Dark Corner (54 page)

"We're kicking their asses!" Jahlil shouted.

The vampires seemed to comprehend that attacking the
truck was foolhardly. All of them, including the vampiric
mutts, made a beeline for the line of cars at the corner of the
parking lot, where the team members huddled.

All of them except Kyle. The guy had disappeared.

Where was he? Had he abandoned his group to make
them fend on their own?

"Head for the team!" Mac ordered Jahlil. "We've got to
back them up!"

"Wait, son!" Jackson said. "Where's Kyle?"

Jahlil slowed the truck, looking around frantically.

"Kyle?" Mac frowned. "You're right, he's gone. Dammit."

"No, not gone, my friends," a familiar voice said behind
them.

Jackson turned.

Kyle stood on top of the pickup's roof.

Jackson shouted, backing up so fast he almost fell out of
the truck. He fired the shotgun.

And missed. Kyle moved like lightning. He bounced off
the roof and onto the flatbed.

He was too close for Mac to spit fire at him with the
flamethrower, without all of them being incinerated. Mac
drew his machete out of the sheath on his belt. He swiped at
the vampire.

And he missed, too. The vampire sidestepped the blade's
arc-then snatched the knife out of Mac's grasp with obscene ease.

Jackson's finger sweated on the shotgun's trigger, but
Mac and the vampire were so close he feared he would
plug Mac by mistake.

As it turned out, it wouldn't have mattered. Kyle sliced
the machete across Mac's neck, and the man fell, blood
spouting from the gaping wound.

Jackson's knees weakened.

God in heaven, is this what it's come down to?

Kyle advanced on Jackson. Delight shone in his alien
eyes.

Before Jackson could pull the trigger, an invisible force
ripped the shotgun out of his hands. The gun spun like a
baton across the parking lot.

Jackson went for all he had left, the .357 Magnum.

Then, the unseen power took that away from him, too.

"Nothing left, Chief," Kyle whispered. He raised the machete. The blade glinted.

If this is how I have to go, then so be it. God knows I did
my best, and that was all I could do.

In his peripheral vision, he spotted Jahlil. The boy had
gotten out of the truck, with his own shotgun, and trained the
weapon on the vampire's back.

Maybe there was still hope. Maybe ...

His son fired a second after Kyle plunged the blade into
his chest.

' ndre was at The Spot, drinking. He'd been there since the
Mbar had opened late that afternoon, and he would probably
stay until the joint closed sometime in the wee hours of the
morning. Didn't have any reason to go home. Yesterday, his
woman had taken the kids and split for her mama's crib in
Memphis, leaving behind a letter. "I'm tired of your broke
ass," her note said. "I'm already taking care of two kids, and
I'm not taking care of no grown man. Call me when you're
ready to get your shit together!"

Sitting on a patched-up bar stool, Andre hunched over his
can of Coors. His girl was crazy as hell. But he wasn't worried about it too much. She'd left him at least three times in
the past two years, and she always came back. It seemed to
happen every six months or so, and she'd stay away for a
couple of weeks. Once he figured out that she was just showing out, like a baby throwing a tantrum, he'd begun to look
forward to her going away on her little trips to Mama's. It
was like a vacation for him. He didn't have to hear her nagging him about getting a job. He could live in his house and have some peace, sleep all day, do whatever the hell he
wanted. He loved his woman, but she could be a pain in the
ass.

Tonight, The Spot was full of brothers like him, guys who
needed a break from the women in their lives. Some of them
shot pool. Others played darts. The rest of the customers
were sipping drinks, talking, and nodding their heads to the
old-school music bumping from the boom box. Every man
in there was a regular. There wasn't an unfamiliar face-or a
woman-in the joint.

