“Uh…it’s my room too, dick. I just don’t have my keys.”
Jason’s smile dropped.
“I could kick it in, but that’d be noisy and draw too much attention, and I want to do this fast and quiet.”
Jason swallowed. “Do what?” he whispered, too softly to be heard.
Terry laughed. He’d heard it. “Get my stuff, jackass! Man, you are a pussy! Open the door, bro.”
That was twice he’d called him that, and vampire or not, it was pissing him off. “So turn into smoke and float under the door, asshole.”
A sigh. “Movie stuff, bro.”
“Well, I’m not opening the door. Come back tomorrow. At noon.”
“That’s not even funny. Open the door.”
“No.”
There came a long silence, long enough for Jason to start wondering if maybe he’d given up and gone away. Then Terry’s voice, soft and menacing. “Don’t make me take a trip across campus. I’ll bet I can get Bree to let me in.”
Jason flushed. “You don’t…!”
“That’s right, amigo. I’ll suck her dry. ‘Course, maybe I’ll make her go first. She is pretty hot.”
Jason forced himself to his feet without the crutches, his leg sending crimson flashes into his brain, and staggered to the door, cast clumping on the wooden floor. He braced himself against the frame. “You…don’t…touch her…fucker…!” he wheezed.
“Then cut it out and let me in!” The menace was gone, just amiable old Terry now. Jason put an eye to the peephole.
Terry stood there looking dead, though his eyes held an unpleasant, silvery gleam. His throat was smooth and undamaged, and his tight, white flesh reminded Jason of a Greek statue. Terry smiled at the peephole. His fangs were equally white.
Jason closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the wood as a shudder passed through him. “If I let you in, you promise to leave her alone?”
“On my life,” Terry said, and Jason was sure he heard a soft chuckle.
Putting his fingers on the deadbolt latch, he knew he was making a huge mistake. Then he snapped it open anyway and stepped back. In an instant faster than he would have imagined, Terry was inside, the door closed, and the vampire picked him up under the armpits, lifting him off the floor effortlessly. He felt the cold of his roommate’s hands through his sweatshirt, and had a moment to think, Now I die.
Instead, Terry deposited him on his bed. “You should stay off that leg, bro.”
Jason leaned his head back against the wall, taking deep breaths as his fracture sent pulses through his body. Should have taken the Percoset.
“Yeah, you should have,” Terry said, standing in the middle of the room, hands in his pants pockets as he looked around. The laptop screen turned his milky skin blue.
Jason stared at him. “I didn’t…”
Terry waved a hand dismissively, turning his back and poking through the cardboard boxes on his own, bare bed. “I can hear all kinds of things now. Spoken, unspoken, even feelings. There’s two guys at the end of the hall – those two weightlifter guys? They’re in their room whispering about how they’re gonna tell their parents they’re gay. And the kid upstairs?” He pointed a slender white – blue – finger at the ceiling. “The math kid? He got a ‘C’ on his exam today and he’s thinking of killing himself. Can you believe that? For a ‘C’?”
Actually, Jason had to agree that offing yourself for a mediocre grade was pretty stupid. Instead of answering, though, he just watched his former roommate. He still looked like Terry, although with a much lighter complexion, he still seemed to have the same way of moving, like the way he unconsciously tapped his top lip with his index finger when he was thinking. But now his moves were more fluid, his movements quick and precise, hinting at the speed which Jason had just experienced firsthand.
“Oh yeah,” Terry said, pawing through a box. “I’m freakin’ fast now, dude. With these reflexes, I’d be untouchable at Modern Warfare. I’d max out my level in one night.” He picked up an Xbox controller. “Wanna see?”
Jason shook his head slowly, and Terry shrugged, tossing it aside on the bed. “Probably wouldn’t be a challenge, anyway.”
Despite his situation, Jason found he was getting pissed again. First, Terry had called him a pussy, and now he was disrespecting his Modern Warfare skills? Jason had always kicked Terry’s ass at video games, especially that one. And then Terry looked back at him with that sickly silver gleam and winked, half-grinning and showing one canine. With a chill, Jason realized that Xbox had suddenly become incredibly insignificant in his life.
