Blake Byron: Paranormal Investigator

by Andrew Beymer

  Freaky.

  All it would take was a sneeze or a good vacuum cleaner and there’d be no sign the vampire had ever existed. Aside from the blood stains. Those weren’t going away without a few layers of paint. Or maybe gutting and replacing the drywall.

  "Damn," I said. "So much for physical evidence.”

  No physical evidence meant I was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Having a hell of a lot of explaining to do meant I was going to have a lot of paperwork to do too.

  I hated paperwork. Almost as much as I hated fighting an undead creature of the night.

  Maybe moreso than undead creatures of the night. Paperwork was eternal and couldn’t be slain, but now I knew vampires could die.

  And they screamed like little bitches while they were dying.

  9

  Official Investigation

  Okay, so let's go through this one more time," Hendricks said.

  I leaned back in my chair. I knew we were going to go through the same old song and dance we’d been through ever since I was taken back to the University Police Department and sat down on the other side of a cheap folding table in the drunk tank.

  The fact that they'd bothered to bring a table into the drunk tank in the first place spoke volumes as to exactly how much shit I’d gotten myself into tonight.

  The table looked like the sort Grandma Mabel brought out for the kids table at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner back in the day. The experience wasn’t as fun now with me in an uncomfortable folding chair on one side and Hendricks on the other looking pissed about being dragged out of bed for this.

  Hendricks was the closest thing the department had to an Internal Affairs Officer which meant the University required the department to have someone doing Internal Affairs and the Chief put Hendricks’ name down because he'd been around the longest.

  Now he was actually doing that job, and doing a piss poor job of it at that, giving me the Nth degree.

  I couldn't say that I particularly cared for the experience. It reminded me of debriefings I’d endured overseas when things went to shit.

  It was the same around the world whether you were talking about playing in the sandbox or royally fucking things up on the local campus police department. Not that I considered defending myself from an undead horror that shouldn’t be and avenging some poor girl to be a fuck up.

  The problem was what I considered a fuck up and what the Chief considered a fuck up were two very different things. He thought I’d fucked up, and where there was a fuck up, real or perceived, there was always going to be someone there to chew your ass out when it was all said and done.

  I hated having my ass chewed out. Almost as much as I hated paperwork. They seemed to be the two constants of life in a military organization or an organization that used a military structure.

  "Where do you want to start?" I asked. "Because I really don't want that part about the drunk kids I let go to get on the official record. The Chief’s already pissed off at me as it is.”

  Hendricks waved a dismissive hand and his dark mustache bristled. There were flecks of white in the thing which looked like it hadn’t been shaved since the ‘80s when it was last in style. Fitting for a guy who'd been on the department longer than almost anyone.

  Gladys and the Chief were the big exceptions that made Hendricks’ stint shorter, but that wasn't all that weird. After all, Gladys and the Chief were eternal.

  “Are you even paying attention Byron?” Hendricks asked.

  "Sorry about that," I said. "By the way, whatever happened to that backup Gladys was supposed to send? Did they find Kinsey napping out by the science building? Or was he over at the gym creeping through the windows at all the college girls getting a late night workout?”

  “We've already been over this Byron," Hendricks said. "She thought you were jumping at shadows. You know, doing newbie stuff."

  I sighed and rolled my eyes. Of course Gladys would think I was acting like a newbie. The old crone thought everybody acted like a newbie. It didn't help that the last time someone had joined the force who actually graduated from being a newbie was back when Nixon was losing eighteen minutes from his tape collection.

  "Okay then, so I go into the house," I said.

  "Right," Hendricks said. "And then you found the girl and she was alive?"

  "Are you stuffing donuts into your ears and your mouth?" I asked.

  I knew it was a mistake the moment the words left my mouth, but it was too late. Hendricks fixed me with a sharp glare. A glare that said this investigation wasn't going to go well for me if I continued opening my big fat mouth.

  That big fat mouth had been a problem for me for years. You’d think I’d learn to keep it shut by now.

  "Sorry," I muttered, not really meaning it. I think he could tell I didn’t really mean it. Must’ve been my pleasant tone.

  "No problem," Hendricks said in a tone that said he didn't mean it either. Great. "You were under a lot of stress tonight. Don't feel too bad about it."

  Hendricks had the look. I’d seen it time and again. A cop in the interrogation room who’d just noticed someone brought in a box of donuts and everyone was swarming around the thing devouring it while he’s stuck doing work. The cop knows there’s only going to be glazed left over by the time he gets out there and all he needs to get that sweet sugary goodness is to finish whatever he’s doing, which in this case was interrogating yours truly.

  Except tonight the donut was sleep, and there wasn’t a chance in hell I was confessing to anything I didn’t do so Hendricks could go home and get more of it.

  "Right," I said with a dismissive wave of my hand. "So as I explained before…”

  I paused and let my gaze burn into Hendricks to make it clear I was just as tired of being here as he was. “I thought the girl was still alive, but then when I went in her room it turns out she was already dead."

  "And there was no sign of trauma or anything?" Hendricks asked.

