***
Jackson took a few steps toward the couch, but then stopped in his tracks. Although he could not yet see the girl staring at him, there were now too many conflicting thoughts within him suddenly. His arm raised on instinct, bringing the beam of the light up toward the body on the couch. At the same time, he fought against the rising bile within his throat which grew worse by the second. He shined the light into the face of the boy, the only part of him that was exposed. The heavy blankets covered the rest. The eyes that he found staring back at him had a look of horror frozen upon them. In the lifeless eyes, Jackson could see the reflection of the television. The detective followed that gaze and looked toward the movie playing on the screen. Below the 42 inch Sony was a DVD player. That was where the movie was coming from. It was a Tom Cruise film. It took him a moment to identify what it was.
Interview with a Vampire.
Jackson cursed under his breath.
When he glanced back toward the couch, he cursed again. The room lit up as the movie switched to another bright scene. The body was still there below the blankets on the couch, but Tiffany was nowhere to be seen.
“Where did Tiffany go?” Michael asked. He was standing beside him now, appearing to be doing a much better job holding down what little dinner they had had many hours before.
The scene went dark again, sending the detectives once again into shadows.
“Buddy,” Jackson whispered.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t like this at all.”
That was when they heard Tiffany giggling.
And then she was behind them. They turned, but even with the television sending mad shadows everywhere, they could see that she was gone again. There was something else, however. Jackson felt lighter somehow.
His gun was no longer in its holster.
1:45 a.m.
Nathaniel sat and watched, rather uninterested, at the events taking place from his vantage point upon the housetop across the alley from the Rosen House. He had heard every word that had passed between Barbara and her husband earlier, having sat above them in the dark. He replayed her words when she had said that she had grown to care for him very much. Afterwards he moved to this new location. It gave him the ability to catch any and all activity coming from their back yard or southern position, as well as any movement from their eastern front. In that regard he had caught both the approach of the detective’s partner by automobile, as well as the young next door neighbor girl as she made her way from her house to theirs sometime after that. Everything seemingly quiet; he had spent the past few minutes watching while the men combed the Rosen house for whatever reason.
A few moments ago, he noticed that the Rosen girl left Barbara’s house and headed back for hers. He paid her no mind. He simply went back to the theater taking place before him: Barbara’s husband leaving his partner to check the rest of the premises; his partner holding his ground, staring into the house, looking for what, he did not know or care to; the room in shadows thanks to the television which had been left on; both men gaining access.
Nathaniel began to think of food again. He had done his level best to try and put it out of his mind while he stayed vigil over his charge and her babies, whether she still wanted it or not.
The young girl was inside the darkened house now, he could see. It was dark for the two men, but not so dark for him. He could see her as she approached the couch in the center of the living room and knelt.
Suddenly, something changed, and Nathaniel began to question everything that was going on. The girl was on her feet now and behind the men, her back to the sliding door. He refocused his vision, wondering whether he had that right. Had he looked away? Had he missed something? He did not feel tired. So just how was it that this girl could have moved so quickly?
Nathaniel found himself rising to his feet without thinking about it. It was then, as he continued to question everything, that he finally noticed the scent of death in the air. Barbara! At first the thought occurred to him that it might be coming from Barbara’s house. Quickly, however, he realized the truth.
It was just as the girl was stealing the weapon from the other man.
In a flash, he was off of the roof where he had camped out and vaulted two fences. But he was too late. Just a heartbeat before the first bullet was fired, ripping a gaping hole in the right side of Detective Mark Jackson’s abdomen, sending him backwards through the open sliding glass door and into Nathaniel’s arms; the vampire had thought that he had closed the distance in time.
He was wrong.
The impact knocked them both to the ground. Nathaniel rolled and was upon the detective immediately. They stared into each other’s eyes and suddenly Nathaniel had a clarity that he had not known in nearly a week.
This police detective was about to die.
The young girl somewhere behind him was a vampire.
Vincent had not only been near, but was to blame for her creation; had been next door at Barbara’s for quite a long time for the stench was suddenly thick in Nathaniel’s nostrils; and lastly, he had played Nathaniel for a fool.
