Dark Moonlighting (23 page)

Anthony nodded his head in acceptance of my
answer. “Who really shot President Kennedy?”

“Lee Harvey Oswald as far as I know. I’m old,
I’m not psychic,” I laughed. “Also, that assassination wasn’t that
long ago. Your parents probably remember it,” I said. I cocked my
head to the side as I did some quick math. “Well, your grandparents
would anyway.”

Anthony agreed with the logic of my
explanation, but he was not to be dissuaded. “If you get caught in
the sun do you explode into a fireball like on
Buffy the Vampire
Slayer
, or do you do the queer twinkling thing like the
vampires from
Twilight
?”

“Neither. It would kill me, but my body would
remain intact.”

We went back and forth for another half hour
until Anthony ran out of questions. The sunrise was scheduled to
start any minute, and I needed to get home and get some sleep
anyway. It was time to be blunt.

“Are you going to go to the authorities after
I leave?” I asked.

Anthony looked at me suspiciously. “Are you
going to kill me if I say yes?”

“No,” I answered honestly. “That’s your
decision to make. I’m a mass murderer, and I certainly couldn’t
blame you if you wanted to go to the police.”

“I suppose if you were really a bad guy you’d
have killed me already,” Anthony rationalized. He rubbed a hand
over his face and sighed. “All right, I won’t tell anyone for now.
But I can’t promise that I won’t go to the cops in the future.”

“Fair enough,” I said as I stood up from my
chair and headed towards the door. Anthony joined me to escort me
out. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you be willing to help
me?”

Anthony winced at the suggestion. “I don’t
know, Nick. I don’t think I’d be much of a vampire hunter.
Especially since holy water doesn’t work. Although if a stake
through the heart does the trick, I might be able to practice with
a crossbow or something. I got a badge in archery when I was a Boy
Scout, and—”

I patted the young man on the shoulder. “What
I had in mind for you was strictly a research position. I’ve been
having trouble tracking down the leader of the vampire gang. The
man who is seeking revenge against me because of the terrible,
unspeakable crime I committed against him. Do you think you could
use your super computer skills to track him down?”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Anthony said with a
shrug of his shoulders. “Do you know what his full name is?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as I
thought about the past. “Lance Evelyn Flowers,” I said.

Chapter Twelve: Hostile Work
Environment

“That is, by far, the worst name for a
vampire I have ever heard in my life,” Anthony said to me via my
cell phone the next morning. “Is that the terrible, unspeakable
crime you committed against him? God knows you’re old enough. Did
you convince his mother to give him that name when he was a
baby?”

I did not respond for a moment as I pulled my
car into the hospital’s parking garage. The sun was high in the
sky, making the use of the surface lot impossible. Anthony, who had
been on the fence about me the night before, had embraced my plight
wholeheartedly after a good night’s sleep. He had called me while I
was on my way to my last remaining job. I knew his enthusiasm for
his assignment would be beneficial to me, but I still found it to
be rather annoying.

“No,” I answered irritably. “I wasn’t
responsible for his name. I didn’t meet him until he was well into
adulthood. Besides, what’s so bad about his name?”

“I don’t know,” Anthony responded over the
phone. “Seems sort of feminine. Vampires should have cool names
like Dracula or Lestat de Lioncourt or Blade or Angel. Lance Evelyn
Flowers just doesn’t have that ring to it.”

“Speaking of which,” I said irritably as I
parked my car in the garage. “Have you found anything on him
yet?”

“I’ve only been up for an hour,” Anthony
responded dismissively. “Unless he’s checked into a Holiday Inn
under that name, it might take some time. I assume if you haven’t
found him with your cop skills he must be at least smart enough to
be using an alias. What about unusual purchases? Is there anything
strange vampires need to survive?”

I turned off the car’s engine and leaned back
in the seat as I thought about the question. “Maybe the custom
glass I use in my car to block ultraviolet radiation. It would be
essential for the gang to be able to do any driving during the day,
so you might be able to track them down through that. I already
tried finding them through Kourtney’s car but the license plate
turned out to be a fake. Other than that, I can’t think of anything
that would set us apart from normal humans. I guess we might use
more carpet cleaner because of the urine stains, but I imagine that
would be pretty hard to track down… Uh, shovels and body bags?
Stuff to dispose of a corpse?”

