After Dark (The Vampire Next Door Book 2)

by Titus, Rose

  “Throw her out, Alex,” his wife called out from the kitchen. “For heaven’s sakes, enough is enough. It’s just not worth it.”

  “She keeps tossing up this tenant’s rights garbage in my face. Damn. I’m going to bed.”

  “N-no!”

  “No? No?” He froze. What was wrong now?

  “Alex! You’re sleeping on the couch!”

  “What did I do wrong now?” he growled. “Whatever it is, I don’t care! I had a rough night because of that fool you call your friend.”

  “She’s not my friend; not anymore. Come on, help me pull the bed out from the couch and I’ll explain.”

  Keisha, who managed Lina’s shop during the day, returned home in the evening to find her new home vandalized. The windows were smashed, trash was scattered about the small lawn, garbage tossed on the front steps. But the first thing Keisha noticed were the racist words spray painted all over her new home. The home she had saved ten years for. The police came and took notes. They asked a few questions, looked around for a short time, and left. She packed a few things after inspecting the inside of her home for damage. There was none. They did not enter the house; they had hit hard and fast, whoever they were. And she had nowhere else to go.

  “What? They’re here now?” he moaned. “In our bed?”

  “Shush!” she whispered. “You’ll wake them up. They’ve had a rougher night than you!”

  Keisha did not want ten year old Tirrell to see it. She brought him right from the babysitter’s.

  At least little Tirrell was happy. He loved the poodle. He played with her all night until Keisha had to order him to bed. The poodle went under the covers with him.

  “They’ve got no place else, Alex!”

  The cheap mattress that pulled out from the couch was lumpy and he let her know it.

  “I bought them some food.”

  “She better not cook anything that smells.”

  “No. I told her about that sort of thing.”

  “How long?”

  “Until she feels safe.”

  “Good. Fine. This is good. Lina, let’s get rid of Sky and maybe Keisha will get interested in renting in a better neighborhood.”

  “Alex!”

  Fred flexed his muscles as he looked at his body in the mirror. The only thing he wore was his big fake golden medallion. The TV was on. He listened to the talk show and laughed. A woman tearfully told of how she was abducted by small people from outer space who impregnated her then took the fetus to experiment on.

  He looked at the cash that was on the desk. He did not count it; Russell did. It looked like there was plenty.

  Too bad he wasn’t allowed outside much without his costume. Every time he left the hotel he needed to get into character, keep up the image.

  Russ sure was a pain in the ass. But he was right. Someone would say, ‘Excuse me, aren’t you that guy who’s like, you know, from Atlantis?’ It already happened once before.

  Zontar was Russell’s invention. Fred was an out of work actor. He looked right for the part, too. Perfect Aryan specimen, bred by higher beings to guide sad, helpless humanity.

  “Hey! Zontar!”

  “Huh? Damn it, Russ. Don’t call me that.”

  “Never mind. Listen. The cops don’t want you no more. It’s cause of that nut making a big circus.”

  “So? At least I got you free advertising on TV.”

  “Yeah? That kind of advertising can wreck a career. Now, listen up. I booked you for the Retired Persons Community Center.”

  Fred choked. “Wha—?”

  “Shut up. You’re the entertainment ’cause they’re having a variety show tonight. A tarot reader, a comedian, Nancy’s Dancing Beagles, and you, Oh Mighty Zontar, Being from the Higher Realm!”

  “What the—?”

  “Never mind. It’s money! Just tell the old ladies that they’re going to all win at bingo or something. Now get your clothes on, will you? You’re beginning to worry me.”

  Martin cruised his car slowly in the late afternoon traffic as he looked down into the alleyways between the Victorian era buildings that made up the town’s elegant center. The resort and vacation people were easily recognized. They were dressed casually and drifted in and out of shops. The people who lived in town year-round could be identified because they were in constant motion, selling hot dogs, working at cash registers, sweeping the streets, directing traffic, and driving the buses.

