by Alex Bledsoe
Then she vomited most of the fresh blood back onto the corpse.
Her insides wrenched in agony; part of her tried to hang on to the precious fluid, while the rest worked to get rid of it. I’m a monster, I’m a maggot, I’m a disease, her conscience screamed. But somewhere in the back of this cacophony, her true voice protested: These are not your thoughts, you are what you are, you do not pity yourself. And then the two voices merged into a miasma she could not filter. She leaned over the side and sobbed.
Finally the immediate anguish passed, leaving her weaker and more depressed than before. With great effort she climbed awkwardly out of the truck and stumbled into the weeds, headed toward the warehouse. Dawn was less than an hour away.
From the roof of the bar where he sat on one of the humming air-conditioning units, Rudolfo Zginski watched Fauvette stagger off. He tracked her until he was certain she lived at the big, abandoned warehouse in the distance. He’d be waiting when she emerged the next night, and follow her until he caught her alone. He sent out a call to the local “children of the night,” and immediately four lean, rather decrepit coyotes and a feral German shepherd emerged from the field behind the bar. They silently scrambled into the truck bed, claws loud against the metal, and began devouring the softer parts of Fauvette’s victim. What they would leave would give no hint of a vampire.
He leaped from the roof to the bed of another pickup, his step so light the vehicle barely moved, then bounded over four more cars to hit the ground in a pool of shadow beneath a broken streetlamp. He moved onto the sidewalk and drifted down the road, unseen, unheard, no more than a darker whisper of shadow in the night. He’d accomplished one of the things he set out to do: find another vampire. Now it was time for the second thing.
Upon leaving the morgue after his resurrection, Zginski found himself in a maze of corridors all reeking of blood, flesh, and antiseptic. He met another man dressed in identical scrubs and jacket, and mimicked his professional nod as they passed. When he reached the main lobby, he saw that the building belonged to a university, and found himself suddenly among a crowd of young people all rushing about to reach their next class. Someone bumped into him and said, “ ’Scuse me, Doc.”
He ducked into a public lavatory, marked simply with the word “MEN.” A half-dozen young men entered the room after him, milling about and discussing obscure things like “Pink Floyd” and “cheerleaders.” He retreated into a stall and waited for the crowd to thin out. He heard the word “disco,” and the term “fall of Saigon,” and even discussion of large metal dirigibles. A student entered the stall beside him and lit a crudely rolled cigarette. Zginski smelled something sweet and pungent.
A bell rang somewhere in the building, and immediately everyone departed except the man in the stall. Carefully Zginski stood on the toilet and peered over the divider wall. The man was young, with long sideburns and bangs that fell into his eyes. He wore an orange T-shirt with “55” on it in large white numbers. He drew another lungful of smoke from the cigarette, then let it out in a contented sigh. Zginski recognized it as a narcotic, although he was certain it was neither opium nor heroin.
The young man looked up and saw Zginski spying on him. His eyes were red-rimmed and glazed. For a moment neither moved nor spoke, then the man held up the cigarette. “Want a toke?” he said, his voice oddly tight in his throat.
“No, thank you,” Zginski said.
The young man looked puzzled at his accent. Then his eyes lit up. “Hey, you’re a Russkie, ain’t ya?”
Unsure of the term, Zginski nodded.
“Well, how-de-do. I never met a real Red before. I hear they make you hate us for being all capitalistic and stuff. Do you hate me?”
“You confuse me,” Zginski said honestly.
The man snapped his fingers as if an idea just occurred to him. “I know—you defected, dincha? Y’all got a little taste of a free market, and boom! Here you are.” The thought seemed to amuse him.
“There are many things about your society that interest me.”
“Well, you just ask away. In case you ain’t heard, here in the South, we’re always glad to help someone who’s strayed from the path get back onto the straight and narrow. Ask me anything.”
Zginski pointed at the floor. “What is that?”
