Watch

by Cass J. McMain

  When she told Seth this, he suggested she give them to Lew at the bookstore, to sell in the used section. “Or sell them to him, I guess. If he pays.”

  “He does, but not much.” She might make a trade, though. “I could talk to him about it, anyway. In fact, maybe some of these are rare.” She didn’t think so, from the looks of them, but one never knew.

  “If there’s a few ultra-rare books in there, maybe your uncle wasn’t as nuts as you thought, eh?”

  Corky snorted. “Oh, no. He was entirely nuts, but he hid it well.” Her fingers played over the leather cover of the diary again, tracing the letters that remained visible. She wondered again what the rest of the words had been. She had meant to ask Moony; now she wouldn’t be able to. “I wonder how many people have crazy family members they don’t even know are nuts.”

  “Do you really think his kids had no idea?”

  “Oh, they knew he was a little strange, Seth, sure. They called him ‘eccentric.’ Just a little bit… you know. But they didn’t know any of—” she broke off, waving her hand at the book, even though Seth couldn’t see her, “—this,” she finished. “They just thought he was… quirky.” Moony had talked to hardly anyone about the vampire issue. They knew about the books, but they just thought of them as a “collection.” People collected all sorts of crazy crap, it didn’t make them crazy. “Even if he had a first edition ‘Dracula’ in there, they’d think it was an investment.” Which it would have been. A sane investment, maybe, but one he wouldn’t have made for a sane reason.

  “You may be right. I know I had an aunt… or a great-aunt, I guess. She was way off. And we all knew it, almost everyone in the family knew she was totally fubar.” There was a brief pause, then Seth burst out laughing. “She… one time, she showed up at the holiday thing, Christmas dinner, you know. And she was mostly fine, except she kept turning the oven off. I mean, my mom had a turkey in there, right? And she’d go in, and the oven would be off. She thought at first she did it, you know, by accident… so she turned it back on. And then a little bit later she goes in, and it’s off again.” Seth was laughing very hard now. “She kept…she kept going in… this happened like three-four times, and then finally, she spotted Aunt Frankie in there, turning it off again. We never figured out why.”

  Corky laughed with him. “God. How long was she like that?”

  He stopped laughing. “Well. She was like that for a really long time, and her kids never did anything about her. But they probably should have, actually, ’cause eventually she got hit by a car – she was walking on the freeway.”

  Corky sat at the table, running her fingers over Uncle Moony’s book. He’d kept his crazy secret almost his entire life, held his job, raised his kids. Nobody had ever known.

  She was almost proud of him.

  PART TWO

  Chapter 1

  …He should be stopped. What does it say about me, that I never tried to stop him? Why did I never even try?

  If you were to ask Martin “Moony” Moonrich when it was he first came to fear his brother, he’d probably tell you about the day he found Edgar with the bird. He had never seen anything like that – not quite like that – in his entire life, and it scared him. Not the blood so much, the blood itself and everything that went along with it, but the idea of it; the idea that his little brother had been compelled to do such a thing. That, and the look on Edgar’s face when he caught him. The strange, strange grin under all that blood.

  But he didn’t hate his brother then, no. Edgar was still his little brother, and he loved him; even though he was afraid to be in a room alone with him, he loved him still. If you were to ask him to put a pin in the day he first knew he hated his brother, he’d tell you it was the day he found out Edgar had stolen Cici from him. And that would be the truth, because Edgar had done many things over the years that disgusted Moony, revolted him. But it was the thing with Cici that broke his heart.

  And if you were to ask him to pin down the day he first wanted to kill Edgar? That would be easy for him to answer, too. He had feared his brother most of his life, and hated him for years, but he hadn’t wanted to kill him until the day he saw the marks on her arms. Even then, it took a while to work up to actually trying to do it. Maybe it was the tears in her eyes that finally made him try.

  At some point along the way, Martin Moonrich lost his mind. Asking him when it was that had happened would be a fool’s game.

  Chapter 2

  “May I cut in?”

