Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale (21 page)

            They
milled through the crowd which had thinned considerably. He tried to hang back
and match the man’s pace, but he stopped to converse with a face that he
recognized. The conversation lasted a couple of minutes and then he was on his
way again. Looking inconspicuous was more difficult than he thought,
especially, when you were intent on not taking your eyes of your mark for even
a second. That’s how long it took for a person to disappear, one second. The
copper-haired man said his goodbyes again and moved on his way.

            He
strolled down the ramp without a care in the world. He paused only to light a
cigarette that he had produced from his pocket. It was not a beauty like the
Old Soldier’s; it was your typical cigarette, mass produced, filtered, and
saturated in chemicals that didn’t belong there.  He walked, smoke in hand,
around the corner and out of sight.

            He
did not run, but he did pick up his pace. The man weaved drunkenly, whether he
was truly drunk would remain to be seen.

            The
east side of Portland is an ugly place, an industrial place. Few people walk
around the streets at night over on the east side; however, the people that did
walk around were either too poor to give a shit about what went on or they were
too busy causing trouble themselves. He followed the copper-haired man through
the streets, through the crisp summer night and the hum of machinery from factories.
The man’s boot heels scraped against the poorly paved surface of the streets.
He walked down the middle staring up at the sky occasionally, gauging the age
of the night or simply enjoying the sky; he didn’t know which and he didn’t
care.

            They
finally came to an area where there were no people, and he decided to make his
move. He stalked the man, as quietly as possible, watching the streetlights
pass over his gleaming copper hair. Just as he was about to pounce on the man
with the knife that he had produced, he turned around. His eyes widened in
fear, and he stumbled backwards falling onto his rear end.

            He
dove at the copper-haired man just as he fell. He landed a short distance away,
and both of them scrambled to get to their feet. He was first and he lashed out
at the wobbly man in front of him, slicing the back part of the copper-haired
man’s thigh with his knife. The man managed to stand up anyway and he took off
down the street, away from the knife-wielding stranger that seemed intent on
murdering him.

            He
caught up to the hamstringed man and grabbed him by his hair. The lower half of
the man’s body kept running even as the top half’s momentum was stopped. This
time he fell on his back and he brought his knife down in the middle of the
man’s stomach, tearing a gash in his soft middle. The man struggled and threw
punches desperately, landing a couple on his face and causing him to release
his hold on the copper-haired man’s slick locks. The man tried to crawl away
immediately, hoping beyond hope that he had knocked his attacker unconscious.
He hadn’t, and as he crawled away holding his hand against his hot steaming
insides and leaving a trail of blood like a slug, his attacker ran up behind
him and he felt the cold metal of the knife, as if in slow motion, penetrate
the back of his neck. One minute he was crawling, fighting for his life, and
the next minute he felt as if he had grown a sharp metal tongue. Fortunately,
the feeling didn’t last long and it was soon replaced by the rapidly fading
feeling of someone giving him a hickie.

            He
stood over the body of his newest kill, feeling a thrill that he had never felt
before. He didn’t know why he did it, but he drew three slash marks on the
man’s face with the knife before plunging the wooden stake into the man’s
heart. He wiped the bloody knife clean on the man’s skin tight shirt.

            As
he was tucking the knife away into a makeshift sheathe that had been fashioned
by the Old Soldier, he heard the scrape of footwear on loose pavement. He
whirled to see the Old Soldier standing off to the side smoking one of his
beauties. He ran to the Old Soldier, who was still sporting that old Miami Vice
look, and they made themselves scarce. They were far from home, at least a half
an hour walk, and they didn’t really have time to hide the body. It would be
good to get away from here as soon as possible.

            They
talked as they walked, it was better than being quiet.

            “You
kind of enjoyed that one, didn’t you,” the Old Soldier asked.

            “Yeah…
I guess so. It wasn’t like the other ones. It felt more honest; I wasn’t
pretending. I wasn’t hiding. I think that makes a difference.”

            They
both fell quiet as a red-faced Stank walked past them, hands tucked deep in his
pockets and eyes glued to the ground behind thick plastic glasses. They let him
get half a block away before they began to talk again.

            “Killing
that guy was like, tracking a deer down with only a bow and arrow. It’s a good
clean kill. It’s not like my dad used to do when he would sit in a tree all day
and wait for a deer to come blundering into his sights. It wasn’t sneaky like
that.”

            “I
thought you were going to fuck it up.”

