by Z. Rider
He’d thought a lot today about what would be ideal. Ideal would be a private place to do it, someplace indoors. Someone home alone, a house not an apartment in case there was noise. He smoked another cigarette, casing buildings as he passed—big houses, not a lot of yard between them but not too crowded together. Some had tall wooden fences between, which would be a bonus, but probably not necessary.
His only plan was to cover ground and keep an eye out for opportunity—or make an opportunity if he had to. If things got desperate.
He needed to do this tonight. His fangs weren’t staying retracted. His thoughts were hard to get hold of, squirming away like greased pigs when he tried to catch one.
And the blood. He wasn’t even near any, and the thought of it consumed him.
Several blocks later, as he was considering breaking into one of the houses, maybe one of the dark ones so he could stand in the foyer and wait for its owner to come home, he turned a corner and found a woman unloading groceries from her trunk. The driveway was so short, she was practically standing in the road.
Before his brain could put together a plan, a sack in her arm spilled a can onto the road. It rolled in his direction, almost like the biker had bowled it toward him: Here.
Start here.
He bent and picked it up.
“Thanks,” she said, giving him half a glance as she struggled to adjust the bags in her arms.
“Here, let me grab that.” He slipped the can into the bag it had fallen from as he took it from her arm.
“You don’t have to—”
“Not a problem.” He grabbed two more sacks and still managed to close the trunk while she backed up with the other bag in her arm.
“I should have just made two trips.” She turned, her hair swinging across the back of her coat. “I always hate to have to make two trips, though.” Looking over her shoulder, she said, “My husband’s gotten used to broken eggs.”
He wondered if the mention of the husband was a tactic or the truth. She was in her mid to late twenties, he thought. Her modest pumps clacked up the asphalt as she drew her keys out of her coat pocket. She gave him another quick glance, her face tight.
He took in the house’s front windows—dark, both upstairs and down—as she climbed the porch steps.
He was halfway up when she turned at the door, hugging the bag with both arms. “Well, thank you for your help.” Blocking the way.
“I’ll just leave these here.” He set them against the wall. He didn’t want her on high alert. Let her think she’d run across a real Samaritan. “You have a good night,” he said, turning down the steps.
“You too. Thank you.”
He whistled as he walked away, fingers pushed in his front pockets.
When he got back to the sidewalk, he glanced back. She had her keys in hand, watching him go. Making sure he did. He didn’t blame her. There were dangerous people out here.
When he circled back, coming up behind the house through a neighboring yard, the windows glowed with warm light. He imagined her in the kitchen, pulling items out of paper sacks, putting them where they belonged. Maybe while a kettle of water heated on the stove, tea to take the chill out.
Their trash cans sat by the back porch, two metal bins with a large cardboard box, broken down flat, leaning between them. He had a use for that. Later. First came the woman, whose warm flesh he could already imagine in his grip.
Keeping to the shadows, he skulked to the front, slipping between the house and a neatly trimmed hedge of hawthorn. He crouched below a window, listening for sounds inside.
Cars passed, tires whisking over asphalt. He didn’t hear anyone walking around, inside or out. The nearest neighbor’s home was dark.
Five or so minutes passed, time pressing against him.
He came back around the side of the house, to the back porch, climbing it quietly. Figuring it would be better to surprise her—and better for the neighbors to not see him pushing his way in.
Holding his breath, he unlatched the storm door and eased it open. He’d expected to feel at least a little uneasy about this; instead he felt a rush, his fingers thrumming, his breaths coming fast. He peeked in the spaces around the curtain in the window. It looked onto a hallway. Up the way was an opening to the kitchen.
He tried the doorknob. Locked. He’d expected that, but it didn’t hurt to try.
He looked for a doorbell. None on the back door. So he knocked before taking half a step back, holding the storm door open. Excitement buzzing through him. He cut a glance to the side. Neighbor’s house still dark.
It took a moment before her shadow started to grow against the white curtain.
The cloth shifted as she peeked out. He smiled a little bashfully and lifted his hand, a little wave. Her eyebrows drew down. He nodded a little, in the direction of the doorknob.
The curtain fell back. The door opened a crack, her eyebrow raised as she peered through. Lower down she had her shoes dangling from two fingers, like she’d been taking them off when he’d knocked.
“Sorry,” he said, moving closer, putting his hand against the door. “I was wondering—” He shoved with this side of his arm, his other hand coming through the widening gap to propel her back.
“What are you—”
“Shh.” He touched his finger to his lips as he closed the door behind him. “I won’t be here long, darlin’. Let’s go in the other room.”
Her shoes clattering where she dropped them. Her stockings slipped on the smooth floor as she ran through the doorway.
The Eagles’ “One of These Nights” played softly from the direction she ran. When he rounded the corner, she had her back against the kitchen sink, both hands gripping the handle of a cast-iron skillet.
The music came from a portable radio on the counter.
A lock of hair had fallen loose from where she’d had it tucked behind her ear. She drew closer to the sink.
“Relax. You’re not gonna need that frying pan.” He had his palms up, like she had this all wrong.
Calm, even though his pulse raced.