  Moony looked over at his brother. Some nerve, he thought, but he smiled graciously and stepped back. “Of course, my good man,” he said smoothly, turning toward the table where Edgar’s date sat watching. Her name was Loretta, and she wasn’t much of a dancer. Moony joined her and ordered them both a drink.

  “She’s pretty,” said Loretta, pointing out at the dancing pair. “I wish I could dance. Two left feet, you know.” She tittered annoyingly. “I told Edgar I can’t dance, but he insisted on coming. Have you been dating long?”

  “Since last September.”

  “Oh, that’s a long time.” Edgar’s date sipped her drink – a mimosa. “I’ve only been out with Edgar a few times now. Your girl’s name was Cecilia?”

  “Cici. Everyone calls her Cici.”

  “Her dress is beautiful.” Loretta tittered again, looking down at her lap. “I only had this old thing. Do you think it looks alright?”

  Moony glanced at her. “It’s fine,” he said, turning back toward the dance floor. Cici and Edgar whirled around, and he thought they were dancing too close. But what could he say? He wished Edgar had the good sense to bring a date that could dance on a dinner-and-dancing date, instead of just taking Cici right out of his hands like he had. If they didn’t come in for a rest when the music changed, he planned to go steal her back.

  “I haven’t ever been to this place before. It’s so dreamy,” sighed Loretta, leaning closer. “All the pretty dresses, and the lights…” she tapered off, blinking at him. “You and Edgar look a lot alike, you know? Are you his older brother?”

  “Yeah. I’m six years older.” He didn’t want to talk to Loretta, he wanted to dance with Cici. The music had changed over, and now they were certainly dancing too close. He’d go cut in. He’d—

  “You don’t look that much older,” breathed Loretta, her hand on his arm. “I mean, you have a … oh, I don’t know… you just look a little older. But you have almost the exact same eyes. And your hair.”

  Irritated, Moony nodded. Edgar was whispering in Cici’s ear now. “Yes, um… I hear that a lot. Please excuse me.” He stood and made his way across the floor, and took back his dance.

  Cici smiled at him strangely. “What’s that look on your face about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re frowning.”

  He led her across the floor. “I wasn’t. Well, OK, I was. I was jealous. What were you two talking about out here?”

  She laughed lightly. “Secrets.”

  The dance ended and Cici wanted a rest, so they joined the others at the table. Moony went to get them drinks – a Lemon Drop for Cici, and another Mimosa for Loretta, who was getting pretty tipsy.

  “You look so pretty out there, your dress matches your shoes,” she said.

  Cici looked down and smiled. “Well, thank you. This was my favorite dress to go dancing in but I haven’t had a dancing date in forever.”

  “That’s a crime,” Edgar put in. “My brother never takes you dancing?”

  Cici blushed. “Well, we go out, you know. But we haven’t been dancing in a while.”

  “You should go dancing every night, pretty girl like you.”

  Now Loretta spoke up again. “Edgar. You’ll embarrass her,” she said, though it was she who was looking embarrassed.

  “Oh, it wouldn’t be fun to go dancing if I went every night, anyway. That would be excessive,” Cici said.

  Edgar grinned at her. “Excess is the spice of life.”

&n
bsp; “I thought that was variety.”

  Edgar’s eyes got wide and then narrow, and he nodded. “So I hear,” he said dryly, looking sideways at his date. Loretta said nothing, just blinked back at him.

  Moony returned with the drinks, and while he was busy setting them down, another dance started. Before he had a chance to say anything, Edgar had already pulled Cici out onto the dance floor.

  By the end of that evening, Cici was looking at Moony strangely, and by the end of that week she had stopped returning his calls. It was years before Moony found out what it was that had actually happened. And by then, of course, it was far too late.

  Chapter 3

  Before he knew about the bruises, he knew about the cheating. And before he knew about the cheating, he knew about the blood. He’d seen Edgar with blood on his hands before, after all. But there had been more and more of it – and Edgar had seemed less and less concerned about hiding it.

