“Interesting,” the lord said thoughtfully. “They will eventually find their way here, and then we will see how de-termined they truly are."
10. Bar Fight
The year was 1999, and things were going well for both of the Writeman boys. Jack had begun a very successful funeral home, which was doing well for him, though that meant it was bad for his customers. Benny once asked him if he felt comfortable exploiting people’s pain for his own finan-cial gain.
“Why not?” Jack answered, “Jerry Springer does it every day. Besides, I’m providing a valuable and necessary service to our community.”
Although Jack’s answer sounded very well rehearsed, Benny said nothing more on the subject. Not even Jack was able to predict his eventual fear of dead bodies.
Indianapolis had a thriving art community, albeit a very small one, and one of Benny’s paintings had just won a place in an art showing downtown. He and Autumn had been living together in a small apartment on the southwest side of Indy, and wedding bells were definitely in the near future.
Frank’s bank, on the other hand, was seeing hard times because of the bigger banks that kept popping up around town. Until one night when he was visited by an odd eccentric, with a pair of associates and an intriguing request.
Frank sat back in his desk chair and listened to the man with the cane and long, nearly white hair explain his pro-posal.
“That is a very tempting, though illegal offer you have there, but why are you coming to me?”
“Because, Mr. Writeman, we know that you are in desperate need for the money you stand to make off of this deal. Furthermore, we know you are very good at keeping secrets, you’ve done so well at keeping mine already.”
Frank didn’t have to ask what the man meant by this. Odin Sway had been a regular at the bank for over a year now and The Old Man had known he was a vampire almost right away. Frank had confronted him about it, insuring Odin he would tell no one as long as he didn’t bring any trouble into his bank.
“I’ve always admired you for your boldness in ap-proaching me, Frank,” Odin continued, using The Old Man’s name for the first time. “That’s why I recommended you to my superiors for this opportunity.”
Frank thought about the story Benny had told him a few years ago, of the monster crouched over some lifeless lump on a bathroom floor. He did not feel the least bit com-fortable going into business with these murdering, mythical creatures, but knew he liked the alternative even less.
“Alright, Odin,” Frank finally replied, making sure he used the vampire’s first name in return, “count me in.”
“Excellent!” The vampire exclaimed, though still somehow kept his face from showing any emotion what so ever. “All dealings with our group will be handled through me and no one else. Because this is an illegal venture, our contract will be strictly verbal and all account information must be handled by you and no one else. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” The two men shook hands and soon, all of Franks financial woes were no longer an issue.
As the Writemans sped down the road, Benny re-counted his confrontation with Odin Sway.
“I wonder why he acted so strange when he saw Au-tumn,” Jack said, “and what was up with the werewolves? Why did you read them as being Odin?”
“Well I do have a theory on that,” Autumn answered, “If he has some kind of psychic ability, he may have been able to leave his imprint on the werewolves’ minds.”
“Weird!” Jack returned.
Once the sun came up, the Writemans decided it was safe to stop and get some rest at the nearest motel. Benny and Autumn got a separate room from Frank and Jack, and the latter two decide to get some breakfast, while the former two retired to bed.
Jack wasn’t really even clear where they were. He thought they might still be in Nebraska, but at that point, it didn’t make a whole lot of difference. Autumn knows Odin Sway is hiding out in northern Colorado (high up in the Rock-ies, presumably) and that was where they were heading later this afternoon.
There was a small diner across the street from the motel, Frank and jack went in and took a seat in a booth near the window so they could keep an eye on the car and view anything strange that might happen outside. They were imme-diately approached by an elderly woman sporting a bee hive hairdo, whose mouth was busy smacking away at a piece of gum.
“What can I get for you fellas?” the waitress asked.
Frank had to squint his old eyes to read the girl’s name tag. “Hi, Judith, I’d like some scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, and some orange juice.”
“Okay, and for you?” she said, turning to Jack.
Jack only stared at the woman’s hair with a dazed expression.
“Is there a problem, honey?” she inquired of the younger man.
Jack stammered a moment, “Um, no, I was admiring your hair. You don’t see many women with bee hives anymore and I, for one think it’s a style that never should have gone away.”
Judith the waitress only stared at him for a long while, lips still busily smacking away at her gum. Jack won-dered if she was going to buy that line of bull and he suddenly felt like a used car salesman pulling for some poor sucker to sign a deal.
Finally, a smile spread across the waitress’s face and she said, “Why thank you. You know, so few people appre-ciate it. Now, what would you like?”
“Pancakes and milk, thanks.”
“Oh, and can we get today’s paper?” Frank added.
“Sure.”
The waitress walked away and Frank lowered his head and began speaking in a hushed voice. “You know, I think you could sale a seeing eye dog to a deaf man.”
Jack only answered this with a shrug.
“Listen, while you were sleeping in the car, I called James to get a little info on werewolves.”
“Cool,” Jack said with excitement. The previous night of carnage had seemed to make Jack loosen up and become more interested in the supernatural world they were now tangled up in. “What did you find out?”
