***
When Michael got inside, he found a dark and quiet house, but everything was in order. His family was already fast asleep, so he knew that it couldn't have been much of a disturbance. Rebekah’s crib had been moved from its usual place, but that was all.
Frigging neighbors! I don’t have time for this!
However, after he had undressed and walked back to the kitchen for a drink of water, something caused Michael to give the house a good thorough check before he went to bed. He found nothing disturbed; nothing out of the ordinary. All the doors and windows were firmly locked and his wife and children were deeply asleep.
Why couldn't he?
11:33 p.m.
The figure moved slowly and laboriously eastward along West Kern Street, his old shoes doing more shuffling than actual stepping. The man was warmly dressed in several layers of clothing. None of the pieces matched, however, and none were less than ten years old. The brand new Ronald Reagan Elementary School cast a huge shadow over his left shoulder.
“Come here, Beauty,” the elderly Hispanic man called out.
The once commanding voice of the former Korean War Veteran bounced weakly off the walls and came crawling back to him, unlike the tiny Chihuahua that had last been seen some seven years before.
“Come here, Beauty.”
“Did you lose something?” a voice behind him asked suddenly.
There had been a time when nothing and no one would have been able to catch the Master Sergeant off guard, but everything comes to an end one day. Or night.
The man stopped, which was not the easiest thing for him to accomplish, nor very wise. Once he got stopped, it was often difficult for him to get started again. He turned, which was equally difficult.
“My Beauty,” he said simply.
“I am very sorry to hear that, sir. May I offer a hand?”
“I don’t know,” the man tried to explain, finding himself staring at the strange looking man with long flowing hair. He hated to see such hair on males. Back in the day he might have immediately grabbed the man and shaved him himself. “I woke up and found her missing. I love that damn dog, but you can see how she treats me. It’s the middle of the night, practically, and here I am traipsing all over town to collect her.”
He was trying very hard to keep everything together, but ultimately losing the battle. He continued to stare away, trying to decide what manner of man this was before him, but said nothing further.
“Well, sir,” the other man began. “I do not know whether you have heard or not, but the town is not exactly safe these days to be wandering about. I understand that you miss your Beauty, but we really should get you home.”
The old man saw the logic in this, although he wasn’t entirely sure what he was being told about the safety of the town. He glanced to the West and then toward the East, uncertain how to get home.
“You do remember the way?”
He paused, prideful, his chin high. “I sometimes get confused, I’m afraid.”
He looked down at his feet and absently scratched his head with his right hand.
“Do not trouble yourself about that, sir. The stress will not help you remember.”
The stranger put his hand upon his shoulder, turning him back the way that he had come. He reluctantly allowed himself to be led.
“I appreciate your help,” he said to the strange fellow.
“Not at all.”
“My name is Benjamin Molina. My friends call me Benji.”
“I am very happy to be making your acquaintance.”
“Who are you?” the elderly man asked.
The stranger laughed, lightly patting his old and tired back. “Would you believe, a friend?”
11:51 p.m.
The man his friends called "Big John Lancaster" knocked back the remaining quarter of his Budweiser tall boy in two large gulps and then hastily set the empty can on the TV tray to his left. With a low grunt, he pushed himself out of the dingy brown Lazy-Boy leather recliner. He stomped into the kitchen without turning on any lights. The lighting was being provided by his absolute favorite DVD in the entire world: Apocalypse Now Redux.
It was difficult to tell whether Vittorio Storaro’s famous cinematography was creating shadows or merely chasing others away along the bare walls and uncovered sliding glass door. The haunting first few notes of the Doors song, “The End”, were now filling the house, causing mental shadows as well. He yanked open the refrigerator and grabbed another tall can of Bud. It would be his fourth of the night. Thanks to the newer and longer version of the film, Big John had time for another beer.
As he closed the once white refrigerator door with his left foot and headed back for his chair, crossing in front of the slider, he heard the unmistakable sound of his aluminum trash can as it was being knocked over.
“Damn coyotes!” he cursed, as the sound of the can being dragged along the makeshift gravel driveway grated on his last nerve. He angrily shoved a two day old empty pizza box from the cluttered dining room table so that he could clear a spot to set down his beer. The box was empty. It flew off of the table easily and fell onto the short carpeted floor below, sprinkling pizza crumbs about. He made a mental note to borrow the old lady Johnson’s vacuum again when he noticed the mess he’d just made. All he really cared about right now was to find a safe place to set down his beer so that he could go hunting for the animal responsible for interrupting his movie. If Francis Ford Coppola and his editor, Walter Murch, were going to endeavor to perfect perfection, then by God, no one was going to bother him until the credits were rolling. Perhaps not even then. Marty Sheen had even suffered a heart attack, for Pete’s sake!
