by E A Comiskey
A loud banging startled him so badly his heart gave a painful squeeze. The door swung open and there stood Stanley.
"Dick! Thought I'd stop in and see if you'd like to join me for a nightcap in the cafeteria. Of course, they don't serve alcohol, caffeine, or sugar, but we might be able to sweet talk the ladies into some sugar-free cocoa."
Richard’s mouth fell open and he snapped it shut again. If Nurse Ponytail had proposed marriage, he'd have been less surprised than he was by the invitation from Stanley.
"Come on, my friend!" Stanley insisted. "If we're not there by eleven thirty, they'll have all the peanuts packed up and we'll miss out on that perfect combination of salty and sweet."
Nurse Ponytail giggled and patted Richard's arm. "Sounds like you boys are gonna have fun. See ya later, Mr. Bell."
Stanley stepped into the room and held the door for her, giving a courtly little bow of his head when she bounced past him. He let the door fall shut behind her and turned toward Richard. "Are you all right?"
"What in tarnation are you talking about?"
"Did she hurt you? Take anything?"
Richard glared at Stanley. "You havin' a stroke or something?"
Stanley seemed to relax. "Great. You're all right." He looked over his shoulder, like he was checking to make sure the door was still closed tight, then came to sit on the corner of the bed so he was practically knee-to-knee with Richard.
"That woman is not what she seems, and I'm quite certain she has her sights set on you as her next victim."
Richard felt the hot blood in his face. "I know you take me for some kind of fool, Stan Kapcheck, but I tell you I'm no man's stooge. Get out of my room. Play your stupid jokes on someone else."
Stanley had the audacity to look truly hurt. "Dick, I….”
“Just get out of my room!” Richard bellowed.
Stanley’s lips pressed into a tight, thin line. “All right, then. That’s fine, Dick. I’ll get out of your room and you can deal with that creature by yourself when she comes back for you.”
“I’m sure I can manage five feet of blonde ponytail.”
“Very well, then,” Stanley said, rising to his feet.
Just after the door clicked shut, Richard growled back, “Yes, it is very well.”
It irked him to his core that Stanley moved so fluidly when he rose from the bed and left the room. He was as graceful as any athlete—as graceful as Richard himself had been in the years before life became all about soft food and nurses who called him cute. With a sigh, he clicked off the television and shuffled into the bathroom to wash up before bed.
He never would have known anyone had come in, except that the door made a tiny, high-pitched squeak that caused his hearing aid to give feedback. He dropped the washcloth on the edge of the sink and spun around. “Dagnabit, Stanley Kapcheck, I told you…”
The creature stood before him, five feet of pink scrubs with bat-like wings, red eyes, and long, dripping fangs.
Richard stumbled back, tripped over the toilet and fell against the wall. The jolt ran through his bones like an explosion. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”
“I will have your memories, Richard Bell. I will devour the sweet, rich memories full of the glory days,” it hissed at him.
The door swung open again and Stanley appeared behind her shoulder.
She launched herself toward Richard as he cowered against the cold tile wall, but Stanley’s arm lashed out in a flash. The pointed end of a broken stick burst through the thing’s chest and, with a wheezing exhale carried on a plume of black smoke, she dissolved into a pile of ash on the floor.
Stanley stood there, panting.
Richard’s lips took on a will of their own and started forming a series of incoherent sounds. Maybe he was having a stroke. This was how a stroke had always felt in his imagination.
Stanley skirted the pile of filth, keeping his wingtips shiny, and extended a hand. “I told you she was coming for you,” he said.
“I…she…teeth…” Richard managed.
“Yes,” Stanley agreed. “The teeth are horrible. And those big, batty wings. Dreadful creatures. We should go before the others realize what we’ve done here.”
Richard blinked up at him. He allowed himself to be helped up. “Others?”
“The strigoi never exist in solitude. They move in packs.”
“Strigoi,” Richard squeaked in a weirdly feminine voice.
