by Chuck Wendig
Coburn once heard about something called ‘chaos theory,’ which sounded pretty cool and was, at least until you got into the math. At its core, it went a little like this: a butterfly flaps its wings over here, and halfway across the world a typhoon hits. The tiniest motion could, over time, have tremendous and unexpected results. A butterfly was one thing, but a human? A living human with emotions and obsessions and opposable thumbs? Well. That was a whole other bag of tricks, wasn’t it?
Human beings were dumb, but persistent. They just wouldn’t leave shit alone. Everything was a hangnail and they couldn’t stop obsessively nibbling at it, picking at it, not until a thread of skin pulled like a rip-cord all the way down to the fucking elbow.
So it was that whenever Coburn acted like a vampire—the monster being monstrous—it was a pebble pitched in the pond, a butterfly fluttering his stupid little wings. He drank from some club girl and left her dizzy in a bathroom? He killed some gang-banger thug and drained the body and left it on a garbage scow? He moved too fast in front of witnesses, leaving them wondering what they just saw? Each of these things: an opportunistic hangnail. A loose thread that, when pulled, might unravel the whole of the sweater.
Once a human got a look at the other side, there always came the chance that they wouldn’t—couldn’t—let it go.
Most of the time, fuck it, didn’t matter. About ten years back, some girl came sniffing around Coburn’s hot spots looking for her fiancé. Some douche-rag Wall Street moneyman, some cocky rich prick in a tailored suit. Frankly, Coburn barely remembered killing him. He wasn’t one to linger, after all.
Of course, just because Coburn didn’t give a rat’s ass didn’t mean she felt the same way. This was her fiancé. And now he was gone. Void like that needs to be filled. And there it was: the hangnail. Pick, pick, pick.
Night in, night out, he saw her asking questions. Bartenders. Bouncers. Doormen. Dancers. Strippers. She even came up to him one time, flashed a photo, and that was when he remembered killing the dumb fuck. The suit gave Coburn lip for bumping into him and spilling his whisky, and that’s something you just don’t do. You don’t look into the monster’s eyes and call him a—what was it? A low-class worm? Maggot? Something like that? Watch where you’re going, you blah blah blah? No. That flag won’t fly.
So Coburn found his driver. Broke his neck. Drained him dry. Then waited for Mister Moneybags with the pomade hair and the shiny watch to show up, which he did—some blonde on his arm. The vampire killed him in front of her, then put the voodoo to her, convinced her to get the hell out and forget what she saw.
The suit’s blood tasted like the good life. Unctuous, like foie gras. Coppery, like a mouthful of pennies. Sweet, like diabetes.
So when the woman came, flashed a photo, Coburn almost laughed.
He told her, no, nope, sorry, no idea.
But she just wouldn’t let it go. Kept asking around until someone—Coburn still didn’t know who or he would’ve ripped them a dozen new assholes—said that, sure enough, the suit got into an altercation with him. Described him to the nines: the boots, the jacket, the crooked nose.
Few nights later, she found Coburn in an alley and thrust a pawn-shop .38 snubnose in his face with a trembling hand. Said she’d been asking around and she heard that he was a real bad dude. Said she needed answers right then, right there, or she’d put a bullet in him.
He let her. Just to make her feel better. It wasn’t that he felt bad, but hey, that night he was feeling particularly magnanimous. She got in a good shot, too. Hit him right in the side of the neck. Had he been alive, it would’ve been a kill-shot, would have left him bleeding out in the oil-slick puddles next to the dumpster that stank of rancid curry.
Instead, he put an end to such foolishness and mayhem.
Her mind twisted easily. His voice, soothing. His eyes, mesmerizing. He found out that her name was Caitlin. Wasn’t hard to sell her on the story that her affianced fuck-stick boyfriend had run off with some anorexic high-dollar escort. Eyes watery, lip trembling, snot bubbling up out of her nose, he could see that he hooked her. She bought it. Game over, goodbye.
Or so he thought.
