by Matt Kincade
It might have been an hour he lay there; it might have been a minute. He didn’t know. The TV still played, babbling just above audibility, some black-and-white movie with Humphrey Bogart. The shifting light slid across the walls. The scented candles, one by one, burned down, sputtered, and died in wisps of smoke.
Alex sat up and stared into the darkness. He stood like a sleepwalker. Finally he arranged Carmen’s body on the bed with dignity: her legs straight, arms crossed over her chest. He walked to where his katana lay on the floor and returned to her side. The sheathed sword rested across his lap. He ran his fingers across the smooth, lacquered scabbard, the ridges of the folded ray-skin grip. He looked at her again. Her skin was pale and waxy. The bandage on her neck, soaked with blood, had fallen away. Already the gaping hole in her neck had begun to heal.
He stood abruptly and unsheathed the blade. It hissed as it left the scabbard in a quicksilver arc, a bright flash in the dark room. He leaned over, kissed her lips, then raised the sword.
The sword trembled in his hands, held at the apex of its swing. A terrible moment passed.
His will broke. Alex collapsed and fell to his knees. The sword clattered to the carpet beside him. He buried his face in the cheap motel comforter and sobbed at her side.
When he couldn’t cry anymore, he picked up the sword and stood again. He took three deliberate breaths before he raised the blade a second time. He stood over her, the katana held high. She looked peaceful now, a hint of a smile on her lips, her neck whole and unmarred, her eyes closed. He lowered the sword. The weapon dangling limply from his hand. He moaned and again broke down crying.
A car pulled into the parking lot. Headlights washed over the curtains of the front window. The wall-mounted air conditioner rattled on.
On the TV screen, Humphrey Bogart said, “I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.”
Alex made a third, half-hearted attempt to raise the blade before he gave up and sat down on the bed beside her. He sheathed the sword and rested it across his lap. And waited.
***
Night turned to morning. Outside, if Alex had turned his head to look, he would have seen the first sinister hints of dawn, the dull gray of approaching daybreak.
Carmen lay beside him, still as death.
Her eyes snapped open.
She drew in a shocked breath. Her eyes focused on the ceiling. Her hand found the smooth, complete flesh of her neck.
She sighed, still staring at the ceiling. “Well, shit.”
Alex didn’t respond. He stared at the door.
“Alex?” she said. “Am I…”
“Yeah,” he said. “You are.”
“Goddamn it.”
“Yeah.”
Carmen sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting next to Alex. She trembled and rocked slowly back and forth, hugging herself tightly. Her breath was fast and shallow. “He killed me. The bastard killed me. Oh, God. Oh, Jesus.” She grimaced, and tears formed in her eyes. She hugged herself even tighter. Her eyes came to rest on the sword that lay across Alex’s knees. “Is that for me?”
Alex nodded once. “Was, yeah.”
She hesitated for a moment then asked, “Was?”
“Dunno. Guess if I was gonna, I shoulda done it by now.” Alex ran his hands through his hair; he looked around as if trying to find an escape. “Damn it, I always said, if I was a vamp, if anybody really cared about me, I’d want ’em to do what had to be done, so I wouldn’t have to live like that. But now it’s you.” He sighed. “And I can’t do it.”
She pulled her hair back, holding it in a loose ponytail with her hands. “If it helps any, I’m not sure I want you to.”
Alex just looked down at the sword.
“I mean, I don’t really feel any different. How bad can it be?”
He still didn’t look up. “You ain’t never gonna see the sun again. Gonna be livin’ in the dark, killin’ to survive. You really want to live like that? You ever seen a junkie cravin’ a fix? That ain’t nothin’ compared to a vampire needin’ blood. I’d have to be crazy to be in the same room with you…even right now. You say you love me? You’d kill me anyways. You’d just wake up feelin’ full and glowy, and I’d be there on the floor with my throat opened up. That’s the truth, darlin’. You wanna live like that?”
“I…I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t feel dead. And I don’t want to die. Does anything else work? Animal blood? Could it come from blood banks?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know how it works. Nobody does, really. But the blood’s gotta be human. And it’s gotta be fresh. Ain’t no other way.” He turned the sword in his hands, examining the folds of the grip.