“Strigoi,” Stanley said. “No doubt about it. Get your coat. We have to move quickly.”
“Coat?” Richard asked.
Stanley crossed the room and knelt in front of Richard’s walker. He took the fanny pack from the top of the dresser, strapped it around the front handles, then filled it with a tiny water pistol, a crucifix, and a baggie full of garlic, all retrieved from his own pockets. Then he took the yardstick that lay on the table next to Richard’s jigsaw puzzle and snapped it in half over his knee. He slipped both jagged pieces into the long, narrow pouch meant for an oxygen tank. Thankfully, Richard wasn’t yet so far gone as to need to lug one of those around. Then he stood, retrieved Richard’s Wellington Plastics jacket, and held it out. Richard let Stan tuck him into the garment just as if he were a girl on a date.
“Don’t hesitate to use that squirt gun if you need to. Holy water won’t kill them, but it will slow them down long enough so we can do what we need to do.” He positioned the walker in front of Richard.
Richard stared down at the little bag’s unzipped compartment. The toy gun’s red plastic handle was just barely visible. “It’s a joke,” he muttered. It pleased him to hear that his voice had returned to a masculine tone, even if it remained somewhat tremulous.
Stanley gripped him by the shoulders. “Look at that pile of ash, Richard. Does that look like a joke to you?”
Tiny black tendrils of smoke still rose from the ash. It smelled like burnt eggs. His stomach turned.
“We need to get out of here,” Stanley said.
Richard nodded and headed for the door, but the other man grabbed his arm. “Don’t be foolish, man! We can’t go that way. They’re not going to let us just waltz out the front door.”
“Well, what do you suggest then?” Richard asked.
Stanley gestured toward the window.
“You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Really, Dick, you must learn what a joke looks like. It’s time to go, and that’s the only way out if you intend to save your wrinkled old hide, because this place is crawling with more just like her and they’re not going to be happy to find her remains in your room.”
Richard glanced at the mess one more time, grasped the handles of his walker, and headed toward the window.
Chapter Four
Finn
Neither the empty bar nor Joe asked any questions. It was perfect.
Sara waited for him in a shadowy booth in the corner of the restaurant farthest away from the front door. He set two frothy mugs of beer down and slid into the ugly vinyl booth across from her.
"Thank you, Finn."
He drained half his mug and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "How do you know me?"
She sipped her drink. "Everyone knows you, Finn O’Doyle. You're famous."
"Not very," he said and finished his drink. "Joe, can I get another?" he called out. A moment later, Joe arrived with a full glass. He set it down, glanced at Sara's full mug, took the dirty cup, and walked away. He was Finn’s favorite bartender in the whole world. When the man was gone, Finn leaned forward with both arms resting on the table. "I would very much like for you to tell me who you are and why you're here."
"I'm Sara. I'm here because we're having drinks."
He laughed and leaned back. "So, it's like that, is it?"
"Yup. Just like that. You overcomplicate things. It's one of your greatest stumbling blocks."
"Good to know." Did she know that her breasts jiggled fetchingly when she rested her arm on the back of the bench like that? He suspected she did, so he made no
attempt to hide his glances in that direction.
"You know what else?" she asked, leaning her elbows on the table.
"I bet you're going to tell me."
"You need to remember how to have fun."
He smiled his most charming smile. He knew it was charming. It was a fact proven by his ninety-five percent success rate with women. "Oh, I'm fun."
She wagged a finger at him. "You used to be fun. You have always been powerfully full of life force. A wave of vitality washing through the world. You’re just a little lost these days."
Her words struck too close to the truth. He took a long drink to cover his discomfort. "And you know this, how?"
"Drink your beer, Finn." She pushed her glass across the table. "You can have mine, too."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "And you accuse me of not being fun?"
"I guess my tummy just isn't ready this early in the day."
Draining both mugs presented no challenge. Not until the bottom of the second one did he even start to feel the familiar warm fuzziness that he'd come to think of as the best part of the day.
