Scott couldn’t tell them about the tingly sensation he had felt when he first saw Ralph Stevens. They would question his spidey sense or vampire sense or whatever the hell that feeling was. Heck, he questioned it himself. They would proceed directly from questioning that ability to questioning his sanity, and he wouldn’t blame them.
“Well, I saw the guy—”
“Mr. Stevens,” said Montoya.
“Yeah, Mr. Stevens. Anyway, I saw him going into the mall, and let me tell you, the guy looked kinda pissed off. But then I noticed his gig bag. It seemed weighed down and not from the weight of a guitar. I thought it was kind of odd, so I followed him into the mall.”
“You followed him into the mall based on those observations?” Ellis asked.
“Yeah, just to, you know, observe and report.”
“Did you at any time contact nine one one?” Montoya asked.
“Well, no. I didn’t have the chance. I mean, before I could do anything, there he was with that rifle.”
“Some of the witness statements we’ve received so far seem to indicate that you actually approached the suspect as he was firing the weapon. Is this so?” asked Montoya.
“I guess so. Tell you the truth, I’m not exactly sure what I did. I sort of went on automatic there.” Of course, that was a lie. Scott knew exactly what he had done. He was not about to mention that, though.
“So you approached the suspect. Then what?” Ellis asked.
“Well, I told him to put the gun down. He didn’t; then he turned the gun on me, and he fired.” He fired, Scott thought. One single shot that entered my head and scrambled my brains for a brief instant. And yet here I am, none the worse for wear. I don’t even have a headache. I guess that’s kind of cool.
“He fired?” Montoya asked. “Near point-blank, with a rifle, he fires…and misses?”
“Oh yeah! Missed! But I felt that bullet as it rushed right by my head. It must have been mere millimeters away; it was so close. I mean, talk about the life passing by you. Wow…”
“It’s okay, Mr. Campbell. Here, have some water.” Ellis handed Scott a plastic bottle. He gratefully accepted the refreshment and drank. It wasn’t blood, but Scott guessed vampires sometimes needed water, too.
“Thank you so much, Detective. And you can call me Scott. Mr. Campbell is my father’s name.” Scott smiled. Ellis was oddly caught up in his smile and shared the expression. Montoya, for some reason, was not as easily impressed. She remained a bit standoffish.
“Okay, Scott it is,” Ellis responded, sounding almost like a teenage girl who just got asked to the prom by the quarterback. “You know, that’s crazy. Crazy gunman goes nuts and shoots up the place—and misses everybody. Including someone at point-blank range. How do you explain that?”
“Oh, someone up there must have been watching out for me. But, excuse me, you say he missed everyone?”
“Yes. Nobody wounded, nobody killed. A couple older folks had to be checked for cardiac issues, but apparently they’re fine,” Montoya said.
That bit of information cheered Scott, warming his dead heart. He breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God.
“After he fired, then what did you do?” Montoya continued.
“Well, I fought back. That fight-or-flight mechanism must have kicked in, like pure adrenaline. I tell you, I’ve never moved so fast in my life!”
“And you tackled the gunman,” Ellis declared rather than asked.
“Yeah, that’s about it. I reacted. Boom. End of story.”
“What do you think, Grace?” asked Ellis. “Do we need anything more from Mr. Campbell?”
“Please, Scott,” he said, trying to sound humble but probably not quite making it.
“…Scott. Do we need anything more from him?”
Montoya shook her head. “No. We’ve got his statement. Just get his address and phone number, and then we’re done here.”
Scott provided the requested information, advising them of his work hours and the fact that his mother might answer the phone and have no idea what they were talking about. He rose to leave when Montoya stopped him. “Wait,” she said.
“Yes?”
“What’s that on the back of your coat?”
Scott reached back and felt something dusty. He looked at his fingers and noticed the light dust. It seemed less like soil and more like ash. He figured it was the ejecta caused by the exit wound the bullet created as it exited the back of his head. Scott guessed that was what happened to vampire matter when it became separated from the rest of the body—ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
“No idea,” Scott lied as he shook the dirt from his fingers. “I probably leaned on some of that drywall earlier.” The explanation pleased Ellis, but he was unsure about Montoya.