Big John did not stop to see whether he could glean anything about how many of the hungry devils he might be about to surprise. The city might be directly across the street now with the near completion of the new elementary school, but there was nothing behind him. He had seen coyotes many times and could hear their yelping nearly every day. Instead, Big John just unlocked the slider with a quick flick of his meaty fingers and yanked open the door, stomping his way like the tank that he was to the back of the driveway where he kept his three cans: recycling, green waste and trash.
While walking through his dining room, Big John had the Doors in the left speaker and coyotes at his trash in the right speaker. Now, half way through the yard, there was little or no sound at all.
“Damn!” he muttered under his large breaths as he slowed his assault and ultimately stopped.
Isn’t that always the way?
He had pictured himself so vividly sneaking up on the animal before it knew what hit him that he had already scared it away. Even now he could hear the sound of his boot making contact with the can, and the coyote’s yelp of surprise as he launched the both of them into the night. It would almost have made missing his favorite all-time movie somehow worth it, not that he could actually kick anything that far anymore or even sneak up on anything, as big as he had become.
In any event there would be no action here tonight; he was missing the end of the movie and the beer was getting warm. Whatever mess there might be would still be there in the afternoon, Big John surmised, so he turned and headed for home.
While he waited, the can started moving again.
Big John spun. What luck? Maybe there was some action to be had after all.
“Here I come, boy!” Big John whispered quietly under his breath as he resumed his attack.
As silently and as quickly as he could, he crossed the remainder of the yard to the spot where he parked his cans. It seemed to take longer than usual in the dim moonless light, but eventually he came to the spot where the animal would be feasting on his garbage.
Nothing.
The can in question was there, to be sure, knocked on its side with half its contents spilled out for him to clean. However,
the perpetrator of the crime had vanished.
“Damn!”
Big John took one last desperate look around, his only thrill of the day gone, and headed back for that Budweiser. A good thing, too, he thought. That little buzz is almost gone!
Behind him there was an audible pop as the electricity went out.
Big John started at the sound of it. He stared in quiet disbelief while the realization seeped in. Damn!
He suddenly thought about the old widow Johnson, knowing how worried the least bit of nothing always made her feel. He glanced her way. Her house was east of his which was just a little further than a stone’s throw to his right now as he faced the back of his house. Her motion detector light at the rear of her house caught his attention immediately. Its light seemed to shine only for him, almost winking just like the girls in his life used to about a hundred twenty pounds ago.
While his inebriated mind attempted to get the realization out to him, he glanced back toward his house and beyond. Across what—until a couple of years before—had been Magnolia Avenue and now West Kern Street; what had been orchards years before that and now busy neighborhood houses and the new Reagan Elementary School… they were now winking at him, too. Lights were everywhere about him, twinkling, winking, making fun of him since his was the only power that had gone out.
Damn!
Carefully, he made his way across the yard toward the house. There was no way that he was going to be able to do anything now without a flashlight to see where he was going. He knew how poorly he kept the property cleaned up. All he needed to do was trip over something, full of beer as he was, and break his neck in the dark. What a pretty picture that would make!
His eyes unable to muster the necessary skill of helping him to see in the dark, he was forced to do relatively without. Moving slower than usual, his hands outstretched in case he did fall or bump into something, he finally found the open sliding glass door. Carefully, he stepped inside, his throat heavily anticipating that next swallow that would have to wait a bit longer.
He stood between his kitchen and dining area, now wondering where he might locate that flashlight. He knew that he owned three, in fact. They were all black Mag-lite flashlights, the best in the industry. The problem, however, was trying to remember where in the hell one of them might be right now.
Big John made his way across the kitchen floor safely enough. There was nothing left there to give him trouble, but that was the easy part. It was the living room and subsequent hallway where the trouble awaited with its abandoned clothes baskets, alternatively piled high with both clean and dirty clothes. Then there was the occasional box of this and stack of that: Fresno Bee newspapers; vinyl albums that he no longer had the technology to play them on; Field and Stream; Guns and Ammo; and Playboy Magazines to name a few. All of the subscriptions had long since expired. Even the Playboys were ten years old or more.
