Vampires Don't Cry: The Collection

by Ian Hall

  And I could take her down in a heartbeat if need be.

  Lyman had been rambling without a breath for a while. Truthfully, I’d stopped listening. That is - until the winding path his chattering had taken, finally led to a valid point.

  “We need a vampire.” He said it like he was ordering a pizza.

  Luckily, I had one in the box, hot n’ fresh for delivery. “I’ve got one for you. He’s a nasty little toad, too.”

  Finally, his mouth stopped moving for five seconds. In fact, he looked a little stunned. Only then did I realize I hadn’t filled him in on all the details of my weekend on my own.

  And actually - I still didn’t tell him everything. Considering I’d gotten the Helsing crunched to death, I didn’t want to tell Lyman what I’d done to the cop.

  “Sheldon Newell. I was kinda saving him for myself, but I can’t think of a better reason to share him.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  I filled Lyman in on the all the gore - Newell’s sick little history. How he’d done wonders to help control illegals coming cross the border. His supposed position in Alan McCartney’s regime, my suspicions of his true purpose. And the little fact that Sheldon Newell currently took orders from me.

  Lyman looked me over like I was the eighth wonder of the world. “You’re amazing.”

  More tingles BTW.

  “I know.”

  “But, it sounds to me like you had your own plans for Newell. Won’t this kind of jack all that up?”

  I shrugged. “Really - the only thing I need him for anymore is a name. I need to get back down to Harris find out who this runner-person is…and then, Sheldon’s outlived his usefulness.”

  Damn. That felt SUCH an Alan thing to say.

  “What makes you so sure that this Sheldon guy isn’t your real link to Alan?”

  I kept my response to the point, “He’s just too dumb.”

  “But, when you asked that Lucy chick for the name of Alan’s second, she pointed you in Newell’s direction. What’s up with that? Was she trying to get you killed?”

  I know Lyman didn’t intend to hurt me. And, of course, it’s not like I’d known Lucy Jones all my life or anything. Still, I couldn’t think of her in any other terms than as a human soul trapped in a vampire’s body. Like Jackson.

  “No,” I stated matter-of-factly. “I think she really believes Newell is the top guy. Alan probably wants it that way; a dude like that would scare the living shit out of any normal vampire and they wouldn’t want to get caught in his dingy little clutches.”

  After a moment of reflection, I’d convinced myself, if not so much Lyman.

  “Nah. There’s definitely somebody out in the Winslow area that’s above Sheldon Newell. And, whoever that is - they’re the link to Alan.”

  “So, when are you planning on going back then?”

  There was the million dollar question. Man, nothing inside of me wanted to step foot in Sheldon Newell’s disgusting hovel again. Not even long enough to shake him down for a name.

  After thinking it over for a minute or two, it seemed there seemed no point in putting it off. If the Mexican guy was still alive, I’d have to turn my fact-finding mission into an errand of mercy.

  “Might as well go tonight,” I told him, my skin crawling at just the prospect.

  “That’s my girl,” he said.

  OMG! Major tingles!

  Then, I don’t know if it was the beer or what, but Lyman got super serious. “And I’m going with you.”

  I stopped drinking at that point, and checked the time of the meds regime; two hours to go. “If we started in about an hour, we could be in Winslow just when my meds are at the lowest.”

  Mandy gave me a funny fleeting look. “Yes, sir, boss.” She got up from the desk, and cleared away the beer cans. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  I grinned and lay back on the pillow.

  Mandy was teasing me, pulling me into her embrace, but not feeling the same emotions that I was experiencing. She was walking downhill, slowly sliding into a sea of lava. But the lava was pink and was....

  Suddenly I awoke to her shaking my shoulder. “What the fuck?” I gasped.

  Her face was serious, almost grave. “You’ve had an hour. Are you ready?”

  I nodded. “Smell me.”

  She gave me the top-to-toe, and nodded. “No vinegar.”

  I still had a bit of a buzz, so I let her drive. The sky was darkening, and we were soon down near Gregor, then across Flagstaff. It seemed in a few minutes, we were in Winslow, then out again. Thanks to the encompassing darkness, I never really saw much of Harris, thank goodness. After a few sharp turns, Mandy parked the car. Outside you couldn’t call it a house, more like a crappy caravan, a shack, nothing more.