“Well, according to his information, which comes from an actual hunter who’s been successfully killing these things for a few years, they don’t need a full moon to change. As long as its night time, they can change at will, however, a full moon does make them much more powerful. Their also highly intelligent, far from the mindless killing machines they’re portrayed to be in popular media.”
“I don’t know,” Jack said with a satisfied smile, “we sure did make them look like a bunch of stupid pussies last night.”
A snorted laugh escaped Frank. “Yeah, we did, didn’t we?”
The two of them laughed together, and it dawned on Frank that he had never been as close to his sons as he had been for the past three days.
“You know, Jack,” the Old Man said after the laughs had died away, “I realize this has been a real strange trip, but I’m glad you decided to take it. This whole thing has brought us together as a family like nothing else before.”
“Yeah, maybe we should write a book,” Jack held his hands up as if seeing some imaginary marquee, “I can see the title now, ’Killing Things: How to Fix a Dysfunctional Fami-ly’.”
The two men were hit with fresh laughter as the wai-tress arrived with their food and the morning paper. As Jack began to wolf down his pancakes like a starving, wild beast Frank scanned through the front section and was relieved to find nothing about the Writeman family killing spree. Al-though, he didn’t really know what he was expecting to find. Autopsies would certainly show some strange facts about the bodies they had left behind, but somehow he doubted any of those facts would make it to the public.
Jack had already finished his pancakes and was waving the waitress down to order more, acting as if he hadn’t eaten in days. Frank took a few bites of egg and pulled out the sports section.
“Well, what do you know,” he said, surprised, “the Colts are 7-0 on the season, and they beat Denver yesterday.”
“Aw shit, I bet that was a good game.”
“Maybe.”
“Hey, this is their year, Dad; the Colts are going to be Super Bowl champs.”
“Aw, bullshit,” Frank stated with a look of disgust, “no team can make it very far with a defense like that, they’ve been lucky so far.”
“7-0 is not luck, Dad. Besides, three of their major defensive linemen are on the injury list and two of them are due to be back next week. Things are only going to get better for them.”
“You know, I watch this team every year, and every year it’s the same shit. They play like world beaters all season, and then they get to the playoffs and choke in the first or second round. I’m tired of it, and I won’t waste my time fol-lowing them anymore.”
“Then why do you still follow politics.”
Frank looked confused. “What does one have to do with the other?”
“Think about it. No sane person is happy with the current administration, but we keep following politics and we keep voting in the hopes that something good will eventually happen. Things don’t always turn out the way you want them to, but you have to keep supporting your political party of choice and your hometown team with the hopes that they go on to win the whole thing.”
Frank only stared at his oldest son for a long moment.
“What?” Jack asked, fearing he had said something stupid.
“When did you become so insightful?”
Frank was surprised to see Jack’s cheeks flush. “It’s the weed, it fuels my philosophical side.”
The two shared another laugh as they finished eating their breakfast and spent the next two hours talking about football and politics, before finally turning in.
Frank actually slept for five whole hours.
While Frank and Jack were eating breakfast, Benny and Autumn were lying in bed face to face, staring at each other in silence, their cloths lying in a heap on the floor. Au-tumn had just finished cleaning Benny’s cuts, luckily none of them where deep enough for stitches.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” she whispered.
“Of course I am,” he answered, though he wasn‘t entirely sure that was true. At that point he was very thankful that he had refused an autopsy, otherwise she would have a stitched up scar covering her midsection on top of everything else that was causing his hesitation.
He placed his hand on her left breast and nearly yanked it back when he felt how very cold her skin had be-come. He made a conscience effort to keep any discomfort from showing on his face.
She leaned forward and kissed him and again he nearly flinched at her freezing touch. Her lips parted and her tongue entered his mouth, exploring with slow intent. Some-how, her mouth felt very warm and Benny began to feel more at ease. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her body closer to his. He could feel his penis growing hard now. Yes, this body was dead, but his wife was fully alive within it.
This was his love.
His life.
The woman he had made love to on countless occa-sions before. Soon, he couldn’t understand how he ever could have felt uncomfortable with her in any way.
She reached down between his legs and he felt her cold hand close around his warm throbbing manhood and begin to stroke it, slowly.
The passion in their kiss increased as his hand moved to her buttocks and squeezed the left cheek.
With great effort, she broke their kiss and said; “I brought something from home.”
While she turned to reach to the floor were her purse was sitting, Benny took one of her nipples into his mouth and began to suck and playfully bite at it. The low temperature of her body seemed to make her nipples unbelievably hard.
Autumn turned back to Benny with a tube of lubri-cant in her hand. “Like I said, my pipes don’t work so well anymore. Besides it’s got warming sensation.”
Benny got to his knees and let Autumn apply the lubricant to the both of them and was surprised at just how warm the stuff was.
Autumn lay back on the bed and Benny hovered above her for a moment, sharing another kiss before entering her.
They made love for 30 minutes, and when they fi-nished, they did it again.
