by Night, H. T.
“At Cloudland?”
“Yeah.”
“It would probably throw him off, but I’m pretty sure he’d be okay with it. Especially if we just popped in.”
“All right.” I said. “Are you up for it?”
“You’re serious?”
“As a corpse.” I pulled into the school parking lot, feeling a slight rush from more than just the blood. When I feed, I take on some of the victim. It’s one of the unfortunate side effects of my lifestyle, and in this case, the victim had definitely been on speed.
“But I didn’t do this to date you,” she said, running her eyes over me as if maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
“I’m not saying we’ll be dating for real. But we will need to pull it off around your family a couple of times before we go out and meet Dad. Your dad will be less suspicious of me if he thinks I’m just a goofy eighteen-year-old trying to get into his daughter’s pants.”
“You’re not a goofy eighteen-year-old? And you don’t want in my pants?”
“Oh, I’m goofy. Let’s just leave it at that.”
She was looking at me curiously as I took out a piece of paper from my glove compartment and wrote my number down for her. I was used to people looking at me curiously, but it always made me nervous—like I was an insect they wanted to swat with a newspaper, or maybe a snake to trap behind glass. I gave her my cell number and she looked at it, and then promptly snorted with laughter.
“Why does it say ‘Wal-Mart’ above it?”
“Because it’s better—and safer—than writing ‘Spider for Hire.’”
She snorted again. “But Wal-Mart? That’s so lame.”
“Not any lamer than being named Parker.”
“Jerk,” she said and slapped my arm.
“Well, if we’re dating, I’d better drive you home, so your dad can look out the window and see us.”
It had started raining. Big surprise for Seattle. The light patter on the roof of the car was always pleasant. Even after all these years of living, I loved the sound of rain. A few minutes later, following her directions, I pulled up in front of her two-story house.
It was upper middle class, and a Volvo wagon was parked outside. So Mr. Cole was the practical, safety-minded sort of psychotic religious fanatic. But it made me wonder why he forced his daughter to ride public transit.
When I stopped the car, she paused with her hand on the door handle. “So, you said ‘for hire.’ What will this cost me?”
She wore a little smirk as if she suspected it had something to do with the remark about getting in her pants.
The rain drummed rhythmically, hypnotically. Light from her front porch reached us weakly, illuminating her pretty face. “We’ll work something out.”
“That sounds creepy.”
“Not like that,” I said, although she had no room to call anyone else “creepy.” After all, she was the daughter of a serial-killing cult leader. “Sometimes I ask for favors. Depends on how much I trust you. We’ll see.”
“What kind of favors?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”
She suddenly leaned over and kissed me lightly on the cheek. “Wow. Your skin is cool.”
“I’m a cool dude.”
She rolled her pretty brown eyes. “See you tomorrow...boyfriend.”
She winked and dashed off to her house.
Chapter Four
I looked at my test again and couldn’t fathom that there was actually a question that this second-rate high school could find in U.S. History that I would not know.
“In 1906, who was the Speaker of the House?”
First of all, who cares? Seriously? How was this question going to help any U.S. citizen get further in life? It was almost as if Mr. Harris, my history teacher, threw this question out there because he was tired of me acing every test.
I looked at the clock; it was five minutes before 10 p.m. I had to come to terms with the notion that, for the first time in my life—or at least my new unlife—I didn’t know the answer to a question on a test.
Well, if you’re going to go out, you might as well go out with a bang. In the available spot, I put “Robert Pattinson.”
I walked to the front of the class and handed Mr. Harris the test, staring the old fogey down.
“May I help you, Mr. Walsh?”
“Well played, sir,” I said. “Well played.”
Mr. Harris smiled at me through the corner of his mouth, knowing that he’d gotten the best of me. He and I both knew what he’d done. I turned around and made zero eye contact with anyone on my way back to my desk.
