by Z. Rider
He needed to be more careful—needed to do as much of the work himself as he could, as cheaply as possible. He needed to get a job. He wondered if he could get one at the local paper. Didn’t even matter if it was emptying wastebaskets. He’d learn stuff while he was there.
One day, he was going to have an article about what he found, someplace big. Maybe the New York Times or Rolling Stone.
Habit had him reaching for the empty cigarette pack. He crushed it in his hand. He could start cutting corners right here. Give up the smokes. Give up the sodas.
He paid the bill, left a tip a little short of ten percent, and fed coins back into the phone.
Eleven unanswered rings later, he shoved his quarters back in his pocket, got in his car, gassed it up at the place next door, and got back on the highway.
5.
* * *
“Hey,” Shawn said.
As the word worked its way through layers of sleep, Dean shifted. His foot dropped off the couch. He cracked his eyes open. Light that stabbed his retinas haloed around a dark blob. He snapped his eyes shut, pulling his hand over his face.
His hips pressed on something hard. He worked his fingers between himself and the couch back, trying to find what it was.
“Bit too much to drink last night?” Shawn said.
“Must have.” His fingertip slid along something sharp, opening it up. He jerked his hand away, lifting his hip. Got his fingers around the knife’s grip as his fingertip tingled, knitting itself back together.
“Shut the door.” He pushed the biker’s knife between the couch cushions, out of sight. His tongue hit the back of his teeth as he spoke, and it didn’t feel like the right architecture in there. But mostly—ugh, the light.
As Shawn rose and turned, he tried opening his eyes again.
A faint strip of sun cut across the lounge’s floor and burned right through his pupils. He buried his head.
Shawn pulled the door shut, turned on the light, and Dean peeked. Bright—weirdly bright for a shitty bus light—but not intolerable. He pushed himself up, groggy and sluggish. “Are we there yet?” The bus didn’t feel like it was moving.
“Yeah. We’ve got some interviews in a bit.”
Dean pushed his hands up his face, trying to wake up.
“If you’re not up for it…”
He breathed in, deep, the room full of smells: sweat, the light oil of an electric shaver’s motor, orange juice. Old sweat under fresher sweat. It was pulsing off Shawn, signaling, stirring an edginess in his nerves.
“What’s this?” Shawn stooped to pick something up.
Dean’s heart kicked into gear. Had he dropped the knife?
And at first, he had no idea what Shawn held pinched between his fingers. It looked too smoothed out to be a broken-off piece of something. Hard and a little yellowed, like aged ivory badly carved into a tadpole shape.
Shawn laughed. “Is this a fucking tooth?”
Dean pushed his tongue against the backside of one of his teeth. Its unfamiliar contour.
Shawn rolled the tooth between thumb and finger, making it twirl. Smiling, he said, “You didn’t lose a tooth, did you?”
Covering his face with his hands like he was still trying to scrub himself awake, he said, “Not that I know of.”
“Weird.”
“Do me a favor?” Dean said.
“What?”
“Shut the bunk door on your way out?”
“It’s that bad, huh?”
“Cheap fucking whiskey,” he said as he lay across the couch, burying his face in his arms.
“Want some aspirin?”
“Nah, just shut the doors. Let me finish waking up. I’ll be out.”
Shawn’s footsteps grew distant.
The far door slid shut.
He launched himself from the couch. He needed to get to the bathroom mirror to see how bad it was, and he needed sunglasses to get from the back of the bus to the bathroom. He dug them out of his bunk, sending a silent You’re a fucking asshole to the body he had to reach across to find them.
He dragged the curtain shut to hide it. Pulled his sneakers on. Went back to the lounge for the knife. When he pulled the couch cushion up, another tooth shook loose from it.
He ducked to feel around on the floor, and pocketed one more. That was three. As far as he could tell, he was only looking for four—two uppers, two lowers.