“Good, it’ll rot your brain and make you flunk out of college,” said the vampire.
“Terry…what the hell happened?”
The vampire snatched the desk chair up, spun it around and hopped onto the seat, crouching like a squatting gargoyle. All this in a blink. “So, I’m having a beer at the Fastlane. Liz and Corey are there with their friend, that hot Russian chick Katarina. She just transferred here. We’re talking, and I can tell she’s totally into me. So I’m getting closer to invading Moscow, but I gotta take a piss. Only the men’s room is occupied – as usual – and by the sounds I’m hearing inside it’s gonna be a while. So I step out back to piss by the dumpster.”
Jason nodded. He’d been there before. Ricky’s Fastlane had one crappy little men’s room and it was always busy. He’d done the dumpster thing many times himself.
“I’m mid-piss, and POW! I get ambushed! How messed up is that? This lowlife wino vampire comes out of the shadows and jumps me, no warning, just rips my throat out. My junk was still hanging out! No one should have to die like that, man.”
Jason agreed. Then it hit him again that Terry was dead. He walked and talked, but that silver eye shine was definitely not life. And waves of cold rippled off him. Living people didn’t do that either.
“That’s only because I haven’t fed yet today.”
Fed. Hadn’t fed…yet. Jason shuddered.
“Next thing I know, I’m on the slab, and you’re there. Way to man up about seeing my corpse, by the way.” In a blink he was right at the edge of the bed, and knuckle-bumped his roomie with a frigid fist. “I was just messing with you about being a pussy. We cool?”
Jason folded his hands and rubbed at the lingering cold spot on his knuckles. “You knew I was standing there? In the hospital?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t move yet. And that lady cop was smokin’ hot, dude. You should take a run at that. It’s not like you and Bree are married, or anything.”
It occurred to Jason that the people at the hospital were going to be very upset that Terry’s body was no longer tucked away in its drawer.
Terry was back on the chair, and he frowned. “In the movies, the vampire who makes you is always around when you wake up to explain things and teach you stuff. He might be a dick, but at least he’s there to help. But I was made by a bum! I have to figure all this out on my own!”
Jason was having trouble being sympathetic. Did that make him a dick, too?
Terry scratched his chin. “I’m getting it, though. There must be some sort of innate instincts, ‘cause my first kill came pretty naturally.”
Jason stared, and when he spoke his voice was small. “You killed someone?”
The vampire grinned playfully. “A couple, actually. The first was a cute little Asian chick waiting for a late bus. I think she’s a waitress at Panda Buffet. I was soooo hungry, went total savage, made a real mess of her. Had to steal new clothes. The next one was better, more control, and that kill was awesome. I can’t describe it.”
“Who…?”
Terry smiled broadly. “The lovely Katarina, comrade. Snatched her up in the parking lot of her dorm, took her into the woods…yummy! I didn’t turn her, though. I know how to do it and how to avoid it, just not sure how I know. Instincts, like I said.”
Not only was his roommate a murder victim, but now he was a murderer as well, and Jason suddenly realized that
if Terry tried anything, he wouldn’t be able to stop him, even without a broken leg.
Terry chuckled and winked at him, then hopped off the chair and started rummaging though more boxes. He pulled out a worn, brown leather bomber jacket and put it on, then went back to digging. He scattered the things Jason had packed so carefully across the bed and floor, removing a Penn State backpack and stuffing clothes inside. “I don’t need much of this,” he said, his back to his roommate.
Jason spotted the snapped-off ruler lying on his bed, within reach.
Terry stopped digging and looked back at him. “Don’t,” he said softly.
Jason kept his hands folded in his lap.
The vampire moved to the room’s single closet and looked though it. “That hurts my feelings, bro. You’d try to stake a friend? I helped you through Applied Psych.”
“So? I helped you through Euro History, and you killed two girls.”
Terry pulled a yellow shirt out of the closet and held it up. It had a big green tiki head on it. “Can I have this?”
“No!”
The vampire pouted and put on sad eyes. A true Terry move.
