by Ian Hall
“This is Ed Phillips,” dad said, and we shook hands. “Ed’s from work. He’s here for dinner. He’s a bit of a guitar nut.”
“What do you have?” Ed asked, looking at the Fender case.
“It’s a Tele.”
“Cool. What kind?”
I felt so out of my depth. “It’s a white one.”
“Do you mind?” he took a step closer to the case.
“No, not at all,”
He had the case open in seconds, and his eyes lit up like flashlights. “Nice.” He checked the condition of the body, straight neck, then his eyes fell on the serial number. “Your dad said you got this from a friend?”
“Yeah, a dead one,” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I knew it sounded bad.
“He must have been a good one. If the parts inside are originals, this could be worth a few grand.”
My eyebrows must have gone into my hairline. A few grand? “How do you know?”
He sat on the bed and got a screwdriver from his inside suit pocket.
He carefully lifted the plastic bit with the knobs off, and pulled it from the guitar as far as the wires would allow.
“These look original, man. You’ve got a good one here.”
He went to replace it, but I saw writing inside, and asked for it back as it was.
Alan McCartney, 1715 Swansea, Seattle.
Another address had been written there too, but it had been scratched out, as if he’d moved or something.
He carefully put the screws into the cavity of the guitar, then we all went downstairs for dinner.
Needless to say, the guitar was the talk of the evening, but all I could think of were warm things about Alan.
He’d left me a valuable guitar. Maybe he’d actually, genuinely liked me.
Over the course of dinner, the value went from five to maybe ten grand. I talked a newer, better car. Mom said it better be college. So I shut up; there was no arguing with mom about college.
So next day, I told Mary-Christine, and presumably she told her dad, because when I brought her home from Karate that evening, he called me inside.
“Mary-Christine told me about the guitar.”
“Yeah, it’s cool. Worth something, too.”
“The addresses inside?”
“Yes, there’s two. One in Seattle, one scratched off.”
Dave looked pensively from Mary-Christine to me. “Lyman, we need those addresses.”
“How come?”
“Well, when vampires are displaced for any reason, they sometimes return to old haunts and settle down. As long as a reasonable time has passed since they left, of course. They can even pass themselves off as their own kids, that kind of thing. It saves them re-learning a new area. We’ve caught a few vampires like that.”
So Dave wanted me to give him details of where my best friend had moved to, so he could go and kill him.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll bring the guitar over tomorrow.” As I said it, I knew that I’d officially taken a side.
“On the Dorothy Squires family; the sentence will be passed at the weekend. Do you still want to come?”
I looked at Mary-Christine, and her perky smile, and weighed the pros and cons. On one hand, I could spend a weekend with her, we’d get to fly again, we’d sleep together, albeit in separate beds, and we’d eat like kings. On the other, I’d watch three vampires get killed in front of my eyes.
“Yeah, I’m still up for it.”
Everton woke up early to the report of a missing teenage girl. You guessed it…the now-headless Cami Richter. The whole town was totally on the move - we’re talking police dogs and the whole enchilada.
I’d left her decapitated corpse out in the open on the pier. And last I’d looked, the head still hadn’t gone under; it bobbed like a freaking buoy or something. Unless Alan had gone back and did something to hide her remains, the good people of Everton were in for a huge shock.
As for me, I was back to hiding under the bleachers. This time I got spotted. Some big, fat guy (no badge) rooted me out; you know - the way pigs find those truffle things.
“Hey, girly? What’re you doing over there?”
Like I was in the mood to be called out by some wannabe crime stopper. I hissed at him, fangs bared. The look on his face would have been hilarious if I’d been in any mood for it. He backed way the heck up, tripping over a tree root as he went.
Any other vampire would have made a snack out the klutzy guy. Not me. Once he fell on his butt, I scooted out from under my hiding spot and took off.
People were everywhere. And I hadn’t eaten. Their smell made it hard to be nice. But, I did it and even blended in with the throngs of searchers. With all the commotion, it seemed actually easier to hide right out there in the open.