Nathaniel shook off the realization – not because he didn’t believe it, but because he was through being played. He studied the detective beneath him momentarily. He was in great pain, but also seemed to be filled with understanding as to who Nathaniel was. Either that or he had more pressing things to be concerned about. He watched the man pull his hands away from the wound and bring them to his face. Nathaniel could see all too well, but apparently so could the detective. In the dark of the patio the fresh blood on his hands glistened. The man’s eyes unfocused and Nathaniel knew that he was close to breathing his last. He turned his bloodied hands and presented them before Nathaniel.
Nathaniel snatched his hands by the wrists with lightning speed, placed them back down over the wound and held them there. The man’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Do not move!” Nathaniel commanded. “Unless you wish to die.”
Nathaniel leapt from him and rushed into the house.
The smell of human decay was terrible in the house as Nathaniel came rushing inside, and he wondered how in the world—even Vincent—was able to tolerate it. Somewhere in the darkness ahead of him lay Barbara’s husband. He could not see him yet, but he heard the man moaning somewhere in the shadows. He had heard but the one weapon discharge and little else, so he hoped that Michael was well enough. For the moment, hope was all that he had, however. With two men down, and himself just reviving as if from a long slumber, there was time for little else. First, he had to consider his own well-being.
He heard a muted giggle.
Then he smelled the oil.
Nathaniel spun, but he was too late. He caught a glimpse of Michael Lopez coming at him, but that wasn’t quite right. He had a blank look upon his face as he was neither attacking nor capable of doing so.
Nathaniel crashed into the television, knocking it over as Michael slammed into him. It somersaulted once and slammed into the nearest wall, sending a shower of blue and white sparks and ending the mad shadows forever. The detective was on top of him, pinning him there. Nathaniel shoved the man off of him and it was then that he knew for certain that Michael was unconscious. He had been thrown at him.
Nathaniel rose to his feet quickly, but was again too late.
There was another crash as something small was thrown against his feet. He knew instinctively that he was in trouble before he could see the blue flame go red or even feel the heat. The Green Depression lamp struck his boots and the carpeted floor and exploded into a million glass pieces. The fire raged immediately as if it were hungry for his undead flesh. Before his own welfare, however, his first thought was for the woman that he had grown to care for in so short a time. Almost ignorant of the fire upon him, he saw the flames crawl across the floor toward her husband.
New shadows danced about because of the rising flames as he rushed for
the unconscious detective. Ignoring his own peril as the flames quickly engulfed his own legs as well as the location of his attacker, he caught him by the front of his clothing and pulled him away from harm. He rolled the man ahead of him into the kitchen and threw himself upon his legs. Michael moaned as Nathaniel quickly patted out the flames. Nathaniel turned and surveyed the room behind him. He could see no immediate threat save the fire in the living room. It was growing wider and taller by the moment, gaining strength.
He had just turned away when he heard the giggling again. It was soon drowned out by smoke detectors that began to sound, one after another.
He thought to turn back but the female vampire had him by the collar of his trench coat, yanking him backward with incredible strength. He tried to fight against her but she was strong and she had the element of surprise. And it wasn’t very far for her to drag Nathaniel into the fire. Nathaniel felt himself released and fell backward onto the flames which suddenly engulfed him and began to consume his jeans, coat and his once beautiful hands.
He spun and turned, gritting his teeth together, grinding the tips of his long incisors, fighting back the screams that rose within him as the flames got higher and started to do their intended work to devour him. He began to lose his sense of direction now as the fire became a virtual box that he could not find his way out of. Nathaniel threw the burning coat off of him and flung it about with his hands, desperately attempting to put out the flames. It was hopeless. The coat was nearly consumed already as were his shirt and pants. He found himself losing the fight.
Yet, his thoughts turned to Barbara. His heart went out to her, knowing the danger that she was in, knowing how incapable he was now of fulfilling his self-appointed charge to care for her. He was dying and she would soon be following, along with her beautiful children and her husband, who he wondered whether he might already be dead. The only question remaining was: who would precede who in that black parade?