“Okay. Well, you’re free to go,” Montoya said.
Scott thanked the detectives and walked toward the maze of marked and unmarked sheriff’s cars in the lot. Montoya and Ellis watched him as he walked away.
“We need to start collecting statements from the other deputies and putting them together,” Montoya said. “Kevin, why don’t you check in with the CSI guys and see what kind of evidence…Kevin?”
Ellis was still watching Scott.
“Kevin!” Montoya cried, snapping her fingers. “Snap to it!”
Ellis came to his senses and followed Montoya into the mall to continue their investigation.
As Scott strolled through the lot, he noticed an unmarked white Ford Crown Victoria, surrounded by SWAT team members who were providing a protective cordon for the occupant of the car. Ralph Stevens was not a popular man, and more than a few folks would probably not have minded if something bad had happened to the wannabe murderer.
Scott then had another bad thought. He didn’t want Stevens to spill the beans on the fact that he had shot Scott right through the head, and not only did Scott just shake it off, but he had also become some kind of supernatural beast. He approached the car, where an older, uniformed deputy sheriff with lieutenant’s bars on his lapels stopped him.
“I’m sorry, sir, you’ll have to move along,” he ordered.
“Is the guy in there? The shooter?”
“Yes, he is. But you’ll need to move along.”
“Might I speak with him?”
“No, sir, that would not be possible right now. Please move along, or I’ll have you arrested for interference.”
Scott stared deeply into the lieutenant’s eyes. “I would like to speak with the man. Now. Please.”
Jack had neglected to tell Scott if vampires had the power of persuasion, if they could compel humans to become open to the vampire’s suggestions, just like they could in the movies. Jack hadn’t told him a lot of things. Scott thought he’d give it a whirl and was quite pleased when he found the truth, as the deputy nodded his head.
“Y-yeah. Okay, you may speak to the suspect.”
Lieutenant Oakley would probably not ordinarily allow such a breach of security. He was certainly much more security-minded than this. He advised the SWAT team members to stand down, which they, under some protest, eventually did. Oakley opened the caged back seat of the large sedan and allowed Scott access. Scott sat next to Ralph.
Ralph’s face twisted in terror. “You’re not here; you’re not here; you’re not here,” he chanted, shutting his eyes against the horrid truth.
“Oh yes, Mr. Stevens, I am here. And I am here to talk to you. May we talk?”
Ralph slowly, cautiously, opened his eyes. That monster was still there! “Don’t kill me; don’t kill me; please don’t kill me!” he pled, knowing his cries would be ineffective.
“Mr. Stevens, I do not plan on killing you at this time,” Scott said menacingly. This was new territory for Scott Campbell; he’d never intimidated anyone before. In fact, he had never thought himself capable of being menacing and was probably the least menacing person you could ever hope to meet. But now it came easily, naturally. And he knew he could back it up. “But I am go
ing to tell you this: plead out to all charges presented against you, and accept whatever punishment they hand you. Do not—I repeat, do not—allow this to drag out in the courts. Settle this as soon as possible. Oh, and about what you saw today…say nothing. Nothing. Do you understand me, Mr. Stevens?”
Ralph slowly nodded his head, fear still etched on his face. He could only gurgle a noise that sounded like an affirmative answer.
“Good!” Scott smiled and gave Ralph a friendly pat on the arm. “There ya go!” His smile then vanished. “But know this: I can get to you any time, any place. And if you vary from my instructions, I will find you, and…well, you can guess what will happen then.”
Scott got out of the Crown Victoria’s back seat, once again smiling. He walked right past Oakley, saying, “He’s all yours, Lieutenant.”
He walked through the parking lot toward his car as Oakley awoke from his confusion and prepped the suspect for transport back to the sheriff’s office.
