Derek McGrath-

Night 2

The wind howled and the rain spattered against the window loud enough to wake one of the patients in the next room. It was the old man Haywood who had awoken to the sounds. The young man tugged at the leather straps, hidden inside of the soft leather was steel to hold him still. Haywood wailed as the rain slashed violently against the window. Each howl of the old man reminded the youth who was now locked down, and watched even when he was asleep, that life was a fragile and often abused thing. It also reminded him of how he may one day react to fear.

Someone who was locked away, with no way to defend themselves, not even given the ability to run, may very well just turn to screaming in hopes that the ones who held them might hear, maybe in a desperate attempt to drive fear into that which was feared. Of course, the screaming could just be a simple and instinctive way to deal with the fear; nothing left of the man but that little bit that tells you to cry when you are born and the light sears your eyes.

Light. Light was something that was hard for the young man to deal with. He did not remember why, but he thought that the light of the room seemed painful, the open windows during the day felt strange. His eyes did not adjust right. It seemed like he was the only one who had to shield his eyes for so long after entering a lit room. He wondered why. He also thought it might be why he lay awake, staring at a window, listening to the wailing of an old man who was in the room next to his all night, every night.

He also thought that it might have something to do with the face that he kept seeing in the window while he lay there awake. It was the first face he had seen when he awoke and it had visited him twice since he had been brought to the strange place in the woods. That face seemed out of place and he hoped that the storm would keep it away. That face was different. It was beautiful, with bright green eyes and long blonde hair and full lips and yet it was wrong. Something in those eyes was wrong; something in the way that it could peer through a two story window and stare at him for hours was truly unsettling. He hoped that like most of the pretty faces, the rain would make it want to stay inside. He did not want to have to see that face again.

He could not help remembering the face, the face that no one else seemed to think of as threatening. He remembered how he was the only one to react to that face the way he did when he awoke and he did not know why. He could not understand why he was the only one who thought she was out of place. He could not understand why he tried so hard to put an end to that face. He should have awoke and thought that it was nice not to be dead, but instead he saw that face and was driven to act. He knew that he could have done it no other way. Maybe Jessica would be able to help.

Then, there was a change in Haywood’s screaming, something in the pitch spiked, the intensity suddenly teetered and peaked and then there was a gasp and then the next room was silent. The young man knew something was not right in the next room. He could feel the cold get colder and the loneliness get lonelier and he knew that Haywood was alive, only a new and more profound something had grasped even his feeble mind. Or, perhaps, it was a mind more attuned to things for its newfound feebleness. Haywood had been frozen in time by an emotion, a base instinct that drives a cat to run from something, or a dog to yelp before it is hurt. Fear was the thing that had silenced the man.

The young man felt his muscles go rigid. He wanted to act, just as he had done in the hospital when he awoke from the coma. He wanted to help. He could do nothing. He was as helpless as any other inhabitant of the strange place he had been brought to. He could face the thing without freezing up. Then he realized that the fear that had taken the man may be nothing more than a change in the way the wind of the storm was wailing and screeching. Maybe it was a profound change of mind within the man himself. There was no way to be sure. The only thing that was certain was that it was fear that had changed the man’s scream. That he knew.

Then he heard the footsteps. Those were the footsteps of the men that would try to comfort the old man by pumping his veins full of medicine. That medicine would calm the exterior of a creature with an already too small interior while forcing on him the debilitating incapability of something even less than the man already was. He winced at the idea. Even a man with as little as Haywood deserved a chance to struggle against his own fears. What else could any man do to prove his worth once his family and friends had abandoned him besides struggling?

The young man tugged against his restraints and felt them pull tight. He was not nearly strong enough to pull and rip his way out. He did not have any way to undo the straps and his hands were too perfectly bound for him to dislocate his thumb and pull his hands free. He did not want the man to lose what little semblance of himself he had left. Yet, there was nothing that he could do but lay there and listen as the old man struggled, his meager strength growing impressive in the fight to keep the little sanity that he knew they would take away from him as the younger men impressed their medicine on him.

The young man finally gave up. He felt the burning in the corner of his eyes and the nauseous feeling in his gut as he lay there. Just feet away, a man was being quieted and the people who quieted him knew nothing of the man’s screams except that they were disquieting to others. The young man knew fear. He did not remember from where, but he knew fear and he knew that it was wrong to suppress it with anything other than challenging that fear and overcoming it, even if it was the howling of the wind. He cringed that people would take away such vulgar elements of humanity simply because a mind had grown timid over time. How could taking away an instinct help in rebuilding a mind that was already crumbling, the young man thought?

Then the face. It had blonde hair and green eyes with a gentle yet wicked smile. It was in the window, or perhaps it was closer than that. He could not tell, but it was there, staring at him with those green eyes that seemed to see just a little too much and looked to reflect more than just the idle ramblings and slight sophistication that would have been told by the youthful features of her feline face. No, it was not the window, it was closer. It was too close, so close he jerked with a rush of invigorating panic. Then, just as that face had appeared, it quickly vanished into the splatter of raindrops.

For a moment he thought that maybe all of those times he had seen her, it had been like that. Not in the window, but eerily closer and more inside. Then he reasoned to himself that it had to be another way, the face had to have been in the window. Or maybe he was asleep and it just seemed to be happening and the memories of the face were just that, a dream. Maybe he was remembering someone and it was so vivid that he could not distinguish between the vision in his mind and the one that his eyes saw in the same moment as those thoughts.

He laid, listening to the silence from the next room, the rain exploding on the window and the wind rushing through the trees. The night was not nearly over and he still had a long time to wait before sleep would come to him. He did not want to be there in the darkness, unable to move, to run, to defend himself. He wondered how long it would be before he, too, would wail madly at the night or the rain and people would come to silence him as they did old man Haywood.