Nathaniel began to flail about like a baby in a crib, throwing a tantrum. That, too, proved useless. It was unclear whether he himself was attempting to put out the flames or whether the flames were driving him to it. Still, he thought of Barbara. He could picture her now. He tried as hard as he could to picture her, lovely, soft and smiling in his direction, but all he could see was her pain. Then tears came. He could feel them well up in his eyes and pour down his burning cheeks. The flames were doing their work, but they seemed unable to turn the salty water into vapor.
Somehow he found the strength to stand, but was unsure whether he truly was doing so. Ceiling felt like floor and left felt like right. Still, his body flailed about, jumping, twitching, and dancing on fire; his skin rolled back in places like a scroll and floated off toward points unknown.
And then he was down again.
Pain had knocked his legs out from beneath him and the crackling fire beat him down, pinning him there to meet his final moment. There was some peace to be had in that realization, though he wished with all of his black heart that he could rise up and go to Barbara. Death would bring the end to his hunger; a hunger that caused him revulsion and shame. And maybe he might see his mother and father again. Perhaps that was too much to hope for.
From somewhere he heard a voice. The female vampire, no doubt, he thought, but he could not make out what she might be saying. Just more giggling, perhaps. Apparently she was hitting Nathaniel as well, not content to simply allow the fire to finish him off. He felt as if Tiffany was striking him again and again and again from all sides.
Soon, he began to see a shape hovering over him. Before, he had been unable to see anything but the box of fire. Now, the flames seemed to lose their strength. He could hear the steady din of the many smoke detectors again, but ignored it. The shape was now clear in his eyes. Could it be? His attacker was no female. It was not Vincent. In fact, it was no vampire at all. As he studied the face of the man, trying as he might to beat back the flames, he beheld a savior.
It was Barbara’s husband.
Nathaniel quit thrashing about, but did not realize that he had done so. He watched in amazement as Michael climbed off of him, took him by the legs and pulled him away from the charred carpet and the flames that climbed up the walls around them. He was coughing from the smoke, as well as from the exhaustion. Yet, he managed to find the strength to pull Nathaniel to safety.
“Why?” Nathaniel asked simply.
Michael looked away from him and took a moment while he surveyed the burning house. He was nearly out of breath.
“You could have left me to die. Why did you save me?”
“My wife seems to think the world of you, though it beats the shit out of me!” he finally said, through more fits of coughing. “But we don’t have time to debate the subject now. We’ve got to get the hell out of here! Can you walk?”
“Yes,” Nathaniel said, doing his level best to ignore the pain and the unsightliness of his physical condition.
Slowly, he arose. Michael reached for him and helped him the rest of the way to his feet. He released him once he had regained his balance, studying him to make certain that he would not go down again.
“We’ll have to go out the back way,” Michael shouted over the fire alarm, motioning behind them at the door that led from the kitchen to the garage. He started in that direction when Nathaniel reached out feebly with his right arm and stopped him.
“Wait!” he said.
Michael first glanced down at the hand that held him, then to Nathaniel’s face. “What is it?”
Nathaniel did not really have the strength to hold him, but instead used him mostly for balance.
He pointed with his free left hand toward the wall of spreading flames at the south end of the house where the sliding glass door once stood clearly. “Your friend is there! He was shot, but alive when I last saw him!”
“Oh, God!” Michael cried.
He started past Nathaniel, then doubled back and pulled him along.
Nathaniel held his ground as best as he could. The action slowed Michael; that was all. “You said it yourself that the way is this way! We will have to go around!”
Realizing the truth in this, Michael quickly turned, wrenched himself free of Nathaniel and made his way into the garage. Nathaniel had to reach for the nearest wall in order to maintain his balance.
“Wait!” Nathaniel called in vain after the detective.
It was too late, Michael was gone and he was alone. As quickly as possible, using the walls to propel him and to hold himself up, he followed after him.
2:11 a.m.