CHAPTER 9
Elizabeth burst into Father’s office. He looked up from behind the files he had been shuffling through, upset that anyone would dare disturb him while he was doing important House business.
“Have you seen the news?” she asked.
“I saw the news earlier today, Elizabeth, and it was sufficiently satisfying, thank you—”
“The local news,” she interrupted, a transgression she would not normally allow herself to commit. In this case, however, the cause was worth risking Father’s wrath. “You’ll want to see this.”
Father took a remote control from the top of his polished walnut executive desk and pointed it at the flat LCD TV that sat within a niche in the wood-paneled wall to his right side. The TV flashed to life as Father selected a local network affiliate. Just about every local station was providing continuous coverage of the events that had just happened at Clackatonic Faire Mall. News anchors engaged in pointless, inane chatter about things for which they actually had little solid information. News crawls displayed the same information the reports were spewing, only in a slightly less annoying fashion.
“Another mass shooting. Humans killing humans. A waste of good blood but ultimately uninteresting,” Father observed.
He told Elizabeth that he did not see the point to this distraction from his work; Elizabeth advised him to change the channel. Father was not one to waste time channel surfing, finding the exercise tedious. Channel after channel was the same. Only the faces of the talking heads changed.
Father’s impatience grew. “I still don’t see the point—”
“There!” Elizabeth cried as she pointed at the screen. The picture was that of a middle-aged white man with slight male-pattern baldness and wire-frame glasses. He did not look particularly remarkable to Father. The still picture gave way to video of the same man, only now he wasn’t wearing glasses.
“Law enforcement authorities say that Mr. Campbell’s actions saved the lives of multiple mall patrons and employees,” a bouncy female voice announced. “Clackamas County Sheriff Franklin Forrest today called Mr. Campbell the hero of Clackatonic Faire.” The camera once again jumped, this time to an image of a green-uniformed African American sheriff, who began praising the heroism of this unremarkable-looking man.
Father looked at Elizabeth. “This is a waste of my time,” he said as the video feed jumped back to recorded images of an interview with this Scott Campbell fellow.
“Record the scene so you can freeze the frame and take a closer look,” Elizabeth insisted.
Father did so, hoping to appease the vampiress so that she would just go away. Eventually, he was able to hold an image of Scott’s homely face on the screen.
“So what? What is your interest in Mr. Scott Campbell?” Father asked.
“Look at his eyes.”
Father did so but initially did not see anything of interest.
“Scroll back a couple seconds and advance the footage slowly. See, in this frame he’s looking away from the camera, but as he turns to face the interviewer, just for a second…wait for it.”
Father finally saw what Elizabeth wanted him to see. In Scott’s eyes, just for a second, was a darkness that only another vampire could recognize. It was something subtle that ordinary humans would not be able to detect. But even in the pixelated frame, Father could see it. The darkness of the soul. The shadow of death. It was unmistakable.
Father stood erect and glared at the screen. “No,” he said. His emotional state was usually hard to read. His granite face rarely showed sign of emotion. Even now, it did not change, but Elizabeth still knew what he was thinking, what he was feeling. She felt his anger, burning within like coal in a furnace.
“Maybe it’s a trick of the camera,” Elizabeth said. “Our misinterpretation of a video artifact.”
“No. No, he is one of us.”
“If so, he is not registered with the House. I have checked. We have no record of any Scott Campbell. No application, no acolyte status, nothing.”
“And yet there he is, an unaffiliated, unregistered vampire—loose, apparently without proper guidance or supervision, in the news, risking exposure. Elizabeth, I do not need to tell you that this is completely unacceptable.”
“Yes, Father.”
“I should like to meet this Scott Campbell. Craft a summons, and deliver it to him at your soonest convenience. Extend to him our most gracious hospitality, but make sure he does not fail to accept our invitation.”
“And if he doesn’t accept?”
“Then you have our permission to kill him,” Father replied as he glared at the digital image of the unremarkable-looking man.
