Black Fall

by D.J. Bodden

CHAPTER 5

  One by one, all the Fangstons turned to look at him as the bus careened down the street, ignoring stoplights. They grinned, showed their fangs, and whispered to each other. Jonas tried to snap out of it but the more he struggled, the more tired and confused he felt.

  “Trust no one!” they all cried out at once, causing the sound to echo through Jonas’ head.

  “Not the wolf,” said one to his right.

  “Not the hunter,” said another.

  “Not the demon,” said the Fangston directly in front of him.

  Then one of them walked down the aisle and touched his shoulder.

  “Excuse me?” the Fangston said. Its voice was old, frail, and decidedly female.

  Jonas blinked. The Fangston morphed into a hunched old lady with a cloche hat and fingerless gloves. He’d learned about cloche hats in French class. The word meant “bell,” and they’d been popular in the 1920s and 1960s. Is this another dream? He pulled the ear bud out of his right ear and said, “Yes?”

  “Would you mind if I sat down?”

  A few of the other passengers stared and gave him disapproving looks, but were otherwise normal. No more Fangstons. “Of course not, sorry,” he said, standing up and moving out of her way.

  The bus driver sounded garbled over the intercom. “Fifty-Second Street!” he said.

  Jonas got off the bus and walked the remaining block to Marcus Fangston’s building.

  Finding the entrance wasn’t difficult. The two-foot-tall numbers over the lobby, that read 845, were a dead giveaway.

  For a moment, he stood there, looking around, frozen in place by indecision. The streets were filled with bumper-to-bumper traffic, the sidewalks choked with people. They were mostly corporate types in suits, carrying briefcases or shoulder bags. There were food carts, manned by locals who were often of Middle Eastern or Asian descent, and there were tourists of every shape, size, and color. They strolled along the walkways with their shopping bags, pausing now and then to gawk at the surrounding high-rises.

  Turning his attention back to the building, Jonas didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. It was of an average height for the area — 15 to 20 floors — and looked like several rectangular boxes of decreasing size stacked on top of each other. It was tan with a dark-gray border below the second floor, its front riddled with rectangular windows spaced less than a foot apart. Some of them had the blinds down, but the rest looked like normal offices.

  The bottom left of the building — the corner pointing north — was a bank, and the bottom right was a sports’ clothing store. This is… unexpectedly boring, he thought. He’d been hoping for one of New York’s gothic castles, a cathedral, or at least something with gargoyles on it, not a cubicle farm. Jonas could see the lobby through a large pane of glass, flanked by two revolving doors. He pushed his way through the one on the left.

  It was a nice lobby. The walls were faced in marble — white on the far wall, brown to the left and right, dark gray on the floor — and there were three black stone bowls filled with little red flowers and two black marble pillars between the two entrances. There were two corridors, also faced in marble, branching off from the rear left and right corners of the room.

  “Can I help you?” said the man behind the security desk. He was one of the many blazer-wearing, exceedingly polite men who guarded the lobbies of New York’s buildings. He was older and smaller than most of the guards Jonas had seen, either past his prime or, more likely, the security chief. Either way, he had a friendly look to him.

  “I’m here to meet Marcus Fangston?” Jonas answered. He dug the card out of his pocket and showed it to the guard, who nodded.

  “Follow me, please.” The guard stepped out from behind the desk and Jonas followed him to the right corridor where a younger guard was standing. “Mind the desk, would you Jimmy?” said the older man. “Need to take this one downstairs.”

  “You got it, boss.”

  And the winner is: security chief.

  In the elevator, the guard turned to him and said, “I’m Jared, by the way.”

  Jonas shook the proffered hand and said, “Jonas Black.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Jonas. Have you used one of these before?”

  An elevator? Jonas thought, looking at the control panel. Twenty-one floors, one basement; looks pretty straightforward. Jared had told the other guard they were going downstairs, so he pushed the “B” button.

  “I’m going to take that as a no, then,” Jared said, giving Jonas a smile that looked friendly but felt condescending.

  The elevator slid down a floor and the doors opened, but Jared made no attempt to get out.

  Jonas sighed. “Okay. No, I guess I've never used an elevator like this one before.”

  Jared beamed. “That’s a good lad. Approach everything like it’s the first time and you’ll live much longer.”

  Jared stared at the control panel. No buttons lit up, but after a few moments, the doors slid shut and the elevator started moving downward again.

  “It senses thoughts,” Jared said, tapping the control panel. “If you've been to one of the special floors and you can picture it clearly enough in your mind, it’ll take you there.”

