“The night is young. So take my blood. Our courage is unsung. Yet it sounds good” She was singing quietly to herself. She had done her homework and knew all about this creep. Stalked him a little bit and talked to people who knew him. Delivered papers lay in a heavy-duty plastic crate, awaiting to be recycled. The most recent one read the year two thousand and six, an article by someone named Stephen Thompson had made the headline last Sunday.
After the doorbell had rang for the eleventh time the deadbolt snapped and the hinges creaked. A heavy set older man stood there unshaven in sweat pants and a stretched sweat stained t-shirt and pink bunny slippers. He glared at his persistent visitor. She didn’t avoid his irritated and scrutinizing stare. He added her up: white hoody and tight jeans. She looked like she had dyed her hair and forgotten about it months ago. She had dark sleepless eyes. She knew who she was looking at too.
“What do you want?” He asked without emphasis.
“Detective Blackwood?” She stated more than asked.
“I haven’t been a detective for eleven years.” He was inching the door shut. “I said ‘what do you want?’ but I don’t care. Go away.”
“I won’t. I am not crazy and neither are you. I need your help.” She put her boot in the way of the closing door without flinching.
“I can’t help you. Whatever you think I am you are wrong.” Blackwood sighed.
“Just tell me how to do it. How do you find them?” She demanded.
“It isn’t that easy. You have no idea what you are looking for.” He frowned and assessed her a second time. “Why? What are you some kind of deluded Twilight fan? Go home. I am sure your mother is worried about you.”
“She is dead. Or at least she was dead.” The eighteen-year-old girl still hadn’t taken her eyes off him for one second.
Blackwood wasn’t even sure she had blinked. “I am going back inside to finish my show.” He turned and left her standing there uninvited and undirected.
“My name is Christian Summers.” She told him as she followed him inside and shut the door behind her. His apartment smelled of decay and body odor. It was dark with drawn shades and tiny things fed on ancient pizza boxes. Empty bottles of Jack lay strewn about.
“What a stupid name.” Blackwood sat in a sagging armchair. His show was a re-run of Cheyenne.
“Sorta like Gabriel Blackwood?” She sat near him on an upside down milk crate with a rotten pillow on it.
“Touche’ Miss Summers.” Blackwood stared at the paused TiVo. Cheyenne was kissing a woman on the back of a train headed for White Bluff. He lifted a forty four and flipped open the chambers and flipped it shut.
“I got a firearm also.” She said quietly as he put the heater away.
“I doubt it is legal.” He glanced at her.
“I bought it from a boy at school.”
“That’s nice.” Blackwood got up and shuffled into the kitchen in his pink bunny slippers. “Would you like a drink?”
“I don’t drink wine.” She followed him like a lost puppy.
“Ha ha. Nice one.” Blackwood replied sarcastically. He got two dirty glasses out of the sink and half a bottle of Jack. He set them down on the counter.
“Have you ever killed one?” She asked as he poured one of the two glasses and handed it to her. She took it without a care.
“Twelve or thirteen of the lesser ones. I don’t know. I am not sure if they really die. Put enough lead in them though and they don’t get back up.” Blackwood lifted a mini-uzi with a long clip from behind the toaster and showed it to her. “You would need something like this.”
“In the movies and books only wooden stakes and holy water work.” She said without doubting the mini-uzi would do the same job.
“If you impale them they regenerate around the object. Wood is especially effective because they have a hell of a time pulling it out. A knife or a scimitar has a smooth surface. I imagine a spear would be the most effective for its length, utility and wooden shaft.” Blackwood set the weapon back down. “I prefer a sawed off twelve gauge.”
“Sounds delightful. Wouldn’t they just shrug that off?” She sat and sipped the drink. He hadn’t poured one for himself but instead took a pull right off the bottle.
“As far as I can tell they just shrug off everything in the end. I believe that decapitation will kill them though. Kinda like in Highlander. I think an ax might be a good tool.”
“Alright. So have you ever…dropped one?” She asked.
“Once.” He stared into the dark of his apartment. “She was young looking at first and I thought she was a convert. But she was the real thing.”
“Did you do it? Behead her I mean?” Summers asked.