In spite of the regulars in the house doing their usual
stuff, things were different at the bar. The thunderstorm had
knocked out the electrical power, so the place was illuminated by candles and kerosene lamps, and the TV jukebox,
and arcade games sat unused, like old furniture. It was Labor
Day, and The Spot had never been open on a holiday. And if
you looked closely, you'd notice a bulge underneath almost
every man's shirt, the telltale shape of a gun.

Tension simmered in the smoky air, too. Today, The Spot
wasn't a normal hangout. It was like an army barracks in the
midst of a war, and none of the old rules mattered.

Motherfucking vampires, Andre thought. That was what
people were saying. Vampires. Of all the things in the world,
their town had been invaded by monsters out of a horror
movie.

He wouldn't have believed it if he had not been there at
the cave with Junior. Ever since that night, he found it easy
to believe in all kinds of things that he would've laughed
about before. He still had not told anyone what he had seen,
and he sure as hell wasn't going to open his mouth now.
They might blame him for stirring up the shit in the first
place. He was going to sit there on his stool, put away brews,
and mind his business.

He didn't have a gun, either. He wasn't going to try to be
a hero, or plan to battle a vampire-none of that shit. The only thing he really wanted to do was leave town, but some
fellas had said the roads were blocked off with heaps of split
trees.

Besides, he didn't have anywhere to go, anyway. He sure
as hell wasn't going to stay with his woman and her mama in
Memphis. Dracula himself would have been no match for
his woman's mama.

The CD player on the boom box started to skip on an
Earth, Wind and Fire classic, "Fantasy." Booker T, a guy
Andre had known for years, rapped the top of the stereo,
shook it hard, and finally the song resumed.

Booker T plopped onto the stool beside Andre.

"Don't be tearing up my goddamn property, Booker T,"
Mr. Clyde, the owner and bartender, said. He was a stout,
thick-armed man with salt-and-pepper hair, and had reputedly served time in the state pen for killing a man, twentysome years ago. "You wanna shake up a boom box, buy one
your goddamn self."

"My apologies, Mr. Clyde," Booker T said. "Can you
please give me a cola, sir? With a lemon wedge, of course"

Mr. Clyde mumbled. He slid a can of Coke, and a lemon
wedge, in front of Booker T.

Booker T's apologetic tone didn't surprise Andre. Mr.
Clyde didn't take any shit in his joint. Andre had seen the
old guy throw out many a nigga.

Booker T sipped his drink. He was a short, scrawny guy
who wore wire-rim glasses, a white dress shirt, and suspenders. A pocket notebook bulged in his breast pocket.
People said he was a lunatic genius, one of those cats who
was so smart he couldn't lead a regular life. Andre usually
saw the guy walking the streets at all times of the day, muttering to himself and staring at things like trees and rocks
and birds for hours, and scribbling endlessly in his tiny notebook. A regular at The Spot, Booker T always played darts
and drank cola with a lemon wedge floating inside.

"What do you think of what's going down here, Andre?"
Booker T said. "Do you believe the story about vampires?"

Andre shrugged. "All I know is, once the sun goes down,
I keep my black ass indoors."

"Then you believe it."

"It don't matter whether I believe it or not. Folk's been
disappearing, mad dogs been biting niggas. That's all I need
to hear to keep my ass inside till it blows over."

Booker T reached into the bowl of peanuts, popped a couple of nuts into his mouth. "Andre, this is a conspiracy engineered by the government. They're testing a virus on us, a
biological weapon. Mason's Corner is the testing ground for
a new strain of supervirus."

"You read that in a book somewhere?" Andre said.

Booker T guffawed as if Andre had asked the dumbest
question in the world.

"No, I did not reach this conclusion by reading a book.
Don't you understand that book publishing in this country is
manipulated by the government? I reached this conclusion
through my field research" He tapped the notebook in his
shirt pocket, and smiled smugly.

Andre wanted to wipe that self-satisfied smile off Booker
T's face by telling him what had happened at the cave, but he
kept his mouth shut. Let the crazy nigga believe whatever he
wanted.