Who knows what it was that put Caitlin back on the path? Bad dreams, maybe? His mesmerism left cracks and holes—hairline fractures and pin-pricks only, but enough to let a little light back in—and that might’ve been what set her off. Hell, maybe it was just that she loved her dickhead fiancé oh so much that she couldn’t let him go. It was love, which is to say, it was obsession.
Caitlin was smart this time. She didn’t just come back to see him, didn’t just follow the same dark trail of blood-soaked breadcrumbs. No, Caitlin looked for help. She found the Sons of Man, which is when the Sons of Man found Coburn.
Bunch of fucking Jersey asshole do-goodniks—handful of amateur hour monster-hunters led by some plumber named Benjamin Brickert. Janitors and car mechanics and volunteer firemen. Not quite a dozen of them. All of them thought they had brushes with the supernatural, and hell, maybe they did: ghostly interventions and Jersey Devil sightings and demonic possessions. They weren’t a bunch of eggheads, though. They were church-going boys and girls, all of them: god-fearing greaseballs who didn’t want to study and find evidence of the supernatural so much as they wanted to destroy it.
Caitlin probably found their number on Craigslist; that was where Coburn saw it, but for all he knew those dipshits put up flyers. Whatever it was that she told them, it put them on his trail.
And for the next three years, they fucked with him.
He’d be putting the swerve on some slag in the club and there they’d be, telling her that he was some kind of monster—or, when that wording failed, rapist—and unless she wanted to end up on the back of a milk carton, she’d better hit the bricks. Of course, nobody ended up on the back of milk cartons anymore, did they? Assholes.
They tried following him to his condo. They tried calling him out and engaging him in fights. Coburn managed to get one of them alone—some chubby plumber-type who thought to cave his head in with a pipe wrench—and he broke the dope’s neck and siphoned him dry. Problem was, it was almost dawn, so he stashed the body in a manhole. Next night, what should Coburn find there but the red-and-blue coruscating cop lights and a bunch of yellow caution tape?
So that put the cops on the area. Turns out, an ‘anonymous tip’ led them to the manhole. Again, the Sons of Man getting in his business.
That was the turning point. That was when they became more aggressive.
It was a month later when they got him.
They set him up. Put some bird on the wire for him to find: he was at a bar not far from the fashion district and she came up to him—not too skinny, which meant she had a lot of blood in her. Red hair and green eyes: nothing wrong with that. A little drunk (always a good sign). Said she was a fashion student here but wasn’t getting along and didn’t know anybody and blah blah blah, he tuned out. All he knew and cared about was that she clung to him all night, a little too needy. But ‘needy’ was right in his wheelhouse.
She said, “Want to go get high?”
No, of course he didn’t, but he lied. “Let’s do it.”
Girl knew a place nearby.
A theater. Bit broken down. Opened once or twice a year for an art installation or a showing of some classic Hitchcock.
Uh-huh. Whatever. Get her inside, he thought. Drain her but don’t kill her. Leave her. Another wonderful night as a mean-ass fang-banger-motherfucker would draw to a warm, pleasant close.
It was a trap.
They were there. Every last sonofabitch Son of Man they could rally. It was a gauntlet: they came out of the shadows, with Brickert at its end. He should’ve heard them, should’ve smelled them, but all he could see was the pulsing vein at the crook of the girl’s neck, all he could smell was her heavy perfume. A tire iron cracked him in the head. Put him down. Boot on his hand. Boots in his ribs. A crowbar. A baseball bat.
Even still, he got up
. He wasn’t a chump. He pushed blood to his limbs. Coburn moved fast. Became the vampire, not the victim. Hooked his finger into a coat-hook and ripped some lanky fuck’s throat out. Kicked out with one of his Fluevogs, turned a guy’s knee inside out. The redhead tried to run, but he grabbed her by the hair—no way she was getting off scot-free—and that was when the Taser hit him.
Fucking Tasers, man. He had no idea. Never been hit with one before. Problem is, even being the living dead, Coburn’s tissue is still moist. Still conductive. And everything still seems to operate by electric impulse. The Taser clipped him in the back of the neck—damningly good shot, turned out it was Brickert who held the weapon—and his whole world lit on fire and his limbs seized up. Felt like he was falling into day-sleep.