"Let's take a walk," Sara suggested.
"It's cold."
"It's sixty degrees and you're wearing long sleeves. Geez. Man up a little, for goodness sake."
The comment stung more than he wanted to show. "I'm plenty manly."
She laughed. "No doubt. Come on, then, Rambo."
He thought he must surely be mad to be following this strange woman around town. He thought of the email from his publisher, saying how excited they were to hear when his next book would be out. He thought about her enormous blue eyes. He reached for the mug, remembered he’d already emptied it, and sighed. Unable to come up with any reason why they shouldn't walk, he dropped ten dollars on the table and stood. On the way out, he called, "See ya, Joe."
"Yup. See ya, Finn. Have a good one."
Sara preceded him out the door and he noticed how her jeans fit across her tiny little backside. Who could say? Maybe for once, he actually would have a good day.
Chapter Five
Richard
The muddy flowerbeds under Richard’s window were slicker than snot on a doorknob. Without the walker, he’d have fallen for sure, but maneuvering the thing through the muck was a Herculean feat. The two men stayed close to the wall and picked their way toward the back of the building.
Stanley peeked over his shoulder and whispered something in Richard’s general direction.
“What?” Richard whispered back.
Again, the infuriating man’s lips moved, but no sound reached Richard’s ears. “What’s that?” he asked, louder, fiddling with the control on his hearing aid.
Stanley stopped so abruptly that Richard almost bumped into the back of him.
“Watch it!” Richard said. His feet were cold and wet. Already, the horror of what had happened in his room had started to fade, replaced by annoyance at the absurdity of this disruption to his routine.
Stanley leaned much too close and whispered, “We have to be quiet, Dick. We can’t be shouting at one another out here or they’ll—“ He gasped. “Run!”
Richard frowned. “They’ll run?”
“Run!” Stanley shouted again.
Two of the creatures crept around the end of the building, headed in their direction.
Pushing the walker before him to keep himself upright, Richard stumbled through the mud toward the grassy field that separated the back of the Everest Senior Living Facility from US-223.
A third monster dropped from the sky and landed in front of them, its red eyes glowing in the dark night.
“Eep! Argh! Blechnech!” Richard shouted incoherently before yanking the toy pistol from the pouch and shooting the thing in the face.
The tiny stream of water arced across the space that separated them and hit the monster square in the eyes. Its inhuman shrieks filled the air for an instant before Stanley slammed a broken yardstick into its chest, causing it to fall to ash and smoke.
Growls rose up behind them and Richard remembered they were outnumbered. He turned and shot the gun toward the other beasts. One of them screamed when the water touched its face. The other launched itself into the air.
Stanley ripped the last broken yardstick from the bag on the walker and stabbed the one that had hesitated. He snatched a pistol from the small of his back, aimed carefully, and fired a single shot. The creature diving toward them exploded, sending bits of soot raining down on them.
For the first time in decades, Richard ran. Well, he shambled along in fits and starts, pushing his rattling aluminum walker in front of him like a bulldozer. Every time his foot struck the moist earth a shock of pain jolted through his body. Air wheezed into his lungs in huge bursts that stretched his chest, enlivening parts of him he'd thought long dead.
It was fantastic.
At the edge of the highway, Stanley stopped and looked over his shoulder. He tucked the gun behind him again and glanced back at Richard. "Shells full of wood chips soaked in Holy water," he said.
Richard stood slumped over his walker next to a 55-mph sign, gasping for air. "We should get somewhere public, right? That’ll be safer." He raised a shaking hand and pointed. On the other side of the road, an enormous yellow sign outside of a diner read, “Always Open.”
"Perfect."
They waited for two semi-trucks and a Volkswagen Beetle to pass by, crossed the road, and staggered across another grassy field into the parking lot of the restaurant.
As they hurried, Richard glanced back over his shoulder. Spots of red gleamed in the dark sky not so very far away. He redoubled his speed, kicking up little bits of mud as he went.