  And then there were the alley people. He slowed the car and looked down into the shrouded darkness behind the beautified and freshly painted facades of the buildings.

  He witnessed one old woman emerge to reach into a trash can when she saw a tourist toss an unfinished sandwich away. She ate it rapidly. It turned his stomach to see it.

  Then an old man. He sat on a curb stone, leaning against the lamppost outside of a small bookstore. He had a coffee cup in his filthy hand, and he was pestering everyone who passed by for change.

  Another one came out of the alley, reached into the same trash can, found nothing, and rushed back to hide in the darkness. This one was just a kid, maybe seventeen.

  There were a lot of them, and they were all vulnerable to the predator.

  “Why is it that you trust me, Mikhail?” he asked.

  The guards had allowed them to speak with one another, but only under close watch.

  “Ah, but you are not the first of your kind that I have known. I have kept this a secret but it matters no more.”

  “I suppose nothing does now.”

  “Yes, I met her in the forest. I became separated from the hunting party because of my own foolishness. I felt ashamed of myself, but as it became dark I simply felt cold, very cold. And my horse grew tired. The wind blew furiously, it began to snow. After much wandering, I came upon a small house deep in the forest. I entered and inside there were two young maidens, both lovely and fair, with eyes like fire and skin as coldly white as the untouched snow that fell. They brought me in and let me stay by their fire. I fell asleep for many hours, but awakened to find that one of the maidens had gone. The one with the dark hair, Svetlana, told me her sister had gone out to see to my horse and bring more firewood. She did not return, I grew worried for her, but Svetlana told me not to be concerned. She came to sit by my side. Her eyes seemed to burn with the fire. It was as if I was melting into them, I could not stop looking. She came and kissed me. She came nearer and bent to my throat. I wanted to die in her arms that night. I returned many times to the forest, I hunt alone now. But what a powerful spell she has cast over me. She waits for me out there. I have no choice but to go to her. I dream of her, each night, and call out her name in my sleep. When I look out the window and see the moon I can see her face. Perhaps I am under a curse, I do not care.” His quiet voice drifted into silence.

  “I must find a way to get home, Mikhail. I must. If not, I shall die of want myself.”

  The guards stirred outside Mikhail’s room. Pavel could hear them pacing outside the door. Perhaps they were trying to listen?

  “My uncle the king may one day kill me, to be sure. But there is another reason I am miserably trapped in this place. She is not here. The stories the old women tell made me believe she could drift right through these thick stone walls like vapor, and come to me when she chooses. Each night I leave open my small window, I whisper her name softly hoping for her to come in with the moonlight. But no. I believed that I was forgotten. And now I see you are trapped here as well as I. So I know she waits for me out there.”

  Pavel listened and his heart grew cold and still. He rose from his seat by the fire and went to the window to gaze silently out the small window, smelled the cold and fresh night air. A wolf bayed, calling out to the darkness.

  “We both must leave this evil place, Mikhail,” he whispered. “And your sister also, or he will hold her until he has you back.”

  She looked out the window, looking out at the park with the help of a dim streetlight and heard a dog barking i
n the distance as she listened to the continued story. “I guess both of them were, you know, kind of lonely.”

  “Maybe.” He sat in the dark across from where she stood. Earlier he asked her if it was all right to turn out the light. It annoyed him.

  “Love starved,” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” He wondered what she meant.

  “That’s how things are for Pavel, I mean. He’s loved starved. That’s how he is.”

  He thought a moment. “If you want to put it that way.”

  “I never felt loved,” she whispered.

  “Some people never really do, Laura.” He stood up quietly. “Sad, isn’t it?”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I got to. Remember? Got work to do.”

  “Oh. I see. Yes. I remember,” she sighed.

  “How are the darling children these days?”

  “I found a dead rat in my purse today. I went to get change for a Coke, I reached in and felt this strange fur, and I screamed when I saw what it was.” She shivered.

  “Maybe try that new assertiveness training thing?”