“Take it,” Jason said in disgust. “But you can’t get pissed because I thought of protecting myself.”
Terry shoved the tiki shirt into the backpack. “I could have fed on you on the bike path, if that’s what I wanted. And awesome wreck, by the way! Wish I had it on video. That thing’d go viral on You Tube in a second!” He laughed. “Sorry about your bike. It’s trashed.”
“It’s your fault, showing up like that. And put my Diamondback jersey back!”
The vampire returned the shirt he was holding to the closet. Finished, he closed the door and walked to where the Xbox sat on a low table amid game cases.
“No way, dude!” Jason yelled. “I paid for half that!”
Terry rested a cold hand on the game console.
“I thought you said it rots your brain.”
“And I thought you came to the realization that it’s, ‘Incredibly insignificant in my life.’”
“Not that insignificant. And it’s half mine.”
“I fronted you that money.”
“So? I paid you back.”
They glared at each other, Terry with a dead animal stare, and Jason trembling but holding eye contact, hoping he wouldn’t pee himself.
“What are you gonna do with it, anyway? Hook it up in your coffin?” He shook his head, it was absolutely surreal. “And where are you going to go? You can’t hang around here.”
The vampire cocked his head, thinking, then took his hand off the Xbox. “My gift to you.” He tapped his finger against his top lip, staring at a wall in thought. “Don’t know about the whole coffin thing. Still gotta figure that out. Been spending my days in the basement of that abandoned warehouse down by the rail yards, but that’s just nasty.” He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”
He hopped back onto the chair. “You’re right, though. I’ll need to travel light, gonna be on the road. I think I’m going to LA. With as freaky as that town is, they’ve gotta have an undead scene that’s off the hook. And the hunting opportunities in the clubs alone…it’s gonna be sweet.”
Then he was beside his bed, shrugging a strap of the backpack over a shoulder. “Gonna be a long trip.” His voice was soft, and as he turned to look at his friend the silver in his eyes flashed. “Can’t make it on an empty tank.”
Jason pressed himself back into the corner on the bed, his cast stuck out before him. Panicked, he snatched up the broken ruler and held it shaking in front of him.
“You…you p-promised…”
Terry licked one canine. “I promised I wouldn’t kill Bree. I didn’t say anything about you. And what good is a vampire’s promise, anyway? Sorry, bro, but I need a snack.”
In a blur he was on Jason, straddling his waist and pinning the hand holding the ruler, his face inches away, fangs bared. So strong. Jason couldn’t move. How could he have even thought he had a chance? He realized he had sacrificed his life for a girl who really didn’t mean anything to him. Was that chivalry? It was definitely stupidity. He wondered if it was going to hurt.
Terry’s other hand shot out, and Jason squeezed his eyes shut.
Above his head there was a rattle of metal and a tiny, terrified squeal, then Terry’s weight came off. Jason opened his eyes to see the vampire was back in the center of the room, stuffing the squirming guinea pig into a pocket of his leather jacket.
“For later,” said Terry.
Goodbye, Sylvester, Jason thought.
The vampire nodded his head. “Later, bro. Maybe I’ll see you.” Then he was gone as if he hadn’t even been standing there, the door to the dorm clicking softly shut.
Jason sat unmoving on the bed for a long time, his heart and leg hammering in unison. After a while he got up and limped painfully to the door, snapped the deadbolt, then dragged the chair back in front of the desk and lowered himself into it. The laptop had gone to sleep, so he tapped the touchpad and brought up the blank Word document with its accusatory cursor. He popped two Percoset and washed them down with warm Red Bull.
His fingers started moving on the keyboard. Mr. Billings wanted him to get his feelings about his dead friend down in writing.
Jason would give him something to keep him up all night.
FAMILY NIGHT
Lorenzo stood in the front room, hands in his pockets, tapping a Gucci loafer. His ten-year-old Juan sat on a footstool, engrossed in texting.
“Rosaria, let’s go, already.”
His daughter trotted up from downstairs. “I’m coming, I’m coming.” She wore too-tight jeans and a belly shirt, looking closer to twenty than fourteen. Too much makeup, too much cleavage.