  “This is where he lives?” I asked, my nose turning up at the stench, and I stood twenty feet away from the front door.

  “Sheldon?” Mandy called as we walked up the steep, crappy steps.

  “Good cop, bad cop?” I said as I walked.

  “Sure, why not?” A strange smile passed over her face. “I’ve never seen you bad before.”

  The inside door opened, the dim room no lighter than outside. Then an arm held the crappy screen door open.

  By now I had one word to describe the man I’d never even laid eyes on.

  Crappy.

  Despite his awful appearance, once he recognized Mandy, he got all bent out of shape nice, calling her, ‘Miss Mandy’ and stuff. He invited us inside, and I almost threw up.

  “Sheldon, this is Nathan Swift.” My surprising nom-de-plume. “He’s going to be coming in and out of Harris for a while. Treat him real good and he’ll leave you alone. Disobey him, and Alan will know real soon.”

  “Hello, Mr. Swift.” He held out his hand, but to be honest, I wasn’t sure if I could stomach the contact.

  “Sheldon,” I said with as much disdain as I actually felt. “Is this where you live?”

  “Yes, sir. It is only temporary. Mr. McCartney he was wise to put me here, it overlooks the whole valley. I get my pick of the fruits.”

  “I will have a new house for you within a month,” I said. “This is not where my men live.”

  Sheldon looked reticent, but seemed to lack the intelligence to actually realize what we were trying to pull. I decided to take a more direct route. “How many guns on the premises?”

  “Four, Mr. Swift.”

  “Show me.”

  Sheldon moved no more than three steps in any direction, pulling one from behind the fire, one under the carpet, and two from a desk drawer.

  I pulled one of the automatics from him. From the weight in my hand it felt loaded. In an instant, I had crossed the room, and had the gun in his mouth, forcing the barrel down his throat. I cocked it, and Sheldon shit himself. I heard it, smelled it, and yet, I held myself steady.

  “If I can get this close, then the enemy can. They have people everywhere.”

  He nodded as far as the gun would allow.

  “Where is your nearest vampire?” I asked, pulling the gun slowly from his mouth.

  “Across town.”

  “And we have invaded your house, and he’s not beating down the door?”

  “It’s a quiet town, Mr. Swift.”

  I looked at Mandy, then back to Sheldon. “Call him.”

  “What?”

  “Call him.” My voice dropped an octave.

  Sheldon looked at me, then picked his cell phone from under a pizza carton. “Dizzy. Get over here. It’s important.”

  We waited, and as the time passed, I glanced at my watch, and listened to the clock on the wall tick loudly in the silence. After five minutes had passed, a car slid behind ours. Suddenly a man stood at the door. Five-eight, Caucasian, slim build.

  “What’s going on here?”

  I shook my head slightly. “Why don’t you tell me, Dizzy?”

  He came inside, then sniffed the air, looking alternately at Mandy, then myself.
He sniffed near Mandy, then turned to me. He looked right into my eyes, then retreated a step.

  “If you’re going to bow to someone, you better chose,” I said, still really not sure where I was going with my bad-cop stuff. If anywhere.

  “You’re old,” he said to me. “She’s pretty.” He turned to Sheldon. “But he’s boss.” He bowed, then rose, smiling, proud of himself.

  “Wrong choice.” I raised the gun, firing twice. The first shot pierced his heart, the second square in the middle of his forehead.

  “You can feed if you like,” I said to Mandy. “Ladies first, of course.”

  She grinned and turned to the corpse.

  “Let this be a lesson, Sheldon. Don’t fuck with me.”

  Sheldon shook so much, it seemed he’d lost his appetite anyway.

  “Mandy, my dear?”

  She lifted her head from her food.

  “Take his head off when you’re done. We wouldn’t want to leave a mess behind.”

  Dizzy. I could taste how this vampire got his name; his blood was freaking forty-proof. My senses even did that whoosh thing as I got up.

  I handed his head to Newell.