  He’s messing with me. A machine can’t do that. Then he remembered the business card in his pocket. If a piece of card-stock could sense his thoughts, why couldn’t an elevator?

  Jared gave him a wink. “It’ll make more sense once you’ve used it a few times. Just make sure you remember what the lobby looks like.”

  “The one upstairs?” Jonas asked.

  “No, you can just push the button for that. This lobby.”

  The doors slid open and the old man smiled, making a shooing motion with both hands. Jonas stepped out.

  “One last thing, Jonas,” Jared said. “No matter what she tells you, Doris is never to leave the lobby… under any circumstances.”

  “Okay,” Jonas said, as the elevator doors slid shut. But who’s Doris?

  The underground lobby had a light gray marble floor, smooth plaster walls the color of mocha, and a curved ceiling that sported two golden chandeliers. He was disappointed to see the chandeliers held light bulbs, not candles, and there were comfortable chairs and lamps set on small end tables that gave the fifteen-foot long space a light airy feel. A wide, solid oak reception desk stood at the far end, with a woman sitting behind it. She looked up, and he could tell she was speaking, but all he heard was “Aaayyy iiiii ehhh ppppooooo?” Her voice had an odd hiss and gurgle to it, like she was inhaling when she spoke.

  “Excuse me?” Jonas said.

  The woman waved him over; the gesture wasn't quite right — her hand flopped loosely from her wrist — but Jonas got the idea and walked toward the desk. As he got closer, he saw she was wearing a blonde wig, which sat crookedly on top of her head. Her skin was ash gray, and she was missing some around her cheeks, mouth, and the bottom of her nose.

  “You’re a zombie!” Jonas said, taking a step back.

  The receptionist rolled her bloodshot eyes at him. She plugged the hole in her throat with her wrist, hand still dangling, and said, “I eh, ay I eh ooh,” gesturing with her free hand.

  “Are you saying you can help me?” Jonas asked, trying not to stare too obviously at… any of her.

  “Esh!” she said, followed by a string of gurgles and hisses Jonas thought was probably cursing. “I ee aaah ooo aah.”

  She opened her mouth wide, and Jonas saw she had mismatched teeth of different materials, shapes, and sizes, and no tongue.

  “You need a new tongue?”

  The receptionist crossed her arms and nodded. The wig shifted forward a little, and she pushed it back.

  “I’m here to see Marcus Fangston,” Jonas said.

  “Aym?”

  “Jonas Black.”

  “Ohash ah? Ah ih, ahish ah?” She pointed to one of her canines.

  “Yes, as in Alice Black.”

  She looked startled, the
n raised the index finger of her left hand, which appeared to function just fine, and said, “Ah, oh ay.”

  She punched a number into her desk phone and put it on speaker. “Ishah ahoh? Ohash ah ish ee-eh ooh-eeh-ooh.” She spoke faster to Fangston, who must have been used to hearing her moan.

  “I’m sorry, Doris, but I’m occupied at the moment. Tell him I’ll send someone to show him around.” He hung up.

  Doris looked at him and started to speak, but Jonas said, “It’s okay, Doris, I heard. I’ll just take a seat over there.”

  “Ah ooh,” she said, smiling. The flaps of skin on her cheeks lifted well clear of her gums and teeth… not a pretty sight.

  “You’re welcome,” Jonas answered, doing his best to smile in return.

  ♟

  After two minutes of listening to Doris hiss, gurgle, and drip, Jonas put his ear buds in. As a child, his mother had been strongly opposed to him making “mouth noises” while eating and, as a result, he found them maddening. Doris didn’t seem to mind. Four songs later, a girl about his age walked into the lobby carrying a covered plate. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater and looked fairly normal, except that her shoulder-length hair looked like it was made of polished copper, and her skin like porcelain. When her eyes met his, he felt a pleasant warmth inside. She was slender — taller than Amelia, but smaller in the chest and hips — and moved with the effortless grace he was used to seeing in his mother. Just a little too perfect, Jonas thought, recalling the glamour his mother told him about. He tried to ignore it.

  “Hi, Doris. I brought you a plate from the cafeteria.”

  Doris gave the girl an intense look.

  “Yes, sheep brains today,” she said, removing the cover from the plate and showing Doris the contents, before setting it down. It looked like gray scrambled eggs.

  The receptionist looked at her again.

  “You’re welcome, Doris.”

  Then, turning to Jonas, she said, “I’m Eve. I’ll be showing you around.”

  He pulled his ear buds out. “I’m Jonas.” Then, nodding toward Doris, he added, “Was that some kind of sign language you were using?”

  Her eyebrows pulled together. “You can’t hear her? When were you turned?”