When the man looked down, Zginski leaned over the wall and struck him once on the back of the skull. The blow would likely give him a concussion, but it would not kill him. It would confuse his memory, if the pungent cigarette had not already done so. Zginski jumped the divider and wormed into the stall with the unconscious man, quickly if gracelessly swapping clothes with him.
Clad in bell-bottom jeans, an orange Tennessee Vols jersey, and battered tennis shoes, Zginski emerged from the stall. He stopped in front of the mirrors and looked at himself. His hair, dark and wavy, hung to his shoulders. A neat mustache and goatee encircled his wide lips. As always, he appeared about thirty years old, and pale as if recovering from an illness.
He couldn’t believe the clothes he now wore were considered acceptable for an academic institution. The number on the shirt was cracked, faded, and peeling away in places, while the denim trousers were ragged at the cuffs. He pulled the wallet from the back pocket and found paper money, an official-looking card with the man’s picture in one corner, and several photographs of what must have been his family. He took the money, the photo of one attractive young woman, and tossed the rest back into the stall with the man.
He turned toward the door just as a campus security officer entered the bathroom. The paunchy, middle-aged man stopped when he saw Zginski. He sniffed the air and smiled knowingly. “Well, reckon somebody’s been smoking cannabis in the can, haven’t they?”
Zginski said nothing. He had no idea what the man was talking about.
The guard looked him over. “You go to school here?” he asked dubiously.
“Yep,” he said, trying to mimic the drawl everyone seemed to possess.
The guard frowned. “Saying ‘Yes, sir’ might be in your best interest, boy.”
Zginski noticed the man had no visible weapon. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“That’s better. Now why don’t you hand over the dope and we’ll forget about this whole thing?”
“I have no . . . dope,” Zginski said. He tried to maintain the accent, but failed.
The guard suddenly looked suspicious. “What’s your name, boy?”
Zginski made a distasteful survival decision. He could easily incapacitate the man, even kill him, but there was already one body waiting to be found. He would love to slap this arrogant peasant hard enough to shatter his jaw, but again it would not be efficacious. So, repugnant as he found it, he reached out with his vampiric powers.
The look on the guard’s face was comically confused as the big man’s body suddenly responded sexually to Zginski. There was an unmistakable bulge below his belt buckle, and his cheeks flushed red.
Zginski smiled despite the fact that the sensation was almost vile to him; he had never enjoyed arousing another man. “Are you all right, Officer?” he purred.
“Y’all get outta here,” the guard said, and waved toward the exit as he quickly went into one of the empty stalls and slammed the door behind him. Zginski did as ordered.
He emerged from the building into the bright sunlight, wincing as it seared his eyes. He ducked under a tree and waited for his vision to adjust. It took longer than it would for a normal human, but was apparently the trade-off for having such exceptional eyesight at night. When he could see well enough to navigate, he set out to find the one thing all universities possessed: a library.
CHAPTER 9
THE GIRL FROM the wallet photo sat across from Zginski, twirling a straw in her drink. Her wavy, dark blond hair was tied back and she wore a low-cut shirt with lace at the sleeve cuffs and neckline. Without makeup her freckles were very prominent, and he found he liked them immensely. She asked, “So, Mr. Mysterious Stranger, what’s your name?”<
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Zginski squinted into the afternoon sunlight that streamed through the big glass window. The third thing he needed to do was acquire some of the spectacles with darkened lenses that he’d seen on various people. The second thing, after insuring no one connected him to the death of the Negro doctor in the morgue, was to arrange a steady source of blood. This time he would keep it simple and traditional, one victim for as long as she lasted. In Wales he had been indiscriminate, and that had not turned out well at all. Here he would choose a single woman and seduce her slowly until she was so desperate for him she gave herself willingly. Such blood was always the sweetest.
This wasn’t the first victim fate had dropped in his hand, and he learned through experience that you ignored such gifts at your own peril. He’d found the girl’s name written on the back of the photograph from the stolen wallet, and deduced correctly that she was the sister of the man whose clothes he’d stolen. In the photo she was smiling but not grinning, and the straight line of her shoulders set off the delicious curve of her neck, bare above a black drape.
