Suburban Vampire: A Tale of the Human Condition—With Vampires

by Franklin Posner

  Gunnar, the goofy Great Dane, made an appearance. He avoided Scott, but at least he wasn’t growling and barking at him anymore. When Jeremiah approached the dog, Gunnar immediately warmed to him, his tail wagging and tongue drooling, allowing Jeremiah to scratch his head. Scott was indignant: What gives here? Jeremiah later told Scott that the reason animals reacted poorly to him was that they knew he was a predator and that Jeremiah had, over the years, learned how to approach animals, not presenting himself as a threat or competitor. But it took years of discipline and meditation. Scott thought that in a couple hundred years, maybe he’d be able to have a pet.

  Jeremiah regaled the partygoers with tales from the pages of history. “And Antony said to Cleopatra, ‘One day they shall erect statues of me in my honor, and they shall be larger than Caesar’s!’ And Cleopatra said to him, ‘Well, if they are to be physically accurate, they shall never be as large as Caesar!’ Antony understood her meaning and left the throne room in a rage. Cleopatra then said to her guardian, ‘Caesar also had a larger sense of humor!’”

  The room exploded with laughter, as some of the partygoers exclaimed that this man had the uncanny ability to make history come alive. Little did they know that the account was from Jeremiah’s own recollection.

  As the night progressed, some of the partygoers started to leave. After Jeremiah and Scott said their good-byes, Jeremiah mentioned that he had actually enjoyed many of Scott’s friends.

  “They’re normal people,” Scott told him as they departed. “Normal people who have no idea what’s going on in the world around them. Like I used to. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss, you know?” Jeremiah agreed with the sentiment.

  Eventually, Scott dropped Jeremiah off at Saint Michael’s, and then he went home, where he saw Detective Montoya again parked at the end of the dead-end street. Scott parked his Mustang and then stormed toward her car.

  “What are you doing here, Montoya?” he asked. “Don’t you know what one hundred feet means?”

  Grace rolled down her window. “Makes you angry, doesn’t it? Makes you want my blood, huh?”

  “What? No! Detective, I don’t want your blood! God, you are so annoying! And obtuse! You do know what ‘obtuse’ means, by the way?”

  “Yes, I do. I’d like to think of it as dedication. Dedication to keeping people safe. From you.”

  “I am not the problem! Seriously! Gee whiz…”

  “Sure, that’s what they all say. But you’ll slip. You know it, and I know it. Oh, by the way, you’ll be happy to know that I’m no longer a detective. I’ve been suspended. Does that please you?”

  “No, no, it doesn’t. Why can’t you get it through your head that I’m not a threat? The only thing that would make me happy right now is if you would just leave. Now, before I call the police and report a restraining-order violation.” Scott turned and walked away.

  “This isn’t over, Campbell!”

  “Yes, it is, Detective,” Scott said as he stepped onto his lawn. Unfortunately, he was so distracted that he didn’t look where he was going and tripped over the curb, falling face first into the mud. He looked over at Grace, still seated in her car. She was laughing.

  Well, you made her laugh, Scott told himself. That’s a good first step.

  Scott lay in his bed, thinking on the fact that Grace knew he was a vampire and nothing was going to stop her from trying to kill him again. He did not look forward to that confrontation; he actually admired her dedication, her willingness to sacrifice her career in order to protect people from the monster she thought Scott Campbell surely was. Scott no more wanted misfortune to come to Grace than he wished it on anybody else. He thought that maybe he would have to find ways of convincing her that he wasn’t the bad guy. How he would accomplish that, though, he had no clue. He considered counter-stalking her; as a vampire, he’d surely be a bit more stealthy and discreet than Grace was being in her pursuit of him. He thought if he followed her, an opportunity might present itself in which he could help her. Scott shelved the idea, thinking that it would interrupt his work schedule. And that it was a stupid plan anyway.

  Besides, Scott knew who the real bad guy was: Jack. Jack, the one who had birthed the new Scott. Who considered him nothing more than a plaything. Who most likely had some other game playing in the background. As much as Scott dreaded a confrontation with Grace, he feared it even more with a vampire as deceptive and nasty as Jack. He thought on it and decided that it was another idea worth shelving.

