by Michael Okon
“Werewolf, vampire, or zombie?”
“Ah,” Wyatt acknowledged, looking at Carter to see if he was mocking him. Satisfied that Carter was indeed interested, he continued, “The age-old question of monster superiority. Is he indestructible like a werewolf?” Wyatt stood, warming to his subject. “Or perhaps cunning as a vampire? No … he may have the coveted single-mindedness of a zombie—”
“Can’t,” Carter interrupted. “Minds are shot. Zombies got nothing up there.”
“So you think. I have a theory about that, but my little brother may be lacking intelligence altogether. No, Sean is a garden-variety monster. No imagination, no style, no—”
“Enough. Skip the narrative.” Carter held up a hand. “Just tell me what he did.”
“Forget about it, Carter.” Wyatt brushed him off.
Carter touched his arm. “No. What’d he do? Maybe I can help.” Wyatt looked at him skeptically. Carter raised his eyebrows. “You never know until you try.”
Wyatt sighed and then sat down again, his voice low. “He came up to me as we were leaving school. I was talking to Jade. You know—”
“Jade, Princess of the Dairy Queen.”
Wyatt nodded and smiled at the image of Jade dressed like a princess, dispensing frozen shakes that could be served upside down.
“The cute girl with long, dark hair?”
“Yeah.”
“So?”
“He slapped my back. I didn’t think anything of it.” Wyatt reached into the trash can, removing the crumpled ball of paper. He flattened it out. The word desperate was written in bold magic marker.
“You had this on your back when you spoke to her?”
Wyatt nodded glumly. Wyatt was a sweet kid, but painfully shy. Carter knew Wyatt was smitten with the elusive Jade; he couldn’t figure out why. She was pretty enough but was dating the school quarterback and resident bully, which in Carter’s mind didn’t speak well for her character.
Carter didn’t like Nolan Steward. His father owned the car dealership downtown and was known for his aggressiveness as well.
Wyatt, on the other hand, had fallen in with the group that other kids rejected. Nice kids, Carter thought, just a bit on the weird side. Well, except for Wyatt. Now that he was turning eighteen, he seemed more settled, a little less geeky.
“She saw?”
“Everybody saw it.”
“Shall I hold him down while you pummel him?” Carter threw the remote on the couch. He had taught Wyatt how to deliver a punishing noogie. He held up a hand, showing his whole fist with the knuckle of his middle finger slightly protruding.
Wyatt smiled in shared amusement. He shook his head. “Nah, he’s just a kid. I save those for the bullies.”
Carter wrapped his arm around Wyatt’s shoulders affectionately. They were having a moment, and, for a second, Carter felt close to him. Wyatt smiled tentatively up at him. “Let’s get dinner up before your mom comes home.” He still topped his stepson by a few inches, but Wyatt would catch up. “Wait a sec.”
Carter turned around, opening the screen door to peer into the growing dusk. The air had become strangely muggy. In the distance, he heard the wolves start their howling. While the park was five miles outside of town, the wind carried the cries. He shivered involuntarily and then latched the door. Reaching under the couch, he removed his revolver where he had hidden it, holding it loosely in the palm of his hand.
Chapter 3
West Hollywood, LA
“The way I see it, we got no choice.” Raoul slid down onto the floor of the rat-infested apartment, running a hand through his long black hair.
“We never had a choice,” Sylvie responded. She pulled a tattered cardigan over her white shoulders.
“Cold?” He helped her slide her arm through the sleeve.
“I’m always cold.” She shivered, her purple lips pursed.
“I’m sorry.” Raoul shrugged. He leaned over to kiss her mouth. He nipped her gently, drawing only a little blood. Sylvie reached over, smearing the red droplets with her thumb suggestively over his lips. His fang pierced her forefinger, impaling it.
“Ow.” She pulled it away, but he captured her hand, taking her finger in his mouth, sucking on the sluggish puncture.
“Pig. Leave some for me.” She pulled away.
“Look at us!” Raoul stood and parted the dusty blinds to gaze at Sunset Boulevard. He made a disgusted noise, and Sylvie rose to peer out the window, spotting a has-been reality star running down the strip, the paparazzi in tow, his rear end exposed to the honking traffic.
