by C. J. Pinard
Her hair looked wild and barely combed but her lips and eyes were smeared with some kind of makeup. She looked like she belonged in an Eighties rock video.
“Fuck me,” I breathed.
“Yeah, you are fucked,” Kovah said, chuckling. He downed the rest of his beer and stood to walk out. “Gotta get home to the missus.”
I glared at his retreating figure, and when I turned to look at my other four lieutenants, they darted their gaze around the bar, anywhere but at my woman.
My fucking woman. Mine.
Chapter 22
Nostalgia’s A Bitch
Somewhere in the U.S. – 1992
Pensacola had been nice, but it was time to go. I worked another three weeks at the Thirsty Parrot and gave my two weeks’ notice. Brian and I were cordial enough at work, but we mostly avoided each other. I didn’t question or even want to know how he was keeping himself fed. The guilt over killing those two innocent humans would probably haunt me for the rest of my life.
Sure, I was guilty of luring a human into the alley behind the bar and feeding on them after using that hypnotism thing, but they didn’t die and had no memory as to what had happened. Maybe they grew a little anemic after the encounter. So what? At least they were still alive and there was no body to dispose of. I honestly slept better most days knowing I wasn’t a murdering asshole like Brian and Stan were.
Just like Tampa, I left the furniture in my apartment and took off. At least this time, I was able to collect my final paycheck, a nice letter of reference, and my last month’s deposit from the house I’d rented. I cashed both checks at a local check-cashing place and hopped on my bike to yet another unknown location.
It killed me to head north but I knew I had to. I needed the beach in my life, but I also needed to lay low for a while. Even though it had been over four years, the thought of Dick’s goons finding me again still lingered in the back of my mind. That being said, I also knew that heading back to California was a bad idea. Who knew if that Agnes witch was still around. Plus, it was getting increasingly more expensive to live there, and judging by the face in the mirror, I wasn’t going to be aging. Another fact that had astonished me. I wasn’t sure why that surprised me, as I’d seen plenty of vampire movies, but it just did. Agnes nor Brian never mentioned it. I knew that five years didn’t make much of a difference as far as getting older, but at this point, I should be pushing thirty-five. I’d heard thirty-five was when shit started to go downhill with the gray hair and wrinkles, but I had none of that. I recalled my dad days before his death. He’d been in his early fifties with a solid head of gray hair and fine lines everywhere. I was just a kid when he was in his thirties and don’t remember much except boating trips and vacations. However, I knew at thirty-five I should start to look like I was aging. But I wasn’t. The money they’d left me still sat in a bank account, untouched. I often used the local bank’s new ATM machine to check the balance but had been too scared to withdrawal any of it for fear of being found out. I assumed I was still considered “missing” and figured this would alert anyone to my existence.
Then, one day, I realized that I had to do something. I couldn’t let millions of dollars sit there untouched, afraid it would be considered “unclaimed.” So, one day, I decided to take a chance. Before leaving Pensacola, I went to a branch of that very bank and withdrew every last cent. The cashier’s check currently sat inside my underwear, as I was too paranoid to even put it into the backpack that was slung over my back as I raced up the I-65 North on my motorcycle.
I’d had to stop once to hole up in a motel room for the day on my way, but I eventually reached Muskegon, Michigan. Quaint little town perched on the edge of Lake Michigan. I knew the winters would suck, but I had to get away from the South for a while. As much as I had previously longed to be near my kind, this time I prayed to whoever was listening that I wouldn’t run into any other vampires. I just wanted to live my life and be left the fuck alone.
I checked into the first motel I could find and slept the day away there until sunset came. Then, I hit the town hard, going into every local bar and restaurant I came across, looking for work, when I got hired on the spot at a popular bar perched right on the edge of Lake Michigan called Clipper’s. The boat-themed bar was a bit cheesy, but I didn’t give a shit. I paid for a week in advance at the motel and started work the very next night.