Jack still hadn’t come down from the excitement of the previous night and though he lay down for an hour, he was unable to sleep. So, he decided to explore the sleepy little town they had stumbled upon.
There wasn’t much to the place, just the diner, the motel, a gas station, and some old houses were immediately visible from where he stood. Further down the street he could see a neon sign that advertised a country and western bar.
He crossed the street back over toward the diner and continued down the sidewalk toward a building that looked absolutely ancient.
The building, as it turned out, had three small shops in it, the first of which was an auto parts store. He stopped in and picked up a couple of quarts of oil for the hearse. He knew the old death cab had a tendency to burn through the oil and figured it would be pretty low by now.
The second store specialized in women’s clothing and, though Jack found the lace teddy in the window damn sexy, he decided it was probably best to keep walking.
The space on the far corner of the building housed a small book store. Jack walked in and was amazed at the amount of old books the owners of the place were able to fit in the tiny store. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he was sure Benny and Autumn would love to check the place out.
He browsed a couple of sections and was about to leave when he noticed a little doorway at the back of the store that was separated by strings of colorful beads. The sign above the door read “Adults Only”.
A smile stretched across Jack’s face and he rubbed his hands together mischievously as he passed through the beads.
Inside, the small room’s walls were lined with racks upon racks of adult magazines. If Jack Writeman was able to mold his own personal heaven, this would be it.
Against the back wall, he found several white boxes with yet another sign attached. This one read; “Back Issues”.
With a sudden nervous glee, he began to search through the back issues of Playboy and after only a few second he found what he was looking for.
He held the magazine up in front of him and could swear he heard a choir of angels sing its praise.
After making his purchase, Jack went back to the motel.
At around 5:00pm, Benny woke up to the sound of someone knocking at his door. Reaching for a 9mm he had grown rather fond of, he looked down at Autumn and found her staring blankly up at the ceiling.
“Autumn?” Benny asked, with a touch of concern apparent in his voice. “Are you alright?”
She looked at him and smiled, “I’m fine,” she ans-wered dreamily. “You don’t have to worry about the gun, it’s only Jack.”
Benny stared at her for a long moment, and then another knock came from the door. Wrapping a sheet around himself, he walked around the bed to the door, keeping the pistol in hand despite his wife’s prediction of his brother’s presence.
Benny cracked the door open and saw Jack’s face on the other side on the other side. “Hey, bro, I found a little shit kicker bar down the street, I was wondering if you’d like to come and have a drink with me?”
“Sure,” Benny said, “just give me a few minutes to get dressed”
Benny closed the door and began to pull on his pants. Autumn sat up and began to dress as well. After the two of them were fully clothed, Benny bent and gave his wife a long deep kiss.
“Just remember,” she said, “Frank wanted to be back on the road by 6:00, make sure you two are back and ready.”
“Aye Aye, Captain,” Benny said with a salute.
“Fuck you,” Autumn returned, giggling.
He kissed her again, “I love you.”
“I love you too, Benny.”
On the other side of the door Benny found his brother sitting on the hood of some stranger’s car, smoking a joint and reading a beat up copy of Dracula by Bram Stoker.
“Where’d you
get that?” Benny asked.
“Oh, there’s a little used book store across the road, there,” he pointed to a small unmarked building next to the diner, “I wasn‘t able to get any sleep, so I found a piece of sheet metal to patch up that hole in the roof of the hearse, (and don’t worry, I’ll turn that into a bitchin moon roof when we get back home), I also decided to do some exploring around town. Oh, look at what else I found,” he picked a brown, paper bag up off the ground, reached inside and produced a slightly beat up Playboy magazine.
“The Tiffany issue,” Benny said, feigning interest.
“Yeah, I finally got it back for my collection. Man, that book store must have had hundreds of back issues.”
“Is that right?” Benny said as they began to walk.
“Yeah,” Jack continued, “and you know, this is really a nice little town. They got everything you need right here on Main St. There’s a liquor store, a church, a diner, a bar, they even have a small electronics store that has a limited selection of CD’s.”
“Really? Did they have anything good?”
“No, everything was shitty.”
“Okay. So, are you going to get to a point sometime soon?”
“I’m just saying; this is the type of place I could see myself retiring someday.”
“Well that’s cool. Where the hell are we, anyway?
“I have no idea.”
Ten minutes later, they were walking into a small country, western bar. Benny rolled his eyes when he heard the twang of the latest rich kid complaining about how hard he’s got it blaring from the jukebox in the corner. “Alright,” he said, “but we’re only staying for a couple of drinks, you know I can’t stand this backward, butt fucking, hick music for very long, and just so you know, if they start playing dueling ban-jo’s I‘m fucking sprinting out of this dive.”
“Alright, alright.”
They walked over to the nearest table and sat down. A few minutes later they were approached by a waitress who looked like she might have been pretty thirty years ago. Jack ordered two shots of whisky rye, and shortly after the two men were toasting the breasts of some up and coming actress that Benny had never heard of.
Avenging Autumn: Seasons Change Book 1 of 4 Page 10