“What about a donor? If I…”
“Maybe. It’s been done. Gotta be done with a needle, so you don’t infect your donor. You’ve seen what a vamp bite is like, even if the vampire don’t take enough blood to kill you. Those bites are unpredictable mothers. And sooner or later, you’re gonna lose your self-control. Then you’ll have to find a new donor.”
Carmen stood up and went to the sink in the bathroom. She stared in the mirror and raised her lips, examining her newly pointed incisors.”Goddamn it.”
“You can say that again,” said Alex. “I should’ve done it before you ever woke up. Woulda been easier that way. I can still…I mean, it’d be quick. If you want.”
She came back into the room and sat next to him on the bed. “I don’t know what I want.”
“I don’t wanna see you livin’ like this.”
Carmen glared at him. “Well, what the fuck do you want me to do, just kneel down and stretch out my neck?”
“I dunno,” whispered Alex. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes.
She sighed. “Look, I know you’re trying to look out for me and all, but I just fucking got killed, and I’m still trying to work that out in my head.”
Alex stood. He stumbled, in a fog, toward the front door, grabbing his hat along the way, holding the katana in his hand. “Look, I gotta…This is all gettin’ too much. I need some air.” He fumbled with the doorknob. “You just…just stay outta the sunshine.”
“Are you going to come back?”
He paused in the doorway and looked back at her. “Yeah. I’ll come back.” After he closed the door behind him, he said, “One way or the other.”
***
The morning was crisp and peaceful, the sky a flawless blue. Eastern sunlight had just begun to take the chill out of the air. Alex hung the do not disturb sign on the motel-room door and headed to the truck. He slid his katana behind the seat and climbed in.
He drove aimlessly as the day warmed, drifting over cracked blacktop, past nameless strip malls and truck stops. He stopped at a roadside café and ordered breakfast. When it arrived, he discovered he wasn’t hungry. He drank a cup of coffee while he moved the food around on his plate, then left a twenty on the table and slid out of the booth.
Alex headed west and found himself in the Arizona high desert. Pillars and arches of tan-red sandstone rose out of the horizon and stretched toward the bright-blue sky. Eventually he took an unmarked dirt turnoff. After a long, dusty drive, he parked at the base of a towering rock formation. He climbed to the top and sat, looking out over the desert. Hours passed. He sat like he was a part of the stone. A hawk trilled overhead, turning in the bright sunshine.
Around noon, Alex stood up. He pulled his pistol. The big chrome .45 gleamed in the sunlight. He aimed at the horizon and pulled the trigger again and again. He screamed as the shots boomed and echoed off the rocks. He fired until the slide locked open on an empty chamber.
The desert fell into shocked silence. Alex slapped in a fresh magazine and holstered the pistol.
Under the brim of his cowboy hat, his mirrored aviator shades reflected a funhouse-mirror miniature of the desert all around him. He stormed to the truck and retrieved his katana.
He took a deep breath, uns
heathed the blade, and forced himself to concentrate on sword forms. For an hour or more, he lunged and cut his way across the desert, slicing apart cactus and mesquite. Finally, panting and sweaty, he bowed, then wiped cactus juice from his blade before returning the sword to its sheath.
His mouth was a thin slash as he drove the truck back towards the motel. He left the radio off and listened to the sound of the desert rushing by outside. By the afternoon he was back in New Mexico.
A squat, nameless roadhouse bar called to him. He pulled the truck off the road and went inside. The place was cool and smoky, empty save for a few die-hard regulars, dark save for the neon signs and the lamps above the pool tables. Alex took a seat on a barstool. The bartender noticed him and stopped washing glasses.
“What’ll it be?”
“Whiskey,” said Alex.
“What kind?”
“The kind you drink.”
The bartender grabbed a shot glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels. As he poured out a shot, he said, “Rough day?”
“You might say that,” said Alex. “Just need a little liquid courage. Gotta go end it with my girl.”
The bartender leaned on his hands. “That’s rough. Not an easy thing.”