He thought that it was unjustified to steal away a man’s fear. He could feel that fear was something he had known in his life. Maybe, he thought, he was a soldier or a police officer, someone who had to fear for their very existence. Maybe somewhere else, someone knew what it was that he was missing in his head, someone could tell him. He knew that person would never come. He knew that that person was somewhere far away if they did exist, or maybe that was just the fear starting to eat at him from the inside.

He looked around the room. There was little else to do since Haywood had gone quiet. The shadows made by the rain were strange and the way they seemed to bubble and froth on the walls seemed like something that would slowly drive a man to insanity. The walls seemed to boil and the darkness seemed to be alive. In the silence, the darkness took on a personality all its own. He knew that there was a reason he did not sleep at night. He was afraid of the dark, everything about it made him uneasy, especially the way that it seemed almost human when you were alone in it.

That was the way the night was, he thought, alive and thinking and cunning. It was out to get him. The darkness had already started to consume him and he could feel it. There was a void inside where it was a part of him, where he was starting to become just like it. He did not think it was the same way that the darkness consumed others. That was easy to explain; they would learn that there were no monsters and then they realized that it was easy to hide in the shadows and the alleyways. They learned that you could explore the dark side of yourself when you knew that no one would see you so easily and even the mirror could not throw back the full and true image of yourself. His darkness was different; he went there because he had no choice and as he laid there, in the silence, his darkness called to him like a siren. His eyes refused to close, his mind would not rest. Not so long as the darkness was there. To him, there was a monster, somewhere in that darkness, even though he could not remember its name.

The rain was forcing her to stay in and she hated it. She stood facing the window with her arms crossed and her lips pursed in a well practiced pout. It was as if she could convince nature itself that she was so cute and sexy that it should stop raining so she and her friends could go out and have some fun. She shifted her shoulders after a while, still part of her pouting.

She had learned to love the night and when she had learned the city, the night had truly come to life for her. She was always on a high, an adrenaline rush straight from the darkness that drove her to wander from club to club and bar to bar and to whatever party her current fling or her looks could get her into. She stood staring at the raindrops splattering on the pane of glass with dismay and anger. She wanted to go out. She did not like being alone and the music from the stereo system was not enough to keep the pulse of a room beating, not for her.

She doubted many people would venture very far from their homes and apartments with the rain coming down like that. She could think of no one who would want to go out, especially any of her girlfriends. Then the phone rang. She ran to it and answered, “Hi.”

“Hey, Allison, it’s Danny, Danny Travino. I was hoping you hadn’t gone out yet, there’s this club called Erzebet’s that I was hoping to go to and a few of my friends are planning on going. Wanna come?”

“Sure, I’d love to, but what about the rain? Not too many people are going to be out tonight.”

Danny laughed, “from what I heard, this place is always jumping’. I don’t think we’ve got a damn thing to worry about.” His emphasis was on the ‘damn.’

That was all it took for Allison Thomas to get excited, “Sure, where you want to meet?”

Danny gave a chuckle of satisfaction, “How about I stop by your place in about fifteen minutes and we take the train?”

“Alright, I’ll be waiting, what should I wear?”

“Just look good,” even that mattered little to him. In his opinion she looked best not wearing anything and it was a sight he was hoping to see in a few short hours.

She turned to the window and flipped off the rain with a smile that said plainly, ‘I get what I want, anyway.’

She went to her bedroom and a few moments later was wearing a pair of fake leather pants that were skin tight around her ass and thighs and hung loose around her ankles with a pink spaghetti strap top that had no back, only the strings used to tie it together. She wore bright pink lipstick and blue eye shadow that was only slightly darker than her eyes. She left her long blonde hair down to fall loosely in waves along her shoulders. Any man that did not notice the five-foot-four and one-hundred and eighteen pound frame of Allison Thomas was either blind or had no interest in Penthouse.

She looked herself over in a full body mirror and smiled approvingly at the runway model shape that she had had since about fourteen. She loved it, and she did not have to try to keep it, as the freezer full of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream would prove. She then ran her hands down her stomach, forcing the silky cloth to reveal her taught abdomen and accentuating an already considerable bosom. She dropped her arms and let the cloth hang freely again, only revealing the triangles of bare flesh to either side of her naval. It was perfectly girly.

She sat on the sofa and waited for Danny and his friends to arrive. She was biting her bottom lip when the knock came at the door coupled with a loud and deep, “Hey, Ally, it’s me.” She knew the voice of the cute fling instantly. She ran over and opened the door. Her smile was all the hello that he needed. “Hey, girl, ready to go?”

She leaned on the door, “Just a second.” Then, with a gentle and teasing smile she turned and grabbed her little night bag and took her cell phone from the charger. She grabbed a light jacket to keep off the rain on her way back from the small end table, tossing it over one shoulder making sure some of her back was still visible and pranced past the dark haired and dark eyed man who had called her and through his friends, “Alright, let’s go.”

Her heart was racing and she loved it. To her it was better than the feeling of cocaine, the power she had over most men, hell, even some women and children were prone to a pretty face. She could go nearly anywhere and do anything, no bouncer would stop her and few guards could do more than stare at her. If she wanted to get into something she had to pay for, there was always a guy who would front the money and not think anything of it, not even if it was a three hundred dollar dinner.

After a short walk and a ride on the underground railways, both filled with teasing glances from Ally to every one of the five guys in the little crowd they walked up onto the streets and followed Danny as he wound around to the back of a building and then went down some stairs. The alleyway was dark and trash lined the walls. Shadows and half-assed light clung in odd mixtures. Danny knocked on the door and no one answered. Ally was getting anxious and wanted to see what the uproar was about. She pulled her coat tighter against the rain that slanted down between the buildings.

