” She looked like a mom, a bona fide member of society. A happy woman with a family.

  By god, she marveled to herself, she really left it all behind.

  And that gave her hope. This supernatural encounter Deana touted as her salvation must have been powerful. Nikki suddenly wanted it more than ever. Craved it with a deep hunger.

  They sat and ordered food and laughed together and talked about old times. But after lunch was almost over, things took a turn. These days, things always took a turn.

  “So,” Deana said. “You’re really done?”

  “Yes,” Nikki said. The waitress came by and refilled her tea.

  “Why?”

  “I’m forty years old, Deana. I’ve got the dreaded onset of ‘turkey neck.’ Veins showing through my hands and legs. Dimpling over the backs of my legs and my ass. We’re in the San Pornando Valley…there’s always fresh meat. I’m yesterday’s skin bag.” It wasn’t the whole story, but it didn’t have to be. Deana could read between the lines.

  Nikki took a deep drink of her tea and wished it were something stronger.

  Deana took too much time using her fork on the last shreds of a spinach salad.

  For the first time ever, Nikki felt uncomfortable with her old friend. And that was weird. After all the things they’d done together on film, they shared a bond. Maybe you don’t open up and let your real self out, but you do bond. And now, talking about the business…it seemed like that bond had never been there at all. In that moment, looking closely at Deana, her old friend seemed completely different, almost hollow. A part of Deana was missing. Other than what remained of their friendship, it was like Deana no longer had any connection to their
shared past, not even as a place from which she’d come. As if it had all just been…erased.

  You’re imaging things, she told herself. She’s just changed. A lot.

  “Anyway,” Nikki went on, “Delly Ray saw it too. And he passed me up for his last five projects. Took that little snot-nosed blonde from Iowa to play my part in the last Linda Lix film. I’d say that’s my kiss of death, Deana. I’m done.” And I lost my baby, Deana. And the only man I ever really loved.

  Deana looked pained, so perhaps she hadn’t been hollowed out after all. Deana had been there. In some ways, she’d been worse off, with a quarter-ounce-a-day coke habit. It’d been a goddamn miracle she was even able to talk between gnawing on her tongue and snorting bullets. Never mind the business. That’s why it was so surreal to see her here like this, transformed into some kind of soccer mom with a real life.

  But it did give her hope.

  Real hope.

  She expected Deana to examine her. To dig deeper for her motivations, but it wasn’t necessary. They both knew how it was.

  Deana smiled kindly. “Nikki…you know you’re stunning. You’ve got a body men lust for on every street corner in the world.”

  Nikki gave a pained smile.

  “I just want to make sure you’re ready for this,” Deana said. Her tone changed, and something in it told Nikki to tune in. “I mean, really ready. Because what I went through to be free was…serious. It was scary. But worth every minute of the life I’ve lived since then.”