  "I already told you there was a sign of trauma," I said.

  My voice was rising again. I knew my voice rising wasn't a good thing. It meant I was getting excitable. When I got excitable I started to say things I might regret in the morning.

  Though come to think of it now really was early morning. Things like night and morning tended to meld together until they had no meaning working the night shift.

  "Byron…" Hendricks said, a warning tone coming to his voice.

  I held up two fingers. “Two puncture wounds in her neck. Look at that. Two. Even you can count that high. You have to at least be able to count to a dozen to tell the baker how many donuts you want when you start your shift.”

  Oh yeah. I was working up a good head of steam now. I was really going to regret this later when it came time for the investigation's findings to come out, but in the moment I didn't give a flying fuck.

  I’d been chewed out by far better than Hendricks, and I wasn't in the mood to take any crap from him right now.

  Hendricks sighed. “Are we really doing this Byron? What’s the point?”

  “The point is there were two puncture wounds on her neck, and you know what caused them. How many times do I have to tell you this before you'll believe me?"

  Hendricks glowered down at the notebook he'd been scribbling in. He did that every time I brought up the puncture wounds. Like his glare would set it on fire and at least then there’d be something interesting going on in here.

  Instead of the something crazy he obviously thought was going on between my ears.

  Hendricks reached over and slammed his hand down on the honest to God ancient tape recorder sitting on the desk. It looked like something right out of an old cop show from the ‘70s.

  I hadn’t known anyone other than the occasional hipster on campus who used honest-to-God cassette tapes, but if the old technology would show up anywhere it would be here in the police department where “if it ain’t broke, don’t waste the budget on updating it” was a way of life.r />
  I was just old enough to remember when society decided to make the transition from tape to CD, and it was my learned opinion that anyone who thought analog was better than digital was full of shit. Heck, anyone who thought records were better than digital audio was also full of it.

  I was also old enough to have parents who were old enough to have a vinyl collection, and I well remembered the scratches and pops that came with the territory whenever my dad decided to listen to some Foghat.

  "Damn it Byron," Hendricks said. "How many times have I told you to cut that shit out? I can't put that fairytale shit in an official inquiry!”

  I crossed my arms and stared defiantly as Hendricks reached out and rewound the tape. It made a noise like something out of a Hollywood movie, or something straight out of my distant past.

  "Why can't that be part of your official report?" I asked, knowing this had to be irritating the ever loving shit out of Hendricks which was pretty much why I did it. "It's what happened, after all."

  Hendricks took a deep breath and his round face turned several different shades of red on its way to turning purple. It was enough to make me worry that maybe Hendricks was going to have a stroke or a heart attack.

  The guy wasn't in the best shape. All those donut jokes weren't for nothing. That would be just my luck. Two corpses in one night.

  One considerably larger than the other.

  "How many times do we have to go over this Byron?” he asked. "If you start telling stories about fairytales coming alive and attacking some poor girl on campus they're going to think you're crazy and I'm never going to hear the end of it. So why don't you tell me what really happened? Who killed the girl?"

  "Fine," I said.

  I sighed as though I was finally giving up. As though Hendricks badgering me and playing some weird game of good cop/bad cop where he was simultaneously the good cop and the bad cop had finally beaten me down. I tried my best to look defeated.

  "You want the truth? I'll tell you the truth. Go ahead and turn that thing on.”

  "Now that's more like it," Hendricks said.

  Hendricks breathed a sigh of relief that puffed out his bushy mustache. I could sympathize with him. The guy had been roused in the middle of the night when he'd worked the day shift for the past couple of decades. At shift change he always made a point of loudly swearing he would never get up for a night shift again.

  Unfortunately for him the Chief had taken one look at the crime scene and decided this required Hendricks to come in, and what the Chief wanted the Chief got.

  Yeah, it really sucked working on a department where the night shift had Gladys who had the power of the Chief and the Chief was usually up and ready to take calls as well. It made it impossible to screw around which was supposed to be one of the perks of working the graveyard shift on any job.

  Graveyard shift. I shuddered. That was a pretty unintentionally good approximation of how my shift went tonight.

  "So I go into the girl’s room,” I said.

  "Right," Hendricks said.

  Anticipation colored his voice. He was no doubt thinking about his warm bed back home. Though he probably wasn't thinking about his wife warming that bed for him. I got the impression all wasn’t right in the Hendricks marriage based on seeing them together at holiday parties.

  "And I roll the girl over and she's obviously dead," I said.

  I tried to play it up. Sure I was going piece by piece through the same story I’d told every other time Hendricks asked tonight, but I wanted Hendricks to think there was going to magically be a different ending to it this time. An ending that would be better for Hendricks and his desire to get home and get some sleep.

  "Go on," Hendricks prompted when I didn't continue the story as fast as he'd like.

  “She's got two puncture wounds in her neck and it looks like she's been drained by something, and wouldn't you know it when I turned my ass around there's a fucking vampire in the room threatening me and the motherfucker attacks me. That's why the bed was destroyed when you all got in there. That’s why there was a pile of dust and bones and dried blood on the first floor, and that’s why you didn’t find any of the blood drained from her body. Motherfucker drained her.”