“Hey, diphead,” a voice from behind me echoed. It was Frank Manciti. The class bully who thought he could intimidate the undeveloped smart kid. Yes, even night school has bullies.
It was now my turn to play the fool for this idiot and appear weak. People thought I was weird and creepy already and this guy was leader of the lot. To be honest, I was tired of him throwing things at me and calling me names like Butthead and Scum Bubble. Unfortunately, I couldn’t waste my secret on this imbecile so I let him be the gooch.
“Quit it,” I mumbled.
“What was that, Taylor Swift?” he quipped.
Taylor Swift? What did that even mean?
“Hey, Mini Albert Einstein, turn around so I can talk to you.”
Frank wanted me to turn around so he could see my expression as he insulted me. Little did he know I could see his every movement and didn’t need to alter my positioning. Staring ahead, but in my mind’s eye watching his every move, sensing his presence. I looked towards the chalkboard like a poker player not giving away what’s in his hand. I could see his smug face on his dirty blonde head. He was looking at his buddies for approval. He was holding a pencil in his right hand. It was a matter of seconds before the pencil would be routed in my direction.
I was tired of allowing him to hurl things and just taking it. It was time I took a stand. I could see Parker looking at me and, to be honest, I didn’t want to appear wimpy after my big show on the drug addict the night before.
I was going to do something, and it would be subtle but would make my point. It was just a matter of waiting for Franky Spanky to throw the darn pencil, and just like in a bad script for a John Hughes film, he flung the pencil at my head. Without looking, I caught the pencil somewhere near my neck, spun it once in my hand, and flipped it back at him. The graphite tip whistled one inch past his fat head and stuck into the wall.
“Holy crap, did you see that?” shouted someone from the back. “He flippin’ caught the pencil and threw it back without turning around.”
“No way, dude. That’s impossible,” a long-haired stoner sitting next to Frank responded.
Now it was time to turn around. I’d had enough fun using the eyes-behind-my-back trick, which I had recently mastered to obvious perfection.
Frank, I think, was having a hard time processing what had just happened. He looked from the pencil, which was still wobbling in the wall like an arrow in a bullseye, to me. Finally, he said, “Did you throw that at me, putz?”
“Throw what?” I asked, as clueless as a class nerd could sound.
Frank looked at his buddies seated around him. “Did one of you douche bags throw that?”
They all shook their heads. Frank pulled the pencil out of the back wall and scoped it to see if it was the same bit of lumber he had just tossed in my direction. I think his worst fears were confirmed. Some of the color drained from his face. He slumped back in his chair and waved me off. “Just turn around, Nancy Pants,” he said. “Nobody’s talking to you.”
I did just that and grinned my ass off. I looked over to my left and there was Parker looking at me, shocked. She mouthed silently How? I just shrugged my shoulders as if to say, I got lucky!
The bell rang. I grabbed my backpack and went straight to my car. I’d DVR’d “Real World Road Rules Challenge” on MTV, which was my weekly treat. I wanted to hurry home
and for once in my life just veg out.
I made my way to the school parking lot. The parking lot was pretty small, which made sense since it only housed 20 students at night. I reached into my left pocket and took out my keys.
“How did you do that?” Parker asked me from fifteen feet away. I had sensed her following me at a distance, too nervous to get too close.
“I got lucky.” I liked the sound of that. Maybe it would be my little catch phrase. Every hero needed one.
“No one is that lucky. Are you some kind of circus performer?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I said sarcastically. “I’m a circus performer by day and a high schooler at night, because I promised my parents I would get a proper education. And clown school was full.”
“Okay, maybe not a circus performer, but there’s definitely something more to you than you’re letting on. Not every high school student goes by the name of Spider, either,” she smiled. “Let’s get some coffee.”
“We might have a problem. I think there might be a shortage of coffee shops around here.”
“Very funny.”
It was funny because Seattle is the coffeehouse capital of the world. But she understood. Jokes are better when you don’t have to explain them, and she’d finally caught on that I’m a witty guy. At least when I’m not ripping somebody’s neck open and sucking out their life.