The phone rang again beside Dispatcher Lainie Bishop as she attempted to juggle what seemed like ten things at once. On a typical graveyard shift she had the responsibility to track and support two, maybe three, patrol cars. This morning, her first shift back since the terrible deaths of Police Officers Nick Mancuso and Larry Browning during her shift on Monday, she had twelve.
“Kingsburg Police Department,” Lainie answered calmly. “How can I help you?”
The voice on the other end of the line practically blew her eardrum out. “Lainie, it’s Detective Lopez! I’ve got an officer down! I repeat, officer down! I need an ambulance and fire crews to respond to 994 Roosevelt Street. Detective Jackson has been shot!”
“Copy that, Detective,” The dispatcher answered without much thought.
A year of training and on the job experience took over and she no longer thought about stress or fear, she just reacted. She quickly sent the alarm to the firehouse just two blocks north-east of her position in the old building that had since been remodeled since the two departments had shared it. “Ambulance and rescue on the way.”
The line went dead as the detective hung up. A moment later it began ringing again. She let it ring.
“Kingsburg Rescue, we have an officer down at house fire at 994 Roosevelt Street. Be advised detective on scene.”
“Ten-four, Kingsbu
rg,” the dispatcher at the firehouse said as she sprang into action. “Kingsburg rescue has a copy.”
Next, the dispatcher dutifully jumped back on the microphone. “One-five-zero, Kingsburg. One-five-zero, Kingsburg. Do you have a copy?”
“One-five-zero, Kingsburg,” the Chief of Police quickly responded. “Go ahead.”
“One-five-zero, be advised fire and rescue teams are en route to Detective Lopez’ ten-forty-two. There is a fire next door and he has reported an officer down.”
The chief was still down on Simpson and Mission Street at the scene of the previous officer down. “Ten-four!” he gruffly replied, along with a string of profanities.
Beside the Dispatcher the phone finally stopped ringing. She took a second to catch her breath just in time for it to start ringing once again. She cursed under her breath and quickly picked it up.
“Kingsburg Police Department, May I help you?”
“Where in the hell have you been?” demanded the strong female voice on the other end of the line. Lainie pulled the receiver away from her right ear and gave it a funny look as if the caller could notice such a thing as her displeasure from over the communication line. She could hear the woman still reading her the riot act, although Lainie could not accurately detail what that was exactly. She started to pull the receiver back to her ear, at which time she was forming her words carefully. She wanted to explain to this lady, who had neither the right nor the comprehension of what she was going through during her first shift back since that terrible first morning, just exactly what she could do with all of her complaints. It was at that moment that she saw the LED display on the phone, detailing the phone number of the caller. The heading above the phone number read: Mayor.
“Mayor Peterson, I am so sorry to have kept you waiting,” she quickly apologized.
“I haven’t been waiting!” came the reply. “I have been sitting here all night, fully expecting to find out what in the world is going on. I’ve been trying to get a hold of this department, as well as Chief O’Donnell all damn night and I can’t get anyone!”
“Ma’am.” Lainie tried to calmly settle down the mayor with as much information as she could. “Another police officer was killed tonight and the chief has been at the scene since nearly the beginning.”
“Yes, I know that!” Mayor Peterson interrupted.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am.”
“Quit apologizing!”
“Ma’am, we just received a call of a second officer down in the 900 block of Roosevelt Street. Fire and rescue crews are responding. I just spoke to the chief, and I believe that he is heading that way.”
There was silence on the other end of the line now. Lainie listened and waited for a few moments.
“Ma’am?”
“Alright,” the Mayor said at last. “Have the chief contact me when he’s free there. I don’t care how late the hour. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
The line went dead.
2:19 a.m.
Slowly, by the time Nathaniel navigated through the kitchen door and the garage for the most part without handholds, down the grass walkway and back to the patio, he had regained some ability. It was not much, however, since he still had not fed since the previous day. He was able to walk some without having to use the walls around him to hold him up. The pain, for the most part, had subsided. Perhaps he was riding the storm out, or simply comfortably numb. In any event, he found Michael leaning over his friend in the middle of the back yard. He had evidently pulled him from the sliding glass door and into relative safety. Yet, the fire raged ever higher and out of control.
