Moon Mourning

by J. R. Rain

  The only logical conclusion is that I drank his blood. Human blood. If that’s true, then it invigorated me far more than the beef blood Danny brought home. I wonder how often I need to feed. Every day? Every other day? Every week? Three square meals of blood a day? And, most important, am I going to have to attack people to sustain myself? As in, do I have to kill someone to feed or can I just drink, say, a little and move on?

  And did I really just ask myself that steady stream of crazy questions?

  Crazy, so damn crazy. I’m a federal agent. A mom. A sister. A wife…

  I pause, noticing where Danny landed on that list, then shake my head. Coincidence. We’d had a nice night together. No lovemaking, but some serious snuggling.

  Still...

  I can’t shake that look he gave me, and his standoffishness, which is totally a word.

  Well, if the tables had been turned, I would be standoffish too, I suppose. And weirded out, too, I suppose. And all the emotions that Danny is going through.

  Even crazier is the notion of vampirism. No, not necessarily vampirism, per se, but the inherent supernaturalism surrounding it. Since when did ghosts exist, or UFOs, or disappearing from mirrors actually, you know, become a thing?

  I drum my fingers on the desk. Dammit. If it wasn’t for the whole disappearing from the mirror thing, I could explain this away, somewhat easily. Well, the blood thing was getting harder and harder, and that’s where I just might want to get tested by a real doctor. Maybe I contracted a disease from whoever attacked me. What disease, I didn’t know, but it totally could have happened.

  Except…

  Except, did I really want a doctor poking and prodding me and looking deep into what might very well be something unexplainable? Did I really want that on the table, in the light, so to speak? And what if the results came back conclusive? “Ma’am, I’m sorry to say, you are a vampire. There’s a government agency that wants to talk to you. And it’s not HUD.”

  No, I think. I do not want that. Nope, not at all. Whatever was happening, I would find answers myself. And with the help of Danny and Mary Lou. Well, definitely Mary Lou.

  And if it is a rare, exotic blood disease I’d contracted?

  Then bring it on, I think.

  Jesus, am I seriously sitting here debating being a vampire? As if that’s some kind of real thing that exists and not lifted straight from Hollywood? Yes, I think. I really am. I’ve gone down the rabbit hole, hook, line, and sinker. And now, I’m also mixing metaphors―

  “Hey, Moon. Ready?” asks Chad.

  “Ready?” I look up at him, startled.

  “You wanted to observe Mr. Bell, remember? A good, old-fashioned stakeout.”

  At the word stake, I shiver. Chad couldn’t possibly have meant that on purpose, right? Huh… I wonder if the whole ‘wood-through-the-heart’ thing works? Of course not. Vampires aren’t real. They don’t exist. Only in Hollywood. Definitely only in Hollywood. And where did they get their idea for vampires? Where did anyone get their ideas of vampires? Books and movies, of course. And before that, the folklore of frightened peasants who had to invent myths to explain things they couldn’t understand. Cow drops dead for no reason? Vampire got it. No, dammit, I’m sick. With what, I have no idea, but I’m sick. That’s all. Period. A frickin’ medical problem that science will eventually figure out. Someday.

  Again, that would require going to a doctor. Ugh. Sadly, I think I’m well past the stage of ‘just hoping it goes away.’

  It’s not going away. Whatever has me… has me completely and totally, down to my very soul, and I hate whatever it is so much. So damn much.

  “Right,” I say, getting my head back in the HUD game, no matter hard it might be to tear myself away from my ‘issues.’ I blink, try to get my brain moving again, rub my temples. Right, the stakeout. Okay, based on a pattern of deposits in Joey’s bank account, we suspect that whatever undocumented employment he’s involved with takes place on Thursday or Friday. Okay. Head in game. Ready to investigate.

  “Let’s do this,” I say.

  “Let’s do what?” asks Chad.

  “This,” I say. “Let’s do this.”

  “Uhh, are you okay, Sam?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m most definitely not okay. Let’s go.”

  I let Chad drive since the world is still painfully bright to my eyes. We roll up to Joey Bell’s house and park an inconspicuous distance away. After a few hours of watching, Chad fidgets. His restlessness grows, and a few minutes later, he opens the door.