  Jonas felt like the stupid kid in class. “I wasn’t. I was born a vampire.”

  “Don’t be stupid, vampires can’t… wait, you’re Alice Black’s kid, aren’t you?”

  She stared at him open-mouthed, and he thought her fangs looked a little longer than normal. She must have read his mind, because she covered her mouth with her hand and turned away. “Sorry, still learning.”

  “Learning what? And can all vampires read minds?”

  “Yes. No. I didn’t — I mean, I can’t yet, but I will, I just — I saw you staring at my teeth. We’re supposed to keep our mouths shut so humans won’t notice if we accidentally extend them.”

  Dad never smiled, Jonas thought. “If you can’t read minds, and it wasn’t sign language—”

  “Zombies are emitters and passive receivers. Sometimes they don’t have all the necessary parts for speech or hearing, so they communicate telepathically with each other. That’s why they all move in the same direction, and the ones without eyes, ears, or noses can still get you.”

  “Eh!” said Doris.

  “Sorry, Doris.” She turned back to Jonas. “That’s just the feral ones. Doris would never bite someone, not as long as we feed her and keep her up in spare parts, and she’s not really a zombie anyway.”

  Jonas just stared at her, still trying to process the information she’d just thrown at him.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I live here; don’t get to talk to many people my age.”

  “That’s okay. So… How did you get turned?”

  Eve sighed and looked at Doris. “And he picks the one thing I don’t want to talk about. Well, come on. Let’s get the tour over with so you don’t keep the Director waiting.”

  ♟

  “These are the sparring rooms,” Eve said.

  The part of the facility they were in looked more like what Jonas had imagined when he pictured a secret society of vampires, werewolves, and who knew what else, living under East Midtown. It looked like an underground military base, with thick, sliding doors that opened and shut with a hiss, and steel walls with metal plates that were covered in glowing runes. He guessed they were spells of some kind.

  The sparring rooms took up the entire left side of the main corridor. Each of them was about the size of a basketball court, observable through thick glass that made them look like zoo exhibits. Inside, they varied. Some were padded all over, some just on the walls, and some were bare, the rune-etched metal covered in scratches and scorch marks. He saw weightlifting gear, padded armor, and an array of practice swords, staves, and other weapons he couldn’t name but looked functional. Seeing the arsenal spoke to something primal within him, the same part that was fascinated by fire, and made his heart beat a little faster.

  She showed him the rest of the level: living quarters, storage rooms, an armory for the real weapons, and finally the cafeteria.

  “You said you live here?” Jonas asked. The living quarters had been somewhat bare: a bunk with generic bedding, a gray chest of drawers, and a sink. It reminded him of a prison cell.

  “I live on a different floor. The rooms on this level are for students and transients who just need to spend a day or two indoors. I’d go watch the sunrise before living in there.”

  “Huh?”

  “Poof,” she said, spreading her fingers. “I guess you don’t have that problem, though.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  She gave him a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  I’m an idiot, Jonas thought. “Sorry. Of course you miss it.”

  “That’s okay… it’s still a little raw for me.”

  “How long’s it been?”

  “About a year. At least I didn’t end up cut open on a coroner’s slab; Agency got to me first.”

  Jonas swallowed. He hadn’t thought about what modern embalming practices would do to someone if they weren’t dead.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “this is the cafeteria. Different lines for different supernaturals.”

  “Supernaturals?”

  “Anything with self-awareness that isn’t a standard human, and a few exceptions that are more like forces of nature than thinking beings,” she answered in a tone that Jonas took to mean she’d memorized it from somewhere.

  There was a line for werewolves, with different weights of meat based on pack and Agency status written on the board next to it, and a line that served standard human fare. The board next to the zombie line had “Brains” written on it permanently, with hooks for a placard above it. Today’s placard read, “Sheep.”

  “Where’s the vampire line?”

  Eve opened a refrigerator with a glass door and tossed him an aluminum packet. He caught it awkwardly. It was cold, and looked like a juice pouch, with a straw and a little red tag at the top.

  “Pull the tag,” she said.

  He gave it a tug, and the pouch heated up in his hands. It was warm and somewhat soothing.

  “Ninety-eight-point-six degrees Fahrenheit,” Eve said.

  “Human body temperature, right?”

  “Yep.”

  She looked at him expectantly, but he tossed the pouch back to her. “I’m still on solids,” he said.

  “Suit yourself.” She shrugged, poked the straw through the top of the pouch, and started sipping.

  He watched her drink, half fascinated, half revolted. “That doesn’t bother you?”