“Behind you, Mikey,” Detective Jackson fought to say to alert his partner at Nathaniel’s approach.
Michael turned to look, and then turned back. “It’s alright.”
Jackson seemed not to hear his friend and partner. He tried to say more, but could not find the words or perhaps the ability.
“Never mind him,” Michael said as Nathaniel suddenly sat down beside them on the grass.
The maneuver was more akin to falling down than sitting, but it achieved the intended purpose. Jackson stared at him with unblinking eyes as Michael opened the cell phone that he held in his hand. He dialed a number.
“Where the hell is that ambulance? I’ve got an officer down and I need it right now!” he yelled
Nathaniel said nothing as he watched Michael toss the phone in disgust. Instead, he leaned forward and looked deeply into the eyes of the man dying before him. Jackson continued to stare back. Though heavily scarred and now disfigured with second and third degree burns covering most of his face, peels of skin curling up but still relatively attached, he was sure that the detective could still recognize the face of the figure that had caught him upon becoming shot. He saw the fangs, too.
Michael noticed the exchange. “Jacks, this is our mysterious Nathaniel. I believe that he is a real flesh and blood vampire, but he won’t hurt you.” He looked at Nathaniel and added: “Will you?”
“No,” he said with a frown directed towards Michael. He looked back at Jackson and nodded. “I am as he says, but I will not harm you. I have neither the will nor the strength.”
“Will I die?” Jackson suddenly managed to form the words and ask.
“Yes,” Nathaniel said simply.
“No!” Michael snapped. “No!” He gave Nathaniel an ugly look that he either registered or did not care to. “You fight! I need you! Vanessa needs you! You fight, you hear me?”
Jackson looked into his partner’s eyes, but turned his head back to the living vampire before him and asked again. This time he did not have the power to say the words, but Nathaniel read the question exactly.
“Yes,” he answered. “You will die. You have lost too much blood to survive now. Trust me. I know these things.”
Michael began to raise his voice in dispute of this fact just as the blaring sirens from the ambulance broke through the steady scream of the fire alarm inside the Rosen residence. Four fire engines had joined it, but Michael was too agitated to acknowledge them. He leapt to his feet.
“Don’t listen to him, Jacks!” he commanded. “You fight! I’m bringing help!” Michael continued to urge his partner on even as he ran from him and went for help. “You hear me? You fight!”
Above them water began to fall upon the house as if it had begun to rain just upon it. It was the water cannon. Soon, another jet of water could be seen. The fire would gut the home, but it would not spread.
The vampire within Nathaniel found himself staring at the dark area of clothing upon the dying detective beside him and began to remind him suddenly of the fact that he had yet to feed. Repulsed and ashamed as it made him feel, he could still not tear his eyes away. The blood was speaking to him. As desperate as he was becoming, even the dried congealing blood was asking to be lapped up by his parched tongue. He gritted his teeth and pulled himself away, staring skyward.
“I don’t want to die,” the dying man said to him.
Nathaniel looked back to earth and studied the man’s face. Already there wasn’t much left there.
“Everyone dies,” he whispered back. It never dawned on him that he should think to console the man in his final moments. There were too many conflicting emotions stirring up within him at this present hour.
“Even you?” the dying man asked.
“One day,” he answered quickly, without first thinking about it. Perhaps it was more from longing than from knowing. “Yes, even I shall die.”
“Why?” Jackson’s words were coming out in gurgles now, a trickle of blood now appearing by his lips as well. “Can vampires die?”
“I think one will die very soon,” Nathaniel said. He was not looking at the man anymore, although his face was pointed his way. His eyes were suddenly somewhere far away.
He could see home.
His mother was young again and in the act of mending some
clothes for him. He could even see himself now. He sat in the cool early morning dirt, stacking some rocks that he had gathered. There had always been rocks everywhere at his home. One could not walk three feet without kicking a rock or tripping on one. He was still talking, but he scarcely heard himself doing it.