Unfortunately for me, the fucking place was crawling with the supernatural. Looked like my plan of leaving the South because of vampire problems had backfired.
“Hook me up, dude,” a guy—a vamp—said to me as he ordered six beers for him and his vampire friends.
“No,” I said. “I’d like to keep my job, so just pay for the drinks. It’s happy hour, they’re only two bucks a pop, man.” I folded my arms across my chest.
The vampire’s face turned angry, and he looked around the bar before hissing at me. “I don’t give a shit how much they cost. We look out for each other. You feel me?”
I took in his cheap jeans and tee and got a whiff of his even cheaper cologne and said, “Pay for the drinks or leave. I don’t fucking care. It’s on you.”
Another patron called my attention to the end of the bar, so I looked at the guy questioningly before he plunked a twenty on the bar and walked off with the tray of beers. I, of course, pocketed the change for my troubles.
After fulfilling all the drink orders, I turned to my coworker Crystal, a female vampire, and asked, “Are there always so many damn vamps in this place?”
She used a rag to clean out the glasses before placing them facedown on the rubber mat behind us. With a shrug, she said, “Don’t know, haven’t been here long myself.”
“Me either,” I muttered. “I was just trying to get away from the supernatural.”
Crystal set the last glass on the mat and slung the towel over her slim shoulder. Hands now on the hips of her tiny waist, she said, “You can’t get away from them or run from them. They’re everywhere.”
“So I’ve noticed,” I murmured under my breath. “Last place, down in Florida, they were a bunch of sadistic murderers. I’m sorry, but I’m not gonna go around killing humans to feed. I do not have time to be cleaning up that shit.”
She nodded in agreement and grinned at me. “Me either. I have no problems feeding, though. Men are like putty in my hands.” She wiggled her fingers for effect with an eyebrow waggle.
“I bet,” I said dryly. Crystal was extremely attractive, and I had no doubt she could get any guy she wanted.
She grinned at me with a wink and wandered into the back room.
I took more orders, and the night went by fast. I hollered “last call” before I closed and locked the door. A quick sweep and mop, and liquor bottle inventory, and I would be free for the rest of the night.
I used the measuring tape to calculate the amount of vodka left in the large bottle of Smirnoff when I felt two arms wrap around my waist. I dropped the measuring tape and twirled around to find Crystal staring up at me.
“What… what are you doing?” I asked. Stupid-ass rhetorical question.
“Come home with me,” she whispered up at me.
I swallowed hard, and my cock thought it was a good time to also wake up. Seeing the desire in her eyes, I licked my lips and said, “Okay.”
God, I was so lame.
I did the inventory in double-time just to get the hell out of there. I was horny as fuck since I hadn’t gotten any in months and I had no shame in admitting that.
Taking off on my bike, I followed Crystal’s car back to her place. Our clothes came off in record speed, and we fucked hard, fast, and in multiple positions, until the sun came up. I had never had sex with a vampire before, but it was nothing like I’d ever experienced. Most of my lays over the past five years as a vampire had been with humans and I’d had to resist the urge to bite them while we screwed for fear of them freaking out on me.
But no… not with this one. By the time morning came, the sheets
were so bloody and sticky with our fluids, I thought she’d need to buy a new mattress afterward. With a belly full of her blood, and my dick screaming in protest of any more sex, I fell asleep with her tiny body on top of me. I slept better than I’d had in years.
This went on for months. We seemed sexually compatible, and I hadn’t needed to feed on any humans the whole time, as her blood had sated me, as well as mine for her.
It wasn’t until a human man from her past wandered into Clipper’s one night after closing and then everything changed. I watched the interaction between them with jealous interest and became enraged when Crystal stared up at this stranger with the same look she stared at me with while we were making love. I couldn’t believe some fucking human could replace me. I supposed my six months working here had turned me into a cocky asshole, but I didn’t care at the moment.
When he turned to look at me staring at them, his smile dropped. “What are you looking at, dickhead?”