“No. I filled her with lead and went for the bolt cutters I had. Before I got to her another one showed up. After that the noise had brought the police and I had to flee.” Blackwood shook his head. “They don’t just poof into a cloud of smoke. It is messy and loud. And they are very dangerous.”
“Your partner?” She asked.
Blackwood had a pained look but nodded. “That is when I gave up.” He took a deep breath. “They always win.”
“I just want the one who got my mother.” Summers lifted the bottom and reached under her sweater showing her pierced naval and pulled out her own thirty eight special. “I am going to use this on him.”
“He won’t even feel that. Try a bazooka.” Blackwood took another pull of his elixir and Summers emulated him. She wanted to be him. If she had to start at his low and work her way back to his prime then that is what she was going to do. He was the only hunter she knew of. The papers said he was crazy. The department said he was nuts. His ex wife said he was psychotic.
“So what are you?” She asked quietly.
“Whatever you heard is true. You know what I mean by true or else you wouldn’t be sitting there.”
“Will you tell me how to hunt one?” Summers finished her drink.
Blackwood eyed the empty glass curiously. “There is a lot you need to know first. And a lot I need to know about you. I don’t want you getting yourself killed even though that is probably what will happen to you.”
“I already killed one.” Summers met his eyes, or rather he met hers. She really hadn’t looked away from him the entire time.
“Then what do you need me for?”
“She was easy. A new convert. I used a shovel. I was in the backyard because I heard her singing. My brother was scared and so was our dog. I went out there and there she was. I made it to the shed dragging her on my back with her teeth in my hood. I hit her until her head was broken. That did it. You’re right it is messy and loud. I too had to flee the cops. I don’t know where my brother was taken and I can’t go home.” Summers told her story while Blackwood killed the bottle.
“Did you see the one who bit her?”
“Some guy she brought home from the bar. Was wearing a t-shirt with The Cure on it. Sick monster.” She growled.
“They are typically sick. Goes with the territory I suppose.” Blackwood stifled a chuckle. Summers noted he thought it was amusing. She bottled her disgust as she had since she had first set eyes on him yesterday.
“According to your ex-wife you are pretty sick yourself.” She wanted to say but just thought it loudly instead.
“Right. You can’t stay here. My neighbors would wonder why I have some young girl in my apartment.” Blackwood smirked.
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“I am gonna stay here. If anyone asks I will tell them I am your niece and that I am trying to take care of you.” She smiled some kind of fake creepy smile.
Blackwood felt a little ill seeing that smile. “Your first story was better.” He gulped something from another bottle. “I am going to bed. You can fend for yourself out here.”
“There is no couch.”
“Your not welcome here.” He reminded her. “I don’t want to help you and I don’t want you here.”
“That changes nothing.” She replied. She still held her thirty eight, it made her feel tough.
“I am sure it does. Goodnight.” He spat on the floor and started shuffling his pink bunny slippers to the bedroom.
“It is three pm.” She protested.
“Welcome to the life of a hunter. It is bedtime. Don’t you know anything?”
“Fine. Goodnight. See you at ten.”
“Now you are getting it.” He farted and shut his bedroom door.
Later…
The old sixty nine mustang was sitting in the alley next to the Drunken Whale with two silent mortals waiting inside. A man staggered around the corner and stopped to pee on the dumpster before moving on. Soon a couple more men walked out and then the bar closed. “That’s it. Everyone is gone.” Summers whispered.
“Not everyone. This is where our friend will be getting his meal.”
“My mom wouldn’t have come here.”
“He is a drifter. He has exhausted his welcome downtown. Trust me. He will hit this place once or twice before he moves on.” Blackwood responded in the same whispered tone she was using.
“Why all that?” Summers wondered.
“There are other bloodsuckers that run those streets. He is a loner from the sound of him and loners avoid stepping on the toes of their kindred.” Blackwood felt a small cross around his neck.
“I thought crosses don’t work.”
“They don’t. I am praying because I am scared shitless.” Blackwood whispered back.
Summers loosened her grips on the two revolvers she held. “When we see him…”
“Follow my lead, alright?” Blackwood shuddered.