Hers was running a mile a minute too, hot and fast and sweet, playing a song he could feel all the way up into that new sense, high in his nose.
“Just take what you want and go,” she said. “I won’t tell the police what you look like.”
“I actually don’t have a lot of time, so if we could just make this quick.”
Her breast heaved. “Then take what you want and get the hell out of here!” White rimmed her eyes. “I’m not stopping you!”
“How about we put that down, okay?” He moved closer, hands still up.
She slid over, lifting the skillet over her shoulder, her arms shaking with its weight, her fear. The fear gave a sharp scent to her perspiration. He found he didn’t mind it a bit.
His mouth was full of teeth.
“Listen, I have a knife in my pocket,” he said. “I don’t want to pull it out. Just set that down on the counter—” Sweeping in, he twisted the skillet from her hands, easy as anything. The skillet, big and heavy, was easy to catch hold of, even as she tried to slip away.
With her hands empty, she yanked a drawer open, throwing utensils out of it—ladles and spatulas, looking, he supposed, for a knife.
He wasn’t afraid of a knife. Those shish kebob skewers she was throwing to the floor were more problematic than any knife.
He dropped the skillet in the sink, put his arms around her waist from behind, and pulled her backward, away from the counter.
She dragged the drawer right out of its guides, kicking as he hauled her off her feet. The drawer’s contents rattled to the floor.
His head rushed, at the warmth of her, the smell of her, the pulse of her as she fought to bring the drawer over her shoulder and hit him with it.
He dodged. It glanced off his neck.
“It’s nothing personal, darlin’,” he said as his teeth grew two sizes, right into the side of her throat. Right where that delicate pu
lse was beating its signal out to him. Blood burst into his mouth, going right for his throat. Right down it as he took a big swallow, breathing in, feeling his feet go unsteady for a second.
He cut off her scream with his hand over her mouth. She jerked against him, like she was orgasming, and the hot blood rushed down his throat. He clamped her tighter, his own pulse racing, her blood singing a sweet song in his ears as he drank it.
Her weight brought him to one knee, her body going limp—a twitch here, a twitch there. Blood kept coming, as fast as he could swallow it. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, and he felt like he couldn’t stop, not until the spurt petered to a dribble.
He slipped his hand off her mouth.
She didn’t gasp in air.
Light and warmth and jangles filled him. He drew back, panting. The woman’s body lay like a ragdoll on the kitchen tiles. She had a hand curled against her chest, like she was keeping something secret, but her fingers were empty.
Even the high-noted sting from her fingernails raking across his face had a sweetness to it. A reverence. He touched the side of her throat that hadn’t been mangled. It felt like silence.
The Eagles had given over to Linda Ronstadt, telling him he was no good.
He probably was.
A set of metal measuring spoons reflected light from the ceiling. He was mesmerized for a moment, his hand resting on her chest. His body full of her warmth.
A floorboard creaked.
His ears pricked.
He was on his feet in a flash, his insides still jangles and light. He shoved a kitchen chair out of his way and launched into the living room.
He caught the guy by the neck as he was grappling with the doorknob, trying to get back out of the house after what he’d seen. The fabric of his wool coat was cool. His hair smelled like outside.
He smelled like blood.
The guy yelled, “No!” as Dean’s weight slammed him into the door.
“No, please,” he whispered. “Please.” His voice cracked into a sob.
“You want me to let you go?” Dean whispered. It sounded like the biker’s voice. He felt the biker grinning right along with him. Light came off the biker. Off him. Light and heat.
“Oh please, God, what did you do? What did you do to Pam?”
Dean backed up a few steps, hugging the guy’s back against him. The guy whispered prayers, clutching Dean’s arm. His chest caved with a sob.
Dean murmured in his ear, whatever the biker came up with to say as he brought his arm across the guy’s face. Brought his teeth close to the guy’s neck, his skull pulsing with excitement.
He licked the side of his throat, tasting sweat, aftershave, stubble.
Feeling the beat of his pulse, fast under his tongue.
He didn’t have any room, though. His eyes slipped closed as he breathed and tasted, as the guy sobbed in his arms. He had no trouble holding him, this guy who had a couple inches and forty soft pounds on him. Sobbing in his arms.
Coming up along the guy’s jaw, he tasted salt.
The guy’s chest heaved as he gasped in air, still pulling at Dean’s arm.
You got it, the biker said. You got this.
Holding the guy’s body against him, he cracked the guy’s head to one side, sharp and hard. He felt the neck snap in the backs of his teeth.
There, the biker said. Just like I’d have done it.
Fuck you.
The guy’s body dropped.
Dean stepped back, letting it thump to the floor.
Linda Ronstadt hadn’t even finished her song.
Let’s get this cleaned up, the biker said.
“What do I do?” He glanced at the walls, the staircase. Pulled the toe of his sneaker from under the body. Back in the kitchen, the wife hadn’t moved. The radio played a commercial for a used car dealership. He stepped over her and knelt. He wasn’t sure feeding on her till her heart had stopped beating was enough to finish her off. She had no pulse. She wasn’t moving. But he sure as hell didn’t want to take the chance of her ending up like him.