  The unknown caller at one o’clock in the morning changed that.

  Scott answered his phone, angry at the forces that conspired against his getting any rest. “Hello? Who’s calling me at one o’clock in the freaking morning?”

  “Now, is that any way to greet your dear old dad?”

  Oh no. “Jack.”

  “That’s the rumor. Look, we got ourselves a nice little party down here, and we’d sure appreciate seeing your smiling face, now, wouldn’t we, fellas?”

  “I do not plan on partying with you, Jack. Ever. Now good-bye.”

  “Uh, uh, uh! Don’t hang up the line! A friend of yours took the time out of her busy schedule to come and hang with us, isn’t that right, darlin’?”

  Over the air came the unmistakable voice of Dawn Rhinebeck. “No! Please! Let me go!”

  Scott’s dead heart dropped in his chest. A panicked sweat broke out on his forehead. His enemy, his vampire enemy, had the innocent girl prisoner. Scott thought of all the negative things that could happen. “Let her go now, you son of a bitch!” he growled.

  “I don’t think so. We’re havin’ too much fun down here, aren’t we, Dawn? We sure would like you to join us, though. In fact, I’ll have to insist it.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll really have some fun. Oh, I don’t plan on killing her, not right at first. No, I plan on taking it slow. Real slow. I will cause such exquisite pain to the poor thing that her screams will become symphonic. Music to dance to as I bathe in her blood. And as she lies there in an ocean of her own blood, dying in agony, she will beg me—beg me—to turn her. Then she will become mine forever. Now, if that don’t motivate you to join us, I don’t know what will. Oh yeah, never mind, I do—the deaths of everyone else you hold dear. So, what will it be, Scotty?”

  Scott didn’t know what else he could do. He could not allow such a horrible fate to happen to poor Dawn Rhinebeck, be it death or undeath. His options were few, and they all sucked. He gave the only answer he thought he could.

  “Okay. Just don’t hurt her. Tell me where to go.”

  “Far northeast. Near Kelley Point. The old Amalgamated Cast Parts Plant. Be there in two hours. No earlier, no later. And don’t even think of calling for help. If you call the police, well, that would be annoying. Their bullets tickle, and those bulletproof vests they wear are like hard candy shells, if you get my meaning.”

  “Yeah. I understand.”

  “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!” Jack joked as he hung up.

  Oh boy. This is because of me, Scott thought. Poor Dawn is in mortal danger just because I’m a vampire. He didn’t know what Jack really wanted with him, but now he guessed he would find out. His life had just become like the Titanic: Scott had hit the iceberg, and now he was going to end up like Leonardo DiCaprio. There was only one course of action he could take. Life had just given him a gigantic shit sandwich, and he had to take a big bite, without the benefit of hot sauce.

  Scott opened up the list of contacts on his phone and then called Jeremiah.

  CHAPTER 32

  “What are you doing here, Jack?” Alice asked, her voice echoing on the factory floor in the Amalgamated Cast Parts Plant.

  “What are you doing here so late at night?” Jack responded. “Don’t you have lives?”

  “Answer the fucking question. What do you have up your sleeve now?”

  “I like it here. Besides, is that any way to treat the guy who just got you your messiah?”


  “Scott Campbell’s here? Where is he?” Dave asked. “Funny, I don’t see him.”

  “And besides,” Alice said, “it’s too late. There’s no way you could gain any popular support after what you did at the House. We know you did it; don’t try and deny it.”

  “Yeah, so? Sometimes you just gotta stir shit up.”

  “Oh, you stirred shit up, all right,” Alice said. “They’re labeling your romp through the House an act of terrorism. Who do you think you are, Jack? Che fucking Guevara?”

  “Terrorism, shmerrorism. One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”

  “Spare us the revolutionary rhetoric!” Alice snapped. “We all know you aren’t in this for the Improver movement. You’re in it for your own gain.”

  “Hey, I gain, we all gain.”