“I will.” Summers promised. A dark shape stood in the twilight of the neon sign and the alley shadows. Some woman was with him. “Why women? He couldn't have eaten earlier?” Summers asked in a barely audible whisper.
“Quiet.” Blackwood breathed. He held perfectly still. They sat making no sound but heartbeats but their friend looked up from his victim. His eyes narrowed in feral defiance. The waitress stood mesmerized in front of him.
Blackwood carefully took the door handle and opened it as the creature went back to entrancing his prey. Summers did her door handle also, after setting a pistol in her lap and then picked it back up with the free hand she had needed to open her door.
Blackwood stepped out into the chill dockside air with the sawed off aimed at the bloodsucker. “What is the matter? Animals don’t give you any nourishment? Can’t find a high-school girl who wants to be converted?” Blackwood said quietly.
It looked at them and hissed. Its shadow flailed like a tattered cape in a breeze. It looked like some kind of surreal animation.
“Cattle fool, I will tear you to pieces with my bare hands.” It swore. It leapt to the wall of the bar and became part of the darkness. In a kind of hazy blur it traveled the distance in a terrifying speed.
The sawed off boomed, lighting the nightmare and shredding it’s face. It pounced from the wall to the hood of the sixty nine mustang. Then Summers had managed to pull the triggers on both weapons. Once she started she didn’t stop. It tried to wheel around on her but Blackwood started in with the mini-uzi and spun it back around to face himself.
Then suddenly it retreated back down the alley and disappeared. Blackwood quickly reloaded both of his firearms. “Get back in the car.” He told her. “Something is wrong.”
Summers obeyed. The keys were in the ignition and she humped across the seat to the driver’s side before she started reloading.
Blackwood was stalking toward the hypnotized waitress turning to face one way then another pointing his weapons. He kept looking up to the rooftops also, expecting their friend to come from above. “You alright miss?” He asked her absently.
She was mouthing something strange. Some kind of spell it had made her rehearse. Blackwood shoved her into the wall with his shoulder and as her body impacted on the bricks, she snapped out of it. “Don’t shoot me.” She cried.
“I won’t. Do you recall that guy...uh...hypnotized...or I guess...who gave you those roofies?” He asked.
“Huh?” She asked. “He said his name was Mabus or something. Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. He took off after I shot him with this.” Blackwood showed her the mini-uzi. She stared in surprise not comprehending the situation. “You should get on out of here.” He said.
Blackwood watched her trot to her car and drive off. She would undoubtedly call the police if they hadn’t already been called by someone. He was starting to think their friend was gone.
Summers was watching when suddenly Mabus grabbed Blackwood from behind. In a moment it was all over. The creature clawed at him, like a scythe through corn, rending him into a spray of gore. It roared like a beast and bathed in the geyser before it took off.
Summers just stared in horror. Blackwood was dead leaving her all alone. She heard sirens. She started the car, still in shock, and drove off leaving him behind.
Back at his apartment she paced frantically. Had he really just been killed? Blackwood was her hero, her knight in shining armor. If he could be destroyed so easily how would she survive? Would that thing come for her to finish the job?
Summers awoke to the sound of the apartment door being unlocked. She hastily found a spot to hide behind Blackwood’s bed. She had noticed it actually had clean bedding and after crying for awhile she had fallen asleep. Her dreams had been vivid nightmares.
“Don’t know what I am gonna do. Gotta clean all this stuff up. It’s too bad about your man Lieutenant.” The super was talking to someone. The door closed and there was a gradual pacing and examining going on about the place by one person. Summers listened carefully.
When the lieutenant had gone Summers found some trash bags and began cleaning up the place to keep her mind off last night. She found more weapons, wooden stakes fashioned from crosses, a bible hollowed out to hold a twenty two, a grenade, several cans of mace and a butterfly knife. Then she stumbled across Blackwood’s diary. She sat down amid a pile of filled black trash bags and began to read.