Alex knocked back the shot and winced. “You ain’t jokin’, amigo. Breaks my heart. But I gotta do it. It’s the right thing, you know? We’ll both be better off. She don’t know it yet, but she will eventually.”
The bartender leaned against the bar. “Just grown apart, huh?”
Alex nodded. “She’s changed, and I ain’t. Guess that’s really the problem.” He tapped his finger on the bar, and the bartender poured another shot. “Last one,” he said, before he tipped the shot back. “I don’t wanna get sloppy.”
“Yeah, probably best to be able to keep your wits.”
“I mean, I hate to do it to her. It ain’t her fault. But it’s for the best.”
“Well, you have to think about you,” said the bartender. “If you aren’t happy, don’t stay in it for her sake.”
“Yeah, you’re right, of course.”
“They say the clean cut heals fastest.”
Alex stared at the worn veneer of the bar for a moment. He nodded slowly. “Yeah, that’s what they say, ain’t it?” He pulled out a twenty and slapped it on the counter. “Thanks, pal.”
“Good luck to you, buddy.”
***
He pulled into the parking lot of the motel. A vulture flew in front of the sun, casting a brief, flickering shadow over the parking lot.
“All right, Alex,” he muttered. “You can do this.” He sat at the wheel, staring at the peeling red door of the motel room. “Done it a hundred times. Quick ‘n’ clean. Don’t think about it. Just get it over with.”
He unholstered his pistol. From a bag on the seat, he retrieved a thick black silencer, which he screwed onto the barrel before opening the door of the truck.
He looked around for witnesses then slid the katana into his belt on his left side. He cocked the pistol and held it down low at his knee. In his left hand, he held the motel-room key.
The key slid smoothly into the lock. Alex took two deep breaths, turned the bolt, and pushed the door open. As the door swung open, he brought the pistol up into a two-handed grip, sweeping across the room as he stepped inside. He didn’t see Carmen.
The sound of retching came from the bathroom. Alex looked around the room and saw the Chinese takeout from the night before, sitting on the table. The pork chow mein was open, a pair of chopsticks protruding from the box.
In the bathroom, Carmen made heaving, gasping noises. Alex crossed the room in three strides and peeked the gun around the corner, his gunsight aligned on the back of her head.
Carmen didn’t notice. She gripped the porcelain rim with both hands, so hard her knuckles were white. Spasms wracked her body. A pathetic trickle of chewed food dribbled from her mouth as she hunched and made extended vowel sounds into the toilet bowl. Her tangled hair hung in her face and stuck to the rim of the toilet.
Alex wasn’t really sure how it happened. The next thing he knew, he was stashing the pistol under a pillow. He pulled the sword—still sheathed—from his belt, and set it on the bed. Then he was kneeling next to her, holding her hair out of the way while she vomited.
In between heaves, she said, “That Chinese food was bad. It tasted…like rancid cardboard or something. It made me sick.” She doubled over again.
Alex used a pinky to comb an errant lock of hair from her face. “You’re a vampire, darlin’. You ain’t gonna eat food no more.” One part of his mind was musing on the strange fact that he was supposed to be killing her.
“But I’m so hungry.”
The vomiting seemed to be finished. Alex sat on the floor of the bathroom and leaned against the doorframe. “That’s what I been tellin’ you, hon.”
Carmen stood up, rinsed her mouth out at the sink, then flushed the toilet. “Look, I’ve been thinking about it all day. This…this can’t be right. I mean, this is crazy. I’m not a vampire.”
Alex leaned his head back against the bathroom wall. “Just take a look at your teeth.”
Carmen put down the seat and sat down on the toilet. “I mean, there’s no such thing as vampires. It’s silly, when you think about it. Logically, I mean.”
Alex let out a deep breath. “Sugar, I know this is hard. Believe me. I know. But you gotta face facts.”
