by Hal Bodner
With a snarl of disgust, he gave up on the footwear altogether, stuffing Troy’s socks into the shoes, tying the laces together, and tossing them over his own shoulder. He completed his ministrations by cramming the fluorescent pink baseball cap firmly down on the top of Troy’s head, wishing only that it would go down far enough to cover Troy’s mouth as he started to protest.
Chris, once again, slapped his hand down to cover Troy’s mouth and said firmly and angrily, “Look you, I have had enough. You got that? Enough!”
He removed his hand and started to stalk off across the park. Troy stood, blinking for a moment, then rushed to catch up.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Sorry?” Chris roared, stopping and whirling around violently to face him. “That’s it? You’re sorry? We’ve got a killer to find and you’re dancing naked in front of two hundred people and all you can say is you’re sorry?”
“I wasn’t naked,” Troy whined as they passed out of the park onto one of the residential side streets.
“Oh no? I don’t think even I’ve seen that much of you in ten years!”
“Just because you’re jealous, doesn’t mean you have to take it out on-”
“Jealous?” Chris gasped mockingly. “Are you kidding? Jealous of the way you behaved out there like some little tramp? How could I possibly be-”
“Will you two fairies shut up?” called an angry voice. “It’s two-thirty in the friggin’ morning!”
Chris and Troy turned jointly to face the disembodied voice. “Fuck you!” they cried in unison.
“Oh, yeah? Well, fuck you too!” The sound of a window slamming echoed through the street.
Unbeknownst to Chris and Troy, annoyed neighbors weren’t the only ones who witnessed the tiff. Rex Castillian had been lurking in the cul-de-sac off the parking lot for some time, hoping to encounter an appropriate victim as he left the club. So far though, every man he’d seen going to a car had been in some state of inebriation. Tonight, Rex wanted his prey’s mind to be crystal clear—so he would be fully aware of what Rex was doing to him.
The gods smile upon me, Rex thought. Silently, he moved closer to the vampire and his renfield, delicious frissons of anticipation coursing through his body.
Chris, still pissed off at his lover, failed to notice that the object of their evening’s search was hiding in the bushes not fifty feet away. He turned his back on Troy and stomped off in anger with his lover following like a wounded puppy. They crossed the street at San Vicente and walked east without speaking to each other.
Rex kept to the shadows. Though he desperately wanted to seize the other vampire and tear him apart with his bare hands, he was not so foolish as to do so where he could be seen by the traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Patience, he cautioned himself. Patience. There’s plenty of time before they’ll need to retire for the day. They’ll have to leave the main street sometime. And, he thought with a chuckle, if I can’t complete my work on the vampire this evening, I can always finish tomorrow night! So intent was Rex on his prey that he failed to notice for several blocks that he was drooling.
He watched in delight as the two left the boulevard, walked a short way up Larrabee, and turned the corner into an alley. Rex quickened his pace, flexing his fingers convulsively, and bared his fangs.
Do it as quietly as possible, he reminded himself. He knew that, of the two, Troy was undoubtedly the noisier and he had no wish to draw attention to his attack. While he had a general disdain for mortals, en masse he realized they could be quite dangerous. Silence the renfield first, he made mental note. Then deal with the vampire. He knew Chris would put up a fight. But Rex was much older and probably much stronger, and he relished the challenge—it would add spice to the final kill. He moved in closer.
A scant fifteen feet ahead, Chris suddenly stopped dead; Troy crashed into him from behind. Rex checked himself and ducked into a doorway. The other vampire had seen something and Rex was nothing if not cautious.
“Holy shit,” Chris said softly.
The alley ran behind several businesses, each with its own exit, and more important, its own trash Dumpster. There, standing beside one of the Dumpsters by the rear door of an Argentinean restaurant, was a young ghoul, searching for scraps of raw or rotted meat, his head and arms almost buried in the overflowing garbage.
“I haven’t seen one of them in ages,” Troy said a little too loudly.
The ghoul heard him. Instantly pulling himself out of the Dumpster, he quickly looked around in fright, his gaze arrested at the sight of Chris and Troy.