Danny shrugged, “What the Hell, right?” He turned the knob and pushed. The door opened into a small room. He walked in, followed by Allison and his buddies. They stood there and shook off the rain.

Allison looked around, “What the fuck is this?” she asked and turned to Danny with a scowl that obviously damaged his chances.

He shrugged and looked at the other guys. They all had bewildered looks on their faces.

He turned around, putting his hand to his forehead and grimacing before letting out a deep breath. After a short moment, he started looking around and did not see anything. He turned back to Ally, “Sorry, I was told it was right here.”

Then a sound like stone grating on stone came from one of the walls and they all looked. A slab of wall was being pulled out and a spray of dazzling and sporadic light came from the cracks. Then it was shoved to the side. Music was pounding and hundreds of dancing shadows writhed in the half darkness. A man stepped from the now obvious doorway. He stood six-foot-three and was broad shouldered and even under his fine Italian suit, it was apparent that he was well muscled. His dark hair was short and spiked and he was clean shaven. His dark skin was welcoming and his eyes were almost black. Ally stared.

“Welcome to Erzebet’s, gentlemen, and lady.” The man gestured for them to enter.

The guys all walked past him and Ally sauntered by smiling at the man. He returned a simple nod. Once they were in, he started pushing the panel of brick back into place with some help from another bouncer. Ally let her stare linger on the man. Danny glared, hoping that he still had a chance and thinking that bringing her out to this place might not work the way he wanted it to.

Danny turned away to keep from thinking on it too long and then got a good look at the place. It was three, maybe four stories high, with banisters and hanging dance floors and curving staircases and cages suspended on wire. There were three bars on the lower level and room for more on the ones above that he could see up to. The floor was teeming with motion as bodies undulated in a very accurate mockery of the things most of the couples on the floor would be doing later that night. Everyone that he could see seemed to be in a state of dreamlike ecstasy. Everyone seemed to move in slow motion and the sound of talking was like a low roar under the heartbeat of the music.

His eyes widened as they fell on a woman with a dark tan and stunning dark eyes that seemed onyx black in the shadows of the club. Her body moved like water, flowing to the sounds that surrounded her. Her eyes locked on him but there was no acknowledgement. She continued to writhe, her tongue touching to her lips in a show of delight. He felt his own sensation of delight just watching her. He tipped his head as the thought that he might as well play the game crossed his mind. If Ally was going to flirt with the bouncer, then why should he have to be a good boy?

The woman looked past him and her eyes lit on Ally. The woman smiled and Danny followed the gaze back to Allison. He pursed his lips and his brow fell darkening his eyes. He could not even get the women to leave her alone. He could not believe that he was about to be beat out by a lesbian, which he figured at that point was very likely, as it seemed that Allison was willing to do anything. He walked off into the crowd and pushed his way through the people all the while trying to get the thoughts of Ally with a girl out of his head.

Ally saw the woman looking at her and smiled back. The woman just stayed there and danced, staring at her. Ally was used to being stared at and it did not bother her. She decided it would be best to go on about her business. Ally thought it would be interesting to try the bar. She walked through the crowd, most of the men moving out of the way to let her past. That was also something she had grown used to.

She got to the bar and moved in between two guys. Both of the men looked at her with that ‘hey, what’s up’ look that she was so familiar with and she gave a little smile before leaning over the bar on her elbows to look for the bartender. She turned first to her right and then to her left. It was then that she saw the tall, black man with a perfect set of dreads hanging in a ponytail. His face was strong and very handsome and his body was perfect, all slender muscle much like a runner. He wore baggy jeans that were very dark and a vest that showed off his impressive muscularity. He was dancing and serving in what appeared to be a single, flowing motion. At that she gave a quirky smile, where one side of her mouth went up further than the other. That particular smile was the real one, the one she had pretty much left behind when she found out about sex, drugs, and all that other adult stuff.

The tender noticed the smile and was on his way over almost immediately. His eyes caught hers and gleamed. He arrived and boomed in a Jamaican accent, “How’s it goin’, girl?” His face was lit with a huge smile.

“Pretty good, I guess.”

“Well, that’s nice to hear, now, what’ll it be for the lady?” The smile never seemed to go away and his voice seemed to come from some place where everyone was happy. Something she knew was impossible.

“I’ll just have a beer.”

“What kind, or does it matter?”

“Whatever.”

“Well, now, I hope you’re a bit pickier about your men.” Her eyebrow over her left eye rose. “All I’m sayin’ is that most girls don’t be as picky as they could, a girl like you in a city like this should be havin’ a man exactly like she wants, perfect in every way.”

She slouched back down to the floor, “Yeah, right, with all the assholes around here, all thinking that the number of women fucked is what matters, why waste the time looking for some perfect guy when I can just screw them all.”

“Well now, I be tellin’ you what, I can remember a time,” he paused and rethought his words as he passed her a bottle of MGD, “and a place where the prettier the woman be, the better the husband she had. O’ course, that bein’ she knew that she had that kinda power.”

“And where the hell are you from?”

“Right around the corner.” She turned away from him, “Hey, Miss, if you be needin’ anything else now, you be tellin’ me, name’s Ty, al’ight.”