  “Be right back, gonna go water a bush.”

  That, of course, reminds me I’m well into my third week of not peeing or doing the other thing. I have quite a bit more trouble explaining that away as a ‘medical condition.’ Mary Lou had been almost excited at the idea of vampires being real. I guess it could be somewhat cool, assuming I’m not a mindless killer, don’t have to kill to exist, and well, if such things even existed for real.

  The sun thing is kinda annoying, though.

  A few-year-old blue Ford pickup rumbles by and swings into the driveway at Joey’s house. I grab the camera and line up a shot. Three rough-looking biker types hop out of the Ford and move around back to the tailgate. Joey, and two older men emerge from the house. The oldest has short black hair and a bit of a beer gut. He’s close to fifty but probably not there yet, dressed in white/grey camo and combat boots. The man behind him is somewhat younger, brown hair, wearing green fatigues and a black T-shirt.

  I zoom in and take multiple photos of everyone. They flip down the tailgate and drag a large, olive-drab crate out. It’s coffin-shaped, but only about three quarters as big. Joey and the ‘bikers’ shake hands. I snap more pictures of an envelope exchange, and keep clicking as the men who emerged from Joey’s house carry the crate inside. The almost-fifty-year-old gets in the Ford with the biker types after shaking Joey’s hand.

  Chad opening the door makes me jump. He flops in and lets out a long moan of relief. “Sorry about that. Some things can’t wait.”

  “Your timing is amazing as always.” I nod at the windshield.

  He leans forward. “Crap. What happened?”

  I give him a quick rundown and pat the camera. “That crate looked like military hardware. I’m thinking guns. Probably rifles, or maybe worse.”

  “Wanna move on it?” asks Chad.

  “Let’s call it in first.”

  He nods and whips out his cell phone.

  While he’s explaining our theory to Nico that Joey’s running illegal firearms, I sneak a few more photos of the Ford as it goes by.

  ***

  Three minutes after Chad hangs up, another pickup truck―a Chevy, red, and battered―comes down the street from the other direction and pulls into Joey’s driveway.

  Two thirtysomething men hop out and go inside. Both are rocking the same T-shirt and camo pants couture. They look like rejects from Army boot camp, discharged for failure to maintain their uniforms. And for well, moonlighting as illegal arms dealers. That last part, of course, being an educated guess.

  “You think these guys in the red truck are the buyers?” I ask.

  “Could be.” Chad wrings his hand at the wheel. “And the ones in the blue truck are selling. Joey’s the middleman.”

  One duck, two duck, red truck, blue truck. Ugh. Where did that come from? I’ve been listening to far too much television aimed at toddlers.

  “Let’s go create a delay. ATF’s on the way. I’d rather there be something here for them to find.”

  Chad nods as he starts the car. “What are you thinking?”

  “Property inspections are random, aren’t they?”

  He chuckles. “Right.”

  We drive the hundred feet or so to the house and park behind the beat-up Chevy. The walk to the front door covers me in burning hell. I double-time it past the truck to the shelter of the porch, and seethe in pain, which mutates into anger. Rattling, like guns being examined, comes from behind the door.


  “That’s badass as hell,” says a man.

  “M249 squad support weapon,” replies Joey, sounding proud. “800 rounds-per-minute cyclic.”

  Say what?!

  I grab the knob with my left hand while my right settles on my Glock. Without even thinking, I twist and push. The knob comes off in my grip and the door crunches inward, the still-locked latch gouging the wooden doorjamb like taffy.

  Chad catches up and gives me a look.

  “What?” I whisper. “Rotten door frame.”

  I chuck the knob aside into the bushes and shove the door open. Joey and three other men stand around in the living room (in front of the super-expensive TV that is now the least of our problems) holding military-style weapons. The oldest guy with brown hair’s hefting the M249, everyone else has an M16 rifle, one even has a grenade launcher attachment. My Glock feels like a pea-shooter.

  All four men stare at me like Mom just caught them masturbating.

  “Federal agent!” I say, raising my puny weapon. “Drop the weapons and get on the floor!”

  Chad edges in behind me.