“They call me crazy, they say I am insane but I have seen these things. Been to crime scenes that later the evidence was turned over. I have found them, followed them, watched them feeding in the night…” Blackwood’s diary held much lore of the vampire world. She had been reading it all night and even found a passage about Mabus. It read:
“Even among themselves there are things worse than a creature that drinks blood. Ghouls, zombies, werewolves…none of these seem to exist anymore. But one creature is left from the old days. A thing they fear and loathe called Mabus. He is an ancient vampire and the last of his kind. Daylight actually only just hurts him and seems to be the only thing that does. To the contrast the rest seem to be in that age they call Hemoth and both their powers and weaknesses seem to be declining as their numbers grow. Mabus would slaughter all of them given the chance but his fear of his children keeps him hidden and alive still.” Summers read on and on late into the night. His accounts of where they hung out downtown and what they looked like and how they hunted inspired her to go out and see for herself. It was nearly four in the morning when she got in the sixty nine mustang and drove herself to the district described in the diary.
Summers parked and watched the nightlife. The clubs had all been closed for two hours but here and there drunks walked around and late-nighters staggered home avoiding the young male punks who hung out here and there. Summers saw a trio of boys who weren’t leaning or smoking. They were dressed like punks but were obviously vampires. She checked both revolvers and put away her thirty eight in her under arm holster and got out of the car. She walked toward them hiding the forty four behind her back. She didn’t have to act nervous, because she was terrified. Still she marched toward them. Even if they were just three teenage-boy-punks she was still walking into a bad situation.
“Hey girl!” The first one that noticed her shouted across the street. Several more cat calls and gestures followed. She pretended to be avoiding them and walked quickly away down the street.
“Baby where you goin'? We gonna give you some lovin'…” Another yelled to her. A thrown bottle broke on the sidewalk in front of her and she stopped, genuinely startled. One was rushing up behind her crossing the street. He was trying to catch her from behind while the others continued their profane offers.
She whirled on him as he closed in and for a second she doubted he was really a vampire after all. Just a horny boy intent on catching her. Shooting him would be murder, although justifiable if he was going to attempt to rape her or something.
Her hand acted on instinct, and she raised the weapon she fired as he got close. Her aim was off and grazed his cheek, but the second shot took off the top of his head and he sprawled at her feet.
“Now you have done it!” Another had leaped most of the distance and she started firing at him next as he got airborne in a leaping bound to pounce on her. One, two and a third bullet ripped through him keeping him above her for an extra split second as she stepped back. He landed where she was on a shattered kneecap. She placed the forty four against his head and finished the creature off as his glowing red eyes promised vengeance.
The third didn’t flee, like a punk would have, but had circled around while she killed his companions. One bullet left and she fired and missed. He whipped out a chain and disarmed her. The pistol was sent across the pavement and slid into a storm drain.
“Now I am gonna teach you all kinds of manners.” He showed her his fangs.
“I am a hunter.” She said suddenly. She realized that she had forgotten to panic. She drew her backup from under her sweater as he watched and fired rapidly into his groin and up his torso and ending with his neck. Completely unloaded she didn’t wait to see if he was re-dead but ran back to her car while he fell onto his back.
She got in and started the engine. Her third kill wasn’t there. He had risen to his feet and now landed on the hood. She peeled out and reached about seventy miles an hour before she got her lap belt on and then slammed on the brakes sending him flying. Then she shifted gears and went into reverse back up the hill.
He was running after her and she again switched and burned rubber jousting him. Fender met flesh and bone and won. He got caught by one foot on the bumper and got dragged along as she hopped a curb and swerved back into the street before he was dislodged and two bumps indicated she had ran him over.
Laughing hysterically and crying in relief she sped off leaving the crime scene behind for the cops to try and figure out. She rounded the corner leaving the district behind. Summers got back to Blackwood’s and went inside. She didn’t have any more ammo for the pistol she had bought at school and tossed it on the kitchen table. She was shaking and helped herself to the bottle of Jack she had inherited.
“Here’s to the mighty vampire slayer!” She poured a glass and toasted herself in the cracked mirror in the hallway. Her hand was still shaking as she tipped her drink and gulped it down.
“Very exciting.” A strange deep voice spoke from the darkness of the bedroom.
“Who is there?” She snatched the pistol off the table and aimed it trembling. It was empty but reflexes had demanded the motion.
“I think you know my name now. I have come to see who this one is that escaped my wrath.”
She said to Mabus: “I am a hunter.”