"It ain't no goddamn government conspiracy," Mr. Clyde
said. He rested his meaty, tattooed forearms on the counter.
"You need to take your goddamn nose out of that notebook,
Booker T. This is some supernatural shit happening here.
Goddamn demons, man. Only God can save us. You can't do
no research on that."

Booker T shook his head sadly. "As usual, when under
duress, our people turn to the comforting bosom of primitive
superstition and childish wish fulfillment."

"Watch your goddamn mouth, boy," Mr. Clyde said. "You
won't be spittin out them big words when you're picking up
your teeth off the goddamn floor."

Andre laughed. "Better watch it, Booker T."

Booker T waved his hand as if it didn't matter. "Please,
indulge my curiosity, Mr. Clyde. If vampires are overrunning our town, how did it begin? Did they fall out of the
sky?"

"There's one of them master vampires out there somewhere," Mr. Clyde said. He looked at the windows, which were
veiled against the night. Anxiety glimmered in his eyes. "Just
like in the movies, an old goddamn vampire's come to town
and started shit."

Booker T rolled his eyes, but Andre was quiet.

Mr. Clyde's probably more right than he thinks, Andre
thought. He remembered the mysterious man in black he'd
seen at the cave, who could move faster than Andre could
blink. He shivered.

Quickly, he grabbed his beer and chugged the rest of it.

As Andre was about to ask for another brew, the front
door banged open, bringing the howl of the cold wind, a
rustling wave of dead leaves, and the biggest man he had
ever seen in his life.

The man was at least seven feet tall, with a powerful
build, like a giant football linebacker. He wore a black shirt
that seemed barely able to contain his wide shoulders, black
jeans, and gleaming black boots. His skin was a deep cocoabrown, his head was bald, and his eyes were utterly black,
like pits leading straight to hell.

Silence clutched the room in a vise grip. Every man in
the joint froze, mouths agape.

Andre held his breath.

The man's gaze swept throughout the bar, and Andre had
the feeling that, in one glance, this guy had sized up all of
them, and made a decision.

He stepped across the threshold. Shadows flitted across
him, like bats.

"My name is Diallo," he said. His voice was deep, yet he
spoke in a low tone that carried clearly throughout the place.
"I am seeking soldiers. I could use each of you, but I will kill
any that do not submit. Which of you men will avert death,
join my army, and taste true freedom?"

A pause. Then, almost as one, the men drew their guns
and aimed at the man who called himself Diallo.

He's the big dog vampire, Andre thought, wishing that he
had a gun, too. He was willing to bet his life that this was the
motherfucker that they were just talking about. The guy
oozed evil power.

Booker T flipped out a pocketknife. Andre almost laughed,
but he didn't have a weapon at all for himself. He noticed an
old billiards stick leaning against the wall near him. He
grasped it in his shaky hands. Better than nothing.

"Look here," a guy said. It was Calvin Jones, who worked
at the barbershop. "I don't know who you think you are stepping up in here like this, but me and the brothers here don't
want no trouble. We don't want no part of nobody's army. So
push on"

"Right," another man said. He had a big .44. "Get the
fuck out of here and leave us alone."

"And I'm backing up my customers," Mr. Clyde said. He
took a sawed-off shotgun from under the counter. "I don't
want any trouble here. Get off my goddamn property before
I blow a hole in you"

Diallo's face was expressionless. He made another step
forward.

The snick-click of cocking triggers popped through the
air.

"The only way that you will leave alive," Diallo said, "is
by joining me. Those who submit, come to me, and kneel. If
you do not submit, the price for disobedience is death"

"Out," Mr. Clyde said. Perched behind the bar counter, he
took aim with the shotgun.

The vampire thoughtfully regarded the firearms pointed
at him. A faint smile played across his face.

Andre squeezed the cue stick so tightly it was a wonder it
didn't snap in half. He blinked a drop of sweat out of his eye.