  Vi had arranged a small gathering to celebrate Pam’s second birthday, and while she juggled the toddler and the newborn Bruce, Moony had stepped outside for a cigarette. There, in the late afternoon shadow of the garden, he had seen Edgar and Cici arguing. He stepped back around the corner, to avoid embarrassing them, but he heard the slap when it happened.

  With no idea what to do, Moony had merely stood there as silently and invisibly as he could, letting bits of the argument waft over him as they came along, like foul-smelling breezes. He didn’t catch all of it, nor was he trying to, but he got enough. Edgar had been out most of the night, had been out most every night. And always there was blood on his hands when he returned.

  Always. And now, though she was sure they had been clean a little while ago, Cici had spotted more blood: just a few drops, but fresh ones.

  Edgar’s voice rose louder and he stormed rapidly toward the house. Moony was trapped in his eavesdropping, unable to maneuver away in time, but Edgar didn’t seem even to notice him as he went past. Cici, following him, stopped with a gasp when she saw Moony standing there.

  “Have you heard that whole thing, then?” she had asked quietly, looking hurt and afraid. There was a handprint on her cheek, from the slap Moony had heard. In the print there were traces of blood.

  Moony had only nodded, and he wanted to look away, but he couldn’t tear his eyes off the bloody handprint on her cheek.

  Tears had welled up in Cici’s eyes then, her huge blue eyes like saucers. “I don’t know what he does at night,” she had whispered. Then, with a swift wipe of her eyes, she had hurried away, into the house, to the cake and the fruit punch, to the balloons.

  Moony followed her, meaning to talk to her, wanting to find out about the blood, to find out how bad it had gotten, but Vi grabbed him as he came in.

  “Moony honey, you’ve got to take this baby a while, I’m frantic.”

  He held Bruce in his arms and walked around the house, looking for Cici. He wasn’t sure exactly what he would say if he found her. Ask if she was alright? Tell her about how Edgar had always been a little strange? Would she believe that? Thinking about the bloody handprint, Moony thought she would. But what would she tell him in return?

  If she’d wanted to talk about it, old man, she had her chance a minute ago. She fled from you, into the house. Why are you chasing her?

  Moony bounced Bruce absentmindedly as he considered. Did he really think she’d tell him anything? He was right; she’d had a chance a minute ago, and all she had said was that she didn’t know where her husband went at night. Her husband, who had seen fit to slap her at a toddler’s birthday party. And then she had rushed off after him, probably to apologize to him, make peace.

  She doesn’t want your help.

  In his arms, Bruce was squalling, and Moony realized he was joggling the baby too harshly. He was so angry with Edgar, it was making him crazy. This blood thing. He’d been able to put it out of his mind, but here it was, back again. Had Edgar gotten worse? Moony had sort of assumed that once Edgar grew up, he’d get over the blood thing. But he hadn’t. He’d seemed to have it pretty much under control, though, enough so that Moony had quit worrying about it too much. Now Moony thought maybe he’d been wrong. If Edgar truly had blood on his hands every morning, then certainly he had been wrong.

  And the nights. Where does he go at night?

  Moony decided to find out.

  Chapter 4

  It appeared that Cici had exaggerated somewhat when she said he went out every night. Moony parked down the street and waited to follow Edgar when he left, but Edgar didn’t leave. Not that night, or the next. On the third night, Edgar did get in his car, but all he did was drive to the corner store for cigarettes. Moony returned home with a mixture of relief and disappointment. He had wasted hours on this, and was no closer to knowing the truth. Obviously, Cici had been making more of it than it was. Moony told himself that one more night was it; his excuses to Vi were wearing thin, and though she wasn’t the brightest girl in the world, eventually she was going to realize something funny was going on with all these late nights. He’d give it one more try, and if he didn’t discover what was going on with his brother, then that was just going to be the way it was.