Tracking her down was simple once he grasped the new telephone technology. Bell would have been astounded at how ubiquitous his invention had become. Zginski had the girl’s name, as well as her brother’s name and address printed on what he later learned was a driver’s license. With this information he’d found the correct phone number in a large book of them at the library, and when he called was told by someone, probably her father, that she was at work down at Harman’s Grill. The man had not even asked how Zginski knew his daughter. With the use of another thick book filled with business phone numbers and advertisements printed on yellow paper, he’d found the restaurant’s location. A taxi brought him here, and he spotted her at once: soft, feminine, in very short and tight pants that showed vast amounts of bare leg. It was a societal trend Zginski had noticed during his brief time on the campus, but he was at best ambivalent about it; without mystery, where would romance be? Still, when the legs on display were this exquisite, he was willing to forgo his prudish nature.
It had been short work to use his vampiric powers to draw the girl’s eye to him as she passed his booth serving others. Now she was on break, seated opposite him and smiling shyly. He had her.
“Rudy,” he now replied to her question. A quick look through names in the phone book convinced him that his full name would attract too much attention. He still hadn’t mastered the local dialect, but his own accent was less prominent.
“I’m Lee Ann,” she said. “Lee Ann Felton.”
He nodded at her name tag. “I know.”
She blushed and ducked her head. “Sorry.” She took a long drink from the straw. Zginski had only barely touched her with his power, enough to attract her attention without overwhelming her. He was still relatively weak after his ordeal. He could tell by the way her feet twisted on the floor beneath the table that she was aroused, but saw no need to force things. They would happen in their own time, and if he needed to, he would feed on strangers until she was ready.
“I told Celie Jo I thought you were cute the minute you walked in here,” she said. Her eyes flashed up at him. “She said you’re too old for me. I don’t think that matters, though, do you? I mean, yeah, I just graduated from high school, but I am over eigh teen. In case you were wondering.”
“In my country, women your age are considered at their most desirable.”
She grinned again, and blushed pink beneath her freckles. “Well, people here might look at us funny. They might think you’re my daddy or something.” Again she looked down. “I mean, if we were to go out or anything.”
“Then we will be discreet,” he assured her.
Her eyes flashed up at him almost in wonder. In a soft voice she said, “So you do want to take me out?”
He smiled, careful not to display his fangs. “I would love to show you the night,” he said carefully and sincerely.
She shook her head, as if unable to believe her luck. “You know, Rudy, I keep thinking I should take this slow, learn more about you, maybe have you meet my folks and stuff. But I have to tell you, part of me really wants to just go somewhere with you right now and . . .” She looked down and hunched her shoulders shyly. “Jump your bones.”
“What does that expression mean?” Zginski asked innocently, though of course the context made it plain.
She leaned over the table toward him. “It means I want to have sex with you,” she whispered, the words sounding awkward in her voice.
He smiled and feigned embarrassment. “Lee Ann, I do not think that’s a good idea. As you say, you are very young. You may not be ready.”
She reached over and took his hand. “Rudy, if I get any readier I might melt right here.” Her eyes opened wide. “Wow, your hand is cold.”
“Then you should warm it,” he said.
She pressed it between her hands and then, after glancing around the diner to make sure no one was watching, pressed his palm to her breast. The shudder that went through her made her gasp.
Zginski gently disengaged his hand. “I should go. You have your job, and I have mine.” Then he withdrew all of his influence except the barest hint, enough to keep her fixated to distraction until that night. “What time do you finish your shaft?”
“Shift,” she corrected with a smile. “At eleven. I’m working a split this week.”
He had no idea what she meant, but assumed it didn’t matter. “Then I will be waiting for you at that time.”