“What about coffins?” Anthony inquired.

“We don’t use coffins,” I scoffed. “I sleep
in a nice comfy bed just like anyone else. That’s part of the myth
just like holy water. You need to stop—”

“
You
don’t use coffins,” my neighbor
interrupted. “That doesn’t mean that
they
don’t. You said it
was unusual for vampires to form a gang and enjoy hunting together,
right? Most vamps feel ashamed and guilty? If they’re embracing the
murders then isn’t it possible that they’re embracing the whole
mythology too?”

I rubbed the bridge of my nose with two
fingers and let out a long sigh. “You’re right,” I said to the cell
phone. “You’re absolutely right. I should have thought of that.
Okay, start working your magic. Let me know if you find anything or
need anything. Thanks again.”

“No problem,” Anthony said, pleased by my
compliment. “I’ll start hacking. Don’t worry, we’ll find this
asshole in no time. Hang in there, Nick.”

I smiled as the line went dead. Anthony
possessed the arrogance of youth that I had not experienced in six
and a half centuries. It was hard for me to remember what it was
like to be that young. I admired his brilliance, and I could not
help but be jealous of the confidence he had in himself and the
enthusiasm he had for life.

I entered the hospital as quietly as
possible. While I enjoyed treating patients, I had taken the
hematology position in order to further my work on a cure for
vampirism. Over the last few weeks I had not had much time to do my
research. It seemed like every time I set foot in the hospital
there was some sort of crisis happening. Luckily I managed to slip
into the basement without being sidetracked. I closed the door to
my laboratory behind me in the hopes that I would not be
disturbed.

Although I was sure I was just
anthropomorphizing the creatures, it seemed that my test subjects
fell silent when I entered the laboratory. If they were
intelligent, or observant, enough to fear me I could hardly blame
them. The back wall of the room was basically a giant conveyor belt
of doom for the mice. New arrivals were housed in cages to the
right, they were infected and treated with my concoction in the
middle and then they died an agonizing death in the cages to the
left. Could the new arrivals, who had seen what had happened to
their fellow mice, understand what was in store for them? Could
they sense the ghosts of the 1251 other rodents who had been
murdered in the room? I felt bad for the sheer number of
casualties, and I also felt bad that I felt bad about the sheer
number of casualties. After all, they were just mice. With the
alterations I had made to my antiviral concoction, it was entirely
possible that the next batch of thirteen rodents would survive the
infection and subsequent treatment of the vampire virus. This idea
excited me for a far more important reason than a possible end to
the mouse holocaust I had perpetrated.

I stood in the center of my laboratory for a
moment and fantasized about what could possibly be the start of a
historic medical breakthrough. The thirteen mice, not understanding
the significance of their noble sacrifice, cowered in the backs of
their cages. The first step in the process was to give the animals
all a minor sedative. After that, I began getting all my equipment
ready to perform the blood transfusions. It was during this step
that I heard the hospital’s paging system crackle to life.

“Dr. Whittier, please report to the emergency
room. Dr. Whittier to the emergency room please,” a pleasant
sounding female voice announced.

“Aw,” I groaned at the empty room. I tossed a
tiny IV on the floor in annoyance. “But I was just about to start!
Why the hell do you need me?”

“Dr. Whittier, there has been a gas main
explosion at the
Nonecounty Insurance
building. Multiple
traumas are inbound. Your assistance is needed in the E.R.
immediately,” the voice said.

I blinked twice and stared up at the ceiling
for a moment. “Can you hear me?” I asked cautiously. I received no
response. “Nah,” I said to myself with a shake of my head.

I reluctantly left my laboratory and rode the
elevator up one floor. The elevator doors opened to reveal a scene
of chaos. At that moment, it occurred to me that I could not
remember the last time the E.R. had
not
looked chaotic. I
attempted to calculate the odds of so many crises befalling the
same hospital in such a short amount of time. I had not arrived at
a number by the time I reached the nurse’s station.

