by Titus, Rose
“Hmm?” He kissed the tips of her fingers.
“You’re not going to tell me I’m imagining that I did not hear the door. How did you get in? Did you float in like vapor, the way some legends say?”
“No, the place is filled with secret passageways. We had them put in when the building was renovated, in case we needed them. One of them runs by this room, behind the closet here. The closet isn’t really a closet. It’s an escape route.”
“And who is that lady?”
“My mother.”
“But she’s so young!”
“She arrived in the States in 1919.”
“Oh hell.”
“You’ve learned to swear. That’s good. You’ll sound like everyone else soon.”
“Rick, I’m frightened.”
“You can go home with Leon in the morning, stay here during the night, if you like, or with me, if you prefer. Don’t be alone, ever. All these murders are happening after dark, when most of the world is asleep and unaware.”
“I don’t know if I can sleep tonight. Rick, show me the secret passageways. I don’t want to stay here all night in this dark place.”
He held her hand again. “There’s nothing down there for you to see except more darkness, all the way through them. We didn’t bother to install lights.”
“But you found your way, didn’t you?”
“The darkness is our home, Laura.”
After riding through much of the night they stopped at the inn where Pavel had stayed earlier with the wretched princess. The innkeeper’s wife recognized him and welcomed them all. She brought them food but Pavel and the two maidens from the forest declined, for earlier they had found a stray goat.
“And where is that Dmitri,” Mikhail asked while he ate his beef stew and bread. His sister ate in silence.
“He insists again on sleeping with the horses,” Pavel shrugged, as if he did not understand.
“A servant must always remain in lesser quarters than his master,” Mikhail explained. “It is his station.”
“Where he remains by choice,” Pavel rose away from the table. “Coming with me, beautiful ones?”
But only Natasha followed him. “Svetlana will stay here, but I shall come with you.”
The night was not yet over, still there was an entire village to explore, a forest to hunt.
When the soft gray light of dawn rose into the star filled sky they returned and Pavel headed towards the inn. Natasha wandered over to the stables. He watched her go, but said nothing.
He returned before the light reached the sky. He ascended the stairs, entered his room and collapsed onto the bed. But he did not sleep immediately. A shadow passed over him; it was Svetlana, drifting through his room. “He will not have me near him with his sister in the same house,” she hissed.
“The girl is delicate,” he answered quietly. He knew the anger in her voice was also because she had not fed since the goat they had found earlier.
“Delicate, hah! She rules over him like a queen. He will pay me no attention with her close by.”
“Soon, we will all leave this place, find a new home.”
He slept heavily and dusk arrived swiftly. The window was open and he could hear the people in the marketplace down below packing up what they did not sell. He heard the clap of horses’ hooves as people led their animals.
“Awaken!” Svetlana whispered. “Awaken quickly, for there is trouble.”
Slowly he opened his eyes and looked up at her.
“Hunters have found what is left of the stag you and Natasha killed last night. The villagers know we are here.”
He heard Mikhail call out from the hallway. “Svetlana, where are you?”
“She is here, with me,” Pavel rose wearily. “More trouble,” he sighed. “Come on, we must pay, and leave.” He stepped over towards the window to look down. “The Dark Goddess save us! Look, Svetlana, it’s worse than you say it is!”
Mikhail came to his side to peer down and Svetlana followed to have a look: A small crowd had gathered outside the inn, they were preparing to force their way past the innkeeper and his wife.
“You’re late,” Jimmy moaned.
“Hey, I had stuff to take care of,” he said.
“Stuff? Like what?”
“Look, we have lives too, kid.”
“Whatcha got?”
“Fried chicken in a bucket. No pizza. Take it or leave it.” He handed it through the window of the abandoned broken down truck. “So, you kids live in this truck, or what?” And he climbed up onto the rusted hood and sat.
“Naw, we live in other people’s hotel rooms,” Jimmy said it with a mouth full of hot food.
“Damn it, I knew you would come out with something like that.”
“Yeah, like, it’s the fastest way to get a bed to sleep in, and a shower, and food, but most of them make you leave when they’re done. We try to work together a lot, and like, you know, watch out for each other, and stuff.”
Rick was disgusted. “So, who buys this sort of thing?”
“A lotta fat old married guys, yuppies, lawyers, businessmen, you know.”
“So, get regular jobs.”
“Can’t. Not old enough, no permanent address, no driver’s license, didn’t finish high school. Stuff like that.”
Rick sighed silently. “Let me try and—”
“We’re scared of you.”
“Come on, what would I do to you?”
“You know what we think you might do,” Jimmy said. As usual, he did all the talking. The other boys just stared out at him through the cracked windshield glass.
“If I really wanted to, I would have already. Besides, how could that be so terrible compared to your jobs? It doesn’t make any sense. I’m good to you kids. I bring you junk food that smells bad. I try to help you out. What do you do? You go, ‘oh, look out, it might bite us!’”
“Okay,” Jimmy put the chicken away and sipped his coke. “Yeah, it’s really true. We live in this truck now, and business is slow.”