  “The Improver Council has denounced your action at the House in the strongest terms possible,” Dave said. “James himself has put forward a motion to remove your name from the rolls of the Improvers. All around, vampires are distancing themselves far away from you.”

  “Their loss, I guess! ’Cause I just got off the phone with your deliverer. He’s coming here to join us.”

  A smile almost broke on Alice’s face. “How in the hell did you swing that?”

  Jack motioned to two of his acolytes. “My boys will be bringing the answer in just a moment. It’s one of two things I have to show you tonight. But before we continue, what’s with the guns? I never thought to ask before, but I’ve always been curious.”

  Jack was referring to the Improver guards, dressed in suits and carrying rifles and shotguns. He had never asked about it before primarily because he was sure he knew the answer: that they weren’t for other vampires.

  “They’re just to ward off the humans,” Dave explained. “It’s easier to explain a gunshot wound than it is a blood-draining bite mark.”

  “Ah, yeah, fear of the humans. That’s great.” Jack started to think that these Improvers were more petty politicians, motivated by fear just like those of the House. How could vampire culture be advanced through such timidity? How could his own power be advanced?

  “Okay, here she is!” Jack announced as the acolyte brought Dawn in, bag still over her head. He pulled the bag off, revealing her tear-drenched face.

  “What the hell is this?” Alice asked as Jack’s thugs cut the ties that bound Dawn’s wrists and then forced her into a cheap wooden armchair and bound her to it with more flex ties. “What. The hell. Is this? A human? You kidnapped a goddamn human?”

  “Hey, this is my insurance policy! It ensures the delivery of the deliverer, guaranteed. See what I did there? Delivery of deliverer? Never mind.”

  “By kidnapping a human? Jesus Christ, this is insane! Now you’ve pissed everybody off!” Alice paced nervously about the floor, as did Dave.

  “Goddamn it, Jack, you just signed our death warrants!” Dave said.

  “Now, hold on a minute, fellas, that’s where my other gift comes into play. Guys, bring it in!”

  Another of his acolytes came in, carrying the protective obelisk and placing it down in the midst of the group.

  “A warding stone?” Dave asked. “Is that what that is?”

  “Yep, a protective totem. Programmable to deny access to any supernatural creature you wish or to allow whatever you wish. Just remove the Solomon key, say a few old dead words, add a few modern ones, put the key back in, and—shazam!—automatic antiundead protection.”

  “Oh great,” Alice said. “This is the stone you stole from the House, isn’t it?”

  “Yup! Ain’t it pretty?”

  She dropped her head into her hands. “I don’t believe it. I don’t fucking believe it. This has gone from worse to really damn worse. That’s it, Jack, we are done here. Our partnership is over. Done. Come on, Dave, let’s get out of here while we still can.”

  “Huh uh, guys, I haven’t shown you how it works.”

  “We know how a protective obelisk works!”

  “Oh no, you don’t. Not this one. This one, you see, is special. Because it’s been programmed to be special. And I have the key.” Jack pulled a large brass key from the inside pocket of his leather jacket.

  “Oh yeah?” Alice asked. “And how is it special?”

  Jack jammed the brass Solomon key into the hole atop the stone. “Because it’s programmed to allow only myself, and only vampires I have sired, inside this structure. Sorry. Sucks to be you, I guess.”

  He turned the key in the lock. The lock made a distinctive loud click and then began to hum. Alice and Dave only had a moment to look at each other as they suddenly burst into flames, screaming as the fire began to consume them. All the Improver guards who accompanied Alice and Dave likewise erupted into flame, dropping their weapons. The large room was illuminated by the bright, roaring flames. Dawn was unable to process what she was seeing. All she could do was scream in terror along with the burning vampires.

  Jack laughed. “Ya know, I just thought of a song: ‘Your nuts roasting on an open fire…’”

  As he sang a perverted version of the classic Christmas song, he looked at Dawn. Tears ran down her cheeks as she screamed at the horrifying spectacle.

  “What? Too soon?” Jack asked. “This is a tough room.”

  “Scott, calm down,” Jeremiah advised. “Let us think about this.”

