Glimpse

by Jonathan Maberry

  “I asked Monk about that. He said—”

  “Right. Keep making random turns until I get lost. Wow. Nothing like laser-precision guidance.”

  “What was your plan, then?”

  Sticks mumbled something.

  “What was that?” asked Rain.

  “Keep making random turns,” he said but only a fraction louder.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  They drove.

  Rain tried not to look at street signs, afraid that if she marked her location in her mind, it would prevent them from getting lost, and she thought getting lost was the only way they would find where they were going. Once she saw a figure standing in the doorway of a closed-down fabric store. Small, too thin, with a scuffle of brown hair whipped by the wind. She scrambled to put her glasses on and to try to look out of the corner of the cracked lens, but by the time she managed it, they were too far down the street.

  “Go around the block!” she cried. “I think I saw—”

  And a huge green-and-orange recyclables truck came barreling through a red light and smashed into the side of the Red Rocket. Rain had a brief flash image of the driver flailing his arms at the storm of ragged black birds filling his cab.

  Then she was smashed out of the world.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  Dr. Jonatha Corbiel worked for the University of Pennsylvania as a professor in the folklore department. She was the author of more than forty nonfiction books, most of which dealt with myths, legends, cultural beliefs, and religious accounts of the supernatural. She was a very popular talking head on the History Channel and National Geographic for shows dealing with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, demons, faeries, and other creatures belonging to what she called the Larger World.

  Monk Addison knew her as a drinking buddy from before his time in the military. They’d dated once upon a time, and it got heated for a while, but then it became clear to both that they were friends making love rather than lovers making love. They fell out of touch when he fell off the world, and when he’d come back to the world and looked her up, Monk learned that she was married, a mother, and a celebrity, at least as far as a folklorist will ever be.

  She was one of the handful of people who knew about Monk. His “condition,” as she called it, fascinated her, but so far, she hadn’t found a corollary in folklore. Certainly not in medicine. It was not unusual for Monk to call her with challenging problems. If the matter was ordinary—in terms of what they both considered ordinary—he would handle it himself, because Monk understood a lot about the Larger World. It was his world, after all.

  She was in her office grading papers from one of her graduate programs when he called.

  “You alone?” he asked. He was in the back booth of Eve’s, and there was no one within earshot. His heavy .45 Navy Colt automatic was under his hoodie, cold against belly flesh, the magazine loaded with hollow points. Two spares were in his left front pocket. He had a fighting knife in a belt holster and a silver strangle wire threaded through his belt loops. Both weapons had been dipped in holy water he’d obtained from a priest who drank at the same bar Monk did. He wore a Hamsa hand on a chain around his neck and had a pair of brass knuckles in his back pocket that had a crucifix, an evil eye, a lotus flower, and an upright pentacle welded to the front. He was taking no chances.

  “Yes,” said Corbiel. “And hello to you, too. I’m fine, thanks for asking.”

  “Sorry,” said Monk, “it’s not a social call, and I got a feeling there’s a clock ticking on this.”

  “How much time is left on that clock?”

  “Hell if I know. Could be years; could be five minutes. I really don’t know, and that’s part of the problem. I got something that’s totally outside of anything I know or anything I’ve been within pissing distance of, but people are getting hurt. Couple of people are dead, there’s a kid that’s maybe in real trouble, and whatever’s going on, I think it’s about to break bad.”

  “Well, then,” she said, sounding calm, but he knew she was faking it. “You’d better tell me.”

  He told her. When he was done, there was a pregnant silence. Monk finally broke it with a simple, hard question. “This Doctor Nine … what is he?”

  “Well,” said Dr. Corbiel, “he’s not human.”

  “Oh, gosh, thanks a lot, Jonatha. That explains everything. So glad I called you for your expert opinion.”

  “First off, don’t be a smart-ass,” she said. “I’m trying to answer your question, but we have to be structured in our thinking. The last thing you ever want to do in these matters is be imprecise.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. Go ahead. I’ll zip it.” He waved at the waitress to bring him fresh coffee.

