Dark Moonlighting (17 page)

I had seriously contemplated running all day
while I was at the hospital. Fleeing the city was the safest bet,
and it was the route I had taken many times before during my life.
This time though, things were different. I really liked Starside,
and I had a firm investment in my life there. I was finally making
progress towards a cure to the vampire virus. If I had to abandon
my research and relocate to a new city, I knew it would take years
to get back on track. There was also no guarantee that I would be
free of the master and his follower, or possibly followers, if I
left. They had tracked me to Starside, so it was safe to assume
they would continue to look for me elsewhere. However, the greatest
obstacle to my departure remained Lara. I had only known her a
short time, but there was definitely something special about
her.

When I got back to my apartment after my
shift at the hospital, I made a point not to take off my lab coat.
I had spent all day in my laboratory examining the antiviral
medication which had shown some promise. I had accomplished little
while wearing the lab coat, but the most important task of the day
for that article of clothing was yet to come. I dragged some string
across the floor for the amusement of Oliver XLVIII until the sun
went down. After that I sat by the window and waited impatiently
for Anthony’s car to pull into his driveway. My cat mewed at me
irritability for an hour, unable to understand my uncharacteristic
inactivity. I was starting to nod off when I finally saw my target
come home. I dashed outside, still wearing my lab coat, and
pretended to head across the street to my mailbox.

“Oh, hey Anthony,” I said as casually as I
could muster. “It’s nice that the weather has finally started to
warm up.”

“Yeah,” Anthony responded suspiciously.
“Strange that it’s happening so early in the season. But I guess
there’s lots of strange things going on.”

“That’s true,” I said, pretending not to
understand what he meant. As he stared me down, I forced a look of
realization onto my face. “Oh, did you see me in that police outfit
yesterday?” I asked with a chuckle.

“Yeah,” Anthony repeated.

“That thing was scratchy like you wouldn’t
believe,” I said with a forced smile. “And expensive to rent too. I
guess it looked authentic enough, but it was definitely not worth
the trouble for the hospital’s Halloween party.”

“Halloween was months ago,” Anthony
countered.

“Did I say Halloween?” I asked. “I meant
costume party. Just a normal, run-of-the-mill costume party.
Helluva night though.”

“Right,” Anthony said. “And I suppose the big
dent on your hood that was covered with blood was just a…
coworker’s prank?”

“You saw that too,” I said as more of a
statement than a question. “That was something… the damndest thing
really. The thing about that thing was… that the thing I hit was a
deer. Yup, damn deer, fawn really, just dashed out in front of me.
I managed to wash the blood off my hood but it’s going to be
expensive to fix the ding.”

“Odd that you’d run into a deer in such an
urban area,” Anthony commented.

“Yeah,” I agreed while scratching my head in
confusion. “He must have wandered off from MacArthur Park. I mean
it’s only… fifteen miles away,” I finished feebly.

“Maybe the deer had a bus pass,” Anthony
suggested.

I laughed far more than I should have at the
joke. “Like you said, there’s some crazy stuff going on in this
town. So, you didn’t pull into your garage?” I asked, desperate to
change the subject.

“No,” my neighbor answered. “I’m leaving
again shortly. In fact I better get going.”

“Of course,” I said pleasantly. “Have fun
tonight,” I waved as I turned back towards my attached garage.

“Nick,” Anthony stopped me. “Aren’t you
forgetting something?”

I eyed him cautiously for a second before he
motioned towards the mailbox. I slapped the palm of my hand against
my forehead and shook my head before heading across the street to
retrieve my mail. Anthony had already gone inside by the time I
turned away from the mailbox. I swore to myself as I jogged back to
the security of my own apartment.

The attempt to explain the situation to
Anthony had done more harm than good. He was far too smart of a kid
to accept my bullshit cover story. If I had pretended the situation
had not happened, he might never have brought it up. It would have
been an oddity that he gradually forgot about over time. Now he
knew I was lying and trying to cover something up. He could not
have known why I had been dressed as a police officer, but his
curiosity would certainly do me no good.