I glanced at Crystal, who widened her eyes at me and subtly shook her head.
Well, fuck that.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I’m looking at you, asshole.”
“Go jump off a cliff, limp dick.” He laughed at his own joke.
Before I knew what was happening, I was flying over the bar and had this guy on the ground, my hands around his throat. Crystal was screaming for me to stop, trying to pull me off, but I only had one mission: To kill this human asshole.
A pain like no other seared into my back and I let go of the guy, howling in pain. I slumped over onto the ground and whimpered as I looked down at my chest. A hole quickly blossoming on my shirt with blood and smoke leaked from a fresh wound.
“You, get the fuck outta here.”
I looked up to see my boss, Dale, pointing the gun that had just shot me at the human, who had his hands up in surrender.
Crystal was crying now. “Please don’t hurt him.” She looked at the stranger with tears in her eyes and she was trembling.
I was lying here wounded and in pain, and all she cared about was this human piece of shit she didn’t want harmed. It was then I knew where my loyalties would always lie: with me and me alone. Fuck her, fuck him, fuck my boss, and fuck everyone else. I was out for myself because it was clear nobody would look out for me, but me. Never again would I allow myself to get vulnerable with anyone—especially a woman. They were good for nothing but sex and blood and that was the way it would stay for the rest of my goddamn existence.
Chapter 23
Snakes To Saints
Muskegon, Michigan – 2001
After getting fired from Clipper’s, I’d found another job that not only paid more, but had much more business. So the incident with Crystal and that human had turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
The Rhino was a ridiculous jungle-themed restaurant and bar with leaf wallpaper, so much wicker it was nauseating, and big ceiling fans that had wicker banana leaves for blades. But it was popular as hell. Always packed on weekends and weeknights, with long wait times. Their large menu and unique custom drinks (that took me a couple of weeks to learn) were what drew the crowd in. I’d enjoyed the place so much and was making over a hundred in tips each night that I decided to stay.
Tonight was different, though. What should have been an average busy Tuesday night turned into a completely dead restaurant. A few locals sat at the bar glued to the TV that was blaring behind me, the smoke from the Twin Towers in New York narrated by reporters blared loudly, another TV at the second bar on the other side showed the Pentagon on fire, planes crashed inside it.
As a vampire, I rarely if ever got nauseous. The only time I could recall feeling this sick was when curiosity got the better of me and I really did wonder how badly I would react to eating human food. That did not go over well, and I had to run to the bathroom several times during my shift to vomit.
Never again.
But this nausea wasn’t caused by food. It was caused by pure evil. Just when I thought the world couldn’t get any more depraved and wicked, a group of terrorists decided to fly planes into our precious U.S. buildings and murder over 3,000 Americans. For the first time in the forty-five years I’d been alive, I cried. It didn’t help that it was my birthday, either. September 11th would always be remembered as the day America wept. Not that I ever celebrated my birthday, but it still stung.
I was just enraged at the injustice done to us. I wanted to enlist in the Marine Corps so I could be on the front lines to kill these terrorist assholes. I obviously couldn’t due to my little sunlight problem, but like most Americans, I felt helpless, angry, and frustrated.
I put on a brave and smiling face for my customers, shared a few shots and fist-bumps for those suffering alone, but there was something eating at me inside. Something I knew I had to do.
I had often asked myself what I was doing here. Bartending in Michigan and dealing with the horrendous winters I hated. Thankfully, I never really got cold, or in the summers, hot, with the high humidity, but the damn snow was a pain the ass. Riding a motorcycle on snowy or icy roads was a bitch and a half.
Then there was the wardrobe. I couldn’t very well go around in T-shirts and shorts in the winter, so I had to get a jacket, boots, and a hat to wear so I’d blend in with the humans. Trust me, at first, I tried to not wear them and got all sorts of looks and comments. “Aren’t you cold?” and, “You’re going to slip and fall in those sneakers in the snow, young man.” And my favorite, “You’re going to catch a cold if you don’t bundle up.” The little old ladies meant well, so I decided it was just easier to bundle up. Went to the Goodwill and bought these items to keep the looks and comments at bay. Worked fine.