  The men lower the weapons to the rug and stand back up with their hands in the air.

  I wag the Glock to the right. “Over there. Away from the hardware. Get down with your arms out where I can see them.”

  “Jesus effing Christ,” mutters Chad. “Is that a grenade launcher?”

  “I got a Class III dealer permit,” says the fortysomething man with brown hair.

  I shift my attention as best I can among the men, watching for sudden motion. “Well, if that’s true, then you boys have nothing to worry about. It’ll just take us a little bit to sort everything out.”

  Joey’s shaking and white in the face. His hands twitch, so I shift to point my Glock at him.

  “Get down, Joey. Don’t do anything stupid,” I say.

  Chad looks over the hardware and whistles. “What the hell is this all about?”

  The brown-haired guy gets down and flattens himself out on the rug. As Joey starts to lower himself, I hear an odd ringing in my head, almost as if it’s an… alarm or something. What the hell? Out of the corner of my eye, I spot one of the Army rejects pulling a handgun from behind his back. It’s bad. He shouldn’t be doing that, but all I can do is watch as he raises the weapon.

  The bang barely registers to me, along with a mild impact near the middle of my chest. Another bang goes off before I can force my uncooperative body to move. Truth punctures the fog walling off my consciousness. The skinny rat with long, oily hair has a silver Beretta pointed at Chad, who’s collapsing over sideways. I draw a bead on him and fire twice. The Glock bucks in my hands, two empty shell casings flying off to the right.

  My arms are sluggish; my shots hit in the thigh and shoulder, too far away from anything vital to kill, but still, the Axl Rose wannabe crumples to his knees.

  Chad hits the floor with a thud. His gun goes off, and a gout of crimson sprays from the suspect’s neck. I want to look away, but I can’t. A part of me feels his life depart.

  Joey’s pulled a 1911, but he hasn’t quite aimed it at me.

  I swivel, pointing my Glock at him. “Drop it, Joey! Now!”

  Chad gasps and groans.

  Joey gawks at me, all the color in his face gone. I think he’s too terrified to move.

  The man to the left of the dead guy reaches behind his back.

  “That goes for you, too,” I say, aiming at him instead.

  “Do it, Joey,” rasps the man I’m aiming at.

  “Fuck you, Dale,” says Joey. “Ted, what do we do?”

  The fortyish man who’s still on the ground in a compliant posture replies in an eerily calm tone, “Well, you’ve already shot at feds. Either you go to prison or you finish killin’ them and head on up to the compound.”

  “B-but…” Joey points at me with his left hand. “S-she…”

  I glance down at myself. There’s a bullet hole right in the middle of my chest; clean, undamaged skin peeks out from a bloody circle of fabric. The son of a bitch shot me and I barely felt it. Adrenaline’s wonderful. Damn. That means I’ve only got a few seconds left to live.

  Dale starts to draw his weapon.

  I pivot to aim, but Chad’s weapon discharges before I can pull the trigger. The sudden bang startles me into firing, but my shot strikes a standing corpse. My partner’s hit him right in the heart. Dale staggers back into the wall and slumps to the ground, leaving a blood smear on the white paint. My hands shake, the Glock in my grip wobbling. I stare over it at Dale’s body. The sight of blood welling out the holes in his chest pulls at something inside me.

  Odd tightness spreads across my face. Fangs extend, all four of my canines, both lower and upper jaws. Before I can even think no!, I leap at Dale, shredding at his shirt with my claw-like fingernails so I can get my mouth over the wound, suckling on the blood pouring straight out of his heart.

  I’m distantly aware of Joey screaming like a schoolgirl.

  When rational sense returns to me, I find myself crouching over Dale like some kind of ghoul, my face smeared with warm blood. I think my nails have even gotten longer…

  Chad moans, and rolls flat on his back. His arm, and gun, hit the floor. I’m appalled at myself for being more grateful that he’d slumped away from me and hadn’t witnessed what I just did than worried for his life.

  Argh!