  “W-well. “

  “An exterminator, then?”

  “I don’t know what to do, Rick. I have no control.”

  “At least we know how it is that they all grow up to be serial killers.” He left quietly.

  She watched his tall thin form drift slowly away in the moonlight. He opened the door and went silently out.

  He did not want to go but he had work to do. They all did.

  His Pontiac waited for him, parked by the row of small delicate flowers she had been picking a few nights ago. He started it; its valves tapped quietly as the engine warmed.

  The long car drifted slowly onto the town’s main streets. It was night but still there was traffic, and people walking about, visiting the shops which stayed open, the discos and bars.

  Could it make what they had to do difficult? Things did not slow down until nearly dawn. It could be a long night.

  The car turned into the alley that ran behind After Dark. He was about to get out but Leon was already there coming toward him and got into the car. Rick turned the car into another dark alley and then parked by the delivery entrance behind a small strip mall. He parked there because it was dark and quiet, and he had a full view of the rear parking lot.

  People stayed there sometimes, sleeping behind the dumpsters, or eating out of the trash.

  “This girl I met,” Leon began, “Like, she keeps trying to get me to go to the beach with her. I dunno. I spend so much of my life in the dark that going out in the bright sunlight feels almost strange.” Leon had grown up watching people rush indoors before dawn. Why darling, you should be in bed, Irina would say as she rushed about to close the curtains and shut out the light.

  “Yeah, sure as hell would feel strange to me too.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “So,” Rick asked, “What’s her name?”

  “Allison. She’s tanned and blonde, like everything else on the beach.”

  “Oh for God’s sakes, get something with a damn brain.”

  “She’s got a brain. She’s going to school.”

  “Yeah? For what?”

  “Pet grooming, I think.”

  “Leon.”

  “I know. I know. I hardly even know her. I mean, you know, just someone to hang out with. Think we’ll see anything tonight?” he changed the subject.

  “I don’t know. I hope not,” Rick had always wanted to have a quiet moment alone with Leon to ask him if he remembered anything, to ask what happened that dark night so many years ago.

  He was found in the trash, emaciated, barely able to speak.

  Irina cleaned him up herself, hand fed him until he began to eat on his own. When he finally spoke, he never talked about what happened. Rick desperately wanted to know why all through the years.

  But he thought of it, and kept silent. He simply could not bring himself to speak of it. “Quiet night, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah. It is.”

  The bulb of the street light above blew out, making a popping sound as it died.

  “Sometimes I wish they would all go out,” Rick said.

  “Yeah? Then we couldn’t see—”

  “We could, you couldn’t.”

  Leon laughed quietly.

  “I mean, sometimes I would really like to see all the lights go out, one by one, until they are all permanently out. Forever.”

  “Yeah. But it won’t happen. Say, what’s going on with you and what’s her name?”

  “Nothing is going on. Just needs someone to talk to, I guess. She’s a little mixed up. I said I would teach her to drive. I’d better hurry up before she tries on her own and runs somebody over.”

  “What d’ you mean, mixed up?”

  “Oh nothing. Just depressed or lonely or something. Had a rough childhood. Very dysfunctional family. Her mother died when she was very young, her father was a control freak, according to her. Wouldn’t let her learn to drive, wouldn’t let her have many friends. She left home to get a job, try to make a normal life for herself. The problem is she doesn’t know how to do much on her own. Has to learn to cook, shop, drive, stuff like that. I suppose she feels out of place, in the real world.”

  “She pretty?”

  “Oh my God. Everyone is asking me this lately. Is this a conspiracy?”

  Leon laughed. “Hell no! Just thought, you know—”

  “Hold on,” Rick whispered. “I hear something.”

  Leon listened and heard nothing. His ears strained, then he could perceive the quiet idle of an engine. Rick was looking around. A dark sedan crept slowly into the parking lot with its lights turned off.

  “Speak of the devil,” Rick whispered. When the car came closer he could see the driver.

  “Who is it?”