I kept my head down and broke away from the pack as soon as there was an opening. I found myself downtown, in an alley between the bakery and this old, vacant beauty shop. To me it seemed like a ticket out of Dodge and I slipped down it as quickly as I could.
I only wish I’d been paying better attention. Mrs. Cole, Jackson’s mom, followed me in.
Mona Cole was a big lady; my head didn’t reach her shoulders. Her hair was a frizzy-black-fro and she never wore any make-up so her face looked like an eggshell next to the dark mane. She was definitely the super serious type; just like her foster son.
“Mandy.” Her voice closed in on me like a freaking bear trap. Clench!
“Mrs. Cole…how are you?”
Mona Cole grabbed me by the arm and dragged me off between two dumpsters. “Tell me you don’t have anything to do with that girl’s disappearance…”
She practically begged me to be innocent. Unfortunately, I couldn’t accommodate. For whatever reason, I chose not to lie about it. Like, really? I’d just pulled my former best friend’s head off her shoulders and threw it into the river - now I was worrying about lying?
“I had to do it, Mrs. Cole. Alan was right in the middle of turning her…and this town doesn’t need the kind of trouble those two would bring if they paired up.”
“How’d you let yourself get mixed up with that vampire trash, you stupid girl?”
Her fingers were really digging into me. I tried to wriggle out of her clutches but it totally did me like, zero good. I’d never seen Mrs. Cole like this. The brief time I stayed in her house, she was all jolly, fat lady with the cookie baking. Now she was mama vampire. Big time.
“It wasn’t my fault…Alan…”
“Alan, Alan, Alan.” She twisted her face up all sour looking. “Your obsession with that boy is going to get us all killed. And after Jackson stood up for you, we took you in…and you still side with that nasty Amos Blanche wannabe.”
I sniveled. “What’re you going to do to me, Mrs. Cole?”
“It’s not what I’m going to do, Mandy. It’s what you’re going to do.”
She clenched her hand tighter. It hurt like a mother. I wailed but none of the humans heard me. At least, none of them came to help.
“You’re going to set this right, girl. You’re going to rid this town of Hannah and Barton…and then you’re going to rid it of you.”
“I was already going to leave, Mrs. Cole… I was going to leave right now.”
Okay. That was a total lie. But, what would you have said? Mona Cole had me scared shitless.
She pushed me up against a brick wall. I heard a crack spider through them and felt bits fall around my feet. I wondered if she’d broke my skull.
Her voice was like an effing snake, “First, you do exactly what I tell you.”
Vampire Executioner
I took to the corporate vampire bashing like I was born to it. I loved the camaraderie (Mary-Christine), I loved the corporate lifestyle (hotels and flights), and I loved the new me. On Friday afternoon, on the way home, I stopped at the hairdresser my mom used to take me to as a kid.
Mary-Christine didn’t believe what I intended, but a month or so of working out and d
oing Karate, had given me a bit of a build. I was amazed that I hadn’t seen it before. Now I needed a haircut to finish the deal.
I sat in the chair and got fussed over by mom’s stylist. When I told her I wanted an ROTC cut, she raised her eyebrows, then did a kind of whistling noise.
Number two up the sides, number three over the top. My head had never been so bald. When the stylist took off my cover thing, I looked quite the beefcake.
I walked over to Mary-Christine, who stood on tiptoes, and rubbed my head.
“It’s like a hamster!” she giggled. “No, a guinea pig!” I didn’t mind it a bit. She rubbed my head playfully.
When I got home, my mom just looked at me. “You’re not my little boy anymore.” Kinda sad really.
The weekend went the same way as the other. Flight, execution, dinner.
Dave and Roni stayed in the bar downstairs for a further nightcap, and Mary-Christine and I settled in to watch a movie up in the room.
We didn’t see much of it. We necked through most, and we fumbled a bit, too. Turns out her breasts were so soft, yet firm at the same time. Once she let me touch her, I just let wallowed in my smugness. Until the door opened, and we separated instantly.