“I don’t want that to be us,” said Sylvie.
Raoul took her hand, caressing the puncture mark on her finger. “We’re practically cannibals. I almost drained you of every drop of blood last month.”
Sylvie nodded, her pink hair a matted mess. She examined her pale hand, the nails nearly blue. She was as starved as her lover. She looked at Raoul. It was all his fault. He had turned her into this. It was true she had demanded it, lusted after him for months, even though he tried to avoid the outcome. He had warned her it was not a great life. Sylvie didn’t care.
Back then, the lure of the stage, the road trips, the music had made her frantic to be included. For a time, they had nightly gigs, but she barely remembered them between the bloodlust and drugs. They were careful. It was dangerous to turn someone into a full vampire—the punishment: isolation in a camp in Antarctica where the cold eventually wore them out, and they died of exhaustion. Or loneliness—vamps were social, loved a celebration, a crowd. They defined party animals of the freewheeling eighties.
When they stopped recruiting, a euphemism for having sex, they simply started thinning out. Humans only became vampires by having a sexual encounter with one. Diseased blood, sickness, skin cancer, and a host of unglamorous reasons were steadily reducing the vampire population.
Fools who called themselves vampire hunters annihilated the Eastern European community. Overzealous religious fanatics wiped out the rest. It wasn’t safe for them anymore, and they had nowhere to turn.
They were careful in their hunger for blood. Vampires were watchful not to leave a traceable trail. Raoul taught her well. They drank only from the homeless, or the roadies who followed them, begging to be included, so they made them into drones. They created armies of these drones, people they fed on, taking just enough blood to sate the demands of their bodies.
The drones became their slaves, doing their bidding without question. Drones never became vampires, they were simply a source for their addiction. Once the vamps stopped feeding off them, within weeks the drones reverted to their regular, boring selves.
Occasionally, the vampires went all the way, initiating another poor soul into their number, but eventually, the music died. The whole thing turned stale. Numbers dwindled. Their act got old, and the new generation laughed at them. The songs seemed silly, the music out of sync with the times. They lost their appeal. They were ridiculed. Where before they had ruled the night, had been sought after, controlled the club scene, they were now seen as tired, campy, too old to imitate. Their music and their fashion were reviled. Rejected from the venues they once ruled, they were forced onto the streets.
Oh, there was talk of a reality show a few years ago, but somehow they couldn’t garner enough interest. Being a vampire was de trop. They were reduced to panhandling, which only brought them in contact with other vampires who were down on their luck and running from the law as well. There were just a few of their kind now. They were almost gone.
Broke, dejected, and blood-starved, they scurried from town to town, searching for their next fix of blood, hiding in the shadows.
Raoul slid down the wall and held up a creased contract that had been lying abandoned on the floor. “We would have a home,” he said, his voice low. “The other day I read that some kids set fire to a vamp hiding in an abandoned building.”
“We took this way of life to live outside of society. Vincent’s offering u
s a prison. We’ll be a freak show.”
“We won’t have to hunt. No more drones. We’ll be with others like us. He promises us a lot.”
Sylvie faced the wall. “I could go home.”
Raoul cupped her chin, his long nails caressing her cold skin. “They’re all dead, honey. They died a hundred years ago. We have no more home, and we are running out of options.”
“It’s … it’s inhumane, what they want to do.”
“I told you … we have no choice.”
Raoul stood, holding his hand out. Sylvie allowed him to haul her up. She was hungry and chilled. Vincent promised them a haven, a place to thrive. It was time to come out of the cold.
Chapter 4
Wyatt pulled into the designated area for employee parking. He was early, but then he always was early. It was his passenger, Melvin Riley, who pressed the boundaries.
Melvin was Wyatt’s first friend in Copper Valley. Most of the kids were wary of the newcomer and did everything in their power to exclude him from activities. Melvin lived with his grandfather in a run-down ranch and was rarely included in anything. Socially awkward, his preoccupation with space invaders, werewolves, and horror movies of the 50’s, Creature from the Black Lagoon his favorite, made him as unpopular as Wyatt. Still, he was kind, honest, and loyal. Wyatt befriended him and found himself, more often than not, protecting his newfound friend, often the target of the school bullies.