“C’mon,” she said. “I know a place called ‘Bo Knows Coffee!’”
“Who’s Bo?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I guess he was some kinda sport’s star from the 80’s.”
“Alright, I’ll go. But let’s make it quick.”
“Oh, does the Spider have a web to weave?” she joked.
“Not exactly, I just want to watch a TV show.”
“Are you kidding? You would rather watch a stupid show than spend time with a beautiful woman?”
I snorted. “Beautiful woman?”
“Well, what would you call me?”
I smiled. She wasn’t a woman yet, but she was half right. I never had a girl care if I thought she was pretty.
“You’re cute,” I said, patting her head, “like a tarantula.”
“Man, you’re weird.”
“They don’t call me Spider for nothing,” I said. “Get in and let’s go.”
Chapter Five
I wish we’d made it to the coffee shop, because I suspected we would have had one of those long, revealing conversations where we both learned more about each other’s deep dark secrets.
Except no one ever knew my secrets. So I guess it would have been a superficial chat at best, throwing away ten bucks on mocha lattes.
Instead, her cell rang before we were barely out of the parking lot. She hadn’t carried it the night before, as if she didn’t want to be reached. A conveniently timed woman of mystery.
“Oh, crap, it’s my dad,” she said, checking the incoming number.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?”
“He’ll ask me what I am doing. After you dropped me off last night, he was all in my face. I guess he saw your car. Or saw that you were a boy.”
Boy. I had to grin. I guess I looked that way, especially to an older human.
“He probably saw that little kiss you gave me,” I said. “I hope you told him my intentions were purely honorable.”
“Well, I don’t know your intentions.” The phone quit purring after the fifth ring.
“Sure, you do. You want me to kill your dad.”
She swatted me. “No, I want you to make him stop killing girls.”
I’d slowed a little to look at her, but before I could punch the accelerator, a Volvo wagon swerved in front of us, tires squealing. It blocked my lane, sliding sideways, and I recognized it from Parker’s driveway.
So much for the “safety-minded” thing.
I could have sped up and driven around, but that would have been dangerous. Even though the night school was on a side street, it was still pretty urban. And despite my preternatural powers of the night, when I was behind the wheel I was just another dude driving a car.
I braked as the Volvo door opened and under the sodium-vapor lights, I got my first look at the alleged cult leader named Erasmus Cole.
He had a commanding presence, a few inches over six feet, with dark, curly hair and a swarthy complexion. As he stormed toward my Mustang, he moved with athletic power and grace, a man with purpose. As I sized him up, I realized he wouldn’t be as simple to handle as a meth-head wanting free money.
I assumed he’d come to my side, so I opened my door to meet him halfway. I’d gone toe-to-toe with a few girls’ dads in my past—after all, I’d been a teen boy an awfully long time—and usually they just wanted to show their daughters they were standing up for them and watching their backs. In other words, all sizzle and no steak.
A couple of them had been psychos, though, and saw family members as property, and from such sick thinking sprang abuse, incest, and emotional distress.
I wasn’t ready to fill out my scorecard on Erasmus Cole just yet, though I’d researched his cult a little in the wee hours of the previous morning. And, of course, his smiling visage had been featured on the cult’s website, the gentle man who offered a peaceful and blissful alternative to the hectic, soul-destroying ways of modern life.
He wasn’t smiling now, though, and I was out of the car when I realized he was heading toward the passenger side.
He yanked open the door and pulled Parker out with a gruff and non-negotiable “Come on!”
He wasn’t overly violent, but I could see the potential simmering there. The man clearly had a volcano buried inside that beatific mountain of a head.
Parker let out a moan of “Daaaad” that was more embarrassment than fear.
I wasn’t quite sure how to react. I didn’t want to tip my hand early, before I knew more about the situation. While I trusted Parker, I also knew people tended to be too close to their own drama to be able to examine it with anything approaching rationality.