She did not turn around to acknowledge the man. She just sauntered off, wondering just how right he could be. Every man she ever met looked at her like she was something out of a fairy tale. Then she saw a man walking at the edge of the dance floor. He moved slowly, watching the crowd. His dark eyes seemed to take in everything. He moved with a grace that she had never seen in a man. His posture was perfect, his long dark hair hung loosely around his shoulders, disappearing into his dark suit. His skin was darkly tanned and his hands were large and adorned with one gold ring each. On his left, the ring was a large onyx inset with a diamond in one corner. The one on the right was a simple band. He stopped when he noticed her eyes on him.

She smiled at those dark eyes. They were big or somehow more open than they should be. She could feel them peering at her. She felt his eyes caressing her and she liked the feeling. It was different than how most men looked at her; it was more intense, almost as if it were something that other men could not do. She started walking toward him. She wanted to know more about the man. He stood and waited on her. She did not mind and besides, Danny would become even more jealous.

She made her way over to the man and her smile was back to the same old sly and wicked look that all the other guys liked. The man looked at her and gave a slight smile. “Hello, my name is Fernando Martinez.” He offered his hand and she took it. His grip was strong but smooth and gentle. His accent was faded but still noticeable.

“Hi, I’m Ally.” She bit her lip and dipped her head, looking up at him.

“I couldn’t help but notice you. You’re striking.”

“Striking? That’s different.” She almost laughed. She had never been called striking. She had been referred to as hot, sexy, even fuckable, but never striking.

“Would you prefer I talk like all those boys that try for your attention or would you rather a man speak like a man?”

“I’m sorry; it’s just that I’m so used to those dipshits.” She glanced back at Danny.

“Well, you don’t have to worry about them, now, do you? Would you like to sit at my table?” he asked, gesturing to a round table in the corner with several people sitting around it, all looking too rich for her. She loved the idea.

“Sure.” She started walking that direction and Fernando placed a strong yet gentle hand on the small of her back to guide her to the table.

They walked to the large circular table and Ally stood there staring at the three men and four women that already occupied the table. They all looked like they belonged in a movie or a magazine. When they arrived the seven stopped and looked at her. Fernando took control of the table, “This is my new friend, Ally. I think she will be joining us for a little while.”

She smiled and then looked back towards Danny. His four friends were lingering close and he was flirting with some woman on the dance floor. She turned back to the table and found that everyone there had a smile and each introduced them self and before long, she was caught up in conversation. She was at home with her newfound friends.

The evening wore on and the drinks kept coming and the conversation went on and on and then she looked around and noticed that most of the people were gone. She looked around carefully, looking for Danny or one of his friends and did not see any of them. She looked to Fernando, “Um, it’s been fun, but I should go.”

Fernando looked into her blue eyes with his dark brown ones, “But the fun is just starting.”

Ally had a look of frustration on her face, “I have to find my friends and go, really.”

“I’m certain they can take care of themselves and I can always have Chrissie or Sam,” he gestured to two of the women. One looked like she was more dangerous than Fernando, “take you home if you don’t trust me.” His voice was strong and certain and made her feel like her argument was not good enough.

She looked around the place again. She still could not pick out anyone she knew from the crowd. She did not know why, but she did not want to be alone with the group she had been talking to. She felt that they were different from the people she was used to and it bothered her. She thought that the feeling was odd. She had gone home with people after knowing them only a few hours often, it was part of how she lived, and she knew what they were looking for. These people were different. She knew that they weren’t interested in the same things she was. It made her even more afraid that she could just sense those differences and believe in them.

She looked into his eyes and then stood. “I really should be going.” She took a step back.

Fernando stood and peered into her eyes, “Young one, I’m sorry if I have made you uncomfortable, but I would like to make sure that you get home safely.”

That was enough to make her cringe.

Ty walked up, “Hey, mon, leave the girl alone. She’s got nothing’ to do with your little clan.”

Fernando cocked an eyebrow at the lean Jamaican, “I’m just conducting some business, Tyler, if you please?”

“If the girl don’t be feelin’ right, ya got to leave her alone.” Ty stepped closer, almost becoming larger, like a cat with its haunches raised and hair on end.

Fernando backed down and nodded to Ally. “My apologies, whatever you want to do is fine.” He glared at Ty.

Ty put a hand on Ally’s shoulder and nodded toward the main doors. She nodded and ran over to them, disappearing into the crowd. Ty watched and then turned toward Fernando. “We’ve enough shit goin’ on without you startin’ this.”

Ally started shoving past people to get out. She slid out between two large men and they did not even notice her. She pushed through the small little alcove and then up the stairs and cringed at the cool rain. Once outside, she leaned against the brick wall away from the rest of the crowd and looked around, her big blue eyes searching the faces for her friends. She hoped to see Danny. She could feel tears welling up. The confrontation between Ty and Fernando had been too much for her.

She looked up into the rain. She wiped her face and rivulets of water poured past her ears, a feeling that would have tickled if her thoughts were not preoccupied with the strange scene inside. She still did not know why, but they did not seem right. Their conversation had been entertaining and warm but Fernando was cold, cold to the touch and cold in his dark eyes. Her hair was soaked and clung to the bricks that her head was resting against. Her tears mixed with the rain.

Then she saw Danny. She ran to him and hugged him. As he stood there, arms out and looking down at her, wondering why she was so glad to see him after spending the evening with the older man, she buried her face into his chest. He could feel the rain slicking the back of his neck and the water and tears from her face soaking through his shirt. After a moment, he gave in to the little bit of humanity in him and wrapped his arms around her reassuringly. It was a strange hug, one that he might give his little sister when she was afraid.

After a few moments, Ally looked up to Danny. Her make-up was smudged and running. “Just take me home, please.” He just nodded, knowing it was a bad time for him to talk. He also knew that his chances of getting laid were about none.