Melvin was smart, his interests varied, and he was entertaining. Lately, though, their fun had gotten boring. Wyatt might be spending time with Melvin, but he wished he were with Jade instead.
“Take your apron,” Wyatt told him as he got out of the car, admonishing him as if he were a child. It was getting to be a burden, taking care of him. You had to remind Melvin of everything.
He had to admit that Melvin could be off-putting because of his social awkwardness. Still, he made sure never to leave him out. Wyatt was positive being with Melvin prevented a level of acceptance from the other kids. While some did like Wyatt, nobody enjoyed Melvin’s company.
Melvin dropped a notebook, spilling his chemistry worksheets all over the passenger side of the car. “Dang it!” Melvin cursed.
Melvin was a hot mess, from his T-shirt hanging over his pants to the mismatched expressions and his thrift shop clothing choices. Acne still ravaged his face, and, as if that wasn’t enough, he had been cursed with frizzy auburn hair. He wore a fake gold werewolf head pendant with bright emerald glass eyes on a clunky, thick chain around his neck. Wyatt knew it had to be ten years old. He had thrown out a very similar one that he’d had in a box at the bottom of his closet at home. It had gone the way of his Super Mario Brothers game and Hulk Hogan action figure. Everybody wore werewolf heads when they were younger. He told his friend it was time to put it away, but it was as much a part of Melvin as his hazel eyes.
It would be a miracle if that kid ever got laid, Wyatt thought. Not that Wyatt had, but he was hopeful. He often wondered if Melvin even noticed. He was always buried in his computer, continually accumulating as much information as his brain could handle.
Melvin had made CalTech with a full scholarship, and this would be the last summer they would be together. He worried if people would accept the odd boy when he moved into the dorms. Wyatt was going to a local community college. His parents couldn’t afford tuition anywhere else.
His father, the fancy LA lawyer, had left all his money to a charity, which, while very noble, kind of irritated Wyatt as well. It was a mean thing to do to his kids, taking out the messy divorce on his offspring. Well, beggars can’t be choosers, he thought to himself.
“Mel …” Wyatt tried hard not to get annoyed. He leaned back in, reaching forward to help his friend pick up the scattered notes. “Gonzales is going to be pissed if she sees your worksheets like this.”
“I was going to organize it at work.”
“When? While you work at the window? You want to get fired?”
Melvin shrugged. “They need us more than we need them. We have a symbiotic relationship. If Instaburger fires us, who’s going to serve—werewolves?”
This was a long-running feud between them. When news broke of the werewolf colony, Melvin made it his mission to advocate their superiority to anyone who would listen. Wyatt liked to spar against Melvin’s monster of choice by promoting the value of the zombie population. At least they were human—well, sort of human.
“Impossible. They’d eat all the meat,” Wyatt told him. He was getting tired of this debate. It was time to leave it in the recess of his childhood.
“And a zombie wouldn’t? The vampires would suck it dry. We’ve got them by the balls. They don’t have a choice.”
Wyatt laughed. “Yeah, sure.”
Melvin hiked his notebook, papers trailing behind him, under his arm. “Which brings me back to our discussion. I want to add that the werewolf’s developed sense of smell makes him the sure winner.”
Wyatt shook his head. “What planet are you on? Zombies are like those long-lasting batteries—they keep ticking.”
“Ha,” Melvin laughed. “Until they start dining on their own body parts. They’re mindless, infected, eating machines that can’t tell a Ring Ding from a ding-a-ling.” He pointed to his crotch. “Besides, werewolves have a normal nervous system.”
“Big deal.” Wyatt waved his arm in dismissal. “One bite from a zombie and the person is instantly infected. Werewolves have to bite when the moon is full and the mood is right. Like, Sinatra has to be on or something.”
