Around

by Glenn Rolfe

  Not sure whether he believed in god, Rocky took a deep breath and whispered a prayer anyways.

  “Please, lord, I…I need you. I need your protection. I need your strength, your power. Help me stop this…monster.”

  Reaching for the knife, he paused.

  He raised his chin and stared at the giant cross high on the wall ahead of him.

  “And if you can’t be bothered to watch over me…well, to hell with you.”

  He snatched the knife closed as he turned to find Moe from the diner sitting in a pew next to his wife.

  “Rocky,” the diner owner said.

  “Hey, Moe.”

  They stared at one another a few seconds more. Rocky thought Moe understood the quiet passing between them, like the man knew Rocky had something massive to do.

  Moe gave him a nod. Rocky gave one in return and hurried to the doors and back out into the light.

  He considered trying to find garlic or wood to make a stake, but something told him he had the right weapon for the fight. He could feel the knife thrumming with energy against his ribs from the inside pocket of his jeans jacket. He knew that couldn’t be right, could it? It felt electric, alive.

  When he reached the corner of Old Orchard Street and West Grand Avenue, he pulled up to the fountain and stared out past the pier, to the wide open Atlantic, which stretched out seemingly forever. He’d shared that view with November. He’d shared everything with her. Had she planned it out from the start? Had she targeted him? He didn’t think so. The moments they’d shared and the time they’d spent together seemed too real.

  Regardless of whatever feelings he had lodged inside, he couldn’t forget or forgive her for what she’d done.

  He closed his eyes. The roller coaster from Palace Playland rumbling down its tracks, the children giggling and babbling on the carrousel, the hoots and hollers of punks in the arcade cheering one another on or claiming dibs on the next game, the cars, jeeps, motorcycles around him, all fell into the background to the cries of the starving seagulls circling overhead. The sound of the screeching birds pierced his mind, making him feel weaker. His hand slipped inside the jeans jacket and clasped the knife. Slowly, the birds quieted.

  He truly hoped god was up there and that he’d spare a couple hours to help him face down a devil. Either way, Rocky shoved off and headed for home and a showdown not only for his soul, but for every person he’d ever cared about and for those taken by this beast.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Pete,” Todd Shannon said, holding the phone to his chest.

  Pete Nelson handed Martin a stack of files on the men, women, and children who had vanished from town since the arrival of the Riley family out on West Grand Avenue.

  “Man,” Shannon said, “you’re going to want to take this.”

  Shannon was white as the snow that blanketed the beach in the midst of winter’s clutches.

  Nelson took the phone. “Hello, this is Officer Nelson.”

  “Pete, it’s…it’s Bill Scholz.”

  Pete knew Scholz, one of the postmen in town. They always talked football. Scholz was a staunch Jets fan, which drove Pete crazy, being a Pats fan. Bill would never let Pete live down the ass-beating the Pats suffered at the hands of the Bears this past January in Super Bowl XX.

  “What is it, Bill?”

  “I was doing my route over here on Elm and Central. And it’s, well, it’s the Segers’ place.”

  “Damn it, Bill, what about the Segers?”

  “They haven’t been collecting their mail. And they haven’t placed a stay on delivery. I thought I’d put their pile up on the porch, where it wouldn’t be bothered so much by the weather.”

  Nelson held his tongue.

  “The Segers have this bench that lifts up. Jim showed it to me one time. Contains all his and Betsy’s outdoor tools and such? Anyways, I thought I’d stick the mail in there until they got home, and that’s when I smelled it. Something off. Something bad. Something dead.”

  * * *

  Nelson and Martin arrived to meet Bill Scholz at the end of the Segers’ driveway in less than ten minutes. The smell of decay hit Nelson as soon as he reached the front steps of the home.

  Knocking on the door, he called out to Jim and Betsy Seger but received no reply.

  He kicked in the door, pistol at the ready, then he and Martin worked their way from the entry to the kitchen, living room and to the laundry room in the back. The smell only grew worse.

  “Martin,” Nelson said. “Check upstairs.”

  Within a minute, Martin was back at his side next to the basement door.

  “All clear, sir,” Martin said. “There’s no one up there.”

  Nelson knew the source of the stench awaited them on the other side of the basement door.

  Goddamn basements.

  “You ready, kid?” he asked.

  “Not really, sir,” Martin said.

  Nelson appreciated the kid’s honesty. If he made it past whatever they were about to discover, the kid might make a hell of a peace officer for some time to come.

  He turned the knob and pulled the door open.

  The door made a pop sound as it belched out the rot and a flurry of houseflies held within.

  Both Nelson and Martin backed away, swatting at the buzzing pests. They covered their mouths, gagging as they pressed on.

  Nelson covered his nose with the crook of his elbow, found the light switch just inside the door and nudged it with the butt of his pistol.

  “Shine your light down,” Nelson said to Martin.

  As soon as Martin’s Maglite beam hit the basement floor both men cried out.

  Piled at the foot of the steps was a stack of shrivelled and desiccated forms that hinted at ruined flesh and bones. The only movement was that of the maggots and flies undulating over the husks of the bodies.