  Jonatha cleared her throat. “In the movies, there is a pretty obvious difference between the various kinds of monsters. A werewolf is a werewolf, a demon is a demon. That’s pop culture. In folklore and in religious beliefs around the world, the lines are much less clear. In fact, it’s more common for supernatural beings to possess elements and aspects of more than one. There are ghosts who are also vampires, demons who shape-shift like werewolves, vampires who are also witches. Thousands of variations throughout the world and back through history.”

  “Swell.”

  “I’ll give you some examples,” she said, clearly excited by her topic. “The soucouyant is a skin-shedding vampire from Dominica in the Lesser Antilles. As the sun goes down, the soucouyant shucks her disguise—that of a helpless old woman—and rises into the air as a ball of fire that swoops down on the unsuspecting, knocking them to the ground and feeding on their blood. Sunlight doesn’t kill her but makes her need to put her skin back on. However, if someone grinds coarse salt into her skin, she won’t be able to put it back on and will ultimately starve and die.”

  “That’s a vampire?”

  “It’s one kind. There are hundreds of them, and they’re all different. Actually, the closest vampire to the Hollywood version of Dracula is the jiangshi of China, but most vampires are really exotic. The word vampire is imprecise. The tlahuelpuchi is an Aztec vampire that attacks infants and young children for their blood. This vampire is a shape-shifter that can become a cat, dog, bird, but their preferred shape is a turkey. Birds are the most common.”

  Monk thought about the flocks of ugly black birds he’d been seeing lately and asked about them.

  “Sure,” said Jonatha, “if they’re supernatural birds, then they could be nightbirds. They’re a kind of familiar, but not true animal familiars. The nightbirds are embodiments of corrupt people, lost souls. They are usually in the service of a greater power.”

  “Like Doctor Nine?”

  “Maybe. If so, they are his eyes and ears. They aren’t real birds, though. Their bodies are composed of dust and rot and shadows.”

  “Jesus, Jonatha.”

  “You asked.”

  “How do I fight these things? A hammer and stake?”

  “You watch too many movies.” She took a breath. “Look, your thinking is polluted by pop culture. Just say this is a vampire we’re talking about, okay? Sake of argument. How would you kill it?”

  “Well, offhand,” said Monk, “a cross, sunlight, and mirrors. Oh, and they can’t come in unless you invite them, right?”

  “Fine, so if this was one of the more than ninety different kinds of European vampires, you’d be dead.”

  “Why?”

  “First,” she said briskly, “it’s a crucifix, not a cross. Catholic iconography is in play in the novel Dracula, which is where the cross was first introduced, and it’s there because the author, Bram Stoker, was Irish Catholic. The crucifix is the ultimate symbol of religious purity because Christ died to wipe away the sins of the world. His sacrifice proved also that he was sinless, or above sin. Stoker implied that this level of purity would be anathema to anything evil, because evil is representative of a stained and impure soul. The cross, on the other hand, is more often used by Protestant churches to s
ymbolize the resurrection. However, neither the crucifix nor the cross was ever used to stave off a vampire. Not in folklore, anyway. There are plenty of vampires who were believed to rise from graves or crypts in churchyards, which by their nature imply sanctified ground. Stoker put holy objects in his story because he was tapping into his personal beliefs in order to amplify the backstory of a novel.”

  Monk touched the shape of his brass knuckles in his pocket, tracing the outline of the crucifix. “What about sunlight? That turns vampires to dust.”

  “In the movies. Dracula actually walked around in daylight in the novel,” said Corbiel with a laugh. “Sunlight became part of the vampire pop culture mythology after the silent film Nosferatu. Now people think it’s always been there. Stakes, too. Stakes were never used to kill vampires. They were like spears used to hold a vampire down so that the head could be cut off as part of the ritual of exorcism.”

  “Well … shit.”