He found the fourth deep under the back cushion. As he looked at them in his cupped hand, his shoulders shuddered. He’d never really thought about what adult teeth looked like, how they embedded themselves so deep in your jaw.
He had the biker’s knife in his other fist. Tried shoving it in his back pocket, then in his waistband. Under the leg of his jeans, tucked into his sock. He could point it blade up, but the round handle didn’t sit well with his ankle.
He hated to leave it, but he had no way to carry it. Wishing he still had his jacket—either of his fucking jackets—he pushed the knife down between the biker and the wall. Slipped his own folding knife into his back pocket. He’d have felt better with the one that doubled as a stake—having possession of the thing that could kill him seemed like a sound idea—but any knife was better than none. Not that it had been much use last night.
More use than the fucking stake the other guy had brought on. That thing had snapped like a toothpick.
He needed to get a new jacket, something with an inside pocket.
When he slid the door to the front lounge open, the sunlight through the front lounge’s windows reached around the sides of his glasses. He drew back into the shadows of the bunk area. His pulse beat—slow and sluggish but hard.
No one was out there. He just had to make it three steps. Taking a deep breath, he walked, head down, to the bathroom, and yanked the door shut behind him.
Yeah, there they were. Not much longer than the teeth he was used to, but they curved forward and ended in points sharper than his normal teeth. Holding his upper lip with his thumb, he touched the tip of his tongue to one. Not sharp enough to cut on contact, just sharper than they used to be.
Blood pounded in his eardrums.
He was, at some point, probably going to use these new teeth again. How long would the biker hold him for?
The thought horrified him—and stirred him. As he strode back to the bunks, he could feel his teeth grow, pushing against his lips.
After shutting the door, he walked to where the biker’d bought it and dropped to one knee, sliding his hand across the floor. Looking for blood stains. Anything that would give last night’s struggle away.
His tongue worried at a tooth again.
He was something else now. It wasn’t just funky tricks of the light, or hallucinating that his skin was healing. Shawn had held his old fucking tooth between his fingers.
A shiver went through him, ending in the cold pit of his belly.
He was something else now.
As he stepped to the ground, the sun, no longer restrained by the bus windows, hit him square in the face. He narrowed his eyes behind the shaded lenses, squinching them down to slits, tears welling. He brought his hand up like a visor as he searched the side of the concrete building for anything that might be a door.
A rectangle moved, distorting into a trapezoid. A hulking shape appeared alongside it. The shape gave a quick whistle.
He walked toward it, his hand pressed to his forehead like a salute. He hoped he didn’t step in a hole on the fucking way. He was walking almost blind.
Jesus—was he going to be able to do this?
“There’s breakfast upstairs,” Teddy said as he slipped through the door.
Teddy pulled it shut.
Dean blinked, floats of light ghosting his vision. “I’m good.” He wasn’t sure he was, but he was still walking upright. He’d take what he could get.
He grabbed the bannister and hauled himself up, following his nose, his insides clenching at the sweet scent of doughnuts. Raspberry, powdered suga
r. Ripe bananas. Coffee. The higher he climbed, the less he wanted to keep going, his guts churning.
Voices spilled down the stairwell, the melody of chatter. When he came around the corner, Shawn stood at a table pouring coffee into a mug. When he saw Dean, he reached for a fresh mug, upside down on a tray.
“I’m good,” Dean said.
Jesus, the coffee smell was strong.
“All right—everyone’s here.” Mike checked his watch. “You’ve got fifteen minutes each,” talking not to the band but to the people who’d come to meet the band—music journalists and local reporters gathered in a clump with mugs and pastries, notebooks stuffed under their arms. Cameras hanging from their necks.
The band mustn’t have been the only ones who’d heard “Can’t Win” was making a run for the top.
Mike herded the guys into what amounted to a glorified closet with a swaybacked couch shoved against shelves of audio equipment, binders, and cardboard boxes. A metal folding chair faced the couch. A dinky box of a coffee table had been placed between the two, most of its space hogged by a green, pirogue-shaped ashtray.
