Vamp-Hire (4 page)

“Come to think of it, we need to have a
conversation about that,” he said to himself. Nick was about to
approach the recessed doors and saw they were shuttered too. Right.
After hours.

Convenience marts and other places of
business with extended hours remained open primarily for emergency
and other after hours workers. There were also those in dire
emergency. These days someone knocking on a neighbor’s door at two
in the morning was liable to get the light show from the end of a
double-barreled shotgun, but a jealous ex-boyfriend or a thief who
wasn’t considerate enough to wait until a house was unoccupied
meant that sometimes people had to go somewhere safe in a hurry.
Places like the Big Pig were meant to be safe houses in instances
like those.

He approached cautiously. These places always
had cameras even though Lucky had told him that the Pig’s hadn’t
worked since before he’d started working there. That wasn’t in
compliance with local and federal ordinances. Nick peered inside
and saw the vest-covered back of either a skinny blond-haired girl
or thin-framed boy, leaning in front of a display case.

The boy turned around—yes, it was a boy— and
started tossing the handfuls of cigarette packs into the air. Nick
didn’t move, trying not to be threatening. Sometimes not moving at
all was the scariest thing of all, like swatting a spider and then
it seeming not to notice it had been hit. Nick didn’t remember
putting his hands on the glass like he was about to scale the face
of the building like Spider-Man. He slowly took them down and
waved.

“Smile,” he told himself and felt both sides
of his mouth slowly lift, revealing not-too-much teeth. The boy,
who looked around nineteen or twenty, still hadn’t moved. “I should
probably say something,” he whispered.

“Hi. I’m Nick.” He patted his chest
demonstratively, speaking loudly as if there was a language barrier
between them instead of six inches of Plexi-glass. “Does Lucky
still work here?”

The boy made a face as if he really hadn’t
understood. There was a panic alarm no more than three feet away
and he’d hit it if Nick couldn’t get through to him. Nick locked
eyes with him.

“It’s cool. Everything’s all right.”

The boy’s shoulders slumped and he
straightened. Well, sort of. The boy had to have been at least
six-foot five and had a hooked posture.

“I don’t know you, do I?” He spoke slowly,
his voice deep and somehow still immature. Nick felt his words
swirling around in his head. His heart slowed as if matching pace
with the boy’s. He felt himself pulling closer, like… like a fish
on a line, except it was flipped upside down in his mind.

And then the boy was standing two inches away
from the glass, staring at Nick.

“Do you have an emergency? I can’t let you in
if you don’t have an emergency. If you want I can call emergency
services.” He spoke like there weren’t any periods in his
sentences, like one long, dream-like run-on sentence. Maybe he
always sounded that way. Nick would not have known one way or the
other.

“No, I don’t have an emergency.” The boy, Tag
by the name tag on his vest, turned and began walking away. “Wait!
I do need your help, though.” The boy turned back. “I’m trying to
find Lucky. Is he here?”

“Who is Lucky?”

Nick realized he didn’t know his actual
name.

“Lucky is his nickname.” He didn’t want to
say they were close friends and then have Tag ask him why he didn’t
know his close friend’s real name, so he decided to try a different
tact. “He’s Latino, about yay tall.” Nick held his hand up, palm
down, about level to his armpit. Since he was about six-two he
guessed that made Lucky about five-three. “He’s got a pencil-thin
mustache and van dyke.”

“A wha?”

“A goatee.”

Tag nodded, his facial expression never
changing. In fact, Nick was pretty sure he wasn’t even
blinking.

“Oh, yeah. I know him. I think he still works
here.” He paused for a long second, looking like he’d fallen asleep
with his eyes open. “He sells me cough medicine sometimes.”
Considering the Pig more than likely sold cough medicine, Nick
guessed that was code for something else.

“Where can I find him?”

“Well, I dunno. You might wanna try this
house over on Blanche. We hang there after work sometimes. I think
there’s a quiet party there tonight.”

“What’s the address?”

“I dunno.”

This was getting frustrating. Nick imagined
squeezing the boy’s head like one of the many zits on his face
until all the information came out so he could pick through it and
find what he needed.

