Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale (19 page)

            She
said words, he said words. None of it really mattered. It was the simple sort
of talk that people engaged in when meeting each other for the first time. He
told some lies, and she probably told a couple herself. The barriers came down
and soon they were smiling and laughing at everything. They enjoyed each
other’s fake company, fake smiles, and fake mystery. At the end of the night,
when he asked for her number it was promptly given, and he had a feeling that
it was real. But you never knew, he would find out in a couple of nights.

            They
parted company and he left not knowing that he would never come back to
Beelzebub’s again. He cruised the freeway overpass’ underways and found some
rats to munch on, fighting the urge to go out and find himself something with a
little more flavor. As he lapped up the drippy lifeblood of a rat, a thought
occurred to him. She had drunk all of her wine. He started to have some doubts.

             They
spent the next few nights sharpening stakes and talking. The Old Soldier rolled
his beauties and drank his cheap wine as he whittled the square-handled stakes
into round-handled stakes. The process was long and arduous. They did not use
their super knife for any of the carving; instead, they used his old collection
of well-worn kitchen knives that stuck out of a wooden block when they weren’t
being used.

            The
Old Soldier had acquired some new attire. They weren’t the most fashionable
clothes on the market. He looked like a throwback to the days of Miami Vice. He
wore a tangerine colored t-shirt underneath a gray blazer with sleeves that
came down to his elbows. The Old Soldier was furious at having to stow his army
jacket in the corner of the room. With one change of clothing he had gone from
dirty old bastard to out of fashion man. The only good thing about the change
of clothes was the fact that the old man no longer smelled like the sweaty
balls of a dog.

            After
a few nights had passed, he decided it was time to give the copper-haired girl
a call. He had forgotten her name already and he had to look at the napkin she
had written her name on to remember it. As soon as he stopped looking at it he
would forget her name again. He didn’t know if he was forgetting it on purpose
or if this was just one of his mind’s tricks for protecting him from the horror
he was planning. It would be good to not remember her name after it was all
said and done.

            He
stood shaking in a phone booth, staring at the name on the napkin as he dialed
her phone number with trembling fingers. The wooden stakes tucked into his belt
kept catching on the plastic shell that was supposed to protect the missing
phone book from damage. The night was nice and cool and everything was in
control. He was in control, and everything would work out just as he had
planned. He kept telling himself this, even though he couldn’t remember the
last time anything he had planned had gone off without a hitch. Hell, he didn’t
think that any of his plans had come off since before the accident.

            With
the number dialed, the phone began to ring and the copper-haired girl from the other
night answered chirpily into the receiver. He recognized her slightly sibilant
S’s immediately. They made plans to go and see a movie at a theater off of Broadway
on the SW side of town, nothing out of the ordinary. No strolls through the
graveyard, no tours of the mortuary, and for some reason he thought he would
have felt a lot more comfortable about the whole situation if they had planned
on doing one of those things.

            He
walked in a daze. The Old Soldier was at his side. They didn’t talk, and just
before they reached the front of the movie theater the Old Soldier dropped back
a little bit. The Old Soldier slowed his pace, pulled a beauty from the pocket
of his medium sleeved blazer, and lit it in a flare of orange light and sulfur.
No one paid attention to the man that was dressed like a two- bit vice cop from
an eighties TV show.

            He
kept strutting as he approached the front of the theater, confident in his
manipulative skills. The Old Soldier was simply there for support, just in case
anything went terribly wrong. The Old Soldier was his shadow, his backup plan.
One of the books they had been reading religiously said, “When going up against
a vampire be ready for anything,” and that’s exactly what they were.

            He
strolled up to the front of the theater, underneath the gaudy marquee full of
electric lights and posters for movies that would most likely suck, sickeningly
sweet romantic comedies and elaborate, computer drawn kids’ movies that lacked
heart and soul. He held back because the copper-haired girl was nowhere to be
seen. He observed as regular people lined up in front of the ticket booth and
placed their orders for this movie or that one. They paid their money and went
inside to eat overpriced popcorn and turn off their minds for an hour and a
half. He was envious. He knew that tonight would be anything but normal. He
felt like a super-spy trying to infiltrate a cult that had its eyes on world
domination.

            As
he stared up at the gaudy electric lights of the marquee, the copper-haired
girl startled him by tapping him on the shoulder from behind. She looked as
pale as ever. Her makeup gave her a ghostly appearance and her white face
hovered as if disembodied, thanks to the complete blackness of her attire.

            They
greeted each other coldly and efficiently and with just the right amount of
tooth baring to trick the casual onlooker into thinking they were smiling. He
let her pick the movie since he had no idea what any of them were about, even
though he figured the one called Zombie Softball Slaughter Party might be about
zombies that terrorized a softball team. She didn’t pick that movie though, she
went with something that had a more cerebral title than he would have cared
for. He bought both of their tickets for the movie that went under the name of
Syntax, it was the least that he could do.

            They
walked inside and thankfully they skipped right past the concession counter
after having their tickets torn. They wandered through the carnival-colored
carpeting of the theater, underneath the glow of light radiating from neon
signs shaped liked hot dogs and popcorn. They walked arm in arm like two lovers
from the fifties out for a midnight stroll in a park, back when it was still
safe to do so. They escaped from the garish lights of the main lobby and ducked
into the barren halls of the movie theater. It was a Sunday evening and the
majority of the theater going crowd was in bed steeling their nerves for
another week of mindless subservience disguised as fruitful life. They pretty
much had the theater to themselves.

