Chapter 5
“So, tell me again how you got your job with Industrial Products” said Trudy as we rode south on Stemmons Freeway back towards Dallas proper.
HUH?
Huh, what?
I THOUGHT YOU WERE ON THE OTHER FREEWAY; THE INTERSTATE 35 ONE?
You see what I’m talking about? They give one freeway two separate names!
IT REALLY IS CONFUSING.
Uh- huh, but anyway, when she asked I answered…
“Like I said, Bob Simpson hired me” I said.
“How?” Trudy asked.
“What do you mean ‘How’?”
“I mean, did you apply online? Did you hear about it from a friend? How did you get the job?”
“Melissa called me.”
“She called you?”
“Yep, said she got a job selling cleaning supplies and wondered if I wanted to work with her.”
“And you said ‘Yes”?”
“Have you seen Melissa?”
“Yes. I saw her when she entered the office. Why?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re not going to get it… hey, Phillip?”
“Yes, Johnny?” he said over his shoulder from the front passenger seat.
“Trudy wants to know why I would take a job with Melissa just because she asked me to.”
“Because she’s hot , Trudy.”
“Thank you, Phillip.”
“You’re welcome, Johnny.”
You know, I think pretty women either don’t understand their power over men or are reluctant to use it. Maybe it’s because they can’t look up when walking.
THEY CAN’T LOOK UP?
Nope, pretty women can’t look up when walking because to do so would mean making eye contact with others. Half those others would be men who would leap at any chance to talk to a pretty woman, mostly if she made eye contact, and since it probably gets annoying constantly rebuffing unwanted advances pretty women learn to walk with their eyes downcast in order to avoid those circumstances.
SO THEY’RE NOT BEING SNOBS?
Nope, just avoiding desperate men.
“So she just called you up one day and asked if you wanted a job?” Trudy asked.
“Uh-huh” I replied.
“How did she have your number?”
“Oh, she got it when we worked together before.”
“You worked with her before?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where?” she asked.
“At the blood bank” I replied.
Now, obviously if you mention the words ‘blood bank’ to a car full of Werewolves and Vampires you get their attention.
“At the blood bank?” said Phillip.
“Which blood bank?” asked George.
“Why didn’t you mention this before, Sweetie?” queried Vivian.
“I didn’t think it was important.”
“You didn’t think it was important?” asked George over his left shoulder.
“No” I replied.
“You didn’t think a Cloak meeting a Vampire at a blood bank was important?” he asked.
“Um, well, when you put it that way.”
“Which blood bank, Johnny?” asked Trudy.
“The one on Hillcrest Drive.”
“Hillcrest? Isn’t it the one…?” Trudy said
“Yes, it is” George finished.
“Isn’t it the one, what?” I asked.
“It’s the one we use to screen our potential donors” said Trudy.
“Donors?”
“The people we use to feed our pregnant Vampires.”
“Your what?”
“It’s a long story and I’m sure I’ll go into it later but for the time being understand we use certain surrogates to help in our birthing process.”
“Sounds pretty cryptic.”
“I know, but give me some time here. I mean, we just found out how Melissa got to you.”
“Huh?”
“How Melissa found you, Sweetie, she looked at your blood. You did give some blood at the bank, didn’t you?” asked Vivian.
“Oh, yeah, we all did. As soon as you start working there you feel like jerk if you don’t.”
“That’s how Melissa found you” said George.
“You think she was looking for me?”
“No, probably not. But when she saw your blood it would’ve been impossible to miss your markers.”
“My markers?”
“All blood has markers in them. It allows medical workers a glimpse into how a person’s body is working” George said.
“You think my blood has special markers?”
“Yep.”
“What kind of markers?”
“Cloaking markers.”
“Okay, you’re not making any sense.”
“Johnny, your blood’s special; it’s unique.”
“How so?”
“Your blood adapts.”
“Adapts?”
“Yes. You see, for every other being on the planet they have blood which is incompatible with all other types except those with the same markers. Think of a car engine. Some engines run on normal gasoline, some on diesel and some on natural gas. Now, if you were to put gasoline in a diesel or natural-gas vehicle then it would be useless because the fuel is wrong. But with you, your blood acts as a universal fuel, it runs well in any vehicle because it adapts to the needs of the engine. Now, for people the process is the same; put the wrong blood in a person and their body shuts down because it can’t use the fuel. But your blood is different; it can be used by anyone, regardless of what their individual blood is made of” said George.