  "Goddamnit Byron!" Hendricks bellowed.

  This time the tape recorder jumped when Hendricks’ hand slammed down on it and we both looked at the thing with fear. But when it stopped rattling it seemed to still be working.

  Gladys and the Chief could be notoriously pissy about people breaking ancient bits of technology that had been working since the people working in the department now had been in diapers, or not even an itch in their fathers’ balls.

  "Byron, how many times are you…"

  Blessedly whatever Hendricks was about to say was cut off by somebody opening the door behind him. I wondered if I was going to be saved by someone being tossed into the drunk tank. It was a Friday night on campus which always meant at least one person being tossed into the drunk tank.

  I looked up and nearly groaned at what I saw there. It would've been bad enough if it was Gladys coming in with more paperwork for me to fill out as I frustrated Hendricks, but I saw none other than the Chief himself walking in with a frown on his face.

  Shit.

  10

  The Chief

  The man did not look happy. He never looked pleased with the world, but he looked particularly displeased now. There was a dusting of white in his hair and he had some wrinkles, but not nearly as many as you'd expect from a man of his age.

  At least what I assumed was a man of his age based on how long he’d been doing his job.

  I was in for it. It was never good when the Chief looked pissed off. When he was upset people knew to run or get the hell out of the way.

  Unfortunately for yours truly I was in the back of the drunk tank on the other side of an ancient card table with Hendricks and the Chief between me and escape.

  I didn’t doubt I could take both of them if I needed to, but I figured that wouldn’t be good for my long term employment prospects. Plus I figured Hendricks didn’t need more trouble on top of being called in like this.

  The old man put a hand on Hendricks’ shoulder. “Why don’t you go home now? Spend some time with your wife and come in a few hours late to make up for this. I’ll take it from here.”

  Hendricks didn’t waste any time waiting for the Chief to change his mind, though I seriously doubted he was excited about going home to his wife so much as he was excited about getting comp time.

  He stammered a thanks and was out of there in a flash. But not before he flashed me a sympathetic look.

  Hey, he might be trying to get his investigation over with, but the man was still human. He knew what a private meeting with the Chief meant, even if it was a Chief who told someone to get lost and sleep in the next day which was definitely out of character.

  I was surprised at this new gentle and considerate Chief. Then the Chief turned his attention to me and I realized the gentle Chief had been all for Hendricks. It was obvious the old man had come in here tonight with a taste for ass and a healthy set of chompers ready to do some chewing.

  Heh. Healthy taste for ass. When I thought of it like that it was actually kind of… Disgusting.

  “Byron, you made a real shit show of things tonight,” the Chief bellowed like someone doing a bad impression of R. Lee Ermey.

  "Listen Chief,” I said.

  I was cut off as the Chief made a slashing motion with his hand. When he made motions with his hand it was usually time to shut the fuck up. At least that was my learned opinion after working with the Chief for the past couple of years.

  I’d tried my best to avoid any and all interaction with the old man whenever I could. I figured if I was going to move up through the ranks it would be kissing the ass of whoever came along after the Chief considering how old his wrinkly butt cheeks probably were.

  No point kissing ass that wasn’t going to be around long enough to help
you out. That was one of my many mottos in life.

  "If you had any idea what sort of trouble you've caused for me with all this…”

  "I'm sorry Chief,” I said.

  The Chief matched my apology with a glare. Come to think of it he was the sort of crotchety old bastard who met pretty much every situation with an old school glare that told the world it would be better to steer clear.

  And that glare pissed me off tonight.

  I knew it was a bad idea, but I was feeling a little saucy. Maybe it was because I’d been pulled away from an otherwise productive night of playing games on my phone. Maybe it was because I’d spent the better part of the past couple of hours getting my ass chewed out by Hendricks. Maybe it was that I’d just fought a fucking vampire and lived to tell the tale and next to that the Chief held no terror for me.

  Whatever it was, I suddenly felt the urge to talk back to the Chief. Just a little. Enough to let the old man know I meant business.

  “I mean it’s not like I did anything that bad. The girl was already dead when I got there and I killed a…”

  The Chief's eyes widened. He put his hands down on the table and one finger tapped lightly against the fake wooden top.

  “It would be very good for your career if you stopped right there,“ the Chief said. "So you think you were a hero tonight chasing after something from a horror movie? God you probably shot some poor kid in a costume who’s out there on campus somewhere bleeding out creating a pretty picture for the newspapers in the morning!”

  The Chief was really building up a head of steam. It wasn’t good to interrupt him when he was building up a head of steam, so I didn’t bother pointing out that the guy was staked, not shot. Or that he couldn’t be bleeding out somewhere on campus since last I’d seen Johnson was sweeping what was left of the asshole into a dustpan.

  Probably best to keep quiet about that. I didn’t want to get Johnson in trouble. The poor bastard pulled CSI duty because the university got a stick up their ass and said the department had to have one.