  “Burn it,” I told him.

  He responded like a remote control robot. He had the fireplace blazing in nothing flat. Personally - I had to turn away from the gruesome scene as the flesh peeled and melted off of Dizzy’s face. Not Lyman. He showed no emotion whatsoever; he seemed in a totally different mode, one I’d never seen before.

  After a minute, Lyman turned to me. He wore his new identity like a mask, hiding behind it so perfectly I could barely make out the person inside.

  “I don’t like the way things are being run here.”

  He said it to me but it was Newell who responded, “This is how Alan said it was to be done, Mr. Swift. I swear, we ain’t done nothin’ against his orders.”

  I slipped into my good cop role, talking in that sing-song preschool teacher voice. “Remember, who you’re taking orders from now, Sheldon.”

  His answer came in the form of a question. “That’d be you, Miss Cross?”

  “That’s right; and Mr. Swift.”

  The eyes went all over the place. Sheldon Newell was a good mutt, loyal to the core. Getting him to adapt to not one - but two - new masters wasn’t going to be easy.

  “What’s Alan got to say ‘bout this?” he demanded.

  Lyman raised that gun again. “You’ll find out soon enough, Sheldon. Don’t fool yourself into thinking he’ll go easy on you if you fuck this up. Or that I will.”

  Newell’s hands went up in a gesture of surrender. “Take it easy there, Mr. Swift. I ain’t out to cause you no trouble. Just trying to stay on the right side of things here.”

  “You’re on the wrong side of this gun at the moment, Sheldon, now aren’t you?”

  Newell’s chunky Adam’s apple bobbed up and down his long, skinny throat. “It would seem that way, Mr. Swift.”

  “So it would seem to me that you wouldn’t need to question my authority here.”

  “No, sir. That it wouldn’t.”

  Newell’s hands went down to his sides. Lyman’s gun did the same. The standoff seemed over; I tried not to make my relief obvious.

  Stepping between the two of them, I tried to play mediator.

  “Sheldon, I need to make contact with this runner of yours - the one back in Winslow.”

  That may have been a mistake. Both of Newell’s eyes looked dead at me, narrowing with sudden distrust. I shuddered involuntarily and hoped the hound hadn’t sniffed my fear.

  “Them are my responsibility, Miss Cross. It’s me alone who gets news from Winslow.”

  Lyman piped up. I could feel the gravity of his words as they passed over my shoulder.

  “Like I said, Sheldon - I don’t like the way things are done around here. We need to streamline our process. Any lapse in communication between you and them, and the whole system breaks down.”

  “Ain’t been no breakdown in communication,” he growled.

  I felt like Judas just bringing her back to the forefront of Newell’s mind but the point had to be made. “According to your own admission, there has been. Didn’t you tell me of a vampire that slipped out of town right under your own nose? Wasn’t that just last week? I’d call that a pretty serious breakdown in the system.”

  I’d kicked the dog and now he whimpered. “Yes, miss…but, there ain’t been no more to follow since.”

  “But they will,” Lyman barked back, “once word gets out that it can be done - more will make their move. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Newell took a lunging step forward but reeled himself back, bound by some imaginary chain of obedience. He wanted Lyman’s throat but - for the time - wasn’t keen on ripping through me to get at it. I stayed firmly in place. But seriously - I was scared shitless.

  I was only one misstep away from losing my grip on a vicious Rottweiler.

  “We don’t blame you, Sheldon,” I said softly. “It’s not you. It’s the system. We’re trying to improve it; that’s our job while Alan’s away.”

  “Don’t pull me from my post, Miss Cross. I’m begging you…”

  Okay. Now the dog just needed its bone back.

  “You have my word, Sheldon; and it’s every bit as good as Alan’s.”

  He chewed.

  “That’d be the Kesters then, Miss Cross. Wesley and Gerdie. They’d be the ones that bring me news from Winslow.”

  Before I could even pat his head, Lyman shoved me aside and put three bullets in Sheldon Newell’s chest.

  “Holy shit! I thought we were bringing him in to Unicorps!”

  He tossed the gun down. “We’ll get another one. I wouldn’t let Mary-Christine within twenty miles of this psycho.”