“It’s a green house,” Tag said. “Take
Rochester south three blocks and head west for two. It’s the
seventh house in.”

The boy being helpful surprised Nick. He
repeated the directions aloud a few times until he felt he had
them.

“Thanks,” Nick said and left.

Tag went on staring at the spot where Nick
had been, almost as if he’d fallen asleep again. Nick looked over
his shoulder, wondering what the boy was on.

Nick wanted to get there as quickly as
possible. He was wide awake, an odd feeling considering how tired
he was. He’d walked home, walked to the Pig, and was now walking to
a house that may or may not have been where Lucky was. Nick didn’t
even know if he’d let him crash. Lucky would want to know how the
job went, though.

Nancy.

Nick’s mind wandered back to her. That last
scream when he was in the cemetery—had Fenton hurt her? The flash
of guilt stopped his feet. He briefly thought about going back then
thought better of it. Nancy’s problems were her own. Nick wanted no
part of the sick game those two had going. He hoped to hell she
hadn’t been hurt or worse, killed, but that wasn’t on him. He
wasn’t responsible for her being there or her psycho husband
looking to kill something.

That ball of guilt rolled around in his belly
just the same.

Maybe he’d check on her later today. Or
better yet, place an anonymous phone call, saying he’d heard
something.

He couldn’t concentrate on her too long, his
feet hurt. In an instant, he felt as though he weighed a hundred
pounds lighter. His feet still ached, yet the amount of pressure he
was putting on them felt significantly less. He moved fast, faster
than he’d run, though he didn’t seem to be moving any quicker than
a brisk walk. In minutes he was on Blanche Street.

He remembered Tag telling him the house was
the seventh one in and he wished he’d thought to ask which side.
Nick counted his way down and as his luck would have it, both
houses were a shade of green. At least that’s how they looked in
the dark.

He had a fifty-fifty shot to pick out the
right house and even if he guessed right, Lucky may have had a gun.
Nick thought he might have been able to talk his way out of being
shot, however the noise might attract too much attention. He had to
figure out a way to attract Lucky’s attention quietly.

Wait a second—didn’t Tag say there was a
quiet party going on tonight? Nick had never been to one, though he
knew what they were.

The homeless problem hadn’t disappeared from
cities, it had gone underground. Once the shelters and other
official places there were for them to go were filled up, people
who didn’t have a place to stay could go to a quiet party. Sure,
abandoned houses were free and plenty to be found, but a quiet
party was a place where they could hang with friends and drink
before they laid their heads. If Nick guessed right it would be a
house full of sleeping people with maybe one minder (Lucky) to make
sure nobody sleepwalked or robbed the place.

Nick thought if he listened at the door, he
could tell if there were several people inside. Maybe he could hear
them breathing. He imagined they’d be strewn all over the floor
once the couches had been taken up. There could have been several
people in either house even though these days the Reoccupation had
most homes either unlived-in or with one or two people. Human
beings had a tendency to spread out, giving each other the most
elbow room possible. Why live with your parents when they could
have a house down the street or a few blocks over?

Nick wondered if that explained why Phoebe
had bought his house. There seemed to be a lot more to her story
than that, though. He turned onto the walkway of the green house on
his right and jogged up the stairs. For some reason, despite being
out well past a federally imposed curfew punishable by up to six
months in prison for those caught in violation (and that was for
regular humans) he felt wrong about walking across the lawn.

He stood in front of the door and leaned in
cautiously. There was a nasty urban legend going around that some
people booby-trapped their houses with shotguns to blast the front
door at night if a minimum amount of weight were to register on
their front porches. Although he knew better and had read the
debunked story on Snopes, he was hesitant nonetheless.

The floorboards of the porch squeaked as he
pressed his ear to the door. In his mind there was a sea of bodies
on the other side of the door in various states of undress, legs
and arms thrown across neighbors haphazardly.

In reality, he heard the metallic click of
what he was reasonably certain was a gun. He pulled back, hands
still raised and a moment later a face appeared in the window to
his left. Nick didn’t make any sudden moves, waiting for the face
in the window to speak.