“Frank Sinatra? Are you kidding me? You don’t know anything about werewolves.” Melvin hefted his books on his hip. “The full moon thing is a myth, some can change at will. Werewolves have epic strength. Zombies have weak grip, and if a zombie’s leg is broken, they’re not catching a werewolf.” He paused, taking Wyatt’s arm. “Listen, Wy, zombies are all defense. Werewolves are offense.”
Wyatt looked at his friend. They had been having this discussion for more than half of twelfth grade. He smiled and then replied, “They’re just plain offensive. Defense always wins the game.”
Melvin rushed ahead of him, pushing through the doors to find Howard Drucker wearing an Instaburger paper hat while wiping the stainless steel countertops. “Quick … Howard Drucker, werewolves versus vampires versus zombies. Who wins?” Everyone always called Howard by his first and last name. Howard made up the last third of their awkward trio.
“You kidding me? The vampire.” Howard had curly black hair that hung in a thick mass around his oval head, and he wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses that might have looked good on a tech geek. On Howard, they made him look small, like a cartoon character.
He was the shortest of the group, with a skinny, concave chest. His short stature could have made Howard a victim of the ever-present bullies in school, but his razor tongue was deadlier than a vampire’s fangs. Howard never backed down from anything.
“I told you he would say that,” Wyatt said confidently. He opened the gate, coming around to his spot behind the counter.
“This simply is not true,” Melvin insisted. He went on, oblivious to the patron waiting for Howard to put her meal together.
“Look, vampires are highly reflexive. Werewolves are intelligent. I’ll give you that,” Howard said as he packed the meal.
Melvin grinned evilly at Wyatt.
“But zombies …” Howard continued, “barely functional. Vampire wins.”
“Vampires are almost extinct. Werewolves have night vision,” the woman said as she scooped her bag off the counter.
“True. But vampires have dilated night vision, and they can grow in number if they want to,” he called after her as she left the restaurant, his voice growing louder as she got farther away. “Zombies … extreme myopia. Once again, vampire wins. Even if there are just a few of them left, they are the thinking man’s monsters. One vamp is worth a hundred zombies.” He gave a satisfied smile. The door slammed shut. “It’s a shame they won’t
allow them to populate anymore,” Howard said. “Soon they will disappear like the dinosaurs.”
“I guess vampire wins,” Wyatt said with resignation.
“You wimp, you gonna give up just like that?” Manny Lopez shouted as he snapped his fingers under Wyatt’s nose. He was a twenty-year old college dropout who was now looking at a career as the night manager of Instaburger. Manny was shorter, with a meaner tongue than Howard. “If you are gonna give up like that, you can work the fryer tonight.”
“Ugh, the fryer.” Wyatt hated working the fryer. The oil spat, and the lamps that kept the fries hot were scorching. “I stand by my opinion; zombies are superior. When aroused, they’re unstoppable.”
“Okay, Howard Drucker, you have the fryer,” Manny informed him.
Howard shook his head. “Vampires have brains and working opposable thumbs. As I said before, they are the thinking man’s monster.”
“Good man. Melvin, take the fryer.”
“Why do I have to work the fryer?” Melvin whined. He blamed it for his acne. His workers’ comp case had been closed when they discovered that eating the fries, rather than the splattering oil, caused his condition.
“Because any moron who thinks a werewolf will win should have to do the dirtiest job in the house.”
“Dang it.” Mel scratched his greasy head.
Howard caught Wyatt’s attention and pointed to a silver pickup truck pulling into the parking lot. He went in the back to work the burger assembly line. Wyatt turned, dismay written across his face as multiple car doors slammed, and a group strolled into the restaurant.
There were four of them: Nolan, the beefy captain of the football team; Theo, his best friend; plus two girls from school, Jade and Keisha. Wyatt cursed softly, taking his place behind register one.
“Put on your hat,” Manny admonished him. “Melvin, take out the trash and stop stuffing your face with the fries!”
Nolan walked up to the counter, his gait lazy, as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He was tall, with wide shoulders and short cut blond hair. “I don’t know about you,” he thundered, “but I am desperate for a good burger.” He drew out the word “desperate” slowly.