  “Nope,” she said between sips. She sucked the package flat, and then tossed it into the aluminum-recycling bin. “Have you ever had a drink of cold water on a hot day?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, it’s kind of like that.”

  “Do all vampires drink from pouches these days?”

  “No, some of
the older vampires will only drink from thralls — that’s a human who chooses to be an open bar. They get off on it, or something. Then there are rogue vampires who still only take theirs from prey. The Agency ends up having to hunt them down because they kill someone… like me,” she said, her eyes tearing up a little.

  “I’m sorry,” Jonas said.

  “It’s okay. I watched him get a tan. They strapped him to the roof and showed me the tape. It’s just… I had plans, you know? A life?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

  “What are you talking about?” Anger flashed across her face.

  “I didn’t mean…” Jonas felt pressure in his mind, and the room darkened.

  “That psycho pulled me out of a movie theater and drained me in the parking lot! You’re Alice Black’s kid! You’re vampire royalty, Jonas. And you’ve had what, fifteen years to prepare?”

  He could see her teeth outlined behind her lips, and had a sudden mental flash of her biting into his neck. “Look, I didn’t mean to upset you, and actually, I’m sixteen,” he said, embarrassed that she’d thought he was younger. “I found out yesterday.”

  “But you’re—”

  “They didn’t tell me,” he said.

  The pressure in his head subsided, and the lights returned to normal. Eve bit her bottom lip and looked at the floor. “Sorry,” she said. “You’re handling it much better than I did.”

  Jonas was silent for a moment, still pondering the mental can opener that Eve had almost taken to his brain, or at least that’s what it felt like. “I’m sorry too,” Jonas said, swallowing. He pointed to his head. “Was that you?”

  “Yeah… sometimes the vampire thing is great, and sometimes it’s like PMSing twenty-four hours a day, you know?”

  He pictured his mother practically lunging at Fangston after the attack. “Yeah, I think I do.”

  They walked back to the elevator and she took him down to the next level. The first room was pretty generic — square with gray steel walls and a single exit — except for a coffee table in the center. On the coffee table was a silver tray that held a green apple, some purple grapes, and an orange. Jonas picked up the orange. It was plastic.

  “Make sure you put that back exactly where you found it,” Eve said.

  He put it back, wondering if he’d done something wrong.

  “It’s how the elevator works, remember? This level’s—”

  “Green apple, purple grapes, orange orange. Got it.”

  She stopped and looked at him. Not only was she not impressed, she didn’t even look friendly. “Look, I get it. You’re smart. But don’t act like you know everything right away, okay?”

  Jonas felt flustered. “I don’t know—”

  “No, you don’t. You’re being stupid. You’re trying to act like you’re comfortable with all this and you shouldn’t be. If you act like that around one of the instructors, they’ll punish you for it. They won’t make it obvious, but it’ll hurt. And if that doesn’t work, they’ll chain you to the roof.”

  “That won’t—”

  “They’ll kill you, Jonas! I’m assuming you still bleed, or burn, or whatever it takes to do you in, and they’ll do it. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because people who think they know everything kill sixteen-year-old girls in movie theater parking lots.” She paused and wiped a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. “Which means journalists, grieving parents, friends, and sometimes hunters asking questions. It also means sending cleanup crews and enforcers. And that means the Agency has to apologize to the human government, and Fangston hates apologizing, because it usually means doing more of their dirty work for free.”

  He thought back to Jared, the security guard. Approach everything like it’s the first time and you’ll live much longer. “I’m sorry. What should I remember?”

  She looked at him for a few seconds.

  Reading my emotions to see if I’m lying, Jonas thought.

  “You’ve seen two tables, and they both have silver trays, apples, grapes, and oranges. This one is plywood with veneers glued to it, and it has five legs,” she said.

  Jonas eyes widened as he looked at the table. “I completely overlooked the fifth leg. So… what happens if you think of a cherry wood table with four legs, or you try to mix and match the fruit?”

  “Don’t know. Nothing… if you’re lucky.”

  The hollow feeling in his gut told him he’d have to be very lucky for it to be nothing. “Anything else I should know?”

  “That’s it for now,” she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes again. “But keep asking questions, especially with Fangston and the instructors. They’ll let you know when to shut up. And always listen, even if it’s something you’ve heard before. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll hear something you already knew, but maybe told a different way.”

  Jonas nodded. After a few moments of silence, he asked, “Where is everyone, anyway?”

  “They’ll filter in once the sun sets,” she said.

  “Right… and you’re up because…”

  Eve gave him the smile, once again, that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  They woke her up. “Thank you,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.” This time the smile was real. “The Director’s office is on the right. Good luck, Jonas.”