He snapped her neck before getting up to find the door to the basement.
Pam wasn’t too difficult to drag down the stairs. Her husband had a good hundred pounds on her. The backs of his dress shoes thumped down each step. By the time he reached the bottom, Dean was panting—but he was energized too. Warmth and jangles and light, right to the tips of his fingers.
He left the bodies side-by-side near the boiler, sightless eyes pointed at the wooden joists in the ceiling.
In the kitchen, he righted the chair, picked up the drawer and fitted it back on its tracks. He collected the scattered utensils and dropped them inside. Pushed it closed. He left the skillet in the sink, and turned out the light.
He glanced toward the stairs again, on his way to turn out the foyer light. On a whim, he made a detour up them. He pawed through their bedroom closet until, in the back, he found a jean jacket, not even all that worn. He shrugged into it. It worked for him.
There ya go, the biker said.
He gave him the finger as he headed out of the room.
The cardboard box was still there, by the porch. He clamped it under one arm. Enough for what he needed.
On the street, he pushed his fists into the jacket pockets, hunched his shoulders, and strode with his head down, back in the direction of the hotel, still all jangles and light on the inside, the edgy restlessness eased for the time being. He was breathing easy. This hadn’t gone badly. It wasn’t how he’d ideally be spending his nights off—but it showed he could do this.
He’d probably bought himself a few nights of peace. At least, he hoped he had.
October 19, 1978
1.
* * *
The sun crept across the parking lot, pinking the sky like a blood orange. Carl twisted on the back seat of the Cougar, his tee shirt sticking to him. He moved his jacket over his eyes. Traffic picked up, car doors slamming, shoes shuffling over pavement. His stomach rumbled, and he gave up and crawled out.
By eight, he was at the police station, waiting for a turn at the desk so he could ask to see Bays, when he spotted the man’s balding head moving through the bullpen. He backed up and ducked around.
Bays was bringing a jelly doughnut to his mouth when Carl caught up.
“What can I do?” Carl said.
“What can you do about what?” Bays set a cup of coffee on his desk. With sugar-dusted fingers, he smoothed his tie, and his chair squeaked as he settled his weight in it.
Carl took a seat beside the desk. “To help. Is there anything you need from me to nail him for this?”
“Did he mention the Garcia girl before you left on your trip?”
“No.”
“Did he mention anything about any girl? Act strangely? Was there anything different about him before you took off?”
“No—but what about Soph?”
“What about her?” He slid a legal pad toward him and set the doughnut on it. Another detective stopped to say something to him—he nodded and waved two fingers: In a minute.
“Is there anything I can do help you nail him for Soph?” Carl said.
“Son…” Bays sighed, wiping his hands. “Come on.” The chair squeaked again. “Let’s take a walk.”
They swerved through the desks in the bullpen, and Bays stopped and turned halfway up a dim, gray hallway. “The D.A.’s not charging him with Soph’s murder,” Bays said, and as Carl popped open his mouth to protest, Bays put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re going to use Soph and the girl from the Polaroids to see if they can pressure him into confessing, giving up some info on that girl so we can identify her and notify her family, but if he doesn’t crack, they’re just going to push the Garcia killing.”
“But—what the hell?” His cheeks felt cold. His pulse raced, reedy and distant.
“We have a…let’s just say he’s a very conservative D.A. He wants wins. He thinks he’s got a good chance with the Garcia girl—fres
h in people’s minds, blood on his shirt, testimony of a witness who says the victim was unnerved by him.”
“But with Soph—”
“With Soph the D.A.’s thinking two things. First he’s thinking about what the defense is going to present. They’re going to look at the case, subpoena you—maybe as a hostile witness if they have to—and they’re going to have you admit that while you saw Timothy Randolph drop his brother off at the game, no one saw him anywhere near your sister. Then they’re going to force you to say that there was this other guy, a rough-looking character, you saw speaking to your sister right before she disappeared. And when they’re done with you, they’re going to call Detective Medina to the stand. You remember Medina?”
“Yeah.”
“Not a bad guy, but they’re going to ask him who the suspects were in this case, and he’s going to tell him about this rough-looking character you saw. Then they’re going to ask him what eliminated that character from their list of suspects, and you know what Medina’s gonna say?”
“They didn’t believe me?”
“No, he’s gonna say they never eliminated him—they just couldn’t find him.”
“Okay…” Carl’s head felt tight. His temples throbbed. He was trying to grasp at the problem, but…so what if they didn’t find this other guy? He didn’t do it.
“So the first thing the D.A.’s worried about is the defense’s next question to Medina—and the judge may overrule it, but it doesn’t matter, because the jury’s still going to hear it: Did you ever think you couldn’t find him because he didn’t exist?”
“He existed—” Carl’s face beat hot. "I saw him. He fucking—”
“You may well have,” Bays said, reaching into his jacket. “But that brings up the D.A.’s problem number two.” He unfolded a sheet of paper and turned it around for Carl to see—a half-legible fax on slick thermal paper, but legible enough to make out one important detail: they’d found Grip Gershon.