  Martin held his lunch. Another notch on the kid’s belt; Nelson managed to hold his until he made it to the kitchen sink.

  Outside, composed as he could be at the side of his car, Nelson paced in the yard.

  “What the hell are we dealing with?” Martin asked from the front steps of the Segers’.

  Pete didn’t believe the word that passed through his thoughts: vampires.

  His hands trembled. His mouth went bone dry. He faltered against the vehicle. Fear. Fear of the impossible was rushing over him like a swell from the sea.

  “Sir?” Martin said. “Are you okay?”

  Nelson stumbled toward his car, fumbling for the door handle.

  “Sir?” Martin said.

  Nelson felt the entire world flatlining. Heaven and Hell, fairy tales and scary stories told around the campfire, truth and the consequence of that truth prickled his skin, a thousand needles puncturing holes in everything he’d ever believed.

  Ignoring Martin’s concern, Pete climbed behind the wheel, started the cruiser and bolted from the house of the dead. He glanced back in his rearview mirror and saw Martin throw his hands in the air.

  You’re already a better cop than I ever hoped to be, he thought.

  He was across the Scarborough town line and out by the marshes where they’d discovered the shipyard workers’ truck and bodies when he finally pulled over and killed the engine. He could hardly breathe. His clammy hands clutched the steering wheel as he leaned his sweat-covered forehead against the rubber cover.

  He took deep breaths trying to calm his nerves, but his mind showed him the maggots and flies. The putrid bodies and the scent haunted him even here by the sulfur-scented marsh. Bile burned its way up his esophagus. He threw the car door open and emptied his guts again in the dirt.

  When he thought it was over, he got out of the car and paced behind it. Traffic was steady both ways. He waved off a couple of vehicles that slowed near him.

  H
e was still wrestling with his urge to get in the car and drive until he was so far away they’d count him among the vanished, when something thumped down in the grass behind him, followed by a second thud. A familiar voice crawled into his ear like the cold casing of an earthworm.

  “Miss me?”

  Nelson knew it was Gabriel Riley, the murderous creature of the night that a few hours ago he thought he might take down.

  When he thought Riley was a mere mortal. A creepy, disturbed, but human monster.

  He knew better now.

  He realised it all much too late.

  With a speed that would appear to the folks driving by as nothing more than a strange blur in the scenery, if anything at all, the vampire hauled Pete Nelson down to the ground beside his patrol car facing the marsh.

  “Officer Nelson,” the monster said. “I simply couldn’t wait for you to come back to my home. I hope you don’t mind, but I cannot tolerate loose ends.”

  “They, they know about the house…they know where you put them,” Pete said.

  “They might find what’s left of the bodies, but there’s no one to tell them about me.”

  “M-Martin will have called it in.”

  “Ah, yes, the young officer you just left behind. Well, I don’t believe he’ll be sharing anything…ever.” Gabriel leaned out of the way and pointed to the tall grass behind him.

  Pete saw the dead open eyes of the young kid that he’d inadvertently fed to this creature.

  I’m so sorry, Martin.

  “I couldn’t have you two snoops giving me away just yet.”

  “You were there…inside the house, weren’t you?”

  The fiend’s smile said it all.

  Pete closed his eyes as the vampire snatched his head, palming the back of his skull.

  There were no more threats or whispered promises. There was a quick, horrid screech from the thing before it tore Pete Nelson’s throat to shreds and drained him.

  * * *

  Gabriel tossed Officer Nelson’s corpse into the marsh before snatching up Officer Martin’s. He had plans for this one. He shoved Officer Martin’s body into the back seat of the patrol car.

  He ignored all the crooked eyes made by looky-loos as he got behind the wheel and drove to the first parking lot he could find, an empty church lot, and left the patrol car there for someone else to discover later. Whenever they found the vehicle it would be insignificant. He and his sister would be long gone.

  But first, there was one last thread to sew.

  He would make the boy suffer. Like father, like uncle…and soon, like sister and mother.

  Taking to the sky, with the body of Officer Martin in tow, a dark blur in the fading summer sun, he used the fresh blood coursing through him to steel him against the effects of the daylight. He would need to get inside soon. Not for fear of weakening; with the amount of human blood in his veins, he was far beyond the old Kryptonite of his kind. No, he was not afraid. But anyone who saw him would surely scream at the sight of the nightmare he’d become.

  His teeth refused to retract; his vampiric features were prominent and fixed for the moment.

  He landed in the Zukases’ side yard just as Julie Zukas’s yellow Beetle pulled into the driveway.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  November battled fatigue as she emerged from the cottage. Everything was gone. All of it. The last of their belongings, the U-Haul trailer, Gabriel’s Grand Prix. Worst of all, she couldn’t find Mother’s body. Gabriel had even taken the responsibility of burying her away. She couldn’t save her mother. Now, she couldn’t even say goodbye.

  She didn’t have time to wallow in pity or grief.