  “My point is that if this Doctor Nine or his nurse are really vampires and you armed yourself with crosses, stakes, and a flashlight with a UV bulb, you wouldn’t have a chance. It would be like fighting a fire by eating a bowl of chicken soup. The cure has nothing to do with the problem.”

  Monk fished for his cigarettes, glared at the No Smoking sign nailed to the wall, cursed, put the smokes away, and sat there fuming. “Shit,” he said.

  “That’s all going on the assumption that we’re dealing with vampires,” said Corbiel, “and I don’t think it’s as simple as that.”

  “Fighting vampires would be simpler?”

  “Figure of speech,” she amended. “What I mean is that each of these monsters has very specific powers and very specific limitations. Fight one the wrong way and you die. Underestimate them and you die. Take the wrong precautions and—”

  “I die. Got it. Lots of variations have me being dead. Tell me something that keeps me and Rain Thomas alive.”

  He could hear her drumming her fingers on a wooden desk or tabletop. She did it very slow, one finger at a time. He imagined her doing it. Jonatha was six feet tall, very pretty, very dark skinned, devastatingly intelligent, and extremely married. Her husband was a short, dumpy little writer who’d had a string of bestselling novels, several of which had been made into box office smash films. He wrote about vampires and other monsters, too, but unlike Jonatha, her husband made everything up.

  Or, at least, that’s what he said in the press. Monk had his doubts.

  “Monk,” she said, “I want you to go through it all again. Every detail. Everything you know, everything Ms. Thomas told you, everything you can remember. Give me your thoughts and guesses, too.”

  “There’s a lot, and I’m not allowed to smoke where I’m sitting.”

  “Good. Those things will kill you.”

  Monk gave a single, sharp, harsh laugh. “Not sure I’m going to live long enough to die of cancer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY

  Alyson Creighton-Thomas made herself get up from the couch and go into the bathroom. The floor tilted under her with every step, and when she reached for the doorknob, it pulled away. She stumbled, tried to catch herself, hit the door, and fell through because it wasn’t closed all the way. She struck her cheek on the closed lid of the toilet and landed hard on the cold tiles.

  She sagged down, hurt but not damaged, embarrassed in her own eyes because there was no one else to stare in disapproval. Standing up seemed like too much work and required more engineering skills than she currently had.

  So she sat up, turned slowly and awkwardly until her back was against the cabinet under the sink, and then smoothed down her robe and silk pajamas, tucking her legs modestly beneath her.

  The apartment was big and cool and white and silent.

  Alyson fished in her pocket for the folded letter that she had been carrying around for days now. It was there, folded into a neat, precise square, and she opened it to read for the hundredth time the summary of the months-long surveillance report that had cost her many thousands of dollars. There was a longer and more detailed version of the report on her desk. Two hundred and eighteen pages of it, including photos.

  Lorraine looking like a starved street person.

  Lorraine coming out of some man’s apartment in the middle of the night.

  Lorraine telling god-awful stories in front of a bunch of complete losers.

  Lorraine sitting in diners with junkies and homosexuals.

  Lorraine spending her money on junk food, because junkies always craved sweets.

  Lorraine showing up a day late for a simple job interview.

  Lorraine falling further down. Sliding down. Plummeting.

  Lorraine being Lorraine.

  Lorraine.

  Alyson wished that she could cry, but she wasn’t sure who the tears would be for. That was a moment of clarity that made her ache for the vodka that was sitting cold and delicious and welcoming back in the living room. It was the kind of awareness that made her very angry. It was the kind of introspection that she had tried hard to excise from her life. It was vulgar and obvious.

  She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she was back on the couch. Her robe and pajamas were stained and they smelled, but Alyson did not choose to pay attention to that.

  The vodka was there. And the lovely pills. And the video.

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE

  When Monk had gone over it all again, Jonatha said, “The Shadow People…”

  Leaving it there, letting it hang.