She loosened her grip and he let one arm stay draped around her shoulders. They then started to walk off. The rain was barely noticed as the two walked silently to the subway and then the hollow splatters faded behind the doors that closed them in. The subway was not nearly as busy as it was during the day in the heart of lower Manhattan and they found that the small silence they shared seemed to grow once the sound of the rain was behind them.

They stood waiting and then the train pulled into the stop and they boarded. They took seats at the end of the car and tried to stay away from the other people in the car. Danny stared at the floor, glancing over to the distraught face of Ally every few moments. She looked like she was shivering and he tried to tighten his arm to pull her in and make her warm but she just sat there, objecting with just enough strength to make Danny realize that he should not.

After the ride, they still had a little ways to walk. She slipped away from him and he just walked beside her. His hair was now dripping wet, hanging on his forehead almost as if it had been painted there instead of grown. After a few minutes, she turned to Danny, “Have you ever met someone who wasn’t warm?”

He gave her one of those looks that showed he had no idea what she was talking about.

“You know how some people have clammy hands, what if there whole body felt that way, cool and dead?”

He looked down and scuffed his feet, “Sure he wasn’t just cold or something. I mean, it is pretty chilly out.”

“You didn’t see his eyes, or the way Ty acted.” Her eyes seemed to be looking at something in the distance.

“Who the hell is Ty?” Danny blurted.

“He was the bartender, and…” she trailed off and then turned and walked off.

Danny stood in the rain and watched until guilt overcame him and he ran after her. He tried to catch up and then he tripped. He hit the ground and the puddle exploded around him, heavy droplets flying upward as the thousands of tiny cold ones came hurtling down and then the water rushed in around him, drenching him. It felt gritty and oily. He pushed himself up and looked after her. She was moving quicker and had not heard him fall. He stood and shook the water off with a quick shudder. He was soaked to the bone.

He started running after Ally. He slowed when he realized he was the only one on the street. It was him and the rain. He had the feeling that he was being watched. He had never felt someone’s eyes on him before, always wondering what it meant. He could feel the sensation that his privacy was being invaded and yet there was the surety that he was the only one on the street. He turned and scanned the dark alleys, not able to see anything. He looked back in the direction Ally was going and even she was gone.

He decided to ignore it and keep walking. He took off his outer shirt and squeezed the water out of it and threw it over his shoulder. He started walking and sighed. He felt water trickle from his hair over his eyebrow and down his cheek to drop off his chin as water occasionally sloshed as high as his socks. He walked slowly and refused to look anywhere but straight ahead.

Ally was at the door to her apartment building when she felt the odd sensation of something being wrong around her. The feeling was like those spider webs that are not really there. She was fighting with her key and hoping the door would unlock soon. She wondered if this was how women felt right before a stalker killed or raped them. She hoped that the feeling was going to help her get away and through the door in time to save her life if it was.

She found the key despite her wet and slippery grip and tried to get it into the slot. She struggled for a few seconds and through a few curses and then the key turned and she opened the door. She slammed it behind her and the light at the base of the stairs blew out. The street lamps cast a little light and some large shadows across the small room at the base of the apartment building. The spider webs were now icy fingers, much like those that Fernando seemed to possess. She did not like those fingers even when it was her imagination.

She darted to the stairs and started up them. Her feet were slipping from the water that still made the bottoms of her shoes slick. She made it to the top of the first flight and into a reasonable amount of light. She stopped. The rain on the window panes seemed to drum in time with her racing heart. She walked the remaining flights slowly and carefully, letting herself rationalize the night. She made it to her floor and started down the hall. She stopped when she heard something fall. Then a gray and black striped cat ran past her. She hated late nights when the sounds of partying were left behind and she had no one to talk to and occupy her mind, and Fernando had only made those small irritations that much more bothersome.

She walked down the hall to her door. She fumbled with her keys again and stopped to ring out her hair. She then unlocked the door. Rationality had returned. She walked in and locked the door. She leaned against the door and relaxed completely. She hated the city when it was quiet; it was too much like the quiet of the woods, a place she had come to truly dread.

She reached over and flicked on the light. Her eyes widened with alarm when she saw a woman sitting on her couch that she had never seen before. She tried to scream, but nothing came past her lips despite the painful strain in her throat. The woman walked over to her and looked into her eyes and she saw the same strangeness she had felt from Fernando. She wanted to scream but instead she just let tears pour from her eyes.

The night was full of people, people of all sorts. One of those people was James Dalton. He was walking among all the other people and he was thinking to himself about how much he dreaded being in the city again. He had left years ago to get away from the cold nights of the Northeast and now he was back and in those long, lonely nights all over again. He stopped and looked up. The buildings seemed to climb forever into the darkness above him. There were no stars and the moon was covered by steel and cement. He had grown used to a different environment and now he was being tossed back into a living hell.

As he walked, a man in ragged clothes approached him. The man’s weathered skin and unkempt appearance were enough to tell his story, “Hey, man, can you spare a little?” the man said holding out his hand, gloved in a ragged piece of cloth.

James looked at him, his eyes seeing further than most would dare look, “If I were you, I’d find a way off the street. It’s only a matter of time before you become fodder. Giving you money would be a waste of my time.”

The man looked at James. James was a man of average height and was well muscled. His eyes were dark brown and his hair was almost black and cut very short. He wore a long trench coat and a black tee with dark boot cut blue jeans and old, well worn tennis shoes. “Man, that’s messed up, you don’t know what it’s like when you give your life to serve...”