“More bloodsuckers!” he cried in dismay and, slipping on the spilled garbage, bolted off down the street.
“Did he say...?” began Troy.
“Come on!” shouted Chris, and they were off in pursuit.
Rex had his own moment of consternation. Evidently, the ghoul had at some point seen him in his travels. Annoyed at himself for his carelessness, he made another mental note to dispose of the ghoul as soon as he could—not that the timid creature would provide much sport. It wouldn’t be difficult, but it was a complication and Rex disliked complications on principle. He liked things to go the way he planned, and he felt a brief surge of rage, quickly suppressed, that the gods, who had presented him with this marvelous opportunity to eliminate his rival, suddenly seemed to be working against him.
The ghoul, unfortunately for Chris and Troy, was extremely quick on his feet—a lifetime of dodging cemetery caretakers can give a person amazing stamina. He veered right at Palm and darted halfway across the westbound lane of Santa Monica, leaping over the hood of a white Mercedes convertible as it screeched to a halt. He raced eastward down the street for several blocks, ignoring the sparse traffic, and turned north again just past City Hall. Chris and Troy followed closely behind, and Rex was forced to check himself so as to not overtake them.
So much exertion, he thought sardonically, to prolong the inevitable.
The ghoul darted into the side entrance of the Ramada Inn parking garage. Troy and Chris arrived a moment later but the ghoul was nowhere to be seen.
“Where the heck did he go?” Chris murmured.
“Aruba?” Troy quipped. He was out of breath but, typically, couldn’t resist the quip.
Chris shot him an irritated glance and motioned toward a row of cars to the right. Understanding, Troy moved off and, bent almost double, ran down the row his lover had indicated, hoping to catch sight of a telltale set of legs.
“You can’t hide for long,” Chris called out softly. He smiled as he caught sight of the ghoul crouching behind an old Buick Regal. Troy had halted, panting, leaning on a white BMW parked next to the Regal. “Troy...” Chris said, pointing.
“What did I do now?” Troy asked, not understanding.
Suddenly, the ghoul burst from his hiding place, shoved past the startled Troy, knocking him off his feet and heading for the Santa Monica-side entrance. Troy emitted a little yelp of distress as his rear end impacted solidly with the concrete. He was barely able to rub at the soreness of his bruised heinie, however, before Chris grabbed his arm and, practically yanking him off his feet again, dragged him off after their escaping quarry.
Rex witnessed the entire incident from his hiding place just outside the garage. Complete incompetence! he thought with disgust. Is it even worth the effort of this ridiculous chase? Even a mortal would provide more amusement. Rex was a master at stalk-and-capture; these two bumblers wouldn’t challenge him in the least. He felt his previous excitement fading. Oh well, he thought, at least the vampire’s physical stamina might provide some mild entertainment. Then again, perhaps a quick kill would be best. Eliminate the competition and be done with it. With an impatient sigh, he moved to follow the others. Like a pathetic line of ducklings, he thought.
On and on went the chase, down Santa Monica and up La Cienega Boulevard to Holloway. Troy had the worst time of them all as he was not only still slightly tipsy but also barefoot. He woul
d start to complain each time his feet would come down on a rock, pothole, or unexpected curb. Each time however, he thought better of opening his mouth and decided to conserve his breath.
As they passed Olive Street, however, Troy stubbed his toe for the fourth time on one of the sidewalk dining tables set up outside of Barney’s Beanery. Loudly cursing the City of West Hollywood (for failing to repair the treacherous potholes), the owners of Barney’s Beanery (for being stupid enough to put the tables there in the first place), people who thought a midnight stroll was to be conducted at twenty miles an hour, and ghouls in general, Troy followed Chris and the ghoul across the street at Flores and into the parking lot of Gelson’s supermarket. What little noise Rex made following was easily masked by Troy’s running commentary.