            He
enjoyed the soft feel of the cottony material on his arm as they walked down
the hallway. He enjoyed her smell even more, gentle lilac after a rainstorm. He
had no idea what lilac smelled like after a rainstorm, but it sounded right and
that was ok with him. Maybe she smelled like a powdered jelly donut with
raspberry filling. It was hard to place smells, especially since he was dead if
the books had been right.

            The
books… he remembered the books… “Be prepared for anything.” He refocused his
mind, attempting to not get lost in her womanly arts. The makeup, the scent,
the clothes, the touch… these were all things meant to distract. How did he
even know that they were on an actual date? She could just be playing him for
the stuff that ran through his veins, stolen rat’s blood and the fruit of
Earl’s jugular blossom. This was most definitely not a date. This was not the
love of his life that held his arm as they stalked down the gaudy kitschy
corridors. This was a spawn of the devil. This was a blood sucking vampire… one
of the ones that had conspired to cheat him of his peace. The love of his life rotted
in a coffin with worms eating her mangled corpse. She would pay, they would all
pay.

            They
reached the theater where their movie was playing, a red sign overhead flashed
the name of the movie. She had told him it was some sort of romantic comedy,
not the best kind of movie, but certainly one that would relax her, and maybe
even him, for the job that he had to do later. At least it wasn’t a horror
movie; that would come later, further down the road.

            They
marched into the gloom of the theater and found their way to the back row.
There were already a few patrons seated and munching noisily on their
concessionary bounties. They sat at the end of the back row close to the aisle.
They chattered and bantered, just like it was a real date. As he told his jokes
and oozed the charm, he would search her eyes for any sort of malice, any sort
of sign that this was more than just a date for her. He looked into her brown eyes
trying to find any sort of sign that she was eyeing him as simply a talking
hamburger.

            Unfortunately,
there was nothing but smiles in those eyes, the joy of something new, a release
from the everyday, and for a second, he felt remorse. None of the books said
anything about remorse, especially not for something he hadn’t even done yet.
He was glad when the lights dimmed and the barrage of trailers began, coming
attractions that the girl at his side would never see.

            When
the trailers were over, he enveloped his mind in the protective sheathe of the
movie. The characters on the screen moved and talked, free of pain, free of
cruelty, just a couple looking for the meaning of it all and finding comfort in
each other’s strength. It hurt him to see all the things he had once had in the
past reflected on the screen. The sun shone in the movie and for a second he
panicked and began to sweat, but the movie theater sunlight did nothing to him.
It was just as cool as it had been and the underscored sounds of munching
vermin could be heard to his right and in front of him.

            He
was broken from his reverie and introspection by the cool embrace of the copper
haired girl’s hand interlocking fingers with his own hand. They sat that way
until the end of the movie, holding each other’s cool hands and laughing
occasionally at the inept antics of the male protagonist, whose bumbling
misadventures eventually served to endear him to the woman and seal their bond,
supposedly for forever.

            When
the movie was over, they turned and smiled at each other, discussing what they
should do next. He convinced her, not that it took much, that they should go for
a stroll down to the waterfront and so they did.

The night was
empty but warm as they left the movie theater, meandering and chatting the
seven blocks it took to get to the walkway that bordered the Columbia River as
it made its way through the heart of the city, dividing its east and west
sides. Nothing she said mattered anymore, he was simply humoring her so that,
in the end, things wouldn’t be as difficult.

They stood at
the end of a pier, listening to the almost silent rush of the water as it
lapped against the waterfront walls. Cars sped past on the cities many bridges,
stars close enough to touch in the distance. The hum of the city stood at their
back and they stared at the wasteland that was the east side of the city.

He had his arm
around her waist as they stared at the city lights reflected in the river
water, an alternate universe where nothing was as it seemed. She made some
observation that he totally missed or didn’t care about. She took his silence
for reticence and made a move that she had been waiting for all night long.

She stood up
on her tiptoes and planted a gentle lingering kiss on his cheek. He sat totally
still, collecting his thoughts and ordering them as rapidly as possible. She
turned his face towards her with the gentle pressure of her nose and placed her
lips on his, searching gently for a crack in his tightly sealed lips. Seemingly
of their own volition, his lips parted and her slippery tongue darted in
seizing the opportunity. Her arms snaked around his waist and he turned, as if
in a daze, towards her. They were no longer facing the river, but each other,
their tongues intertwined, sliding, exploring. Her body gave off a heat that over-powered
his own coolness, and her smell filled his nose, lilacs after a rainstorm.

He felt her
hurt in her kiss, just as she must have sensed his own open wound, never quite
sealed and always oozing. They grasped each other tighter her heat seeped into
his own cold body, warming it. The moonlight penetrated his eyelids. He opened
his eyes and realized that the glow was coming from the girl that he held in
his arms. Her head leaned to the side and he felt her lips purse on his neck.
He did not care. Her teeth compressed his skin, pinching it, teasing the
neurons of his neck with exquisite pain, and then it was over.

She laid on
the ground trying to regain her balance and her wits. The Old Soldier stood on
the other side of her body looking down at her, his arm cocked back ready to
deliver another blow. The spell had been broken, and he leapt into action.

He grabbed her
around the waist and stood her on her feet, with her back against the rail that
protected the clumsy water-watcher from falling into the river. Stars danced in
her eyes and he slapped her across the face attempting to jumpstart her wits.
Her head rocked to the side and the sound of palm on face echoed across the
polluted water of the Columbia.

When her face
stopped lolling to the side, she raised her eyes to his and he saw equal parts
fury and confusion.

“Hit her
again!” The Old Soldier danced at his side waving the knife around like a party
favor.

“No! Please
don’t! What do you want?” The copper-haired girl, shrunk from his hands
struggling to release the vice grip that he held on her upper arms.