“So I’m a universal donor?”
“Kind of. There are other people on the planet who have blood which can be used by all but your blood is different because it isn’t defined solely to people.”
“Huh?”
“Your blood is a sort of symbiot. It adapts to its environment, any environment, so it’s essentially a universal transport system for any creature.”
“Any creature?”
“Any creature which relies on circulation for life, yes.”
“Cool.”
“Yes, it is cool.”
“So what does it mean?”
“It means Melissa knew what you were and used you to further her needs.”
“Her needs?”
“Killing Peter.”
“Oh yeah. But why did she kill Bob and Steve?”
“Maybe she had no further use for them, who knows? They surely won’t to tell us.”
“What are we going to do with their bodies?” I asked.
“Dispose of them.”
“Why didn’t we just bury them with Peter?”
“Because people will be looking for them. Peter’s okay because the only ones who’d report him missing are here in this truck. Bob and Steve, on the other hand, probably have family and friends who will notice when they don’t show up for a while. Steve we might be able to get rid of because if you’re right and Industrial Products doesn’t know the subcontractors they’re using then there’s probably a good chance he’d never be tied back to our office. Bob, on the other hand, has a direct connection to us and if the police start to investigate they’ll definitely want to visit the last places Bob visited.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Call the police, of course.”
The fact I didn’t ask why he would call the police when he just finished mentioning they didn’t want police involvement should give you an indication of my confusion. Over my lifetime I’ve been confused more often than not and found not responding is better in most circumstances because it leaves the person believing you might have some understanding of what’s going on. Admittedly, you’ll never actually get the answer to whatever you were confused about but you’ll at least appear more intelligent in your ignorance than would otherwise be the case if you admitted it and still didn’t understand the answer.
I DIDN’T UNDERSTAND ANY
OF THAT.
Doesn’t surprise me.
“You want to know why we’re calling the police, don’t you?” said Vivian.
“Nope.”
“Yes you do, go ahead and admit it” she purred.
“No.”
“Okay, I guess you’ve got it figured out” she said.
“All right Johnny! Good for you. I don’t think I would’ve figured it out so quickly” exclaimed Phillip.
“Okay, fine, I don’t have it figured out and I’d like to know why we’re calling the police when we just went out of our way to clean up the crime scene and dispose of one of the bodies.”
“We’re calling a special cop” said Vivian.
“A special cop?”
“Yes” she replied again.
“What special cop?”
“A Monitor.”
“What’s a Monitor?”
“A special cop, I thought I just said that, silly” she said grinning.
We drove up Interstate 35 East and exited onto a service road which led us to a state park surrounding one of the most ingenious feats of Texas engineering; the man-made lakes dotting its former grassy prairielands. If you don’t know, Texas is for all practical purposes a semi-arid desert of barren landscape ideal for raising cattle, hogs, sheep and other kinds of four-footed walking meat-patties but it’s not exactly suited for a burgeoning human population who require vast quantities of water to sustain their preferred way of life. People like to drink, cook, bathe, play and relieve themselves with water so a solution was needed if the Great Lone Star State was to make any headway into enticing people to reside in its sunbaked environment so they devised man-made lakes. Now, these aren’t the ones they have up north where all you’ve got to do is block up some river or creek-bed and voila’, ready-made-swimming hole, no, Texas is too flat, not slightly rolling-hills flat but pancake flat so rainwater doesn’t get the opportunity to run off into the large crevasses found in lands with three dimensions. What did they do, you ask?
I DIDN’T ASK.
They dug big holes!
“Detective Hallowed, please” Vivian said into the cellphone and after a pause “Hello, Nat, could you meet us out at Lewisville Lake? Yeah, it’s probably best if it’s just you. Okay, we’ll see you in a bit; bye, Nat.”
“He’s on his way” she told us unnecessarily since we’d been listening in on her conversation.
“What are we going to do about the bodies?” I asked.
“Nothing” George replied.