“No, I’ve got to start living in the real world. This is all your sick fantasy. You and Jen and all your vampire-hunting buddies. It’s mass hysteria. This is all crazy.” She stood up, left the bathroom, and paced the motel room. “There’s no such thing as vampires. I’ll just go out and—”
Alex stood up and followed her out. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Darlin’, you need to—”
“Don’t tell me what I need to do!” Carmen shoved him. He flew across the room and smashed into the mirror on the wall. The mirror shattered, and he tumbled onto the dresser. He groaned and rolled onto the floor.
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry!” Carmen rushed over to him and knelt. “I don’t even know how I did that!”
“Unhh…” As he got to his hands and knees, Alex held his side. She tried to help him up, but he shook off her hands. “I’m fine,” he said. He got up on his own, limped to the bed, and sat down.
“I’m so sorry,” Carmen repeated. She sat next to him on the bed.
“I’ll live.” He managed a smile. “Damn, girl, you got some push.”
He had a small cut on his forehead, upon which a single bead of blood welled. Carmen wiped the blood away with her finger. “Oh, you got a little…” She exhaled shakily and stared at the blood on her finger “…cut.” She swallowed loudly, her eyes never leaving the smear of blood.
“Take it easy now,” said Alex. His hand slowly crept toward the gun under the pillow.
Carmen shook her head as if knocking out the cobwebs. She smiled unconvincingly. “Hey, let me make it up to you. Let’s go get some dinner. My treat.”
“Honey, you ain’t goin’ nowhere till the sun goes down. And you ain’t gonna want no dinner anyhow.”
She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. What should we do then?” she asked, with a mischievous raise of her eyebrow.
After a moment’s thought, Alex said, “Let’s just watch some TV.”
And so they did. They watched the evening news, followed by some PBS show about polar bears. By then, it was dark outside.
Finally, Alex stood up and shut off the TV. He picked up his sword and holstered his pistol. “All right,” he said, “if we’re gonna do this, let’s do this. Put your shoes on, grab your gun, and come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“Takin’ care of some business.” But instead of the front door, Alex went to the bathroom.
Carmen laughed. “I don’t know what business you’re taking care of in there, but I’m not sure I want to help.”
Alex stood on the toilet lid
and opened the small, high, rectangular window. He looked through it then pulled out his folding knife and cut the screen away. “We’re leavin’ the back way.”
“Are we going to blow this place up too?”
“Not this time.” With fluid ease, Alex slithered out of the window headfirst, hanging on to the eaves as he pulled the rest of his body through.
Carmen followed him through then brushed the dust off her jeans.
“C’mon now,” said Alex. They walked to the end of the row of motel rooms and peeked around the corner. “See that black Volvo there?”
“The one with two people sitting in it?”
“That’s the one. Them two are Don Carlos’s stooges. They been sittin’ here watchin’ us since last night. Followed me for a while when I left today, until I lost ’em. Guess they came back. You and me, we’re gonna take care of ’em.”
After he briefed Carmen on the plan, they crept around the corner, following the edge of the parking lot until they came around behind the car. One of the watchers smoked a cigarette, the orange cherry standing out like a flare. Smoke drifted from the cracked window.
Alex sidled up to the driver’s window, and Carmen took the passenger’s side. Alex drew his pistol and tapped the glass with the barrel.
Don Carlos’s thug turned his head and froze, mid-drag, his cigarette held to his mouth with two fingers. Smoke escaped from his open mouth. Alex put thumb and forefinger together and made the universal gesture for “Roll down your window.”
The thug complied. “Unlock your back doors,” said Alex.
“They’re unlocked,” said the thug.
Alex slid in one side and immediately pushed the pistol barrel against the back of the driver’s skull. Carmen got in on the other side. “Guns out the windows,” said Alex. Two pistols clattered on the pavement. “Now drive.”
“Where?”
“Just drive.”
The engine purred to life. The car slid out of the parking lot and onto the main road. The driver continued smoking his cigarette.
“Mind if I light up too?” said the thug in the passenger’s seat.
“Whatever,” Alex replied. He kept a close eye on the second thug while he produced a pack of cigarettes and a lighter then went through the smoker’s ritual. He took the first drag and leaned back in the seat as he let the smoke out. “You know, if you hurt us, our boss is going to—”