When Stanley yanked the door of the little diner open, Richard couldn’t recall a single thing in his entire life that had felt so good as the blast of warm, slightly greasy air that washed over him. They lurched forward into the bright fluorescent lights and a young girl with purple hair and a gold ring in her nose looked up at them with an expression of boredom so complete it was surprising she was still conscious.
"How many?" she asked, apparently taking the sight of two disheveled, mud-splattered, breathless old men bursting into the restaurant in the middle of the night as par for the course.
"Good evening," Stanley said. He wiped his mud-covered shoes repeatedly on the rough fabric of the entrance mat.
It did Richard's heart good to see the filth on Stan's shoes and the cuffs of his jeans. What kind of a senior citizen wore jeans anyway? Those were for children and cowboys, not for old men in retirement homes.
"It will be just the two of us this evening."
"'Kay," the girl said. She pulled two menus from a wooden rack on the wall. "Over here."
They followed her past a table of drunken men in county road crew uniforms, two teenaged girls, what appeared to be a homeless man hunched over a half-full cup of coffee, and a young couple so engrossed in one another, the restaurant could have burned down around them and they would never have noticed.
"Don't people have anywhere better to be in the middle of the night?" Richard wondered aloud.
"Life doesn't stop when the sun goes down, old boy. All the best fun happens after dark."
"My mother always told me nothing good happens after midnight," Richard said.
"Well, Dick, that certainly explains a great deal about your life."
Just as they slid into the booth, a scrawny kid with a buzz cut appeared, asking for their drink order.
Richard ordered a glass of milk.
"I'd like some of your strongest coffee, black, and you can bring us an order of your fantastic fried cheese sticks right away while my friend and I look over your menu."
The kid grunted in assent and slunk away.
"You're going to have coffee and cheese at this hour? Are you crazy?"
Stanley shook his head. "You have to learn to live in the moment, Dick."
Richard hated being called Dick. After eighty plus years of jokes made in bad t
aste, he had no use whatsoever for the word. He crossed his arms in front of his chest. "So, we're in public. Spill the beans."
"The things I have to tell you are rather fantastic." He stopped and leaned back to let the boy serve the drinks. When he'd skulked away again, Stanley continued. "You're going to accuse me of teasing, but I assure you, on this topic, I am always serious."
"Go on, then," Richard said.
"When I was a boy, I lived in Lowestoft, England. It's a town on the sea, and I adored being on the beach. At every opportunity, I begged my mother to take me and, thinking I was terribly clever, I'd often sneak off on my own.
"One such day, I was scouring the coastline for all the interesting things that wash up and I found a small statue made of black stone. It was stunning, and obviously quite old. I held it in my hand and stood where the water just lapped at my ankles. After a moment, I had the strongest feeling I was being watched. Well, I looked around and noticed I had the attention of every creature for a mile. Every creature, Richard. There were starfish at my feet and gulls standing on the sand watching me. The people on the beach stared. None of them moved at all, not even when I waved my arms at the birds.
"I shouted for the foul beasts to fly away." He took a sip of the fragrant coffee and continued gazing into the depths of the black brew. "I had a deep fear of gulls. 'I don't want you near me,' I said, and they died. Every one of those birds. Just like that. They fell over and died.
"The people on the beach didn't move at all, but then a single man emerged from the crowd and came toward me. He was a strange fellow, dressed in bright robes like a creature from a fairytale. He walked toward me, hunched forward like he pressed through a gale, though all around me everything was as still as glass. When he was close enough to be heard, he called out to me."
Richard watched him sip his coffee and look around the restaurant for a moment, then sputtered in frustration, "That's it? You're not going to tell me the rest of the story?"
Stanley shrugged. "I'm afraid I can't."
"Somethin's wrong with you," Richard said, pointing a gnarly finger at the other man.
Stanley nodded. "We are a broken race, my friend."