“I was worried sick!” Irene said as she tightly embraced him. And indeed she had been; Scott was concerned that the stress had driven her blood pressure sky high, endangering her already weak constitution. Two brushes with death this week were more than enough for the poor lady. “First, I heard about that shooting, and then you didn’t answer your cell phone when I tried calling…”—in Scott’s defense, he had been a bit preoccupied at the moment, which he thought would have been obvious—“…and then the nice lady on Channel 6 is showing your picture, saying you’re some kind of hero?”
“Mom, Mom! I’m fine. Really.”
“Fine? Dear God, you could have been killed! Facing death twice in one week? That’s two too many times!”
Irene Campbell was stern yet lovingly concerned. She was Scott’s mother, after all. Her unease over his two run-ins with his almost certain demise struck him as comforting. Here was someone who really did care about Scott, who wanted the best for him. There truly is nothing like a mother’s love, he thought. But if she knew what I now was, what I have become, maybe she’d have a change of mind. How would that work? “Oh, I’m so proud of my vampire son! His fangs are so shiny!” Yeah, probably not.
“Mom, you don’t need to worry. I’m here now, in one piece. It’s just that I’ve had some really bad luck this week. That’s all.”
Irene’s concern over his recent turn of fortune could not be so easily dismissed. “Scott, I am your mother. I am always going to worry about you, like it or not.”
Scott could only smile. He allowed her to show her concern by preparing a large dinner of one of his old favorites as a kid, spaghetti. As in Italian. As in the garlic bread she always prepared whenever she made any other food item that could vaguely be considered Italian. And the garlic she added in small amounts to the homemade Bolognese sauce that was her specialty. Suddenly, it became a bad idea.
“Mom, you don’t have to,” Scott said. No, really, Mom. You really don’t have to. In fact, I’d rather you didn’t.
“Nonsense! You deserve it, my hero! Besides, you haven’t been eating much lately. I’m still concerned about that! You need to eat!”
Scott could almost smell the garlic, the sickly stench assaulting his nostrils and nauseating him. It was time to pad the story. His thoughts moved quickly to what he felt was an obvious solution. “You know, Mom,”
Scott said, “I’ve been in touch with my doctors, and they’ve told me a few things. Things I need to share with you.”
“Like what?” Irene asked. Scott could almost hear what she was thinking: What could be wrong with him now? Did they find something wrong? Is it the cancer? Please God, don’t let it be the cancer.
“Well, apparently, I’ve developed some food allergies, and I need to tailor my diet accordingly.” Scott was pretty stoked by this lie since he thought it sounded believable. In fact, he wondered why he hadn’t thought of it before.
“Food allergies? My goodness, what kind of food allergies? You never had any food allergies before.”
“I know, Mom. But yeah, the doctors told me that I have a few allergies.”
“To what, specifically?”
“Well, garlic. Garlic has to be off the menu for me.”
Irene’s expression was priceless. “Garlic? That’s an odd thing to be allergic to. How did that happen?”
“I…don’t know” was the easiest and simplest explanation Scott could come up with. The rest of it had to have been pulled out of another part of Scott’s anatomy, and I don’t mean his brain. “It’s something having to do with enzymes and metabolic rates. My system got all thrown off with those seven minutes I was gone, you know, and then some of those heavy-duty medications they gave me might have contributed to it.”
“I see,” Irene said. But she actually didn’t see. Who had allergies to garlic? Well, she had heard of stranger things. “So, those brown paper bags in the fridge. Those meds you’re taking—”
“…are part of a specially prescribed diet my doctors have me on. They put me on a largely liquid diet. It helps metabolize…enzymes…and stuff. Plus, they want me to lose weight.” True enough, they did want Scott to lose weight. A lie works best when it contains elements of truth, he thought.
“Okay, now I understand,” Irene said, seeming to understand but still distressed. Scott could practically see what was running through her mind: My boy has a food allergy! Was it my fault? “Why couldn’t you tell me this before?”
Suburban Vampire: A Tale of the Human Condition—With Vampires Page 8