“You’re not going out like that.”
She took a stance and folded her arms, her dark eyes fiery, like her mother’s. What a beauty, Lorenzo thought.
“It’s a family meal, not hanging out with the girls.”
She didn’t move.
“We can wait all night, if you like.” Lorenzo leaned against a chair.
“C’mon Rosaria,” said Juan, “I’m hungry.”
“I’m not kidding,” her father said, “it’s inappropriate.”
She huffed and stormed back downstairs.
“Yeah, you look like a puta,” Juan yelled, not taking his eyes off the iPhone.
“Shut up, creep!”
Lorenzo slapped the back of the boy’s head. “I hear you say puta again, muchacho, and you won’t sit for a week.”
Juan looked at him sideways. “Yeah, yeah.”
Lorenzo slapped his head again. “You act disrespectful and you won’t eat for a week, either.” He had his son’s full attention now. “And you’ll watch me put that iPhone down the garbage disposal.”
“I’m sorry, Dad. Sorry, Rosaria!” he yelled towards the basement.
Lorenzo paced, his Gucci’s whispering over an expensive Persian, checking his own appearance in a hall mirror. Over six feet, all chest and shoulders, thick black hair. When he wore a dark turtleneck and jacket, as he was now, he looked like some Mob enforcer on TV. He glanced at the big grandfather clock. After eight already. He sighed. It took ten minutes before Rosaria returned, changed into Converse, baggy cargo pants and a sagging, overly-fuzzy green sweater with a high collar and sleeves that hung to her fingertips. Shabby in protest.
“You look like a Dr. Seuss creature in that thing,” Juan said. Lorenzo didn’t correct him. Rosaria waited until her father looked away before she shot her little brother the finger.
They climbed into a shiny, black Mercedes SUV and drove slowly out of the Westchester neighborhood, past gated driveways and expansive lawns, huge houses screened by trees and barely visible. They didn’t really know any of their neighbors, but then people in this area prized their privacy, and paid well for it.
A dark van followed them through the winding streets.
A few of the estates had stables and fen
ced pastures nearby, rich, rolling grassland quiet and empty in the moonlight. Nothing said money like horses in Westchester. It was the only place Lorenzo had ever seen where you could find a Rolls parked in front of a barn.
“What do we feel like tonight?”
“Italian!” Juan looked at his sister.
She shrugged. “Sounds okay.”
“Coming right up.” Lorenzo smiled. “And only an authentic taste for mi familia.” He headed for the city.
These family outings were important. At least he hoped they were for the kids. Ever since Maya died last year, he had tried to do things to bring them together, tried to be the kind of father Maya would want him to be. It was hard. He had to put on a smile for them, stay upbeat and strong, when most of the time he just wanted to crawl into a dark place to be alone with his grief. He missed her so. And when he wasn’t grieving, he was consumed with rage at the unknown and unpunished men who had murdered his beautiful wife.
He wasn’t sure how Rosaria and Juan were coping. They refused to talk about it.
The Mercedes slid through traffic on the FDR, the high-rise sparkle of the East Side reflected in the waters of the river to their left, the lights of Brooklyn beyond. The van blended well among the cars thirty yards back, just one more pair of headlights among many.
As he looked in the rearview at his kids, Lorenzo wondered as he often did if they had made the right decision. He and Maya hadn’t been given a choice, were forced into this life, and the kids had been small then, only ten and six. For four years he and his wife had lived a double life, trying to raise their children normally in an abnormal situation, but it grew more and more difficult as the kids got older, certain aspects of their life increasingly hard to explain. Finally, a year before Maya’s death, they made the decision and brought Rosaria and Juan into the Vega family secret.
So young. It still felt wrong, but what choice had they had?
They reached Little Italy, dropped the Mercedes off at an underground parking garage and walked two blocks to Mulberry Street. Juan chattered constantly, his texting forgotten as he marveled at the lights and crowds. Lorenzo smiled, pleased to see that even Juan’s hard-to-impress sister was taken with the neighborhood’s old-world charm.
Red Circus: A Dark Collection Page 3
