by A. L. Mengel
He became well known throughout the country when he began writing articles on a local famous resident, Antoine Nagevesh, who had moved to Miami from Badulla, Sri Lanka and quickly became a celebrity healer and nightclub promoter.
Shortly after Sheldon began publishing his stories about Antoine, he disappeared. He has been missing for several weeks now and is feared dead.
*~*~*
Douglas put the paper down and it lay flat on his desk. He chose not to read on. The paper was dated two weeks previous. He chose to save it; the article spanned an entire page and served as an homage to his longtime friend Sheldon. He stared at the photo of Sheldon. In it, Sheldon was receiving a Pulitzer Prize for an article he wrote on Exorcism. He had looked so young, so vibrant, so alive. He took a sip of his coffee, the hot liquid warming his insides.
Sheldon was dead. Barely made it past fifty, poor fellow.
Douglas looked in the mirror once more, touching his face just under his eye. He had a matching set of luggage. He couldn’t seem to help but notice that every time he looked in the mirror since he got up.
It was Saturday morning.
There were no classes today; he was boarding a plane to Miami to pick up his friend’s ashes and take them back to Boston to be buried.
Several days ago, he had received a phone call from a funeral director in Miami who had told him that he had tried for quite some time to contact any living relative of Sheldon’s, but without success. The body, he had said, was found in a horrible state – the blood had been completely drained and the corpse was dried and looked like it had been decomposing for years.
There had been no next of kin.
And so Douglas received the call, and he agreed to come and claim the ashes and carry out Sheldon’s last wishes. Shaking his head, he rose from his chair and left the paper lying on his desk. The coffee now finished, he reached down into his desk drawer and grabbed a small silver flask, which caught the sunlight for a moment and shined in his eye.
And he stopped for a moment, temporarily blinded.
Looking up, he waited for his vision to clear, and saw that he was no longer in his office. He was standing in front of a classroom full of students, and the sun was shining brightly outside and he had to hold his head for a moment and grab the back of the wooden chair to maintain his balance. Had something been in his cup this morning besides coffee?
He looked up at the clock. Ten thirty. Was it not Saturday?
*~*~*
Janice Davidson did not care to read the supermarket tabloids. Typically, when she stood in line next to the big black conveyor, after she had loaded her produce and meats and miniature powdered sugar doughnuts (a mandatory purchase every week) she would keep a critical eye on the giant LCD screen perched above the register, tallying up the purchases.
Today was different.
On the local Miami Sun, there was a familiar face. There was a photo of the new club Sacrifice on Miami Beach that had recently opened to long lines and VIP crowds, and next to it was the man. She knew him but did not know his name. But she had seen him before, many times – sometimes, when she had been dancing, she looked up through the smoke and the lights, and would see his face staring down from an expansive window overlooking the dance floor. All she saw when she looked up there was his dark silhouette, peering down at the revelers.
He was dark and mysterious, and never spoke.
She grabbed a copy of The Sun and dropped in it her bag when she exited the store. Something was drawing her to the man, and she didn’t know what. Some unseen force perhaps. But what she certainly did know was that she was suddenly overtaken by a deep curiosity, which peaked when she saw the photo.
There the magazine was, peeking out of the top of a brown grocery bag sitting in the child seat of her shiny chrome shopping cart with a wobbly wheel – there it was, calling to her and waiting to be read.
She barely understood her fascination, she watched in disbelief as her hand fished the magazine out from between the celery and the tomato sauce, pulling it closer and flipping open the pages.
Scanning over the two-page spread, questioning the whereabouts of the famous club king from Miami Beach, she made her decision. She saw his face, a giant glossy color photo. And underneath, the caption: Antoine Nagevesh, owner and club operator of Sacrafice, gone missing.
Why is the general public so fascinated with this man? she asked herself as she loaded the groceries into the trunk of her small blue sedan. Reading the article as she got inside the car, her question was somewhat answered.
The Vampire Society, The Astral.
And another missing person.
And the house is supposedly standing empty on Andelusia Avenue right now.
Perfect.
Little did she know that the estate would burn down to the ground that very night.
*~*~*
CHAPTER FIVE
Before the house was sealed, there were those who entered.
It was a grand estate in the traditional Coral Gables fashion – but it was the most elegant on the street.
It was Andelusia Avenue.
It rose from the palms and the tropical foliage and commanded the street; its soaring, floor to ceiling windows reached upwards towards the roof, surrounded by light colored stucco, which looked outwards towards the world like eyes. Grand columns rose from the front porch, which wrapped around the house, and reached towards the sides.
But the house was not too Southern and not too “Florida”.
It didn’t feel like a plantation, and it also didn’t exhibit the traditional Spanish influenced architecture that dominated the area.
But despite the beauty, there was something sinister going on inside.
There was a mauled and mutilated body in the upstairs master bedroom; there was another room that appeared to be that of a boy, possibly a young man; there was some sort of unidentified slimy substance all over the mattress, totally soaked through. And no matter how many tests were run on the substance, it could not be identified to any species, human or animal, on earth.