I went upstairs to my bedroom after entering
my apartment. I was tired, but I knew I should try to do some
research about the new vampires who were hunting in Starside. I
opened my laptop and ran an internet search for the word
“vampires”. Not wanting to go through all 8,951,069 results, and
not having a better idea as to how to do any online research, I
gave up and slammed my laptop closed in frustration. Oliver XLVIII
rubbed against my leg in a show of solidarity. I smiled at the cat
and scratched him gently behind the ears.

“I think it’s bedtime,” I said to the
feline.

Oliver XLVIII evidently agreed with me. He
had curled into a ball at the foot of my bed before I had even
managed to get under the covers. I reached over to my nightstand
and grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills. The recommended dosage was
one, but I knew from experience that I would need at least fifteen
to get to sleep. The vampire virus made the human body very good at
filtering out foreign and unnecessary substances. I cracked a smile
after glancing at the rest of the bottle’s label as I set it back
on the nightstand.

“Look at this, kitty. It says that drowsiness
is a possible side effect,” I read to the cat. “I’m glad they
mentioned that. I hate it when my
sleeping
pills make me
drowsy
.”

Oliver XLVIII did not respond. When I glanced
down at him I could tell that he had already fallen asleep.

“Lucky cat,” I muttered.

I only require about two hours of sleep a
day, but even that small amount is sometimes difficult to obtain. I
was under a lot of stress at the time, but even on normal days I
often found it difficult to get my full two hours. Even in my
prison cell my subconscious usually plagues me with nightmares. I
am not forced to relive the brutal murders I have committed, but
rather a far more disturbing part of my life. In my nightmares, I
am always back at college in a class that I had neglected to attend
all semester. It is the final examination, and I do not know the
answers to any of the questions. I am relieved to find that the
test is multiple choice instead of open-ended. I start to fill in
the bubble to the first question, which is a random guess on my
part, with a number 2 pencil. As I shade it in, the bubble keeps
expanding outward so that I can never completely cover it. The
really weird thing is that I have not taken a class in over fifty
years. When it comes to worrying, the subconscious sure does have
some strange priorities.

On that day, I did not get a chance to wallow
in my academic fears. There was a knock on my front door about five
minutes after I had swallowed the overdose of sleeping pills. I
shut my eyes and ignored it, but the obnoxious banging returned
thirty seconds later.

“Go away,” I shouted from the comfort of my
bed.

The banging paused briefly but then started
again.

“I don’t want any,” I screamed
downstairs.

As the knocking resumed, I angrily threw the
covers off and stormed downstairs. I rarely had visitors, and so
assumed that the banging on my door was coming from a salesman. The
only person in my life who made social visits was Christina, and
she always had the good sense to call me on the phone before coming
over for a booty call. I had not bothered to put on clothes or a
robe. I discovered that the temperature had not really warmed up
all that much as I opened the door in only a pair of boxer
shorts.

The middle-aged black woman on the other side
of the door did not seem startled by the fact that I was half
naked. She smiled at me pleasantly despite my obvious
animosity.

“What do you want?” I angrily demanded.

“I want you to have this,” she said as she
extended a pamphlet towards me.

“I don’t want any,” I said as I started to
close the door in her face.

With surprising strength, the woman pushed
back against my force and literally jammed her foot in the doorway.
“I’m not here to sell you anything, child. I’m here to tell you the
good news.”

I snatched the pamphlet from her hand and
glanced at it. “Jehovah Witnesses, huh?” I asked. I crumpled the
pamphlet into a ball and tossed it out the front door. “My previous
statement stands. I don’t want any.”

“Oh, you may not think you want it,” the
Jehovah Witness started. “But in truth you need to know—.”

“Listen,” I interrupted. “I do shift work for
a living. I’m very tired, which was why I yelled at you several
times to go away while I was in my nice comfy bed. Let me be
crystal clear so that you don’t misunderstand what I say. I am
happy with my current faith. I am not interested in changing my
very, very, very long distance provider. Please, for the love of
God or Jehovah or whoever, leave me alone.”