“But there’s two bodies in your pickup bed and a detective on the way.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So don’t you think he’s going to be a little curious as to why they’re there?”
“Not really. We’re going to tell him the truth.”
“Which truth?”
“The real truth” said Trudy.
“The one about Vampires and Werewolves?”
“Yes.”
“And he’s going to believe it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” I asked, already guessing the answer.
“Because he’s one of us” she said.
The problem with man-made lakes isn’t they’re difficult to build, it’s they’re difficult to maintain. When holes are dug in dirt and liquid poured in the water erodes the side walls causing them to fall back in thus ruining the ‘hole’ process. Man-made lakes essentially involve digging dirt out of the ground and piling it on the sides to act as a levee so water can’t escape. A lifelong project begins because the water’s constantly pulling some of the dirt from those levees back in so machines are operated to scoop up the dirt and put it back in its proper place. This is called dredging and it makes the water dirty.
“So, he’s a Werewolf?” I asked Trudy.
“No” she responded.
“He’s a Vampire? I thought you said all Vampires were female?”
“I did. He’s not a Vampire.”
“What is he?”
“He’s a Monitor, silly” said Vivian in her cute little Vampy way.
“What does he monitor?”
“Us.”
“Why?”
“So we don’t kill ourselves.”
The police in Dallas, Fort Worth and their surrounding communities have one thing in common, really cool cars, and Detective Nat Hallowed’s was no different except it was a truck with flashing lights on the roof and a four-foot suspension system. Now, I like the fact local law enforcement has these vehicles because it alleviated a problem which arose a few years back when young males ran from the police just to see if they could get away. In years past it was a real possibility. Now, unless you have access to a vehicle worth well over a hundred thousand dollars your chances of outracing Inspector Gadget are somewhat suspect.
“He’s here” said George.
“Let’s go meet him” said Trudy and reached for my hand but missed because what I saw couldn’t possibly be true.
“Johnny? Are you okay?”
“Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”
“Yes, now come and meet him?”
“But…”
“Don’t be rude, come along and say hi.”
The green alien with the long neck, big black eyes and bulbous head looked at me with what seemed as much puzzlement as I did upon him. He was about my height, my weight, and, well, I didn’t have any idea how old he was but he didn’t look wrinkly so I assumed he wasn’t ancient.
“Hello, Detective Hallowed” said George.
“Hello, George” said the green Martian.
“Detective” said Phillip with a nod of his head and a grin.
“Hello, Phillip” it replied.
“Nat!” screamed Vivian as she jumped into the Space Monster’s arms, giving and receiving a warm hug.
“Ah, Vivian, it’s lovely to see you again” the extraterrestrial intoned.
“Hi, Nat” said Trudy.
”Hi, Trudy” responded the overlord.
“Johnny, I want you to meet Detective Nat Hallowed. Nat, this is Johnny Johnson” said Vivian.
I didn’t have any idea what to do. He was dressed in a two piece suit, spit-shined shoes and wore a shoulder holster with gun visible because he’d left his jacket in the truck. He looked, in every way, like a police detective on any television crime-show except for the parts where he didn’t; those parts looked exactly like any movie poster advertising the invasion of space aliens.
“Hello, Mr. Johnson” he said politely.
“Hello, Detective Hallowed” I answered in what I’m proud to admit wasn’t a quivering falsetto.
“You’re a Cloak, are you not?”
“I guess so.”
“Fascinating.”
Yep, an alien from another planet was calling me fascinating. I was at a loss for words because what do you say when someone from outer space finds you fascinating; thanks?
“So, um, what are you?”
“I’m an alien.”
I had a bad feeling about what I was going to hear but I had to ask.
“I mean, what kind of alien?”
“An illegal one.”
Can you believe it? His first time meeting me and he’s cracking jokes.
“Oh.”
“I’m just playing with you, Johnny. I can call you Johnny, can’t I?” he replied.
“Sure.”
“Good, then you can call me Nat.”
“Okay, Nat.”
“Alright then, why am I here?”
Okay, this is why I was mentioning Texas lakes…
GOOD, BECAUSE I WAS WONDERING.