  It always comes down to Mary-Christine…

  “Take his head off. We’re gonna burn this whole fucking place to the ground.”

  Lyman turned away and slumped off toward the door.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “I gotta get my fucking meds.”

  A Plan’s Only Good ‘Til the Action Starts

  I stood in the room, feeling kinda sick at what I’d done. I’d shot someone. Mandy fed on Dizzy, and Sheldon stood watching, shaking like a leaf. I decided then and there that I actually liked being the bad cop. But I also knew that we had to get out quickly. I needed my meds, and I felt really antsy. This Sheldon was also the vampire that Mandy had in mind for Mary-Christine, and personally I didn’t want her anywhere near the man or his place.

  Unfortunately, things weren’t progressing fast. Sheldon was acting up, and Mandy stood in my way, a barrier to me. I remember saying a couple of dick-headed things that made Sheldon more anxious. Seemed I liked being the big shot.

  But I also needed my meds.

  Then Mandy seemed to get it all under control.

  Then I heard the names; Wesley and Gerdie Kester.

  It proved all the information I needed. Mary-Christine wouldn’t be needed here. I stood to one side, nudged Mandy with my arm, and put three in his heart. All three true shots.

  “Holy shit!” Mandy went right at me. I wiped the gun with my shirt tail as she spoke. “I thought we were bringing him in to Unicorps!”

  “We’ll get another one.” I flipped the gun into the debris on the floor. “I wouldn’t let Mary-Christine within twenty miles of this psycho.”

  I looked around for a gas can, and sure enough there it sat, near the door. I strode outside, heading for Dizzy’s vehicle. Truck, an old one. In the back lay an old cloth tool bag. Hammer, big screwdriver.

  Too easy.

  I slid underneath and punctured a hole in the gas tank, sliding the gas can under the flow. It took a minute to fill.

  When I got to the doorway, Mandy still stood over Sheldon’s crumbling body. I didn’t know if she’d fed or not. I didn’t care. “Spread gas everywhere. We’re gonna burn this whole fucking place to the ground.”

  I dum
ped the gas can on the doorstep and went back to the car.

  “Where’re you going?” I heard her ask.

  “I gotta get my fucking meds,” I said as I walked. “I’ve just shot two people today, I’m trying to cut down my carbon footprint.”

  Man, that sounded major badass.

  Ten minutes later, Mandy joined me down by the car. I felt slightly better, my meds kicking in slowly, but not quite in full control. “Have you spread the gas around?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Sorry. I can’t stand the smell. Never could.”

  “Not quite the job for a lady.” I climbed the steps again. “Sit passenger side. I’ll be driving.”

  We were off and down into the town before it started to smoke. I was confident we wouldn’t be spotted.

  I drove east for a while, Mandy sitting in silence. About five miles along was a small town; one gas station kinda place.

  “Get inside. New sweatshirts all around, new jeans if they have any, and lighter fluid, the biggest can they have. Oh, and get sunglasses and hats.”

  She nodded.

  There was an official rest stop three miles east, but it looked pretty quiet; a couple of dark trucks, one dark camper. We put our old clothes in a sac and had a bonfire in a trash can. By the time we left the rest stop, the whole trash can blazed high and yellow. A quick U-turn and we were headed back to the Grand Hotel at Tusayan.

  We turned north at Flagstaff, and Mandy turned around on her seat. “We did some good back there, huh?”

  “Oh, we did more than some good, Mandy. We ridded the Earth of two of its least worthy denizens.”

  She leant back on her seat and let her arm trail across to my shoulder. “You know. The first time I saw you, you were a creep. You know, looking at my tits and stuff.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, let me finish.” She began to twiddle her fingers on my neck, which I immediately jumped away from. “But you are perfectly sweet towards Mary-Christine, and show a heck of a lot of respect to me.”

  I raised my hand from the steering wheel to be told to shut the fuck up, she wasn’t finished.

  “And then you walk into that situation. Bad vampires all around you. In my opinion, it could have gone any which way but loose, but you were as cool as a frigging popsicle straight from the very bottom of the deep freeze.”