“Shut up, I don’t even have as much of a life as you did even if you were in ‘Nam. No one asks how I make it night to night. They just assume I’m some kind a’ fuckin’ rich guy who never had to do shit. Well let me tell you about some shit.” He pushed the man back into his little niche where no one could see them. Then he pulled out a shotgun and held it to the man’s face. “Now this, maybe you can understand, you stupid prick. How about, you stop leeching off people and learn to die when you’re supposed to instead of clinging on like some goddamn ball of shit that didn’t get wiped off.”

Then James tucked the shotgun away and pushed the man down. “I don’t want to be bothered again, understand.”

The man had pissed his ragged pants, “Yeah, yes, uh, yeah, I won’t let it happen again, man.”

“Good.” Then James walked away. He hated the city. According to the news and all the surveys, it was not as bad as it was in the eighties and was getting better, but he knew that it was all part of a greater scheme to protect the evil within. He could feel the darkness. It was alive with the same evil that had been there fifteen years before.

The people had not really changed. They had computers and phones that were practically part of them. They had been liberated and had become uninhibited. They were growing up quicker and becoming even less afraid of the world around them. New drugs and manufacturing techniques, new ways to take their liquor and more ways to show off their independence were all making the people a little less afraid of the dark, as liberation always did.

James looked around. The punks with their pink and blue spiked hair had faded into the black clad Emo. The crazed rocker had become the death metal teens with their overly large clothes and wild piercings. And enough time had gone by that every era’s styles had come out and mixed together. It was a mishmash of everything from the sixties to new millennium. Change was evident, but the truth was, they were all the same sheep they had been for as long as James could remember and even further into the past. He could see how they were so much the same and they all thought that they were so different.

“You don’t understand what it’s like.” That quote was the biggest line of bullshit that James had ever heard. Everyone knew that the little things did not just change and the things that did had about as much an affect on life as the difference between two minutes ago and now, hardly anything but a slight bit of perception.

He passed a group of Emo kids on a corner and shook his head as he passed. One of them shouted, “What the fuck, old man?”

He stopped and looked at the teen with those dark brown eyes. They were piercing and the teen began to feel uncomfortable, “It must be nice to live in the darkness, the ignorance. I wish that I could be more like you. I really do.”

The kid backed off and the others just watched as the strange man walked on down the street. James no longer cared about what people thought. He had lived on the outside for too many years to let little things like people’s opinions weigh him down. It was a choice that he had made a long time ago and that he was willing to deal with until he died, which he thought could not be much longer.

As he walked, it started to rain. He did not mind the rain. It would make most of the people on the street go in. He still had a good four blocks before he got to where he was headed and those four blocks would seem so much kinder without the locals to harass him and faceless crowds to devour all the space. He hated that part of town and wished that he had not come back. He looked at his watch. It was eleven thirty-six. He stopped and looked up into the sky. He could make out a slight gray haze that was the cloud cover that was making the rain. He knew he was far away from where he wanted to be and he was right back to where he had started out.

He kept walking. He had gone to that place too many times to forget where it was. That place had changed just as the faces on the street had changed. It had had more names than most people cared to remember, but it was still that place. It was a haven in a land of darkness. It was a place to rest in a city that never slept. He kept walking, the rain was soaking the outside of his coat, but inside, he was dry and warm. There were many good reasons to wear a long, sturdy coat.

He stopped at a distance. The place was still the same on the outside as when he left it. From the outside, there was nothing to see, but on the inside, there was a wet bar that was calling his name and a group of old comrades who would love to see him there. They were the single line of defense between the city and the things that he knew were waiting in the night to rip it apart. He walked around to the back and then up a fire escape. Then he went into a hallway. The building had been cleaned up and everything seemed to be new and lived in. He felt uncomfortable.

He walked down the hall, the blaring lights and the quiet was almost too much for him. He stopped at a door and realized that it was not what he had remembered at all. Below him was a store of some sort and now the upper floors were apartments. Of course, he had to check to make sure. He knocked twice. He waited. There was no answer. He could not believe that they had gone and left no trace. He knocked again. He started looking around. It was too much like a real apartment building and he could remember it being so different.

Finally the door opened. A chain lock held the door at about three inches and he could see the dark haired, blue eyed woman behind it. “Can I help you?”

James looked around again before addressing her, “Excuse me, I’m looking for David Calandros. My name is James Dalton.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of him.” James noticed she looked tired, like she had just woken up, and not from a very deep sleep.

“Are you sure, I really need to speak with him and this is the last place he was.”

“I’m certain,” the frustration was evident in her voice and the slight shake of her head.

James let out a deep breath, “Thank you for your time.” He started to walk away and then stopped. He turned and scanned the hall. Something did not feel right, maybe the air or possibly the light, something was wrong. He walked down the stairs and then out into the rain. He stopped and looked around again. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He then walked around the building. He still felt as if something was not in place. Once around the building, he stopped and looked out across the street. He saw someone sitting in a car. He walked across the street and then to a shop. He looked in the window and watched the individual in the car.

After a while the man in the car got out and leaned against the car. James felt cold. He knew the feeling well. He stood and waited. The man started to walk across the street and James turned to watch. The man crossed the street and then stopped. He looked around for a while. Then he started walking. James knew where the man was headed. James decided to take a look in the car.

He peered through the window. Inside the old piece of shit there was a digital camera and a notebook. Neither of which proved much of anything. He cupped his hand around his eye to see a little better. He stepped back and looked around. The rain was driving most people in, but there were still those who were using umbrellas or large coats to stay dry. He waited until he thought that no one was looking and then he slammed the window with his elbow and grabbed the notebook. He tucked the notebook inside his coat to protect it from the rain and then he turned and left.