  “What about them?” demanded Monk. “Talk. If you know something, Jonatha, you have to tell me right damn now. Are they real?”

  “Yes,” she said, “I think they are.”

  The storm was getting bigger, wetter, louder. Monk thought of Rain somewhere out there in all of that, and it scared the hell out of him. He signaled the waitress for his check. “Then what are they?” he asked Jonatha. “Are they some kind of demons?”

  “If they’re anything, Monk,” said Corbiel, “they’re closer to vampires, but not really that, either. They’re a kind of predatory spirit called an essential vampire. They don’t feed on blood, and some of them don’t have actual physical bodies. They’re a presence. In a lot of cultures, vampires are closer to ghosts than what you see in Dracula movies. You’ve heard the word nosferatu? You know what it means?”

  “Sure, undead.”

  “No. That’s a mistranslation used in pop culture,” she said. “Nosferatu means ‘plague carrier.’ They are spirits of disease and pestilence. The Shadow People are like that, except that they feed on things like life energy or psychic energy. Modern vampire cults talk a lot about psi-vampires, but they think it’s a lifestyle choice. The Shadow People are real, and no one in their right mind would choose to invite them in. There are some that feed on dreams, others that consume sexual energy—”

  “Like a succubus?” said Monk. “And what’s the male version? The incubus?”

  “Yes. They’re more common. But there is another kind, a much more dangerous kind that feeds on subtler emotions, like pity, self-confidence, optimism, and, most of all, hope.”

  “Hope? Why that most of all?”

  “Why not? Think about it, Monk,” said Corbiel. “Imagine being crushed down by sickness, or debt, or heartbreak, or even injury in battle and then losing all hope. It’s unbearable. As long as you have hope, you have some measure of courage and strength. You’ll try to survive. You may sacrifice yourself for someone else. You will move mountains. But without hope, there’s no optimism. Hopelessness is what fuels the blackest kinds of depression. Without hope, when it’s running low or run out, you have no imagination.”

  “Can’t be. There’s a million tortured artists out there and—”

  “And they still have hope. They’re heartbroken, but heartbreak by itself is self-indulgent. It’s mired in injury to the self, but it isn’t the absence of self-love. A tortured artist longs to be in love again or to reclaim a lost love. If hope dies, t
ruly dies, they don’t care about art, or love, or anything. Their emotional batteries are dry, dead.”

  “How’s a dead battery feed a vampire?”

  “It doesn’t. It’s that last tiny drop of hope that excites them. It’s like a super distillation of all the life’s energies, all the juices boiled down to a tiny drop. It’s sweet and subtle, and it is so precious because once it is consumed, the victim is like a zombie. Not a flesh-eating type but genuinely dead inside in every way that defines us as human. They are like living examples of entropy, winding down to total spiritual inertia.”

  Monk touched the Hamsa hand he wore. “God Almighty. Do you think that’s what these Shadow People are?”

  “I think that’s what Doctor Nine may be. He seems to be pushing everyone in the direction of whatever’s going to ruin their lives and push them over the brink. He’ll feed on that last bit of hope before it winks out.”

  “Christ,” said Monk and realized the waitress was right there. He shook his head, took the check, dropped too much money on it, and got up and headed for the door.

  “Doctor Nine is preying on recovering addicts who, according to what your friend told you, are all losing their battles with sobriety. He’s inside their dreams, nudging them toward the kinds of decisions that will weaken their resolve. Maybe each of them is on that critical last rung. One push and they’ll fall for good this time. Who knows, maybe that’s what drew them together as friends in the first place. They recognized some kind of spiritual kinship in each other. It’s sad, but it fits. And maybe Rain would be Doctor Nine’s most treasured victim. She gave up her son. She believes herself to be responsible for ruining her own mother’s life. She’s lost the love of her life. She can’t follow her own dreams of being a dancer. Monk, when she told you about her life and you told me, it’s pretty clear that she’s dancing right at the edge of a long drop. She’s dancing right toward Doctor Nine.”