Next thing he knew, Brickert with his black goatee and his bright blue eyes was setting Coburn against a row of theater seats. Duct-taping him there. The rest of the Sons were hurrying out of the building. Brickert smiled at him with a mouth full of yellow teeth, and Coburn saw a crucifix tattoo creeping up the man’s neck.
“Us blue-collar types have to watch out for one another,” the man said, picking up a camping hatchet, running his thumb along the blade.
Coburn tried to muster a response, but it came out as a slurry of word garbage.
“You monsters have it too good,” the man growled. “This is for Sully.” Then he spat in the vampire’s eye.
Coburn flipped him off.
Brickert moved fast with the camping hatchet, cutting off his finger. Coburn watched the middle digit pirouette through the air. Almost comical. As if to add insult to injury, Brickert bent down, snatched up the finger. Some kind of trophy, probably.
Then the fucking finger-thief ran. Just as Coburn started to feel his limbs come back to life, everything lit up—bombs went off around the room. The floor collapsed. A row of seats rushed toward him. He tumbled into darkness. Saw the bright flash of fire before everything went black.
Shit.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
One Drop of Blood at a Time
“Shit,” Coburn said, teeth gritted so hard he thought they might crack. “We’re not going west just to hang with those assholes, I’ll tell you that. Bunch of backwoods Pine Barren types and greasy Eye-talian meatballs. No. Hell no. Triple chocolate no.”
“We’re not going for them,” came a voice behind him. Kayla. Rubbing sleep out of her eyes. “We want to go past that. Past their territory.”
Ebbie nodded. “It’s true.”
“Say that again?” Coburn asked.
“Stories say there’s a lab out on the West Coast,” Kayla said. “Downtown Los Angeles. They’re working on a cure for the plague. Or a vaccine, since I guess you can’t really cure the dead. That’s where we’re headed.”
“Los Angeles.”
“Mm-hmm,” she said. “We even have an address.”
“And where’d you come by this story? And this address?”
Ebbie chimed in: “From one of the missionaries. The pilgrims we told you about?”
Coburn growled low and slow. He didn’t trust any of this.
Besides, Los Angeles? Likely just another city chock full of the dead. Like he didn’t have a hard enough time getting out of New York City’s hell-canyons, the streets stuffed with dead meat? This deal was looking to be a real pisser. Inside his dead flesh, the veins and arteries tightened; that was the hunger coming for him. Anxiety lurked like rats in the wall. He felt suddenly like a tiger shoved in a terrarium. He pushed those feelings back down into the darkness. Sometimes Coburn had to remember: if he played his cards right, he could be doing this for a very long time. Forever, really. He didn’t age. Didn’t get sick. Just needed blood.
One step in front of the other.
One drop of blood at a time.
“How soon till I get to eat?” he growled.
Ebbie stammered, looked at his wrist where no watch sat, then looked at the wall where a clock hung crooked against the warped paneling: “Three hours.”
“Fine,” Coburn said, heading toward the back. “Call me when it’s time.”
“Don’t you want to know the plan?” Ebbie called after.
Coburn gave Abner the middle finger—the same one that he lost before the shit hit the fan—and stormed into the back bedroom.
Cecelia lay asleep on the bed. Face down. Purple-pantied ass thrust upward. Snoring. Coburn sniffed the air, smelled sex. Saw a box of rubbers on the nightstand, probably expired, but what the hell. On the one hand, he had to give it to the old man because, well, she was giving it to the old man. On the other hand, she only had her hand around his knob because it was the control lever that made the robot do what she wanted. Cecelia was in control; least, that was how Coburn figured it.
Then again, Coburn thought, maybe that was all human relationships. He really couldn’t remember. Maybe all men were puppets and all women were whores. Or maybe it was the other way around. Or maybe everybody was a whore and a puppet at the same time. What the hell did he know?
What he did know was, he wanted the room. He grabbed her by the ankle, dragged her off the bed. By the time Cecelia realized what was happening, she started to grab for the sheets but it was too late: she hit the floor with a whump.