He went behind the building and worked his way to the top so that he could watch the car. He sat and waited. The rain was pouring down his nose, but he had been in worse places. He waited for over an hour before the man came back. The man slowed as he approached the car and finally stopped to look at the window. Then he started inspecting the car. The man’s black curls were hanging in his face as he started looking down the street for the person who had taken the notebook. James smiled waiting for the man to see him and just know, but that never happened and the man got into his car and sat there. James shook his head, “Not much of a hunter, is he,” he chuckled to himself.

James then decided to find a better place to watch from. He went down to the back of the building and then started through the alley. He stepped onto the street and saw that the car was gone. He walked to an awning and waited for some of the rain to run off. He then took the notebook from under his coat where it was tucked under his arm.

The book was relatively new and there was no writing on the outside. Only a few pages were written on. He strummed through to see if there were any pages that were written on in the back. There was nothing more than the few in the front. He scanned them. He noted that there were dates from the last week each followed by a series of entries. The name Jessica Fairchild ran through the text and there was an ongoing record of her daily activities. There were two different sets of handwriting, one for the daytime entries and one for the night entries.

He looked around. Then he started reading. After a few moments, he knew who Jessica Fairchild was and why she was being watched. She was working with someone that she had been set to work with by the man’s boss, whoever that was. He knew the procedure well, handing things down so that nothing could be traced. Then the people that had control would make puppets out of the people they could and have them do their dirty work so that no one knew what was really happening.

Of course, this Jessica had no idea that she was a puppet and even if she ever suspected it, she would not have the means to discover who was pulling the strings. James looked across the road. The woman could not understand how deeply entwined she was in something she would affect. James decided it was time to do something else. He had people to find.

He stuffed the notebook in his coat and then he started walking. He was on his way to finding his old acquaintances. He knew another place to stop and ask about them. He started walking toward the west side of Manhattan. He knew they would never abandon that place. He tried not to remember where he was. He could feel the disgust of the city, the clogged streets, the thick, heavy air, and the sightless eyes. He hated the facelessness of the city.

A few blocks and a turn and a few more blocks and then he saw it, the large garage door to the warehouse. The windows on the second level were protected by bars that were set in the brick. There were no lights on. As he got closer, he noticed that the door was locked on the outside with a large padlock. He walked to it and then took out some keys. He sorted through them and then stopped when he found the right one. He unlocked the lock, smiling to himself with the satisfaction of being able to open it.

He took the lock off of the door and then turned the handle and lifted it slowly, scared to see what was behind the door. He pulled it up high enough to duck under. He went through and saw nothing but darkness and a lot of dust and sheets covering strange undefined shapes. He pulled the door down and then fumbled around looking for a lock and finally the mechanism clicked. He could still see a little and then tried to conjure the memory of where the light switch was. After a few moments his eyes adjusted and he saw the switch on the wall. He flicked the lights on.

He saw the old place in a shadow of its glory. He looked around, sat down the notebook he had stuffed under his arm and saw that most of the equipment was covered and a layer of dust coated everything. He could see a series of vehicles parked in a row, side by side. There were tables full of things that were probably knives, swords, guns and such. He saw stairs leading up. He saw large lockers and chairs and several television sets. He walked around looking at the things that had been left out and seeing little hooks with keys still hanging on them and magazines that were still sitting in stacks. It was as if they had just picked up and left. Nothing seemed out of place or disturbed and yet none of the personal effects seemed to have moved in months or maybe even years.

Then he noticed that there was one table where things had been moved. Someone was still around and doing something. He walked to the vehicles and pulled the cover off of the first one in the row. The Harley Davidson sat in pristine condition. The chrome and the black of the chopper made it look like one of those from a movie or the kind that some two hundred and fifty pound biker had been babying for the last fifteen or twenty years, pouring more and more money into it. He ran his fingers along the piece of art and looked at the slings and compartments. It was designed to carry enough ammo to get a man through World War II.

He walked to the next and pulled the cover off of the van. It was an old, blue GMC van. He walked around it and hit the panels. He knew it was not metal and suspected that it was Kevlar. He peered through the driver side window. He could see the alterations and his mouth began to water as he realized that it was also going to be equipped like the chopper. He turned away from the vehicles and walked to the stairs.

Once over to the stairs he paused and looked up. He thought about what might be up there. He walked up the stairs. He got to the top and found that it was their new, or rather, newer living quarters. They must have bought the rest of the building after he had left. He walked from room to room, seeing all the different belongings of the nine men and then going to the kitchen. He stepped in and saw that there was a coffee machine still sitting on the counter and making a dark full roasted brew. He walked along and looked at all the things that the other guys had used to remember the days from when they were with their old friends and families before things had changed. Then, hanging on the wall, was a picture of all nine of them.

The guys were the best in the business. David Calandros, Orion Tranzetti, David Lang, Henry O’Donovan, Emilio Rodriguez, Albert Starkweather, Abdullah Muhkahti, Ryan Dell, and Kenneth Unger. They were the guys that he used to work with. They had been a team almost as long as he had been doing his rounds. In the picture, they looked happy, but James knew the pain they all felt.

He heard footsteps. He did not turn around. “They’re all dead.”

He knew the woman’s voice, “How did it happen, Anya?”

She walked up behind him and looked at the picture from over his shoulder, “You know the dangers associated with your job, so did they. However, things are different now. The odds have shifted again.”

“What do you mean?”

She walked away and let her head drop, “There are only two hunters left in the city.”

“Two? Doc and who?”

“You, you’re the best, and possibly the only one who can deal with the problem at hand.”

“Alright, so then, back to my original question: how did it happen?”