The body remained on the expansive king size bed in the main bedroom.
It was splayed out in underwear covered in dried up blood. It was the body of a middle aged Hispanic male, with a large gut and salt and pepper hair. The throat was gashed to the point that had there been much more damage, the head would have been severed completely.
Detective Martin Jenson gingerly covered the body with a white sheet from head to toe, acting solemn and respectful despite his usual numbness. Once the body was covered, he snapped around to the bedside table where he had left a half-eaten glazed donut and a steaming cup of coffee. He promptly picked them up and resumed his ritual.
“There are no traceable relatives?” Martin asked, his mouth full of a donut. He sipped a steaming cup of coffee between words. “Saw another strange one. Down south of Dixie. Body was all drained…dried up.”
A deputy was taking notes as the portly detective was speaking between bites with his mouth full.
“Yeah, it’s another one, alright,” Martin said, walking the perimeter of the bed, slowly, his eyes never leaving the body. He crumbled up his napkin and tossed it on the bed; it landed right next to the victim’s eyes.
“Oh shit…” he said, his eyes having followed the crumbled napkin.
“What is it?” the deputy asked, his attention drawn from his notepad and fixated on the body splayed on the bed.
“Look at that,” Martin said, pointing to the eyes. “They’re wide open.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that whatever happened to this poor fellow, happened quickly.” Martin took another heaping mouthful of donut and a sip of his coffee. “And that we have a killer on the loose.”
Martin covered up the body. “Let’s wait for the analyst. Don’t touch anything.” Martin looked beyond the bed towards a vast mirror over the dresser. Something seemed different in the reflection. He stepped closer; he saw his tired refle
ction and afternoon stubble; but when he looked beyond his reflection, he noticed the mussed bedclothes. Splattered blood. And piles of pillows.
And nothing else.
He turned his head around, and he was alone. The lights went out, and thunder crashed overhead. He stopped in his tracks and watched the mountain of sheets in the center of the bed.
And the mound started to move.
“Shit!” Martin fell back against the dresser.
I am coming for you, Martin.
“Who was that?” Martin looked up towards the ceiling, and then over towards the windows, and back to the bed.
Hernan was sitting up.
Footsteps creaked up the stairs, as a voice called to him. “Martin…leave this house. Leave this house and I will spare you…”
The sheet fell off Hernan’s body – his eyes were wide, his mouth gaped open and dripped blood, and his arms raised upwards, reaching out towards Martin.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Martin crashed backwards against the dresser so hard that the mirror fell off its tracks and crashed to the floor. He crawled backwards through the shards of glass and searched for the door.
And then the door seemed to look so far away, a beacon through the darkness and storm, amidst the turmoil.
The thunder crashed again, and Hernan fell back to the bed. Martin looked up towards the bed.
Dead. Again.
And then out towards the hallway. “Rickson?” His voice reverberated against the empty, silent house.
He heard footsteps approaching the bedroom door.
Martin sighed. It was the deputy.
“Where have you been?” Martin asked, rising to his feet. “That body just came alive!”
“Uh…” Deputy Rickson pulled the sheet back up over the body. “Let’s go outside. You look flushed, Martin. Are you feeling okay?”
Martin waved his arm at Deputy Rickson. “Yeah, yeah. I need a cigarette.”
As Martin fished for a cigarette from his soft pack, as he stood on the front porch, he leaned against one of the columns.
He looked upwards towards the house and lit a match with a pop. “What is it with his house?”
But it was the house that he knew was the problem.
It always had been.
He remembered that the previous owner had died a similar death, many years ago. And then the house sat on the market, empty for several years, as it probably would again this time around.
But there was just something about the house.
*~*~*
The body of Hernan Perez was wheeled out of the front door of his Andelusia Avenue Mansion. It was loaded into the long black hearse and driven discreetly to the Heavenly Slumber Funeral Home. There was no need to do anything at all that might be considered protocol.
When Martin was taking bite after bite of his beloved glazed donut, and when the deputy was furiously taking notes, a man had entered the house.
He was dressed in a long leather coat that went down past his knees, which matched his long black hair that concealed his face. He did not have to turn the key that he had in his left hand, and when he looked down at the silver key, as it caught the overhead light and gleamed back in his face, a stark contrast to the black leather covering his hand, he paused and listened.
There were voices coming from upstairs. But that he knew.
Earlier that evening, he had been waiting on the corner of Andelusia and Ponce, as he spotted the all-too-familiar navy blue cruiser swing around the corner and pull in front of the house with tires squealing. It seemed like the detective may have been drinking again. But that was no surprise.
The man watched as the detective and his deputy trotted up the front path and into the front door of the mansion, the largest mansion on the block with the giant mortar columns framing the front porch, and then disappeared into the foyer.
And then he noticed, when he had drawn the gleaming key from his pocket, that he never needed it. He never needed to steal it in the night behind the owner’s back, nor did he need to formulate any sort of plan.