Dean walked to the far end and put his shoulder against a wall while the others squashed together on the couch.
The first interviewer smiled as she took the folding chair, setting her bag down, flipping open a notepad, smiling at them again. A dangling silver earring flashed light at Dean like a message. With each beat of her pulse, a flowery perfume rippled toward him. He tilted his head up a little. Lifted his cigarette to his mouth. Breathed in the smoke to cover the coffee smell crowding the room.
He put his eyes on the pirogue ashtray, like he could get in it and float away...
…on a river of blood. He closed his eyes for a moment while the others answered questions. They were still thrilled from the show last night, thrilled with the attention they were getting this morning. It was like going back to ’73, when they’d thought it would always be like this. Or that it’d get even better than this.
Dean braced his elbow on the wall, his fingers sinking into his hair. Cigarette burning away. His thoughts were having trouble staying put. Under the coffee smell was the other—dark and secret and enticing.
Their interviewer turned her smile toward him, and having no idea what she’d asked, he mumbled, “Nice earrings, darlin’,” his mouth hardly moving to keep his teeth from showing. Her pulse sounded like it was beating just for him, and he shifted a bit—excitement rising up in his jeans.
After a laugh, she started to repeat the question, something about how he’d gotten started playing—and the door swung open, banging Nick in the knee. Mike’s head poked in. “Time’s up.” Then they were on to the next, a twentysomething guy who was already having to resort to a comb-over to cover his scalp.
And his blood smelled just as good as the other’s.
By the end of it, Dean was on the floor, his back against the wall, chin tipped up. Watching the ceiling. Thrumming with the buzz of life trapped in the room with him. His fingertips tingled as the baritones of his friends’ voices bounced off each other in the room. Nick’s pulse was still the quicker one, running ahead, and Dean broke off listening to it to light another cigarette.
This last interviewer, another chick, looked his way, and he caught and held her eyes, green flecked with brown. He wanted her, but it wasn’t in the way he used to want. He wanted to crush her against him and sink his new teeth in her neck, tasting the smell of her. Feeling her struggle against him.
A detached part of him tried to be shocked, or at least disgusted. He could barely feel it.
His teeth shifted forward as he pictured her screams, imagined the thud of pulse pounding under skin. He tipped his head down, pressing his lips together.
Whatever she was saying wasn’t getting through his ears. They were too full of the rush of blood.
The room was a balloon, pressure filling it and filling it, until it felt like it was going to burst.
The door swung open. Mike again, bringing the sharp smell of sweat with him. The rapid beat of his own pulse. “Time’s up. You guys’ve got sound check.”
The others protested but started pulling themselves up.
Dean pushed to his feet.
The interviewer fumbled her pencil as she was trying to put her things back in her bag. It clattered lightly to the floor.
As he handed it back to her, he said, “Want to watch sound check?” Keeping his head ducked, his lips moving against teeth that felt huge.
She looked up, startled. Smiled. “Is that all right?”
He shrugged, like Why not? The thub-thub of her pulse was a jungle drum, vibrations he could almost feel in his fingertips.
“Can I get photos?” She had a padded camera bag with her.
“Snap away,” he mumbled as he turned away. His head felt like it could lift his feet right off the floor. “Get everything you needed?” He stayed a little ahead of her, a good bit behind the others. His head full of helium, the rush of what was within reach.
“Oh yeah, it was great. Thanks. Thanks for taking the time.” Her breath tumbled against the side of his jaw as she hurried to keep up. He fought the urge to turn and kiss her, right by her mouth, then down a little, making his way to the throb in her neck. The meat of the meal.
Sensations crowded in—crowding him out. Threatening to take him over. He put a hand out to stop a door from swinging shut behind the others, waited until she was a few steps down before following, keeping a cushion of distance between them. Staring over her head.