“So, let me get you off the street.”
“Gonna die anyway.”
“And why don’t the other two kids ever talk?”
“’Cause they’re scared, more than I am, I guess.”
“Jimmy!” he leapt off the truck, landed lightly on the cracked pavement. “Okay, I tried. But, hey, fine! Look, I’ll give you food, I’ll even try to protect you from the serial killer, but don’t give me this crap.” He turned and slowly drifted back to his Pontiac.
“Wait.” It was Rufus. Speaking to him for the first time.
“What now?”
“It gets cold at night out here.”
He turned on the lights for them and they slowly wandered in. “Okay. A few rules here. No stealing. Got that? No loud music, especially in the day time when I’m trying to sleep. Understand? No drugs. No sex. Especially at night, when I’m awake, ’cause I sure as hell don’t want to know about it. And no crazy shit from any of you kids!”
The boys looked around slowly, inspected every corner almost fearfully, as if searching for danger. “Can’t we leave a light on,” Charlie asked. “Like, all night?”
“Yeah, okay. Now, listen. You kids can use the shower and wash up, and you can sleep on the couch, it pulls out into a bed. And one of you can sleep in a chair. There are blankets in the closet. You already have some food with you, so there’s nothing in the refrigerator, nothing that you would like anyway. I’m going out, but I’ll be back. If I’m not back by dawn, I’m at a friend’s place, so don’t worry.”
“You’re leavin’ us?” Jimmy complained.
“Only for a little while. Hey, don’t burn the place down. Okay?”
When he returned with the coming dawn he found the television on, the empty chicken bucket on the floor in front of it. They had brought their food with them to finish it. Emptied coke cans were scattered about around the cardboard food container, along with a stray candy wrapper. Rick looked at the mess a
nd sighed. He usually kept his place slightly to moderately clean. Charlie and Jimmy shared the pulled out couch, they were under the Native American blanket. Rufus sat up, staring vacantly into the glare of the television. The cross still hung at his neck. It flashed in the glow of the TV. Rick closed the curtains, filling the room with sudden darkness. Rufus turned to look at him, a silent tear drifted down his face.
“You okay, kid?”
“I wanna go home, that’s all.”
“Want money for a bus ticket, or something?”
“No.”
“No?”
“My mom threw me out. Got no place to go now.”
“Sorry to hear it. Wish I could fix that.” He picked up the candy wrapper and chicken bucket, and found an emptied out coke can. “You kids think I’m the maid?”
“Don’t hurt us,” Rufus mumbled, as if he expected something to happen, and soon.
“You know,” Rick kept his voice low because the other boys were sleeping. “People like you can really give a vampire a seriously bad inferiority complex.”
Rufus gazed at him with a vacant cold fear as the tears ran down his cheek in a steady slow stream, down his neck, onto the collar of his shirt.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“No.”
“You were up all night?”
Rufus nodded weakly.
“If you want to sleep in my bed, I’ll grab a blanket and hit the floor.”
“No.”
“It’s not a grave, Rufus, just a nice regular—”
“No.”
“And I told you, I’m not into that.”
Charlie stirred in his sleep. Rick went to fetch a blanket and pillow, he came back and handed Rufus the pillow, tossed down the blanket. “Curl up in that worn out chair, then. You’d like it, it faces the TV. And don’t worry yourself anymore, okay?” He bent closer to the boy and with one pale finger he wiped away a tear. “You’re safe here.”
Laura showered and her fawn golden hair was still moist. She would let it air dry and hurry to get a bus to return to her apartment.
Leon found her wandering through the dark hallways, searching for a way out, any way out. “Hey, look who I found!”
He startled her. “Oh! Hello, I—”
“I know. You’re bored with us, and now you want to leave, right?”
“Well, I do want to go home, please.”
“How about you come down and have breakfast with me first? Come on downstairs to the kitchen and I’ll make some bacon and eggs.”
“Well,” she hesitated, “Yes.”
Rick had lent his Catalina so that Leon could drive her home in the morning; Leon only had a motorcycle for getting around town. Laura had never seen the car in the bright daylight. Its paint was slightly faded from the decades in the sun, but the car was still well kept and in fine condition.
“Leon,” she asked, suddenly, as they pulled out of the alley she had wandered into the night before, “How many are there?”
“How many what?” he did not understand.
“Vampires. How many are there, in this town?”
“There are a lot in this town, but not many in the world. Why?”
“I don’t know, just asking, I suppose. I mean, you grew up with them. Rick says they don’t ever fight among themselves, which I find hard to believe.”
“They will argue, not very much, but never actually fight. Not with each other,” and he thought a moment. “Yeah. They are different. I dunno. This is gonna sound strange, but this is my theory, okay? Like, I think that God looked down on humanity one day, and saw what people were doing, the way they were acting down here on Earth, and what a mess they were all making of the world, so He decided to start all over, and get it right the second time. Maybe that sounds crazy, but sometimes I think so.”
“Really?” She admitted to herself that it did sound crazy.
“And people hated them for it, resented them for thousands of years.”
“I don’t hate Rick.”