… you should try and stop, Big Boy, you’re not good at it. So anyway, Texas lakes are dirty because they have a silt bottom made of dirt and clay; both not known for their cleanliness qualities. Add the sediment from the levees and you get a sight factor of zero on the visual acuity scale. What this leads to is a temptation for the lazy and uninformed to use those wonders of water management as their own per
sonal dumping ground. Lose a wristwatch in a Texas lake, dive down to retrieve it and you can come up with a 1978 toaster oven or a 1980 Honda Civic or…
“Just dump them in the lake” the Alien said.
“That’s it?” asked Phillip.
“Sure, why not?” replied Nat.
“Because they’re someone’s family members” I replied and received an odd expression from everyone.
“Because one of them was employed by a company who knew he had an appointment with us” said George.
“So?” replied Nat.
“So? Won’t the police come investigating?” responded George.
“Oh sure, but not to investigate you. We’ll come by to see if the three missing gentlemen said anything about going somewhere together or if they seemed scared or anything else out of the ordinary. Why would we think a law abiding company would have anything to do with their disappearance? What would you gain by it?”
“Excuse me…?” I said.
“You don’t think they’ll ask to look around?” asked Vivian.
“Probably not but even if we do just take them to a different office, yours maybe, and describe some meeting you had which you’re still considering. Johnny, you’ve got the details on what you four were going to pitch, right?” inquired Nat.
“Yes, but earlier you said… ”
“So get Johnny to elaborate on the sales pitch and decide which one of you wants to play the role of Peter.”
“It’ll be that easy?” asked Trudy.
“Sure, why not? We don’t know what went on? We don’t know if the three were thinking about joining a cult? Maybe they got in the way of a gang hit? Maybe aliens abducted them? Who knows? People go missing all the time.”
“What happens if they find the bodies?” asked Trudy.
“Oh, we’ll find them. They’ll eventually dredge this portion of the lake, some fisherman will snag them or some other weird development will arise where they pop up for one reason or another. It won’t matter, though, because what will we have to go on? Some bullet fragments in their chests? Where’s it going to get us? The type of bullet and gun maybe but so what? I’m assuming the gun wasn’t Peter’s and she happened to see an opportunity to pick it up?”
“No it wasn’t Peter’s; she brought it with her?” said George.
“Excuse me!” I yelled.
“Yes, Johnny?” replied Nat.
“You said three gentlemen, not two.”
“Yes?”
“I thought we weren’t going to report Peter’s body?”
“We’re not.”
“Well then you’ve got two missing gentlemen and one missing lady. Melissa might’ve acted like a guy with the mass-murdering thing but she’s definitely a woman.”
“We’re not reporting her missing either.”
“Then you’ve only got two missing gentlemen.”
“Nope, still three.”
“Who’s the third? I didn’t see anyone else in the… wait a minute. Are you suggesting?”
“You need to go missing, Johnny” said Detective Nat Hallowed.
“Missing?”
“Yes, I think it’s the best way.”
“The best way for what?” I asked.
“The best way for you to stay alive” said George.
“What are you guys talking about?”
“We’re going to war, Johnny” said Phillip.
“War? With whom?”
“We don’t know?” said George.
“You don’t know? What does that mean?”
“It means another family has decided to stake a claim on our territory.”
“You don’t know which one?”
“No” replied George.
“How will my going missing help?”
“First, it’ll probably save your life. Whatever family Melissa belongs to knows you’re a Cloak and they aren’t going to be thrilled you fell into our hands. Melissa’s probably taking quite a bit of heat for not killing you when she couldn’t get you on the helicopter.”
“But she took a shot at me, barely missed too.”
“Yeah, I was wondering; how’d she miss you?” George asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Vampires don’t miss.”
“She was in a moving helicopter; maybe her aim got screwed up?”
“I doubt it.”
“What, is she some kind of sniper or something?”
“Sort of. Vampires have the same advanced Endocrine system as Werewolves which means she has the same enhanced hormones as us. Therefore she doesn’t get nervous or twitchy when a situation goes haywire which means from fifty feet away whether on a moving helicopter or stationary perch she can put a bullet center mass every single time.”
“So?”
“So I think she wanted you to stay alive. I think she wanted us to capture you because I think she’s playing both sides in this little war.”