She turned and looked at the broad back that filled out the old, weathered leather coat, “It started a few years ago. Emilio came up dead one night. He was just out buying some food for the guys and he never came back. They found his body in the morning with enough bullet holes in him to have dropped an elephant. Then, it kept happening, one at a time until finally Orion and Henry left the job behind. They thought they could just leave the inevitable and disappear. They both died the same night. Doc thought that it might just be an accident or an old rival. Then, there were three and he knew what was happening. Doc left the city to find help. Where he went, people started dying. Of course, the officials didn’t notice anything odd because most of the dead appeared to have no connections. Doc discovered that there was someone following him when he saw them in two different cities. Finally, Doc came back to the city and started trying to find out what was going on. The only answer he has is that you’re being hunted.”

James turned to look at Anya, “What the hell do you mean, hunted? That’s our job, to do the hunting.”

Anya let out a long sigh, “And they know that, and they’re doing something about it. As we know, they tend to regulate themselves, and we catch their mistakes, but they have decided to take us out of the equation, just like they did away with Innocent’s Inquisition. Only this time, they seem to have trained someone to kill us off.”

James shook his head, “You brought me back to kill a vampire that has been trained to kill me. Are you crazy?”

“You’re the best, you know the city and you’ll be able to catch on to the nightlife quickly and then Doc and you can take this thing out. Then you can leave.” She looked at him with big brown eyes that begged and her dark hair was hanging over her eyes.

“There were eleven of us to take care of this city. Doc had the know-how, I had the guts and they were the best team in the world. How do you expect me to kill a vampire that took out all of them? You’ve lost it. You have truly lost it.”

“You may be the only hope for the city.” She looked up at him. Her face was exactly as he remembered it. Her eyes were different. She was afraid, it was not in her voice but it was in her eyes. He bowed his head and realized that he was going to do what she wanted whether he wanted to or not.

“So, where do we start?”

“Henry was killed only three weeks ago. He was living in a place in Brooklyn, working at a tuxedo shop. If you want, we can go there.” She stepped away from him and straightened, becoming the powerful woman he remembered.

“Where’s Doc?”

“Doc is on his way. He should be here any moment.”

“If he’s not, we’re going looking for him first.” James was dead serious. He thought of Doc as an old uncle. Doc’s real name was Aaron Jacobi, Ph. D. He had been a professor at Oxford, studying English Literature before his children were taken from him by a young vampire looking for an easy meal. It was then that Doc’s life changed and all that knowledge turned him into one of the greatest hunters ever, second only to James.

James walked past Anya and then back down the hall and down the stairs. He stopped and looked around. All of the fear that had subsided when he had not found the place in shambles or dead bodies had been brought back and intensified. He could not imagine what it would be like to have someone hunt him who did not have a real reason. Every vampire hunter was chosen because they had gotten involved and they could not forget what they had learned. All of them had suffered and had a reason. Each felt beyond a doubt that they had a legitimate cause. Their lives had been stripped from them so that they could kill the undead. James wondered if the vampire had been selected the same way, or by someone who had felt that way. He knew that either way, they would be picked with passion and that would make them that much more difficult to kill. James knew that it would take everything he had and possibly more to kill that vampire.

He walked past the van and then turned around, taking in the ground level again. He noticing that there was a door that led to the back side of the building that had not been there before. He walked to it and tried the door knob. It turned and he went through the door. On the other side he found more vehicles and more weapons. The place had been expanded more than he had first thought. He walked around, taking in the weapons and the tools that littered the tables and work benches. Several weapons were in the midst of being converted to automatics or for incendiary rounds. He knew his business well, and he knew that the little thing he had stumbled across earlier would have to wait.

He stopped and picked up a shotgun and looked it over. The stainless steel barrel was altered for incendiary rounds and would have been used as a relatively close range weapon for when the vampires got in your face. He felt the smoothness of the wood stock. “Nice, isn’t it?” a familiar voice asked.

James looked up to see Doc, his white hair and bald spot up top with glasses and as always a reasonable suit. “Yes, too bad they didn’t get the chance to use it.”

“We all knew that this could happen. I guess Anya already told you about it all.”

“Yeah, what do you know about this son of a bitch anyway?” James had vengeance in his eyes and the chill was evident in his voice.

Doc walked around a low sitting car that had a tarp over it. “I started to catch on one night when I noticed that I had seen an individual here while the others were dying and then I saw the same person in Buffalo. I doubt that that person was the one doing the actual killing; however, she was in two places that I was and that was too much of a coincidence for my taste.” He took the gun from James and sat it back down. “She was cute, with a very nice smile and red hair. She was as dead as a wooly mammoth and hungry as a starving lion. No doubt, she was hunting for some blood on both occasions leading me to believe she’s new to the unlife. I know that the one we are hunting would not be that sloppy, but let’s say he or she does not work alone and happens to have a clumsy cohort. We would then have a lead and a weakness to follow.”

James looked the old man in the eye. Dark brown met age wizened blue and they knew that an old pact still burned strong between the two acquaintances. Both desired to destroy the creature and both intended to do anything to do so. The difference was that one was a loner, impulsive and filled with hatred while the other was calm, collected and took everything as it came and dealt with it easily. Anya was only a small part of the team. She provided money and information that others in the organization could not. They both knew that they were the only ones left who could save the city from being overpopulated.

“So, all we have is a girl with red hair. That could only be a few hundred or thousand vampires. I don’t like those odds. Of course, I guess it’s not so bad when you stop to think that she has to be from this God forsaken city.” James looked to Anya, her short, nearly black half moons of hair outlining her face and those dark eyes peering into him.

“If she’s sloppy, she’ll turn up again. Of course, she could have been tailing you, Doc.” the slender woman said matter-of-factly.

“If so, then she’s not very good at it.” Doc said with a hint of Oxford in his voice.

Next Chapter: Day 3