“I wish that it were I. I have grown so tired. If I could just go home and see the land again. It is cold and dreary, but it was home. I wish to visit the land of my birth and lay my head upon the mountain top of my childhood and await the dawn. My father and I used to do this. We would do many of the chores and then take a break to watch the sun climb into the sky from its slumber. It is such a glorious sun.” These thoughts had been long banished to the depths and yet here they were, rising back toward the light. Nathaniel paused. Reality was beginning to pull him back. “I would like to come to that dawn one last time without the strength to flee. I imagine those first rays of the sun would hurt a great deal while they begin to undo what Vincent has left me with.” He paused once again. “There is nothing for me here. No one.”
“Who’s Vincent?” Nathaniel barely heard the man ask him as his life trickled out of him and more sirens had begun to arrive.
“The monster responsible for what kneels before you. And for all of this,” he answered, motioning behind them toward the burning house and toward the house next door.
Nathaniel’s eyes fell on the other house. His thoughts turned to Barbara. Sweet Barbara. He stared at the house, saying nothing.
“When you...and I...are gone,” Jackson whispered nearly inaudibly. He was beginning to lose multiple functions at once. “’Nessa wanted...a child...so bad. And...Barbara?”
Nathaniel scanned the property for signs of life, finding none. Soon, help would come for the detective, he knew, but there would be nothing to do for him but cover him from the prying eyes of all those gathering, both city servants and onlookers alike.
“I don’t know.”
Detective Jackson mustered all of his remaining strength which was nearly nil. All it afforded him was the raising of one solitary small finger on his right hand. With it he managed to reach the vampire reclining beside him and pull him back for one final word.
2:27 a.m.
Michael ran across the Rosen driveway as the volunteer firemen began to leap from a fire engine that had pulled up ahead of the ambulance. Some of them still rubbed the sleep from their eyes. He nearly bumped into two on his way to the Emergency Medical Technicians.
“Over here!” he shouted over the sound of the sirens. A second fire engine was pulling up, closely followed by a second ambulance, and by even more police cars. “They’re in the back.”
He waited but a moment, but once he registered their receiving of his message, he quickly turned on his heels and ran back the way that he had come. His partner had little time, if he wasn’t gone already. The EMT’s were hot on his heels. He could hear the sound of the gurney’s wheels on the cool driveway cement.
The gate still hanging open, Michael jumped through it. The sound of glass breaking and the flash of red flames stopped him there, however, as a beam gave way and pierced the Rosen kitchen window.
“Get back!” a commanding voice shouted as two firemen burst between them with their fire hose. They did not wait for an argument, but went quickly to their work, sending gallons of water to the site.
“We don’t have time to wait!” Michael yelled at no one in particular.
“We need another way back there,” one of the EMT’s shouted over the din. More sirens had joined the fray.
“Yes!” Michael answered, fishing for his house keys in his pocket. He turned back around and jumped over the hose that stretched down the driveway. “Follow me!”
In a flash, Michael had one gate unlocked and was running up the walkway toward the back gate. The patio light lit the way that he knew all too well, but he took little notice of it. The men behind kept up with him as fast as they could. They ran through heavy mist as the breeze blew water from the Rosen house to the immediate east into their collective faces. When the men with the gurney arrived at the Lopez back gate, he was already on his way to the Rosen back gate. He tried not to think of what he might find upon his arrival.
The EMT’s followed him with confused faces, but he had no time to explain. After he led them from one house to another and back, he stopped and pirouetted, dumbfounded.
EMT Steven Howell took a place beside him and glanced over the grounds a moment, catching his breath. The young man was in fantastic shape so it did not take long.
“Fire’s too hot,” the older EMT said, joining them in the center of the yard.
They stared at Michael, as if sensing there was another, bigger problem at hand.
“Detective?” Howell began quietly, almost as if he did not want his partner to hear. “Where were we going?”
Michael turned toward the man reluctantly. He pursed his lips as if to speak, but caught himself and started to look away nervously.
“Where’s the officer down?”
“I don’t know,” he said through clenched jaws, the shock overwhelming him. His eyes darted around, looking for a clue.