The face only went on looking at him, though,
until Nick figured to go ahead and ask, “Is Lucky here?”

The face disappeared.

There was a hole in the door about waist
high. That was too low to be a peephole and then Nick knew the shot
was coming. He threw himself down as something twanged and hammered
through the door. He rolled to the side of the porch and was midway
over the edge when he saw Lucky eating a bowl of cereal, standing
on the porch of the house next door.

Nick hopped off the porch as the front door
opened.

“Hey, Earl,” Lucky said over a mouthful,
“what’s going on?”

“Damn vamper tried to break in the house.”
There was some sort of snapping sound and approaching
footsteps.

“Whoa-whoa-whoa. That’s my friend, Earl.
Don’t shoot him.”

“Bull. That’s a vamper!”

There was a small clattering sound and Nick
knew Lucky had put down his cereal bowl.

“Earl, that’s not a vampire. Do not shoot my
friend!”

“Dammit, Lucky! He was on my porch!”

“Earl! Earl! Earl!”

“All right! All right. Lemme… lemme just
check on him, then.” A moment later a head peeked over the porch,
looking down at Nick. He flinched, holding his hands up in
defense.

“You good down there, little buddy?” Nick was
hesitant to put his hands down, gradually relaxing with each
passing second the man wasn’t shooting at him with the crossbow in
his hands.

“I’m… fine.”

The crossbow dropped out of sight and the man
leaned over, offering Nick a hand. “No hard feelin’s, m’kay?”

Nick reluctantly shook hands with him and
then the man retreated back in his house, what sounded like several
bolts following as he locked back up.

“Come on up,” Lucky said.

Lucky finished his cereal while Nick sat on
the couch. He was wrapped in a bathrobe and looked like he’d
already had a full night’s rest even though it couldn’t have been
later than two.

“What brings you here?” he said. He narrowed
his eyes. “How’d you find me?”

They were two separate, yet related
questions. One inviting, the other suspicious. Nick decided he
would address the first.

“I needed a place to crash. I can’t stay at
home for a couple days. Tag told me where to find you. Well, almost
where to find you. He said you were having a quiet party.” Nick
looked around. Unless they were all stuffed in one room or in the
basement they were the only two people here.

Lucky nodded slowly, his eyes locked on
Nick.

“Well, I’m house-sitting for a friend, but
you’re welcome to stay here for a while.” Nick knew instantly this
was a lie; nobody house sat. “Nobody’s been showing up lately
anyway. I dunno, it’s weird.”

House sitting implied the owner was on
vacation or something like that. This area of the city was being
resettled like Nick’s. Hell, almost the whole city had had to be
evacuated. Before, during, and after the Conflict people had died,
relocated, or just plain vanished. It was highly unlikely the
pre-Conflict owners still lived in this house. Nick had no
intention of asking who Lucky’s ‘friend’ was, so ultimately, it
didn’t matter.

“Thanks, I appreciate it,” he said.

“Say, aren’t you cold?” Lucky said, moving
on. “All you have on is that light jacket and it got down to
twenty-five last night.

Last night. Which meant Lucky had been to bed
and was up now. Even though he couldn’t remember what time he
usually got up, Nick imagined it was several hours after now.

“No. No, I’m all right, actually.” Lucky
stepped closer and put the backs of his fingers to his cheek. It
was odd that the warmth from his fingers felt so wonderful.

Nancy came back to mind.

Nick stopped himself before he could pull
away and felt that thing inside him stir again. He looked at Lucky
and could see trace lines of veins beneath the skin at his temples.
Lucky turned away, headed into another room.

“Come here, I want you to try something!”

Nick obeyed, listening to something other
than Lucky’s words. He followed him into the kitchen where Lucky
had his head poked in the refrigerator. Lucky pulled out what
looked like a giant crock pot and set it on the counter. Nick glid
closer out of curiosity as Lucky took off the lid, but also because
Lucky had a particular scent he wanted to smell more of.