“Nick, thank God!” Dr. Berkowitz said to me.
He was wearing a green surgical gown that was now almost completely
red. There was even blood smeared across his face. It was dense
enough that I could see the outline of where his goggles had been.
“It’s a calamity! The word is that there’s thirty dead on the scene
and at least fifty people critically wounded! I don’t know how many
of those are coming here, but we’re already overwhelmed! Two more
traumas are rolling up any second! Do you think you can take care
of one of them!”

I could tell how serious the situation was by
the way Dr. Berkowitz had shouted every single sentence he had just
spoken to me. I was surprised that he had chosen to yell even the
question at the end.

“Of course,” I answered. “How many other
doctors do we have today?”

“Dr. Condo, overwhelmed by the first wave, is
crying in a supply closet!” Dr. Berkowitz continued to shout. “It’s
just you, me and the interns!”

“This hospital really has a staffing
problem,” I commented.

Paramedics rolled two stretchers through the
ambulance bay before Dr. Berkowitz had a chance to agree with me.
He intercepted the first patient and led the stretcher into the
first trauma room. I took the second patient into the second trauma
with two nurses. The lead paramedic gave his report as we hurried
into the room.

“Forty-year-old white male! Unconscious at
the scene! Blunt force trauma to the abdomen!” the paramedic
yelled. He helped me and the nurses move the patient onto the table
in the room before pushing his stretcher back towards the door.

“Hey, that’s it?” I questioned. “That wasn’t
very thorough.”

“No time!” the paramedic bellowed. “We’ve got
to get back to the scene! There are bodies everywhere!”

“Look at all the blood!” the nurse who was
standing next to me shouted.

“I can see his intestines!” the other nurse
shrieked as she put a hand to her mouth and gagged.

“He’s going to die! They’re all going to die!
This is madness!” the first nurse added for good measure.

“Nurse!” I shouted. I reached my arm back and
slapped the nurse closest to me across the face with the back of my
hand. She stumbled but did not fall to the ground. “I need 20 cc’s
of shut-the-fuck-up, stat!”

The nurse nursed her throbbing cheek and
sniffled. She still seemed upset, but the blow had helped her to
focus on the task at hand.

“Good,” I started more calmly. “Now there is
entirely too much yelling going on around here. Shouting has a time
and a place, and it’s not right here and right now.”

I took a deep breath and started working on
the patient. I told myself I had dealt with far worse disasters
throughout the course of my long medical career. The truth was that
those crises had been a long time ago. This was easily the worst
catastrophe that had ever struck McClane County General Hospital.
While I had several lifetimes worth of experience, I was very much
out of practice.

It took twenty minutes to stabilize the man.
When I was confident that he would survive the trip upstairs, I
wheeled him out of the second trauma room with the nurses in tow.
We almost ran into the next in a long line of critical
patients.

“I need this room for this patient!” Dr.
Berkowitz shouted.

“Stop yelling!” I yelled. “You’re freaking
everyone out!”

“The first trauma room is occupied and
there’s another patient right behind us!” Berkowitz screamed,
ignoring my command.

“Take our patient up to surgery,” I ordered
the first nurse from my team. I turned to the second and said,
“You, help Dr. Berkowitz with this patient. I’ll take the next one
in the examination room.”

The second set of paramedics helped me get my
new patient into the examination room and onto the table. They
departed quickly, leaving me without any assistance. The new
patient was a professional businesswoman wearing a blue pant suit.
She looked like she had probably been attractive before she had
been caught up in the explosion. Now her features were barely
recognizable underneath a field of facial lacerations. She had
several deep cuts across her body, and her left hand was missing
all but one of its fingers. The frantic paramedics had been able to
identify the most important wound on her body. I gingerly removed
the bandages and gauze they had pressed against her throat and
found a two inch deep cut. A steady stream of blood poured from the
wound. I looked back towards her pale face and was surprised to
find that her eyes were open. She tried to speak, but it was too
soft for me to hear. I leaned my head down so that my ear was
almost pressed against her lips.