Dave gave us a funny look, but I think we got away with it.
That night, I lay there, six feet away from my baby, and knew what her breasts felt like.
Life was wonderful.
Until the image of Dorothy Squires’ breasts came into my head. Breasts, lying back on that table, bound hand and foot.
Struggling against the leather straps.
Some of the faces she made were purely demonic.
Then the polished wooden stake being hammered into her ribcage.
And the surge of blood, being quickly absorbed by her white ribbed vest.
And her mind-chilling scream as she took the stake thrust.
And her mouth, open wide; and those huge, sharp canine teeth.
And the way her eyes burnt into mine as she died.
I’ll carry that image ‘til the day I die.
I tried hard to block the images of the day, tried to concentrate on Mary-Christine’s tits, but it was useless.
Dorothy Squires’ mom had been next. A fifty-six year old vampire, the man in the room said over the intercom. She looked thirty. And damn good looking.
“Of course, she’s not Dorothy’s real mother,” the man said, his voice ringing clear through the laboratory PA.
I didn’t hear the rest, I just pictured poor Dorothy, her real parents killed or taken away or both, just to give these two old vampires a legitimate place to stay. It proved a difficult hurdle for me to overcome. These people were real bastards, real bad fucking beings.
I considered Dorothy the innocent one here.
Well, unless she’d killed too. And, thinking about it, she probably had.
I turned over in the bed. In the dim lights coming in the yellow curtains, I could see Mary-Christine, sleeping. Her leg had come out of the covers, and her foot dangled in the air.
I tried to imagine a vampire coming to harm her, and my heart beat faster. These things were just predators. They used us humans for fun; for food.
And I stood at the gates to the farm, the farmer with a shotgun, waiting for the fox to attack the chicken house.
My heart hardened that weekend.
Back home, the temperature started to fall, the weather taking a turn for the worse. That meant jeans, big sweaters, and the coming of the dreaded Halloween. Shops had been selling Halloween candy since August, so it fell as a bit of a shock when I realized that the night in question lay just around the corner.
“Does it actually mean anything to the vampires?” I asked Dave as I dropped Mary-Christine off from the gun club.
“Not in any way I’ve ever seen. I mean, the streets are busy, so they have more opportunities, but usually it’s just another day at the office for me.”
Well, it pissed me off. All the stuff for little kids to dress up as vampires; I wanted to raid the shops and strip all the stuff from the displays.
I stood in the Muscat’s foyer, saying my goodbyes when the doorbell rang. Dave opened the door to two policemen standing outside.
“Evening, officers.”
“Hi there. We’re looking for Mary-Christine Muscat.”
We all were shocked, not the least Mary-Christine who jumped in alarm.
“This is my daughter Mary-Christine,” Dave said. “What’s all this about?”
“Just routine, sir. Can we come in?”
I stepped back to give room, but I needn’t have.
“No, officer. We’ll deal with this here.”
I looked at the resolve on Dave’s face. His attitude had kinda shocked me.
“Very well. Mary-Christine, you ate at the Los Charros restaurant in Everton the other afternoon?”
“Yeah, we were there.” She pointed to me. “Lyman and me.”
“Your credit card receipt is timed at 4:52 p.m.” He held up a photograph. “Do you recognize this man?”
The photograph showed the guy that had gone in with Mandy Cross. I knew him immediately.
“I don’t think so. Sorry.”
“You, son?”
I looked at it carefully. “Nope.”
Dave looked at the photo. “Who is he? What’s this about?”
“His name is Pablo Ortega, a Mexican citizen. Seems he came here for a vacation. From the credit card slips, he ate at Los Charros just after you guys. The last time he was seen alive.”
“So he’s missing?” Dave asked.
“Well, he’s actually quite dead. We found his body up on the reservation. No sign of how he got there, and his car’s missing. We’re checking all the folks who ate there that we could trace.”