  On the fourth night, just when Moony was about to give up, Edgar left the house, and this time it wasn’t for cigarettes. Instead, Moony found himself following his brother to the red-light district. Moony had to drop farther and farther back as Edgar slowed to a near crawl. Moony was sure he’d be spotted, but Edgar never even glanced at him. When Edgar pulled over suddenly, Moony was forced to drive past him, and when he circled back around to get in position again, he was startled to find his brother picking up one of the prostitutes.

  So that’s where he goes. Moony frowned, following as Edgar pulled into the parking lot of a nearby flophouse. He leaves his beautiful wife and drives to the seediest neighborhood in town and picks up whores. My God.

  And this had to get worse, didn’t it? Because it wasn’t the fact that Edgar left the house that had upset the lovely Cici so very much. It was the blood he had on his hands when he got back. What in the name of God was his brother doing in there?

  Moony glanced around and opened his car door. Swallowing hard, he made his way to the shadowy walkway and snuck up to the door of the room. This was going to look bad if he was caught, but he had to do it. He pressed his ear to the door.

  It was muffled, but it didn’t sound like murder. There was a tiny crack in the draperies and he could see a shadow moving. The thrusting movement was obvious and went along with the muffled sounds precisely. Suddenly Moony felt very exposed out here in the parking lot, spying on his brother’s illicit behavior. He spun round and moved rapidly toward his car, hugely embarrassed and flushed. He shouldn’t have been listening in. That was a mistake, and he was lucky he hadn’t been caught at it. Moony was still regaining his composure when the motel room door opened and Edgar stepped out, looking from side to side. If he’d looked straight ahead he might have seen Moony parked there a scant thirty feet from him, but instead he kept his head low and Moony went undetected.

  After Edgar drove off, Moony looked at the room, wondering. Was that where the blood came from? Had his brother been killing hookers? But no, the door opened again, and the girl stepped out, lighting a cigarette. Unlike Edgar, she looked straight ahead, and spotted Moony staring at her.

  “Lookin’ for a good time, honey?” She walked with exaggerated sway up to Moony’s car window, and bent low to expose her breasts. “I’ve got a room right here. All you can handle for a twenty. Or I’ll blow you for ten.”

  Her neck had what Moony at first took to be a hickey. A closer look told him it was more than this. It was clearly a bite mark, still bleeding a little.

  She saw him staring at her neck. “That? Don’t worry hon. You won’t even notice it once I get started. Unless it turns you on. Does it turn you on?” Speechless and revolted, Moony shook his head and started his car.

  After that night, Moony followed Edgar off and on
for weeks, and saw him with prostitutes often. Women, and men, too. It was always the same; there was sex which he could usually hear and sometimes even see, and then there was blood. He had seen it on the throats of the prostitutes, and on Edgar’s hands as he left them.

  Well, it was almost always the same. Sometimes, Moony heard screaming or yelling. He assumed those were the times when the biting got to be too much.

  Moony was paralyzed with indecision. It might make Cici feel better to know where the blood came from; bought and paid for, so to speak. That it was nothing so foul as murder, which surely she had wondered about as much as Moony had. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell her the truth of it: that the man she had left him for was hiring the cheapest whores he could find twice a week, taking them quickly in rank motels … and then biting them so he could lick the blood off their throats.

  That fall, Cici announced she was pregnant, and then Moony knew he couldn’t tell her. It would break her heart. But Edgar carried on as usual, and Moony wished there was something he could do about it.

  Chapter 5

  “That it for you?” The girl at the counter looked up at Moony, then shuffled through his books again, arching her eyebrows. “Wow, that’s a lot of vampire books. You doing research or something?”

  “Something.” He was exhausted from reading, from following Edgar, from working, from keeping Vi pacified. Not more than three hours’ sleep any night this week. He fumbled in his wallet for the cash.

  “Have you been to the club?”

  Moony blinked at her. “Club?”

  “Yeah. The club.” She looked around briefly and lowered her voice, leaning in, her braids hitting the counter. “The vampire club. Right? You never heard of it?”