It was here that the ghoul made his first—and only—mistake. Instead of veering right and out onto Kings Road, he swerved left, hoping to find another alleyway behind the market and elude his pursuers. He drew up short when confronted by the high concrete wall at the end of the loading dock, his escape back along his previous path cut off by Chris’s rapid approach. Cornered and in despair, he threw open the hatchway on the side of one of the four huge recycling bins and dove in headfirst, the little plastic door swinging closed behind him.
Chris rounded the corner seconds later and stopped. The ghoul was here; he knew it. The concrete wall was more than twelve feet high; the loading door leading to the market was chained and padlocked shut. He stood, considering.
Troy, exhausted, arrived a moment later and, in response to Chris’s hand signal to remain where he was in order to block the only exit, collapsed on the ground, panting, and examined his injured feet.
Rex halted at the entry, a mere twenty or so feet behind Troy. A dead end, he thought. How appropriate.
This mad running about the city was becoming truly tiresome. He examined the field of battle before him critically. The ghoul was hiding in the trash container; he could hear him breathing softly even if the other vampire could not. The vampire was trapped by the high walls of the loading dock—very good! The only problem was the renfield sitting in the middle of the entrance to the driveway where he could easily been seen by neighbors or passing traffic if a commotion should ensue. Though Rex, after listening to the argument in the playground and the renfield’s loud bitching, was certain he could dispatch the three without much effort, he was no longer quite so sure he would be able to do it as quietly as he would have liked. He looked around, considering his options and saw a possible solution. There was a house next door, sharing a common wall with the loading dock.
Stealthily, Rex crept into the yard. The part of the lawn closest to the loading dock had been converted into a garden with trellised vines covering the wall. Rex moved toward it, mindful of not leaving footprints in the turned earth. As he drew closer to the wall, he stopped, blinking in confusion. There was a much smaller house, too tiny for human inhabitants, in the middle of the garden. He looked more carefully to see a miniature witch on a broomstick poised in midair above the little house. Closer inspection revealed dozens of happy-faced ghosts, black cats and skeletons mounted on wooden sticks and scattered throughout the garden. A tattered windmill almost six feet high stood adjacent, with Lilliputian pumpkins hanging from its arms.
Finally, there were three life-size figures closest to the wall. One was a large, square-headed green man with bolts sticking out of the sides of his neck. One resembled, as close as Rex could tell, a large dog or some kind of bear with red eyes, dressed in tattered pants and a ripped shirt. The third figure completely baffled him. It was a man in formal tuxedo and a black cape. The hands were outstretched and the fingers hooked into claws. The hair was ridiculously styled and the face...were those fangs protruding from the painted snarl?
A vampire? Rex was nonplussed. The figure was such a ludicrous portrayal that he didn’t know whether to be amused or offended. He passed the mannequin, resisting a juvenile urge to leer back at it, and crouched next to the wall, listening.
“We know you’re here.” Rex heard Chris call softly to the ghoul, his words nevertheless echoing in the quiet night. “Come on out. We won’t hurt you.”
The ghoul heard Chris’s words, muffled through the wall of the recycling container, but was occupied with his own problems at the moment. Inadvertently, he had chosen a glass and bottle receptacle to hide in and he was desperately trying to remain still so that the glass wouldn’t shift beneath him. One foot was jammed into a mass of glass, sticky with the partially congealed contents of countless soft drink and juice bottles, the other was thrust firmly against the side of the bin to prevent him from slipping; the ghoul grimaced in distaste as a tacky wetness began to seep through the seat of his pants and around to his crotch.
Finally, unable to stand the discomfort any longer, he slowly moved one hand down, pressing it against the one side of the bin, trying to move his body farther away from the offending liquids. The glass shifted slightly and the ghoul desperately tried to compensate, causing the bottles and jars to move even more. With a squawk and a crash, he lost his tenuous position and slipped, falling flat onto his back in the muck, the rear of his shirt instantly becoming sopping wet.
Rex seized the opportunity. He leapt upward, clawing past the vines toward the top of the wall. He realized with annoyance that large toy bats and scarecrows had been hung amidst the vines, making his progress more difficult. Even so, by the time the noise of the shifting glass had ceased, he had reached the top of the high wall and had a clear view of the loading dock. He crept along the wall, his footing made precarious by piles of fallen leaves. Stopping just above the vampire, he steadied himself and glanced about for a weapon. An evil, satisfied smile appeared when he saw a dead tree branch within reach, sagging under its own weight.