Sliding his tongue down the back of one long tooth. It almost seemed to tingle in his gums.
Down a hall, another door, and finally back out in the open. He climbed on stage with the others, got his guitar in his hands, let the pent-up energy flow through the tips of his fingers, playing riffs and melodies while the others were still trying to check their sound. The notes crackled and danced in his ears—crisp and layered and full of nuances he hadn’t heard before, even when he was just hitting chords so their sound guy could adjust his monitor. It was like the truth of sound uncovered, and he could hear it in the others’ playing too.
Watching the others, though, he could see they couldn’t hear it. They just got the top layers, the usual stuff, not the new secrets underneath.
Their interviewer stood ten feet in front of the stage, watching with a grin. Turning her head every now and again to look around, like she was looking for someone to share the moment with.
“Was that a new song?” she asked when they jumped down a half hour later.
“One of the unreleased ones we were telling you about,” Shawn said.
“Wow, what are you waiting for? Release it already!”
“Where you going?” Shawn said to Dean.
Heading for the door, Dean said, “Out of smokes,” without turning his head. And he left. Left the girl, left the possibilities. Blood rushing in his ears—not his blood. He was dizzy, but this wasn’t the place or time. The band needed the write-up on the unreleased album more than he needed another body to figure out how to get rid of.
He saw how easy it was, though—how easy it would be to lure someone off and do it. He rolled his shoulders, trying to shrug it off. Trying to stop feeling his teeth. They seemed to be promising him an even more satisfying experience than he’d had with the biker, if he’d just go ahead and use them.
Fresh blood, his teeth said. His throat. His fuzzed-out brain. Fresh blood.
The sun hit him like a cinder block to the face when he opened the venue’s back door. His teeth slid back where they’d been earlier—either irritated by the light or disappearing now that he was out of range of blood. He closed his eyes. What he needed to do was case the area, figure out how he could get the body off the bus, find someplace to stow it where it wouldn’t be found for a day or more. Give them time to put miles between themselves and it.
Slowly he cracked his eyes, using his hand as a visor again. The bus was easy to make out—big hulking dark sh
ape haloed with light. Everything else…was anyone’s guess. Some cars maybe, maybe their support act’s van with a square blob of a trailer behind it. Telephone poles. Smaller blobs—a phone booth? A mailbox? He took it in a few seconds at a time, squeezing his eyes closed in between to try to clear them.
Every time he closed his eyes, he remembered the rush of that chick’s blood. It tugged at his shoulders, wanting to lure him back inside.
He squinched open his eyes again, everything blocky and hard to make out.
He was going to be fucking useless in daylight.
He gauged the distance to the bus, put his head down, and strode toward it with his eyes shut. The temperature dropped a few degrees when he passed into the bus’s shade. He put a hand out, finding its side. Walking the length of it, he finally reached the door.
Inside the bus, he put a hand in front of him, shuffling until his fingers bumped the bunkroom door. He slipped inside, pulled it shut, and pushed his sunglasses up with one hand, rubbing the afterimages away with his fingers.
At least at this point he could hide on the bus until show time—just him and dead Vampire McGee.
After the sun finally slipped past the horizon, he poked his head out. Now he could see well enough to read the plate numbers on their support band’s trailer from thirty feet away. He stepped down from the bus, leaving the door open. Sauntered around the front—stretching his legs if anyone asked. His sneakers kicked up dust. The whole area behind the building was nothing but crumbling pavement and bone-dry dirt. Beyond that, a chain-link fence looked over a field of dried grass. High voltage power lines ran across it. He headed back the other way. An aisle of about fifteen feet ran between the venue’s back wall and the length of the bus. A little farther up the building sat a welcome sight—he just wasn’t sure how he was going to lug a hundred-and-seventy-pound corpse thirty feet without anyone coming out the back door and catching him at it.
First things first—he grasped the lid on the dumpster and hauled it up. No lock. That was a good start.
He peered over its lip.