The door was standing wide open, and he could feel the ice cold blast from the air conditioning against the thick and steamy Miami night air flowing against him like a glacier.
He did not bother to remove his sunglasses when he entered the house and ducked in the parlor to the right; he did not notice the large expansive foyer with hardwood floors, a curved staircase; giant chandelier and large mahogany round table in the center with fresh cut roses. He immediately ducked behind the sofa, wedging himself next to a wall and waited.
Waited until he heard the heavy footsteps on the stairs, getting closer from the second to the first floor, stopping every few steps and then thundering again. The steps were so heavy the walls shook, and he thought the painting hanging above him would crash down on his head.
And then the man was able to see the foyer, from behind the sofa, and he saw the detective on the back end struggling with a large cadaver covered in a white sheet, a blue uniformed deputy was in front.
He wanted that body.
But he decided to wait. He decided to wait rather than confront the two policemen, he decided that it would be easier to get the body in the funeral home rather than fight for it here. Not that those two would be difficult to combat. He just would rather avoid the confrontation when it wasn’t necessary.
And so the body left the house under a routine procedure, it left in a white sheet and was shortly transferred to a dark blue body bag.
“Take him to the morgue. They are going to have to perform an autopsy. We need to find out how he died,” the detective said between puffs of breath, obviously struggling with the weight.
“Why?” the deputy asked, in a much deeper voice, not out of breath at all; he spoke as if he were not carrying a large dead body. “I don’t think they will need it down at South Miami General. They are already overloaded, and this fellow here will sit for weeks as it is. I am making the decision. Take him to the morgue.”
“Okay, you’re the boss. I am just a poor lowly detective. Don’t you think that they will want to determine a cause of death?”
The deputy laughed deeply for a moment and the footsteps stopped. “It looks like some monster had a go at him.”
“I know, I know. But believe me. Look at the body. Something is not right here. This shit has been going around. Murder after murder, all the throats slashed, like some crazed vampire killer is on the loose. If we take this to the morgue, they will seal off this house.”
“Wouldn’t they do it anyway?”
“Isn’t that standard procedure?” the deputy asked, panting as he was out of breath.
“If they wanted to determine the cause of death. And it’s pretty apparent how this fellow died. Did you take a look at him?”
The deputy let out a chuckle, as they stopped in the foyer just in front of the double doors leading out to the front porch. They hoisted the body on a waiting gurney.
Martin laughed out loud, causing the mysterious dark man waiting nearby in the living room to shuffle and perk up his ears.
“Wait,” the detective said. The deputy stood silently after the body had been placed on the gurney. The room fell silent.
And the man waited behind the sofa, holding in his breath.
“I heard something,” Martin said, craning his head around the corner and peering into the dark living room. The detective walked slowly around the corpse and looked into the living room as well.
“I don’t see anything in there. Just a bunch of fancy white furniture and giant paintings.”
Martin shook his head, and returned his attention to the body. “It was nothing I guess. I thought I had heard a shuffling.”
Deputy Rickson returned to the body as well, lining up the gurney to take it out the front door. “Who is this guy anyway?” he asked, as he eased the gurney down the step to the front porch.
“You don’t know?” the detective shot him a look of disbelief. “
This is Hernan Perez! He owns Brickell!”
The deputy sneered and shook his head.
“Don’t you know?” Martin asked. “He is the head of the International Bank of Venezuela. How do you think he can afford to live in this house? Big money, my friend. Big. Huge.”
Rickson looked again at the foyer that they were standing in, he looked above at the expansive ceilings, the artwork on the walls, and let out a whistle of admiration. “Yeah, you’re right. This place is like a fuckin’ hotel.”
“So then?” Detective Martin asked. He peered once again into the living room. “I suppose I just heard a rat or something.”
Rickson chuckled. “In this place? This place is immaculate!”
The Detective shook his head, struggling with the gurney. The deputy rushed to help. Shortly, the two were gone and the door closed.
Once again the house was silent.
The dark man emerged from behind the living room sofa. There was very little evidence of the intrusion except for the mussed rug lying in the center of the wooden floored foyer.
That did not matter.
The man walked to the window, peering outside, and saw the two hoisting the body into a hearse.
He shook his head. Funeral homes, and morgues, both were so difficult to penetrate. He had wanted so badly to intercept the body here, but he knew that doing so would cause him to eliminate the two cops, and that would just cause additional commotion.
He knew exactly who was responsible for this mess. Antoine. That was a given. Antoine controlled Miami now, and the man knew that.
There was a round mirror in the hallway. He stopped for a moment in front of it. He saw his reflection, and smiled. He looked like a dark haired, chiseled faced young man. But no one knew. No one knew his secret. Yes, he stood there and admired, temporarily forgetting the bloody mess upstairs.
He stood in front of the mirror and laughed at his reflection staring back at him. When he smiled, the crow’s feet surrounded his eyes.