She watched him as he stood, paid at the register, and left. He’d used money stolen from her brother to purchase new trousers and a more dignified shirt, but still wore the tattered tennis shoes. He worried that she might recognize them, but her mind was far away from such details. Like many of his past conquests, she was a simple peasant girl, unsophisticated and trusting; he would teach her many things in return for the blood he needed to live. Now, though, he was weary and sun-drained, and needed to find a dark place to rest before the night. The vampire from the warehouse had looked weak and wasted, but he’d been fooled before. He needed to be strong enough to defend himself, if necessary, when he located her.
Danielle looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. She felt ridiculous.
She’d washed her hair and let it dry naturally, with no blow-drying or hair spray. The limp ends of the bangs hung annoyingly in her eyes. She wore no makeup, and without it the creases around her eyes and mouth made her look like a tired high school girl instead of a mature woman. It figured that not even normal crow’s-feet and smile lines made her look her age.
She wore ragged denim jeans low on her hips, with a wide leather belt. The flared cuffs had a stitched checkerboard pattern at the bottom, and her shoes, toeless and with inch-thick cork soles, were the tackiest she could find. She debated between a more demure T-shirt or her final choice, and decided the bright red halter top would imply confidence that she didn’t really feel. It was a bit too small, so it also gave her cleavage and made her boobs look respectable even though she felt hugely self-conscious. Luckily it would be dark where she was going, and no one from work should be anywhere around.
She had a knife taped to her right calf, like Leslie had once shown her, and a small Mace sprayer in her pocket. Fifty dollars in cash was distributed between two pockets. If she couldn’t cut, blind, or buy her way out of a tight spot, then she had no one to blame but herself. If someone did attack her, she hoped that she’d have the presence of mind to remember what was where, and not die because she tried to spray the knife at somebody.
And that was it; her disguise was complete. She left a note on her kitchen table outlining her plan and where she intended to start. If the worst happened, then this would give the police somewhere to start looking for her body. She knew one of her own morgue slabs might be waiting for her at the end of the night, but she almost quivered with exhilaration at the danger of it. Would Lyman feel the need to personally avenge her? Would Skitch actually get her job? Would Dr. Francisco
speak at her funeral?
She climbed into her car and headed downtown.
• • •
Fronting on Dudley Street, Elmwood Cemetery was the oldest graveyard in Memphis. Its residents went back to 1852 and included victims of the Sultana, a riverboat that sank in 1865 and killed an unbelievable seventeen hundred people. Danielle had supervised two exhumations there, so she recognized the address immediately in Leslie’s files. It didn’t surprise her that it was also a place where teenagers might go to do things adults wouldn’t condone. The place had isolation, the spook factor, and acres of dark grassland suitable for all sorts of illicit activities. But she doubted that single white girls just wandered into it looking for a good time. She’d need to find some other people, tag along with them, hope they wanted to get high on the new stuff, and procure a sample. Simple as death.
She parked in a paid lot and locked her car. She carried only the door and ignition keys; everything else, keys to her apartment and office, were hidden beneath the felt-covered cardboard bottom of the locked glove compartment. If she got rolled, they might take her car, but they’d never find those other keys.
It was a warm and scaldingly humid night, and for that reason alone she was glad she’d chosen the skimpier top. Sweat beaded on her shoulders and lower back. She fought the urge to suck in her bare stomach. Her breasts bounced with each step; she recalled watching Suzanne Somers jiggle her way through Battle of the Network Stars, and for the first time really felt sorry for her. As she took in the dark, gritty neighborhood, she kept hearing the refrain of a Three Dog Night song: Mama told me not to come . . .
She walked with her head down along the empty sidewalk until she turned onto Decatur Avenue, a three-lane street lined with bars, porn peep shows, and businesses closed behind barred windows. The light, noise, and traffic were a total change. Not only were cars cruising, windows down and music blaring, but little knots of teenagers, the very creatures she sought, milled about or prowled the sidewalks. Most were white boys, and she knew that once she caught their eye, they’d be all over her. It was not vanity, but psychology: she’d dressed to be provocative, after all. How bright, she suddenly realized, was that?