In the Dumpster, the little hatchway opened, piercing the dark interior of the bin with a shaft of light from an adjacent street lamp.
“Are you enjoying yourself in there?” Chris asked, politely. “I should think it would be much more comfortable out here.”
The ghoul reluctantly gave up and, with more shifting of glass, clambered out of the bin to stand before Chris, shoulders slumped in defeat, soaked, miserable, and reeking of stale soda pop and rancid orange juice. Neither they nor Troy heard the sharp crack of the branch as Rex, the sound masked by the rattle of discarded bottles, stood and snapped it from the tree above them. He resumed his crouch atop the wall and examined the broken end with satisfaction. It was wickedly sharp.
Below, the ghoul glumly surveyed his clothing.
“Just look at this shirt,” he wailed, “From Barneys! It’s ruined!”
“You think that’s bad? Take a look at your slacks,” Troy called, panting heavily. “What the hell did you think we were gonna do? Rape you or something?” He rose and gingerly limped over to the other two to take a closer look at the ghoul.
The renfield chooses to move… NOW? Rex thought, silently cursing. The blond boy was standing directly in the path that Rex had planned to hurl the branch in order to impale the vampire. Strong as he was, Rex doubted that he could aim well enough to skewer both of them with a single throw.
“Actually,” Troy continued, “rape’s not a bad idea.”
“Hush you,” said Chris. “You want to scare him off again?”
The ghoul, in fact, was quite good-looking, with creamy olive skin and big soulful brown eyes. His wavy brown hair was mussed, and he smelled rather ripe, but the wreckage of his once presentable clothing couldn’t disguise the well-muscled, stocky frame underneath. His eyes brimmed with tears.
“Please,” he begged in a voice barely about a whisper, “Don’t hurt me.”
“We’re not going to hurt anyone,” Chris said kindly, reaching out his hand to touch him reassuringly. The ghoul flinched and Chris withdrew the hand with a sigh.
“My name is Chris. My friend with the healthy libido here is Troy.”
Troy batted his eyelashes in what he felt
was an alluring manner.
Chris and Troy, thought Rex mockingly. How very modern! Troy had still not moved and Rex forced himself to remain calm. Frustration led to carelessness.
“Do you have a name?” Chris asked the ghoul gently.
“Scott,” said the ghoul, bursting into tears.
For the love of all the forgotten gods! The ghoul’s tears were really too much. No one had even laid a hand on him! Rex was thoroughly disgusted. I’ll make you cry, little rat, he thought.
“What are you going to do with me?” the ghoul whined.
“We live about two blocks from here,” Chris said. “The first thing we’re going to do is get you into some clean clothes.”
“For God’s sake, stop crying.” Troy added. “You’ll ruin your mascara. You do have mascara on, don’t you?”
The ghoul’s tears ceased immediately and he bristled. “I am not a drag queen!”
“If those lashes are real,” Troy said enviously, “there is no God.”
Rex could not believe what he was hearing. They’ve just chased that creature half a mile... so they can chatter like magpies? He looked heavenward and sat back on his heels. Some leaves shifted underneath him and his heel came down on a shard of broken glass. The crack was soft, but audible.
Chris looked up sharply. “What was that?”
“What was what?” Troy and the ghoul asked in unison.
“Someone’s watching,” Chris’s brow furrowed in concentration.
“A cat?” Troy suggested, he sniffled with an imaginary itch and rubbed his nose. The ghoul was wildly looking around for another place to hide.
“I don’t think so,” Chris said. “Aside from the three of us, I don’t smell anything alive. And I don’t hear breathing.”
“It’s your imagination,” Troy said dismissing Chris’s concern. “Can we leave now? I’m sure Scott doesn’t want to be seen in public with all those stains, even if he is a ghoul.” Troy turned and flounced off toward the street.