  “We’re going to be hauled in for loitering.”

  The sedan pulled up beside the Catalina. “What in hell are you two doing out here?”

  “Watching the street,” Leon protested. “Hey, like, it’s a public place.”

  “Like hell it is. I thought you were almost human, Leon. What are you doing with him? Waiting to beg for his leftovers? I’m already scared to think about what you’d do with them once he handed them to you.”

  “Huh?”

  Rick kept quiet. He could smell liquor on Martin’s breath.

  “Or maybe you just like to watch?”

  Rick finally spoke. “Hey look. We’re looking for the same guy you’re looking for. Okay?”

  “Shut up! You!” Martin barked at Rick. “Where were you when you were late coming to see me?”

  “With a friend.”

  “Shut up. Your kind don’t have no friends. You think I’d believe that? Your friend is dead, you blood sucking son of a bitch!”

  “What?” Rick froze. “No. “

  “Yeah. Your informant is now dead after his big TV performance. How come? Is that who you were with?”

  He was relieved. “Martin. You idiot. I was with a girl that night. She was alive and fine when I left her. Okay?”

  Martin charged out of his car, stumbled towards them. “I don’t care who you were suckin’ on, freak! That idiot you had on your leash is dead. And I am bringing you in.”

  Rick got out of the car. “Yeah? Don’t try it.”

  Martin took a swing at Rick, but Rick ducked easily out of the way.

  “Martin!” Leon screamed. “Don’t do it! Don’t, man!”

  But Martin reached for his gun.

  It was swiftly knocked out of his shaking hand. Rick reached out and seized his throat, forced him slowly to the cold pavement. He choked and struggled to breathe as he felt his head hit the hard asphalt. His legs kicked out uselessly. “Listen, stupid. We have had enough of your shit.”

  Martin gasped and reached to pull Rick’s hand off his throat.

  “Martin,” Leon got out of the car and came towards them. “Martin! Just stop struggling
. Don’t fight him. He’ll let you go. Just give up, stop fighting him.”

  Martin continued to pull at Rick’s iron grip with both hands, he tried to speak but could not.

  “Leon, shut up. This is mine.” His grip grew tighter. “Now listen. You are just drunk, you idiot. Go home, sleep it off and get cleaned up. I did not kill that poor loser.” He released him. Martin crawled away, knelt on the ground by his car clutching his neck. “And when you get sober and think about it, you’ll know it. Now get out.”

  Martin choked out his reply. “Fuck you.”

  “Hey man,” Leon said again, “You do not try to take on these guys. It doesn’t work that way.”

  “This fool shouldn’t even be driving,” Rick went to pull the keys from the blue sedan’s ignition. “You, Martin, are so crazy you will kill somebody.”

  Martin rose up from the ground and aimed his fist for Rick’s face. Rick stepped back and Martin lost his balance and fell against his car.

  “Look at this, Leon! Our town’s finest!” He handed the keys to Leon. “Here, drive this loser home before I really get mad.”

  The smell of liquor was strong throughout the car’s interior. Leon tossed an empty bottle out the window and listened as it shattered against the pavement. “Nice car. Glad you didn’t bang it up.”

  “Shut up,” Martin mumbled from the back seat.

  “Look, he did not kill nobody. Okay? Look, honest, man. I never even saw him this mad before. You gotta get off his back!”

  “I said, shut up,” Martin moaned.

  “Like, you just don’t fight those people. You don’t!”

  Martin collapsed sideways onto the seat, his head hit the soft upholstery.

  “You alive, man?”

  “...neck hurts...“

  “Look, just sleep it off. Okay? I’ll talk to him for you. He’ll forgive you. I know he will.”

  “...gonna kill him...”

  “You’re real self destructive, man.”

  Alexandra saw Leon struggling to half carry Martin and so she helped haul him up the stairs to his ill kept apartment. The stench of alcohol was overwhelming.

  Leon kept speaking rapidly, telling her what happened—