“No one could, if you knew him.” He drove up into the parking lot near the apartment building. “Look, you can stay over again, anytime, if you feel unsafe.”
“I don’t want to act like a foolish little girl,” which was how she still felt at times.
“No, lady, there really is a killer out on the streets. Hell, the stories I’ve heard will make a concrete brick take a crap.”
She ignored his colorful language and thanked him. “Thank you, Leon. For everything. And please tell everyone else that I said thank you, when they wake up tonight. I’ve got to get ready for work. I can’t be late anymore.”
She got off the elevator, arrived at her floor, and located her key in her purse as she made her way down the hall. But she came to find that her door had been kicked in and was already slightly open. “Oh my God!”
She went inside. The place had been struck by disaster. Upholstery was shredded, furniture turned over, food spilled out of the refrigerator and splattered across the carpet.
The intense noise of the happiness of the children stung her ears. She did not want to hear it, not now, not today. No. Not laughter, not singing, not happiness. The sun was bright and warm, its light made the landscape, the playground, and brick school building appear clean and new.
It reminded her that she did not have the time to even think about cleaning up her destroyed apartment. Tirrell Johnson, she noticed, sat quietly alone, on an almost unmoving swing. He pushed himself slightly with his feet, and stared quietly at the ground. She went over to see him. “I don’t have a home either right now, Tirrell.”
The little boy looked up. “How come?”
She sat on the swing next to him. “Same reason that you don’t.”
“I can’t really be here in any kind of an official capacity, Miss Rivers,” he mumbled. “I’m no longer assigned to this case.” It suddenly dawned on him that he still had no idea who was on the case now, if anyone. He wasn’t sure if he even cared anymore. Martin looked around and was disgusted. He almost wondered if this woman did all this mess herself to just cause him more problems.
“W-well,” she cleared her throat. “I didn’t touch anything. I didn’t have time; I had to be at work.” She explained that when she called Leon that afternoon, he said that she should call the police, though he did not specify him.
“That’s good that you didn’t touch anything, Miss, but this probably doesn’t have anything to do with recent events. It’s more likely just a burglary that got messy. Teenagers, or kids on drugs. I’ll call some officers to come and have a look around, make a report, and then you can clean up.”
“I mean, well, I just don’t know where to begin,” and she really didn’t. She had never really dealt with such a disaster before. “And I don’t think I can stay here. Do you think it’s safe?”
“You can stay in a hotel, Miss, there are plenty of them in town.”
“Yes, I know, but I would rather stay with a friend.”
“Good,” Martin looked around once more. The food spilled all over the floor had stained the carpet, and it was beginning to rot and stink. Clothing was scattered around, silk dresses, expensive looking, were shredded, as was her underwear. A noose was made from pantyhose, it hung from the chandelier in the middle of the living room ceiling. The leather sofa was also shredded, torn and destroyed.
“Rick?” she whispered, reaching out to touch the door knob slightly, hoping it would be unlocked. It was the first time she had ever gone to his back door. His car was in the backyard, its chrome flashed in the pale moonlight. “Rick.”
The door swung open. “Hey, you guys,” a young voice called out. “There’s a strange lady here!”
She stepped back. “Strange?”
“Hey, you guys.” The kid marched off back into the darkened house. She peered in. The only light was the glow of the television.
“Hello?”
“Who are you?” demanded the tallest boy. The other two seemed younger, smaller,
even fragile somehow.
“I’m Laura,” she said, as if that would explain everything.
“Are you, like you know, one of Rick’s friends?”
“Well, yes!”
The two others took a quick step backward. The boy who spoke eyed her suspiciously.
“And who are you people? Have we met? You must also be friends of Rick,” she said carefully. They were all quite pale, and thin, and hungry looking. She took a step back from the opened door. “Perhaps I should go?”
“He’ll be back, lady.” The older boy said.
“No!” Another boy hissed from the darkened room, “She might be like, you know, one of them.”
She wondered a moment. “Oh, no! I’m not a cop, if that’s what you mean.”
“Hell, lady, we know you’re not a cop. None of you guys are cops. They wouldn’t hire none of you guys!”
“Why, what on earth do you mean?” she wondered out loud.
“Should we let her in?” the smallest asked.
“No!” the one with the silver jewelry whispered. He wore something that flashed in the dark. She could not quite make out what it was. The boys drifted back once again in retreat. “She might be, like you know, hungry, or something.”
She still did not understand.
The door that led downstairs into the gallery swung open with a mouse like shriek, and soft footsteps were heard coming up into the house. The boys turned and stepped away even further.
“All right, kids, here it is, come and get it, more grease filled junk food to stink up my place with.”
“Rick?” she pleaded for his answer.
“Yes, Laura.” He emerged from out of the darkness carrying packages. “Come in!”
The boys rushed to grab the food away. They began to eat on the floor in front of the television.
“Oh my goodness. I thought that they were...that they might be...never mind!”
Rick closed the door behind him. “That they might be little strays that followed me home?”
“Well, I almost thought that these boys were...Never mind.”
