by Ward Parker
Maybe he was taking a leak in the sea grapes beyond the dunes. Nubb approached a gap in the dunes where the stairs to the dune crossover of a condo complex began. On either side were sea oats giving way to dense thickets of sea grape trees with their large, round leaves. It was easy to hide in there when you had to pee.
Then came the oddest noise. It was a slurping, a lapping up of something liquid. It sounded like Billy Ray was drinking beer out of bowl like a dog. And, to tell the truth, Billy Ray had been known to do that more than once when blind drunk.
Nubb stopped suddenly. It wasn’t Billy Ray he had heard. Because Billy Ray lay on his back in the sand within the sea grapes, unmoving, his giant stomach as prominent as a sand dune. Nubb knelt down to see if he was all right.
He wasn’t. He was dead, mouth open, skin pale white in the moonlight. There was blood smeared on his neck and inner forearms.
“Oh, Jesus Christ on a cookie,” Nubb said.
Then someone whispered in his ear, someone right behind him. Silky, soothing words he couldn’t understand but which sounded reassuring.
Nubb stood, but before he could turn around, the pain hit him in the neck, sharp and intense. He was wrapped in a smothering embrace of thin, but steel-like, arms while a powerful jaw worked at his neck. He struggled to break free, yet the arms squeezed him until he couldn’t breathe.
The loud, throaty growl of his attacker in his ear faded along with his consciousness.
3
Suspicious Minds
Missy arrived at Squid Tower after sunset for a patient visit and then the weekly creative writing class she taught for a little extra income. As she was parking in the visitor lot, someone rapped on her car window, startling her. Her first instinct was to clutch the vampire-repellant amulet she wore around her neck. Her second instinct, which should have been her first, was to fumble for the pepper spray in her purse.
Instead of a vampire gone rogue or a mugger, it was a tall, lanky guy in a white Jellyfish Beach Police polo shirt, wearing sunglasses despite the darkness. She lowered the window.
The man introduced himself as a Detective Affird and asked if she had seen a couple of men shark fishing nearby on the beach the night before.
“No, I was inside the entire time,” she said.
“Do you live here?”
“No, I’m a home-health nurse.” She showed him her business card. “I come here to visit patients.”
“And you’re just arriving now?” he asked. His dark glasses made him appear as skeptical as his tone.
“A lot of seniors keep odd hours,” she said. “They have sleeping disorders and other ailments.”
The greatest concern of her patients, aside from feeding and complaining about their ailments, was keeping their vampirism secret. As multicultural as society might be, there was no tolerance for supernatural creatures, or “freaks” as they ironically called themselves. The police, especially, would frown upon the undead who took blood from the living.
And on the rare occasion the police did find a vampire, certain cops summarily executed the creature. It was an open secret among police departments, definitely not a policy. But Missy knew for a fact it happened.
“You come here regularly?” the detective asked.
“I do.”
“Do you ever come across any unfamiliar men or women on the property who are too young to live here? Late-teens to twenties-thirties, maybe riding in a car with a resident, or walking in from the beach?”
“I honestly haven’t. Why?”
“There’s been several who have gone missing, or have been found murdered, over the past couple of months. Many were last seen nearby. Have any residents here shown any suspicious behavior?”
They all did. They were freaking vampires, okay? But she couldn’t say that.
“Sorry, I haven’t noticed anyone here other than seniors, and none have acted strangely. I haven’t been working here very long.”
The detective appeared annoyed. “Where do you live?”
“In town,” Missy said. “A few blocks off Jellyfish Beach Boulevard.”
Affird looked her and her car over again, assessing her.
“If you observe anything, call me,” he said, handing Missy his card before walking away. She accepted it, though she knew she couldn’t call him. He suspects someone living here is a murderer, she thought.
Living together in a community of vampires was great for their personal safety and avoiding loneliness, but it also carried great risks. If one vampire was discovered, the entire group could be revealed as well.
And that meant they would all be forced to flee. Or all be killed by staking, burning, or decapitation. The public would never know about it. But Missy would be out of a job and lose a lot of patients she had grown quite fond of.
Missy visited the Planktons, a couple who were in their early-sixties in body age. This was a second marriage for both of them. George had outlived his first wife and then became a vampire after being preyed upon in a city park. Barbara was turned into a vampire at a particularly wild office Christmas party, and either her husband didn’t want to be turned as well or she refused to do it for him. When her husband’s mortal life came to its natural end she searched for a new husband, preferably a vampire.
Barbara moved to Florida to escape the Rochester winters and ended up at Squid Tower. So did George. They met through the vampire canasta club, fell in love, and moved in together in her larger three-bedroom condo. George sold his unit and they got married in a recent ceremony Missy attended as the only human invited. It was a beautiful event, held in the oldest cemetery in Jellyfish Beach, catered with warm pints of fresh, whole blood by the company that ran the Blood Bus.
Missy gave them each a brief checkup. As she was about to leave, George took her aside. He had a long face, thick, white hair, and the air of a college professor.
“A police detective was down by the lobby and asked me questions,” George said. “I saw him talking to you, too.”