  “No!” Scott replied. “There’s no time to think! Who has time to think? I don’t have time to think! I don’t have a choice here!”

  “There is always a choice.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “Surely I will help you come up with something.”

  “Oh, some help that is. Dawn’s in big trouble, and it’s because of me. If anything happened to her—”

  “Let me make some phone calls. Surely—”

  “No, Jeremiah. This is something I must do. Hell, I probably shouldn’t even be on the phone with you now. In fact, Jack told me not to call anyone. See? I even screwed that up!”

  “At least let me know where you are meeting Jack.”

  “At the old cast parts plant up by Kelley Point.”

  “I am familiar with the place. Look, Scott, I know I cannot stop you—”

  “Then don’t even try.” Scott hung up on Jeremiah and then ran out of the house and got in his car. The Mustang roared to life as he pulled out of the driveway, burning rubber.

  Jack danced, seemingly enraptured by the tenor strains of Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma,” his body swaying wildly as the crescendo struck, all while Dawn cried in anger and fear, asking why she was here, who these strange people were, and what they were going to do with her. He ignored her until the aria flowing from his iPhone’s MP3 collection finally ended. Sheila and the muttonchopped driver both watched Jack’s dramatic movements with amusement.

  “Now that…that was beautiful, wasn’t it, Sheila?” Jack asked.

  “Mmmm, sure was,” Sheila replied.

  “I don’t think Dawn here cared for it. Tell me, darlin’, what you’d like me to play for you?”

  “I want to go home!” Dawn said.

  “You want to go home? Well, don’t we all, sugar. Hey, that reminds me! There’s a song for that, too!”

  Jack scrolled through the MP3 collection on his iPhone and then selected Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Was I Right or Wrong.” The guitars strained through the phone’s small speaker as the song commenced.

  “Oh God, redneck music,” Sheila grumbled.

  “Now, now, Sheila, I got me some Beyoncé. You can listen to that later. But now we listen to this.” Jack turned once again to Dawn. “This is original Skynyrd. Lord, I miss those boys. That plane crash was a travesty. Did I ever tell you that I partied with them back in ’76, down in Houston? Hell, we did lines as long as a highway. And the women? Ah, those sweet southern women. But I digress! This song tells a story, a story of a young man who has a falling out with his daddy and then goes to find his fortune. Well, he makes it big, only to disc
over that all those things he got—the money, the women, the fame—didn’t make up for the relationship he had with his father. So he heads back home, hoping to reestablish ties with his father, only to find he can’t. Because his daddy’s dead.” Jack then sighed, and his lip started trembling. “You know, I identify with that. I can’t go home, either, because my daddy’s dead, too.”

  “I-I’m sorry,” Dawn said, putting aside her anger for compassion, as that was more her nature.

  “Of course, he’s dead because I killed him, but you know, whatever.”

  “You’re sick!”

  “Naw, I’m feelin’ fine. Say, I’ll bet you sing real pretty. You sing at that church you all go to, don’t you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jack clicked off the MP3 recording. “Sing us a song, darlin’.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah, come on, don’t be shy!”

  Dawn relented, deciding on a song dear to her. A song that would tell these weird people who she was and what she believed. A song she hoped would help them reconsider whatever it was they were planning:

  Jesus loves me, this I know,

  For the Bible tells me so

  Little ones to him belong,

  They are weak, but He is strong

  Yes, Jesus loves me,

  Yes, Jesus loves me

  Yes, Jesus loves me,

  The Bible tells me so

  “Wow, now that…that was beautiful,” Jack said. “Right pretty. I tell you, I almost cried myself.” He then knelt right next to Dawn and put his face next to hers, sniffing her skin. “Oh girl, I can smell the virginity on you.”

  “Is that something we can do? Virginity smelling?” the muttonchop tough asked.

  “No, Bill, I’m just messing with the girl. But I’ll bet Dawn here has never been with a man, have you?”

  “I’m a virgin, and I’m proud of it!” Dawn hissed.

  “Wow, that’s a really lame thing to be proud of.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Well, I kinda want to rape you, but time for that later. Right now, darlin’, what we’re doing is using you for bait.”