Before attempting to navigate further, he reached out for the nearest wall. This wall would lead him to the hall and the closet there that would likely reward him with a flashlight should he make it there without killing himself. Although he could not yet see, he began to picture the possible obstacles in his way. He was delighted to recall that once he got to the hallway, he would be relatively safe. Indeed, once he moved beyond the living room and could feel both walls of the hallway he found the closet very quickly. He opened it and his right hand immediately stretched out and knocked over a Mag-lite. He grabbed it, found the button and it sprung to life.
He closed the closet door and headed back the way he had come. Relieved that he could now see, it dawned on him that whatever buzz he had had was now long gone. He would have to start again. Considering that he was on vacation from his forklift this week and had no obligations other than to his stomach and his bowels, he quickly set off to fix the problem so that he could quickly get that good buzz that he had anticipated when he popped that first can. He shined the light ahead of him and started moving. He didn’t stop until he got into the living room and noticed a tall shape standing before him.
The realization threw him.
He directed the light at the intruder. Standing before him was a very tall, well-defined figure of a man who appeared to be even more frightened than he was. The man was shivering as if he had just stepped outside with wet clothes on. However, the man was dressed very warmly indeed. His face and head couldn’t be cold, he noted, on account of all of the hair. In his right hand he had a firm grip upon something, but Big John hadn’t seen it yet.
“What the hell are you doing in my house?” Big John asked, regaining his composure. There was not much that could scare a man of John’s size, but it wasn’t every day that one found an intruder in one’s home.
“Please...please help me!” the intruder said, his left hand extended before him, quivering. “I need your help! I can't seem to fight it any longer!”
“Fight what any longer?” Big John asked. “How'd you get in my house?”
Big John wasn't afraid of too many men, nor had he ever backed down from a confrontation; however, something about this one, this particular night, made him uneasy. In the poor light, he could see that the front of the intruder’s clothes was wet. He appeared as if he had just run through some sprinklers on his way over.
“Look, I don't want any trouble!”
The intruder stepped toward him. It was a very loud sound, but Big John was still oblivious.
“I can't do it any longer. Rats and dogs and cats. I need...”
“What?” Big John stepped back with each one of the intruder’s steps forward. “What do you need?”
“I need blood. Human blood. Your blood!” The man lunged for Big John and caught him by his flannel shirt. Big John dropped his light. In doing so, the body of Mr. Benjamin Molina was highlighted in its brilliance. The eyes held open in frozen terror; the mouth in a perpetual grimace; the throat torn open, revealing the mechanisms for both breathing and the swallowing of food and drink. The sight of the wound was surreal due to the lack of blood. To Big John it almost appeared as if it was normal; as if the poor man had been born with a second mouth.
Big John stepped clumsily backwards, desperately attempting to shake free of the intruder's grip.
“You don't understand,” the intruder cried, finally releasing the body at his feet. And then, using both hands, he forced Big John easily against the east living room wall.
“Help!” Big John screamed out like he never had screamed before. “You… you’re the one they’re looking for. The one who was leaving bodies piled up all over Kingsburg.
“Help!”
The vampire gripped the large man, spun and threw him against the south living room wall, sending a bunch of cans and kitchen items rattling on the other side of the wall. He let out a cry of agony as all of the air seemed to go out of him and something snapped within his chest. It was bone; one of his ribs. Big John had broken a rib once before in an automobile accident, so he knew what it felt like. It was excruciating.
However, as he looked up from the floor where he landed, and saw his attacker coming back for more - and quite possibly far worse that just another broken rib, by the look in its eye - he was forced to ignore the pain and fight for his life.
Big John climbed to his feet, gritting his teeth hard to swallow the pain and put his hands out just in time to stop the vampire from grabbing him again. Tears welled up in his eyes as he tried to speak. “Please, don't hurt me.” He could barely get the words out. “I can help you!”
The vampire let go of the man and backed off. Turning away, he whispered, “How can you help me? I am beyond help. I can only do what must be done to survive. It is not my fault. I am forced to do this because of Vincent!”
“Vincent?” the big man said, repeating the name.
“Yes. It is he who has forced my hand.” The vampire looked back to the man before him. “I apologize, but there is nothing that you can do for me.” He started for him again.
“Wait!
” Big John threw up his hands and took a step back. “Whatever you're thinking, don't!”
“Oh, but I must,” he said, and then he was upon him. “Nathaniel must drink!”
“Who's Nathaniel?”
Big john tried to avoid capture. He stepped back one last time and was pushed into the wall again.
“I am!” And then the vampire bared his teeth; the ones that gripped the flesh as well as the two that drove deeply for the rich red nutrients beneath.
Big John screamed.