“Yeah, there have been murders or disappearances near here. I hope no one from Squid Tower was responsible.”
“That would be horrible. Since you’re not one of us, I wanted to ask you if humans suspect vampires live here?”
“I have never heard anything,” Missy said. “The people here easily pass for human seniors. The only suspicious thing is so many of you leave your hurricane shutters closed during the snowbird season.”
“But they keep the daylight out so well,” George said. He tried to have a joking tone, but it didn’t mask his anxiety.
You’re not one of us. The words festered in her mind after she left their condo and headed downstairs for her writing class.
Gladys finished reading her short story to the group. It was a romance, involving an elderly woman vampire from Rhode Island, like Gladys, who was tall, slender and stunning, unlike Gladys. The vampire had a torrid affair with the pool boy, who happened to be a werewolf. He never wore a shirt while cleaning the pool and had a hairless chest (despite being a werewolf) with chiseled pecs and a six-pack like the men on the covers of romance novels.
The story ended after an embarrassingly graphic sex scene and there was no plot or character development. It was basically porn written by a centuries-old woman in a seventy-year-old body. But Missy couldn’t be a harsh critic. This class wasn’t part of a Masters program in creative writing; it was meant to be fun and inspiring for retired people.
“Gladys, I’m very impressed by your realistic dialogue,” Missy said.
The author smiled. If she were human she may have blushed, but vampires don’t do that.
The creative writing group went one-by-one around the circle making comments about the story. The women enjoyed it and the few men in the group criticized it for technical errors about pool cleaning. But then the conversation strayed from the story to the werewolves living in the community next door.
“They never clean up after their dogs. There’s dog crap everywhere along the
sidewalk in front of our building.”
“Maybe it’s werewolf crap.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me.”
“And their loud parties, night after night.”
“Horrible music.”
“I hate those electric guitars. Why doesn’t anyone play lutes anymore?”
“A bunch of them were drinking on the beach the other night, right at the bottom of our boardwalk. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came onto our property.”
Elderly werewolves were yet another set of creatures that wintered and retired in Florida. Missy had a few of them as patients. They weren’t immortal like vampires and they aged at a normal human rate. In fact, their monthly transformations brought on by the full moon took a heavy toll on their aging bodies. Their ability to hunt was greatly diminished by age as well. It’s hard to chase down a deer or a man when you use a walker. They rarely turned into wolves on demand anymore, simply enduring the involuntary transformations during the full moon. So they lived fairly normal lives as retirees, except for their fascination with 1970s classic-rock bands and heavy partying.
“I hope the police are investigating the werewolves for the murders and disappearances,” Gladys said.
“Seems like the cops have only been looking around at Squid Tower,” said Sol.
“Well, it would be just like those werewolves to kill people and make it look like we vampires did it,” Gladys said.
The class murmured in agreement.
“Why can’t it simply be a serial killer who’s human?” Bill asked. “This is Florida. We have serial killers out the wazoo.”
“Class,” Missy interjected, “let’s stay focused on Gladys’ story. Did you find her werewolf character to be convincing?”
“He’s not like the low-class werewolves next door,” Sol said.
“Or like any man I’ve ever known, to be honest,” said a woman named Doris.
4
An Angel, a Demon
Taylor couldn’t remember how she ended up here on the beach. All she knew was how intensely she was tripping. Did she take too much Reboot?
Who cares? She felt awesome, and she had wanted so badly to forget.
She lay against a sand dune and stared at the stars. They were blazing like in the famous Van Gogh painting. The ocean sounded like a million soothing whispers telling her to relax, everything would be all right. The stalks of sea oats rustled around her head in the gentle breeze. She was thirsty but didn’t care.
The Reboot made her feel like she was a good person after all. And that she would make the right choices in the end.
How did she end up here? She remembered being at a party with Ashley and Cindi. Jerkface had been there with his new girlfriend. That had hurt like a punch to the stomach. Why did it still bother her to see him with someone else? All she wanted was to forget about him. And the rest of the night was about forgetting.
She remembered getting too drunk at the party. Her friends dragged her out of there just in time before she said something to Jerkface she’d regret or the police showed up and created news that would embarrass Taylor’s mother.
There was a bar afterwards. No, maybe two bars. A motorcycle ride. Oh, yes, and the Reboot.
The Reboot.
The purring surf.
The soothing breeze.
The briny scent of the sea.
The stars burning in the sky above.
And nothing else.
One of the stars noticed her looking at them. It twinkled at her.
And now the blazing star was descending from the heavens toward her, coming to say hello. Swooping down like an angel, coming closer.
She could feel its power. It was real.
Yes, it was an angel in all its glory, landing before her upon the sand.
No. It wasn’t an angel.
It was a demon, she realized too late.
A demon that came to destroy.
When Philomena, the day guard, showed up to relieve him, Bernie told her it had been a typical, uneventful night manning the gate. No signs of Schwartz, and no accidents dropping the gate arm on cars as Bernie occasionally did. He was happy to have gotten a glimpse of a meteor or something—a tiny ball of fire flying by in the sky over the beach—but nothing else memorable occurred.