  I wipe my face off on Dale’s shirt and scramble over to my partner. He’s been hit in the side, probably punctured his left lung. Oh, no! This is my fault. We should’ve waited. If my reflexes weren’t in the toilet… I should’ve been able to react fast enough. Why did I just stand there watching the Axl Rose wannabe shoot us? I couldn’t make myself move. That whole four seconds replays in my head like a waking nightmare.

  After ripping Chad’s jacket and shirt away, I clamp a hand over the entry wound. He tries to mumble something, but only blood comes out his mouth. “Hang on, big guy. Backup’s already coming.” I flip my cell phone with my free hand and fire off 911.

  “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” asks a woman.

  “My name’s Samantha Moon. I’m a federal agent. My partner’s been shot. Agent down. Repeat, agent down.” I rattle off the address and my badge number. “Two suspects down; two others have fled the scene, likely armed. My partner’s been hit in the side. I think he’s got a breached lung.”

  Chad gurgles as if on cue. More blood seeps out between his lips. I spare a fleeting second of gratitude at Dale for being dead. Or, who knows what I might’ve done to Chad at the sight of all this blood.

  “All right, Agent Moon. Stay calm. We received a heads-up a few minutes ago of an ATF team already en route to your location. I’ll send an ambulance right away.”

  “Thank you.” I flick the phone to speaker and drop it on the rug so I can clamp both hands over Chad’s side, blood oozing between my fingers. “Stay with me, Helling. It’s just a little 9mm to the lung. No big deal, right?”

  He gurgles, but, amazingly, smiles. Tough guy. Air wheezes in and out his nose. He’s working so hard to breathe, I start shaking with worry.

  My partner’s going to be okay. I keep pressure on the wound while chanting that over and over in my mind.

  He’s going to be fine.

  And dammit!

  I think I am a vampire.

  Chapter Twenty

  Absolution

  I hate hospitals.

  Not for their existence, mind you. I mean I hate them because the only time I wind up inside one, something awful has happened to someone I care about. Or to me. Though, technically, me winding up in the hospital was something awful happening to my friends and family, so the first statement is still true. Chad’s still in surgery as far as I know, and my butt is planted on a bench in the hallway as close as they’ll let me get to the OR, which isn’t all that close.

  A passing nurse skids to an abrupt stop in front of me. “Ma’am, are you hurt?”

  I sit
up. “What? Me? No.”

  “There’s blood on your shirt.” She leans closer, gesturing at the spot where the bullet hit me. “You… appear to have been shot.”

  “Oh, that.” I shake my head. “It’s my partner’s blood. Must’ve smeared on me when I was trying to stop him from, you know, bleeding to death.”

  “I’m sorry.” She grimaces. “Can I get you anything?”

  “No thanks. I’m just worried about Chad. But, thank you.” I look down at my bloody chest, and fidget at the fabric to conceal the hole. “On second thought, I’m kind of cold.”

  She smiles warmly. “I’ll get you a blanket.”

  And she does, returning with a surprisingly warm, hospital-issued blanket. She wraps it around my shoulders, nods and walks off. At least I no longer look like a human bull’s-eye.

  Seconds later, Ernie, Michelle, Bryce, and Nico arrive in a group from the elevator at the far right end of the hallway. They hurry over and crowd around me.

  “Sam… what happened?” asks Nico.

  “You okay?” Ernie sits beside me.

  Michelle stares at me imploringly. Bryce paces around.

  “Rattled, but not hurt.”

  “And Chad?” asks Nico.

  “In surgery… I should’ve been quicker.” My lip quivers as I peer up at Nico. My sitting to his standing makes me feel as small as I deserve to be. “I should’ve seen that coming. I should’ve been ready.”

  Nico bows his head, shaking it. “It’s not your fault, Sam. Blame the son of a bitch who pulled the trigger.”

  “We shouldn’t have gone in,” I mutter.

  “Why did you?” asks Ernie, in a soft, non-accusing tone.

  I fidget my fingers in my lap. “Another vehicle arrived, a truck. We thought the suspects were going to transport the weapons off-site before the ATF arrived. All we wanted to do was delay them… another routine inspection. But when we went inside, they all had rifles and a friggin’ machine gun out. I… just reacted. Ordered them down.”

  Nico nods. “Sounds relatively reasonable. Of course, there’s going to be an investigation.”