“Hey! Goddamnit!” she cried out, turned over and tried to kick at him. He slapped away her feet.
“Get out.”
“No! You get out.”
“Get out or I will tear off your legs.”
Cecelia scrabbled to her feet, got up in his face.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she hissed.
“You should be.”
“I’m not. I’ve seen you talk a lot, but I haven’t seen you do shit. Big tough man. Big scary vampire.” Her breath stank of cigarettes. And Gil. She smiled. Licked her lips. Got closer. Cecelia thrust out her tongue and waggled it at him. “Big sexy vampire.”
“Wanna know something?” he asked.
“Tell me.”
“I can take all the blood I’ve stolen, and I can push it right into my cock. Make the damn thing hard as rebar. I could crack a cement block with it, so you can only imagine what I could do to you.”
Her eyes flashed. The sound that came out of her throat—almost a laugh—was throaty, breathy, wild like an animal. “I don’t want to just imagine it.”
She thrust out her tongue, licked his chin.
He grabbed it, pinched it betwixt thumb and forefinger.
“I could rip this off,” he said. “Quick jerk of my arm and this pink meat will come out at the root.” She squealed, tried to get away, swatting at him with her fists. “Don’t move and you won’t lose it. Now listen to me: I don’t like you. I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but you’re a brat. And that’s saying something, coming from me, because I am a Grade-A sonofabitch. Were you molested by an uncle? Used up by the football team? Or is it just in your DNA? Were you always this way? Don’t know. Don’t give a fuck. But you’re mean. A real abuser. So I’m going to let go of your tongue now and you’re going to leave the room. Nod gently if you understand what I’m saying.”
At first, nothing but hate daggers coming from her eyes.
But then, slowly, surely, a little nod.
He let go of her tongue. She pulled it back into her mouth, a snake into its hole. She looked shaken up. Eyes wet. Good. She needed that if she was going to survive out here. Maybe he did some good today. But it didn’t matter.
Coburn grabbed her by the shoulder, threw open the accordion door, and shoved her out.
Later, Kayla appeared at the door.
“We’re almost there,” she said.
“Good,” Coburn answered. “Because I need to eat.”
“Your dreams…” she started, but didn’t finish.
“What about them?”
“Why was I in your dreams? The fake me. The not real me.”
He stood up, popping his knuckles, flicking his fangs with his tongue to get them to come out and play. “I don
’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In the kitchen. In your dreams. I visited you. I didn’t mean to, but… she was there. I was there. Some other me. What was that about?”
Coburn came up on her and snarled.
“You get the hell out of my skull. That door’s locked. It’s marked ‘private.’ You hear me? Stay. Out.” He pushed past her. “Now let’s get my belly filled.”
Welcome to suburban Hell, Coburn thought. Outside, a low fog clung to the ground. The motor home slowly wound its way through forgotten cars and long-dead bodies, passing by the ghostly wrecks of Burger King and KFC, past mortgage huts and check-cashing shacks, each building rising up out of the darkness like a shipwreck. Here and there, the living dead shuffled about—the passing headlights providing a stimulus, and their response was agitation and desperation. They began following the vehicle in a groaning mummy shuffle, but they were slow and stupid and it was too late—the motor home kept on going.
Ebbie came up next to him and peered out.
“Creepy,” Ebbie said. “Don’t you think?”
The vampire shrugged. “Suburbs have always looked this way to me.”
“Oh. Well. The Wal-Mart is ahead by a mile. That’s where… they are. They’ve got a couple spike strips dragged across the road, like the cops use in high-speed chases? To blow tires? Plan is for you to distract them inside—”
“And to feed, Abner. Don’t forget about that part, unless you want me to order another meal at the Abnersblood Diner again.”
“—and feed, I was just about to say that, yes, absolutely.” He cleared his throat. Coburn could smell his nervous sweat. “While you… feed… we’ll clear the road and drive past, and wait on the other side of the highway, away from any rotters. You’ll find us a half-mile down or so.”