He was just about to hand over the post to Philomena when the police car pulled up to the booth and demanded to be let in. No problem, that happened from time to time even at a place where residents avoided calling 9-1-1. But the officer told him to expect more emergency vehicles to follow.
Sure enough, another cop. Then an ambulance followed by a fire truck. Then a sheriff’s deputy. Later, the crime scene investigators’ SUV pulled up. Finally, an unmarked car driven by Detective Affird showed up. The cop had come by at least twice before during Bernie’s short tenure as a gate guard.
“Detective, what’s going on?” Bernie asked.
“Crime scene on the beach,” Affird said, the rising sun glinting off his shades. “Did you see anyone coming or going over the dune crossover in the last few hours?”
The only view of the crossover was on one of the security monitors. He had seen a couple of really old vampires hobbling home before dawn, but wasn’t going to mention it.
“Sorry, nope,” he said.
After Affird drove through and parked behind the other official vehicles in a fire lane near the dune crossover, Philomena, shook her head with disgust.
“That cop has been asking too many questions,” she said. “The vampires here aren’t stupid enough to feed right on their doorstep, are they?”
“No way,” Bernie said, though he couldn’t stop thinking about Schwartz.
“This used to be such a safe town,” Philomena said with sadness. “And a safe country, America. But no more. Makes me miss Martinique. There, you could swim at night naked and no one would bother you. Here, if a rapist doesn’t get you, the vampires will.”
She stroked his arm, as if to comfort him, but her hand lingered a bit too long. Bernie felt a tingling in his nether regions he didn’t welcome. He stepped away from her. She was not bad-looking for her age and her dark-brown skin was still smooth and shiny with barely a wrinkle. But no, no, no, he was not into older chicks.
She searched his face after he stepped away from her, so he gave her a big, reassuring smile to avoid hurt feelings.
“I’m heading home now,” he said. “You stay safe, Philomena.”
“We’re Ten-Fifty-One for a Code Five, victim reported on the beach on the Seventeen-hundred block of North Ocean Boulevard. That’s a Code Five.”
The voice crackled over Matt’s police scanner early in the morning. Ten-Fifty-One meant “en route.” Code Five indicated a possible homicide. Murders weren’t very common in Jellyfish Beach. Matt Rosen, staff reporter for the Jellyfish Beach Journal, was especially interested, however, because there had been a string of disappearances and dead bodies found of late. The victims and missing were generally those who slipped through the cracks of society: homeless, runaways, and addicts who were kicked out of their sober homes. And though it had never been released publicly, he knew the cause of death of many of these victims was exsanguination.
That’s right, they bled out. Or, more accurately, were drained of blood.
Matt finished getting dressed and locked up the cottage. It was just after 6:00 a.m., and this time of year the sun wasn’t up yet. But there would definitely be early risers on the beach already and he wanted to get to the scene before the police set up a perimeter. Fortunately, the crime scene wasn’t far.
The first responders had apparently gained access via a gated condominium community named Squid Tower, so he pulled over in front in a no-parking zone on State Road A1A. He recognized the car in front of him as belonging to the local TV affiliate. They had beaten him there, but at least the news van hadn’t arrived yet.
Matt cut through the parking lot of the nondescript residential high rise. It looked like a typical fifty-five-plus senior
community. He walked around the building and over the short boardwalk that crossed the dunes. A young newsroom intern from the TV station was talking on her phone near the stairs.
Four officers stood around chatting, waiting for a detective and crime-scene techs to arrive. The body lay nearby in a grassy clump of sea oats where the dunes flattened out into the beach. Matt approached nonchalantly, flashing his newspaper I.D. when the cops looked up at him even though he knew them. He didn’t go any closer to the body than where the officers were standing.
The victim was a young woman, lying on her stomach. She wore white shorts and a blouse that were casual but chic enough to be clubby. Her feet were bare.
There was no blood on her clothing or on the sand. From where he stood, Matt couldn’t see any signs of violence to the body or on the starkly white skin.
“Is this a homicide or an overdose?” Matt asked.
An African-American cop, Bill Jensen, answered. “Homicide. Looks like she was possibly strangled, but also bled out from some wounds on her neck. Where the blood went is anyone’s guess.”
“Another exsanguination murder? Wasn’t there one just last week?”
“Yeah, I don’t know what the deal is,” Jensen said. “You’ll have to talk to a detective. But there’s plenty of kooks out there who like to pretend they’re a vampire.”
Or they actually are one, Matt thought.
“Are the wounds on her neck puncture wounds?” he asked.
“Yeah, but they could have come from any variety of sharp instruments.”
“Like fangs?”
“Hey Rosen, I got a scoop for you,” said the sheriff’s deputy, a high-school classmate of Matt’s named Dawn. “This vic is the mayor’s daughter.”
“Are you serious? How old is she?”
“Twenty-two. Old enough to get into bars, but too young to know she’d met the wrong guy.”
The mayor’s daughter. Matt knew this would expand the investigation beyond concerning only the invisible members of society. He waited until Detective Affird showed up.