“What?” Howell turned fully to the detective, but got no response.
The elder EMT grabbed the detective by the arms and pulled him out of his daze. “Where is the officer down?”
Glancing back over the grounds of the Rosen home one last time, or rather what was left of it, the patio light in his yard to his left beckoned his attention as if speaking some secret.
“Detective Lopez?”
“In the house,” he said finally.
“In the house? He was caught in the house?” Howell dropped his hands and stared at the scene unfolding before him, the undoing of the Rosen House. Sections of the roof, specifically over the kitchen and living room areas, had given way, revealing huge maws that looked like some terrible house monster drinking deeply the water from the firemen’s hoses. Fire engine water cannon had obviously joined in the fray as well, for whatever good it might do. If anyone had been alive when caught in that they were no longer, to be sure.
Yet, Michael was not looking into the Rosen house for survivors. He was looking squarely at his own.
2:39 a.m.
When Michael Lopez approached the patio light standing above his sliding glass door there were many things on his mind. First and foremost was the fate of his partner and friend. Somewhere a close second was the uneasy feeling that he had concerning how long it had been since he last saw his wife or kids. There were red and blue and white lights that continued to light up the neighborhood although no longer accompanied by blaring sirens. The firemen were well on their way to winning the fight against the fire that had previously threatened his home. Of course, there was the reality of the fact that he had been awake for longer than he would have liked to admit and working on nothing but adrenaline.
As Michael reached for the sliding glass door, the thought occurred to him that it should be dutifully locked; however, he knew instinctively that this would not be the case. He pulled the handle and the door opened easily. He was not surprised.
The curtains appeared dark, but he knew that they were in fact beige. Barbara had bought them one weekend on a shopping visit with her sister in San Francisco. He stepped through them and into the living room, but the room was dark as well. Typically, whenever he had to work late she would leave the kitchen light on for him or at least a table lamp in the living room. In the living room, there were four lamps to choose from: three table lamps from Pier 1 and the H.G. Wells lamp that was plugged in, but that was all. This morning there was nothing but the glow from the kitchen window from the dying fire next door.
“You may turn on a light if you wish?” came a voice.
He had hoped that it might be Nathaniel, so that he might discern the fate of his partner, but it
did not sound like anyone he had ever met before, which made matters far worse.
Michael walked over to the northeast corner of the room for the table lamp beside his chair, across from the television set. He chose it because it was the farthest point in the room from the voice that had spoken to him. It occurred to him that fifteen feet was not the safest position in the world when it came to vampires, but it was all that he had at the moment.
He flicked the three-way light into the first position and turned toward the direction of the voice. The other side of the room was empty. He stood up slowly and took a longer look. The hall seemed empty. The entrance to the kitchen seemed empty. He was alone.
Great! He thought. Now I’m hearing voices.
“Looking for me?”
Death from behind.
Michael spun but was grabbed by the throat. He had no time to think or react. The world seemed to rush by him suddenly and then came a blow as the opposite wall of the room jumped out to meet him, knocking the breath from him. Everything hurt. He held his eyes tightly shut as his sense of balance and direction returned. It took quite a while for his head to stop spinning. It finally did but did not stop hurting. There was a hole in the wall where his head rested, eight feet off of the ground.
He felt a little better after a full minute, finally able to open his eyes again. Staring up at him was another vampire; a mean one. No one had to tell him who he was for he knew instinctively. This was the monster responsible for everything that he was aware of, and probably more that he was yet to be aware of. He was holding him against the wall and high off the carpeted floor.
“Better?” the vampire sneered. “The breath has returned to you, yes?”
Michael tried to nod, but the vampire held him so tight he couldn’t move.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’,” the vampire smiled. Then he began to squeeze. “And now?”
Michael found his hands finally and threw them against Vincent’s one hand which was beginning to crush him like a vise, but to no avail. His head began to hurt worse and his chest tightened. The room began to darken once again, but this time it had nothing at all to do with electricity or the closing of his eyes. It was his life going out. In the far distance, he could hear soft voices and wondered if they were angels calling him to their sweet by and by.