“The place was pretty quiet,” I said. “We must have just missed him.”
One policeman wrote something in his notebook. The other gave us all the once-over. “Sorry to bother you folks.”
“No problem, officers.”
Dave stood in the doorway and watched the police car leave.
“Why didn’t you invite them in?” I asked.
“Not all vampires come to a house with a black cloak and fangs,” Dave said. “We’re kinda high up on the vampire-killing register. I’m taking no chances.”
Ah, I thought, the policeman asked if he could come inside; asking for an invitation. So much to think about.
After a while, I went back home and parked the car in the drive. I felt really tired.
As I lay on my bed, lights out, I pictured Mandy ripping the Mexican guy’s throat out.
“How come they’re so damn sexy?” I hissed.
I watched Mona Cole walk away from me, leaving me alone in the alley. I could’ve just run away from Everton right there and no one would have been the wiser. Heck - the whole friggin’ town was looking for Cami, not me.
But, like a dum-dum, I didn’t go for it. Instead, I turned toward the house that used to be my home - the one now occupied by the terminally gross Hannah and Barton. I don’t know what made me do it, exactly; maybe I just wanted a way to get back at Alan. Maybe I just wanted a sure-fire way to die so I could be put out of my misery.
Whatever the reason, I went in the direction Mrs. Cole had pointed me.
The windows were dark. Nowadays, they were always dark. No way of knowing which part of the house Hannah and Barton would be lurking in.
I took a chance that my old room would be vacant and crawled up the side of the house like a spider. The window wasn’t locked; that actually gave me an eerie feeling. Like, what if they were expecting me to return? What if the window had been purposely unlocked to make it easy for me to get in? What if I walked into a trap?
For all I knew, that Mona Cole could be in on the whole thing.
I almost chickened out right then and there. But after a couple seconds, something inside of me just totally chilled. But I figured I’d already died once, right? Who cared if Hannah wait
ed inside with her fat-sausage fingers, ready wring the life out of me and finish what Alan had started. Whatever. Being a vampire wasn’t turning out to be much of a life anyway.
So, I crept inside like a freaking burglar. I could feel my heart pounding, which really felt weird ‘cause my heart hadn’t been beating for a while now. Maybe it was something similar to the “phantom limb” thing.
Anyway. I didn’t bother with the light. Like I’ve told you before - we vampires see really well in the dark. Overall, being in the house proved a pretty weird sensation. It hadn’t been my home since my parents died and had been converted into a prison after Alan moved the wardens in. Being there felt a little like visiting a grave, and I knew for sure that I had to move on. Move away. I figured now seemed as good a time as any to get a few things for the road.
I found my old backpack from last year shoved into the corner of my closet. Really, really super quietly, I opened the folding doors and got it, then cleaned it out; it still had all my old papers and garbage, including a couple love letters from Craig. I kept the letters for ego’s sake.
A little Hello Kitty keychain dangled from the zipper. Cami had given it to me for my birthday like, eons ago. Seeing it made me tear up, but it felt good to have it again; it’d be a happy reminder of better days when our friendship wasn’t just a competition.
I also grabbed this old stuffed kitten I’d had since like, birth and a few of my favorite old shirts. But I made especially sure there I left plenty of room left for the rest of the things I wanted to grab. Unfortunately for me, those things were in other rooms of the house. Breaking into my room had been the easy part.
It took me a few minutes to get up the nerve and turn the doorknob. Once I did, though, there was no freaking going back.
“Get a grip, Mandy,” I told myself (in my head, of course. Hannah had ears like a bat so I wouldn’t dare actually say anything out loud).
I turned it. I eased the door open so as not to let it creak. I stepped into the hall.
“So far, so good,” I said (again - just me kind of having a conversation with myself inside my head).
My parents’ bedroom was the next door down. I knew just what I wanted. My mom’s violet scarf (it had been her favorite, and it went so beautiful with her eyes) and my dad’s blue-and-white striped tie (he always wore it on verdict day; said it was lucky).