  If Gabriel wasn’t here, she knew right where she’d find him. And that’s exactly how he’d meant it to be. He wanted her to come to him. He wanted her to witness the last act of this menacing play.

  Rocky wouldn’t be dead. Not yet. But if Rocky didn’t allow her to try and help him, he would be before the end of the day.

  Nightfall was coming fast.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Gabriel watched Rocky’s sister enter the home; she hesitated briefly at the door. She sensed danger. All creatures did, it was instinct. When a predator was near, no matter if you were a rat or a man, you felt it. It started as a hyper sense of awareness that something, an unknown variable, wasn’t right, causing one to proceed with caution, checking dark corners, turning on lights and trying to convince one’s mind and body that everything was okay. Gabriel loved this dread-riddled anticipation. He had watched it in a great many of the people he’d killed these last few weeks. It thrilled him and acted as a sort of appetiser before the main course. Of course, not all the recent kills had come that way. There had been others he just moved on with little to no notice. And those too gave him exceptional gratification. In one blink life is full and their own, the next it is his and they are no more. That power to snuff out a soul in an instant was the power of a god.

  He moved along from window to window, daring her to see him. She draped a teal sweater over the back of the sofa before striding down the hall. Through the boy’s window, he watched her duck her head into the darkened room. Once she left the doorway, he let himself inside.

  Gliding toward the hallway, now an alley of shadow in the day’s fading light, he placed himself on the ceiling of the girl’s bedroom. From above, he listened to her move around the room, the floor giving out quiet moans as she did. He was certain she and her family knew the spots that made sounds well and had grown accustomed to hearing them. For some, it was the high-pitched hiss of a metal heating radiator; for others, the soft creak of a house that shifts with the changing of the temperatures or humidity.

  For all her worry upon arriving home, he sensed she had relaxed, assuming she was safe.

  She came out of the bedroom and moved down the hall to the living room. Gabriel crawled on the ceiling above her, trailing slightly, smelling her scent, a slight musk covered by hairspray and a fruity perfume. Gabriel bit back the saliva cutting loose in his mouth and punctured his bottom lip with one of his teeth.

  Julie Zukas picked up the telephone’s handset and began to dial when a single droplet of blood from Gabriel’s lip dripped onto her milky-white wrist.

  She began to tremble as she stared at the small crimson blotch against her flesh.

  She slowly raised her chin.

  Gabriel, done with pleasantries, hissed and put his fangs on full display before descending upon her.

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, he was leaning against the kitchen counter as Clarise Zukas came through the front door. He watched, silent and still, while she ventured to the living room without noticing him. She stopped at the sight of her daughter lying motionless on the couch.

  She leaned down to see if Julie was all right then she shot bolt upright, hands to her mouth.

  “What in Heaven’s name?” she said aloud.

  Gabriel was behind her when he whispered into her ear, “What do you say the three of us take this party somewhere else?”

  She slowly turned her head.

  Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she took him in.

  A scream roiled up from the depths of her bruised soul.

  He cuffed her behind the ear, rendering her unconscious before the shriek could escape.

  There would be plenty of time for screaming.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Rocky approached his house half expecting to find Gabriel or November waiting for him. Julie’s car sat in the driveway. He would have to convince her to leave. He shoved through the door and was met with silence. It wasn’t fully dark out yet, but inside, the house was cast in malevolent shapes and shadows. He turned on the tall lamp in the living room and glanced around, glad not to find any unwanted guests.

  “Hello?” he called out
. “Julie? Mom?”

  His mother had been picked up by Aunt Betty and taken to Grammy Jan’s early this morning. Her car was in the garage next to his. She could be home anytime if she wasn’t already, although last night she’d been out until nearly one in the morning. He was praying for the same tonight. Convincing his sister to leave was one thing; telling Clarise Zukas what to do, well, that would take a Herculean effort that even the gods would have trouble achieving.

  He moved to the hallway, his fingers reaching out to flick on the light. He told himself he wasn’t afraid of the shadows growing there, just like he wasn’t afraid of the thing on the wing of the plane in the Twilight Zone movie.

  His trembling fingers found the switch and flipped it.

  The light bulb halfway down the hall flickered, refusing to come to life, twisting the dread in his stomach and raising the fine hairs on his arms and neck like the dead. Finally, the light bulb stopped its spasming and buzzing and bathed the hall in all its sixty-watt glory. Rocky breathed a sigh.

  Down the corridor, both his parents’ door and Julie’s door were closed.

  The bathroom door was also closed, although he could hear the shower running.

  He placed an ear to his sister’s door and listened, hearing nothing.

  It seemed logical to assume Julie was the one taking a shower.

  He moved slowly to his parents’ room and gave the door a slight knock.

  “Mom?”

  His heart flew into his throat; his hand went to the knife in his jacket.

  If Gabriel was here, well, now was as good a time as any for victory or death.

  He opened the door just enough to reach inside, fumbling around for a light switch and certain a cold hand with dagger-like fingernails would snatch his wrist and pull him in.

  He found the switch and flicked it upward.