Erasmus glared at me and I saw something in his eyes that wasn’t present in his Internet avatar—a strange glint of the pupil, a spark of reddish orange.
Parker was also glaring at me, with an imploring look, clearly expecting me to spring to the rescue.
A car horn blared behind me and I turned to see Frank the night-school bully hanging his head out the window. “Hey, Nancy, get that pile of junk out of the road before I bulldoze it.”
So there was no way I could launch into butt-kicking Vampire Poster Boy without the whole world catching on.
“You stay away from my daughter,” Erasmus said, his voice deep and gruff, like a bag of broken glass dropped down a well.
Well, Plan A of me pretending to be her boyfriend and getting an invite to the cult compound was shot. Time for Plan B.
“Sir, you misunderstand,” I said. “I was merely sharing with Parker about the path of personal growth through metaphysical self-empowerment.”
It was some phony-baloney New Age gobbledygook I’d lifted straight from his website. One way to get people on your side is to let them think they are geniuses.
Or gurus, in this case.
Some of the tension dropped from his shoulders. “Acceptance through surrender,” he said, another of his catchphrases.
Frank locked down on the horn again, and traffic was piling up.
“I didn’t mean to offend you, Mr. Cole,” I said. “Or should I say, ‘The Answer’?”
He hadn’t released Parker’s wrist yet, but he didn’t seem to be hurting her any. “You should move your vehicle,” he said.
Turning to Parker, he added, “Get in the car. We’re going home.”
So Plan B wasn’t working, either.
Plan C was to fly through the air and knock Erasmus Cole silly, rip him into a thousand red bits as the whole night school watched, and then howl at the moon in triumph.
But then I’d have to drop out, and I was determined to pull up m
y history grade.
“It’s okay, Parker,” I said to reassure her that I’d be watching. “I’ll call you later.”
Erasmus glared at me one more time and got behind the wheel of his Volvo, Parker climbing into the passenger seat with a disappointed expression.
As the Volvo backed up and pulled away, more car horns blared. There were at least a dozen behind Frank’s car, and Frank was now slapping sheet metal with his open palm.
“Move it, Pencil Neck,” he bellowed. There were a couple of his goonies riding with him, and I heard them laugh. Apparently my little display of flinging the pencil with enough force to kill had failed to make the proper impression.
Again, I couldn’t launch into a wild display of carnage, as hungry as I was, but it was mighty tempting. Instead, I flipped him the bird and got into the Mustang and drove home without stopping for coffee, which I couldn’t drink anyway.
Chapter Six
I lived in a subterranean apartment in Bell Town. It was sort of a bohemian district, lots of artists and neo-hippies and musicians, and I liked it because of the night life.
Nobody thought my schedule was weird, and I never bumped into anyone who said, “How come you only come out at night?”
People think vampires live in musty cellars without windows, with rats crawling all over the place. I prefer dark décor, but I do have an aesthetic sense. I’d collected a few sculptures over the years, and a couple of Magrittes and a Dali. I can’t say where I got them, and of course my infrequent visitors assume they are reproductions.
And, like any self-respecting modern vampire, I had wireless access and an awesome computer. Unlike sunlight, the glare of a computer screen was not painful at all. I could even look at virtual pictures of the sun without turning into a smoking ball of ash.
After turning on some Thirty Seconds To Mars, keeping the volume low so as not to disturb the neighbors, I finished my homework. While history was easy for me, geometry was always a pain in the butt. No matter how many classes I took, I could never tell a hypotenuse from an isosceles.
Once I packed everything, I went back to the Internet to learn more about Erasmus Cole, aka The Answer. Apparently he was still underground enough that his cult-leader thing hadn’t affected his demand in the square world of physicists. His official bio didn’t say anything about blood sacrifice, his career, or his family. It was all suntans and smiles.