“What’s up, my man?”
I looked up from wiping down the bar-top to see my friend Craig materialize on a barstool in front of me. A fellow vampire, he and I had become fast friends. He had introduced me to a band of bikers he hung out with, and at long last, I’d found a group of reliable, loyal friends to add to my circle. Not that I’d had a circle to begin with, but I did now. Most were loner wanderers like me, so I fit right in.
The bikers were a mix of humans and vampires, and oddly, the humans didn’t seem at all fazed by our supernatural status. In fact, they found it fascinating, with a few asking to be turned. The rest had no interest in living forever and being confined by the night. And as one of them said, “You mean I can never have babyback ribs and mashed potatoes again? Well, fuck that!”
“You need to stop doing that,” I snapped at Craig, referring to his little appearing/disappearing act. On some occasions, turning a vampire caused them to have special “powers,” for lack of a better term. My friend Craig could disappear into thin air like David fucking Copperfield. Except Craig’s ability was real, unlike that assclown in Vegas.
The problem was, though, was that Craig stood about six-foot-seven, so him just randomly appearing in a room wasn’t exactly subtle.
He waved a dismissive hand. “I know, I know. But this place is as dead as a doornail. Ain’t nobody around.” He threw back the shot of Jägermeister I’d put in front of him and demanded a second. We really couldn’t get drunk, but could catch a small buzz sometimes, so I wondered why my friend chose this particular brand of booze to do it with. The shit tasted like black licorice, I was told, and, well, ick.
I looked into his silvery-gray eyes and poured him another before jutting a thumb at the news station on the television behind me. “It’s dead in here for a reason.”
Craig set the shot glass down and looked at the TV. “Yeah, I heard. What the fuck, man.”
I shrugged. “My thoughts exactly. Nobody’s going out. Everyone’s home… in mourning.”
“I’d like to get my hands on those pieces of shit who did this. Fuck them right up.” Craig scowled at the television while rubbing a hand over his shaved head.
“They’re already dead,” I replied. “Killed themselves right along with a bunch of innocent lives. On my fucking birthday
, no less.” Not sure why I felt the need to share that last bit. Maybe I was feeling extra lonely tonight, and obviously down in the dumps.
“It’s your fuckin’ birthday, brother? Damn… well, the next shot’s on me.”
“I don’t drink,” I said with a laugh.
“Shit, that’s right. Okay, I’ll get you a workin’ girl. I know this chick, Amy, she’ll do anything for fifty bucks, and I do mean anything. Let me use your phone…” He pointed to the landline mounted to the wall at the end of the bar.
I held up my hand with a laugh. “No, I’m good. Thanks, though.”
Hookers? How about no.
“You don’t know what you’re missin’, bro,” he replied.
“I can imagine.” I shook my head and continued to wipe down the bar.
“Anyway no, I didn’t mean the shitheads who acted out the attacks. I’m talking about the motherfuckers behind the attacks. Bush better get our troops ready, because we have some ass to kick.”
I nodded. “Oh, I’m sure it’s in the works.”
Changing the subject, he said, “We got church tonight. You comin’?”
“Yep, told the boss I couldn’t close tonight. I get off at midnight.”
“Awesome,” Craig said, pointing at the bar back. “Pour me some bourbon, will ya?”
I did as he asked and we sat and chatted until it was time for me to get off work.
I shrugged into my cut with the logo of a snake intertwined with a skull on the front, and West Michigan Serpents Chapter emblazoned on the back. The name patch reading Viper had been patched on my chest after the leader of the club had witnessed the way I did business a few years ago as a prospect. I still remembered the night I’d earned that club name as if it was yesterday.
“Break his neck, make it quick,” Craig said in my ear as we scoped out the man’s apartment.