“That’s just because you haven’t heard the
good news,” the woman said, unfazed. “If I could just come inside
for a moment, I’ll be able to—”

“I said no!” I yelled at the woman. “Can’t
you understand that? You people are like spiritual rapists. I am
not…” I trailed off as I glared at the woman angrily. “You know
what? On second thought, come on in.”

The woman was unconcerned with my sudden
change of heart. She nodded her thanks to me before entering my
apartment and making herself at home. She sat down on the couch in
my living room and began pulling various pieces of literature out
of an oversized purse. I offered her a glass of water, which was
the only thing I had to drink in the apartment, which she happily
accepted.

“You didn’t pour yourself a glass,” the woman
commented.

“I’ll drink later,” I said. “So, you spend
your time proselytizing? You go to people’s homes and bother them
after a long day of work,” I mocked her. “There are various forms
of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism,
Taoism, Confucianism… Rastafarianism, Scientology and a thousand
others. Yet you’re so arrogantly convinced that yours is the right
one that you’ll harass the good people who are just trying to live
their lives?”

“Spreading the word is part of our beliefs,”
she answered simply.

“I think you missed my point,” I said as I
grabbed a piece of literature. “Ah, see, right here,” I said as I
pointed at one section of the pamphlet I was holding. “This no
blood transfusion thing would be a big problem for me joining your
religion.”

“Are you a hemophiliac, child?” she
guessed.

“Hematophagic actually,” I clarified.

“I’m not familiar with that condition,
child,” she said.

“You’re about to be,” I said as my heart
started pounding. “And you can stop calling me child. I’m over six
hundred years older than you are.”

The Jehovah Witness, who had remained calm
and pleasant despite my tirades and attitude, finally seemed
perplexed. She had no doubt learned to handle a wide variety of
arguments from the people she tried to convert, but my statement
was a unique response.

“Six hundred…” she said, trying to decipher
what I meant.

“I’m a vampire,” I enlightened her. “And you
have made the mistake of pissing me off and willingly coming into
my home. Also, fun fact you might never have learned, it’s probably
not a good idea to enter the home of a half naked man who you’ve
never met before regardless of the circumstances. Luckily for you,
I’m not some sort of immoral scoundrel. I’m just going to murder
you and drink your blood.”

My statement did not elicit the response I
had expected. Instead of recoiling in terror, the woman leaned
towards my position on the couch and gently patted my knee with her
hand. She set her literature on the floor and clasped one of my
hands between both of hers.

“You poor man,” she started. “You actually
think you’re a vampire, don’t you? If you open yourself up we can
help you with your delusions of—”

“Oh come on!” I said in exasperation. “You
think Satan took control of the world in 1914, but you can’t
believe I’m actually a vampire?”

“I think you think you’re a vampire,” she
started. “But the truth is—”

“Okay,” I interrupted. “This is like talking
to a wall. I want you to know that I would normally try to kill you
in an ironic manner, but I’m just very tired.”

I extended my fangs and hissed at her, hoping
to finally get the terrified response out of her which I craved.
Instead she cocked her head to the side in puzzlement, showing no
signs of fear. I sighed and shook my head in defeat. I grabbed her
by the hair, pulled her head towards my lap and sunk my fangs into
her neck. Surprisingly, she barely struggled at all as I started to
drain her.

“Take a look at the literature,” she managed
to gargle out. “If you have any questions you can…”

The Jehovah Witness trailed off as she
slipped into unconsciousness. I was perplexed by her final words
despite the overwhelming bloodlust that had a hold of me. I let her
body fall to the floor when I finished drinking about ten minutes
later. I rolled off of the couch and stumbled towards the bathroom
as I pulled open the fly of my boxer shorts. I did not reach my
objective. With an irritated groan I let forth a mighty stream of
urine onto the carpet in my living room. Oliver XLVIII stood
outside the splash zone and eyed me curiously. He was likely
wondering why I was performing an activity that always got him
reprimanded.