            He
looked at the Old Soldier, surprised at his honesty. “You thought I’d fuck it
up?”

            “Well
you weren’t exactly Jack the Ripper on those first two. You pretty much froze
on them. Hell, if it weren’t for me, you’d probably be in jail or dead by now.”

            “Thanks
for your confidence, you old bastard.”

            “I’m
not old.”

            He
laughed at the old man’s indignity. His wrinkled face screwed up in fury and
then he too began laughing. When they stopped laughing, the Old Soldier handed
out what appeared to be a compliment, “At least you’re getting better. Soon you
won’t have to chase down skinny little vampires like that. You’ll be able to
get them on the first try.”

            Sirens
pierced the night as they made their way across the Burnside Bridge, past Stanks on bikes and people more miserable than themselves. They passed people
staring at the water, waiting for any excuse to jump in. One of them appeared
to be a vampire, the black clothes, the face paint, it all fit the bill.

            He
stopped as he came next to the vampire peering down into the cold black water.
The Old Soldier tugged on his arm as if to tell him to leave the man alone, but
a brief tug was all the Old Soldier needed to feel the determination that ran
through him. The Old Soldier left him to his business and removed himself
twenty paces down the bridge, contemplating the black water of the river as it
sloshed against the dirty green pylons of the bridge.

            He
stood there, aware of the distance between himself and the Old Soldier. Tears
rolled down the young vampire’s face. It was a pitiful sight. His stomach
roiled with curdled blood, whether from overfullness or disgust at the young
vampire, he did not know.

            “How
long have you been here?” he asked the sad little demon.

            “Half
an hour,” he spilled from his lips with no emotion.

            “Are
you thinking about jumping?” He examined the vampire’s face, looking for clues
to his state of mind.

            “Maybe…
I don’t know. It just all seems so useless.”

            He
listened to the vampire’s words, they slid across his heart and mind like
grease on top of water, never penetrating, never meaning. The vampire poured
his heart out and tears flowed as his chin trembled in the crisp air of the
summer night. The sirens wailed throughout the city and police cars flowed
across the bridge like cockroaches, alien minds in alien bodies, searching for
whatever they searched for. The Old Soldier contemplated something as a beauty
burned, distant and insistent without ever doing anything but staring into the
water. The vampire’s tongue, lips, and teeth performed a dance in the dark of
the night and the glow of the bridges lights. His eyes twinkled with tears as
they slid down the side of his face, paused on his jaw line to dangle for a
second before they finally dropped into the dirty river below them. His story
stopped and dark black eyes turned in his direction, appreciative and hopeful…
waiting for answers.

            For
a second, he felt a brief familiarity with the vampire, no longer than the flap
of a moth’s wings, but something. Something that tickled the back of his
memory, a kind of brotherhood. The vampire’s pain was real, like his had been
at one time. He opened his mouth without thinking and the words streamed forth
like an army of chisels aching to chip away at the rock of reticence that the
tear-soaked vampire carried in his mind.

            “Waiting
changes nothing. It is doing that makes the difference. The water waits.”

            The
vampire looked at him with disbelief. He had fully expected him to tell him not
to do it, to tell him that everything was going to be all right. His mouth
opened and closed like a fish trying to find air, as if he was already in the
water struggling to move his broken body to the surface before the light was
erased from his eyes. Determination overtook his disbelief and more tears
sprang to his eyes as he made up his mind. It was a moment or two before his
body acted on the determination that his mind now felt. His arms rocked back
and forth on the railing, alternating between throwing himself into the river
and just falling backwards into the street. The vampire let loose a scream as
he rocked back towards the railing that prevented him from jumping into the
river. His legs bunched at the last second and he used his rocking momentum to
leap over the waist-high bridge railing. The shoe of his left foot caught the
railing and distorted his would-be graceful plunge into the river. His body
cart-wheeled and his legs now hung suspended in the air above his head as he
plunged head first and spinning into the river.

            He
watched and smiled as the vampire fell. He thought his face would split when he
heard the thunderclap of the vampire’s face hitting the river’s surface. It was
followed instantaneously by the splash of the rest of his body entering the
river. Then he could be seen no more. He looked to the Old Soldier and smiled.
The Old Soldier returned his smile and tossed the smoldering nub of his beauty
into the water. Quickly they resumed their walk home dodging the cockroaches of
the city as they spread out in an ever widening net looking for something with
the spotlights mounted on the sides of their cars.

            The
night flowed like the black water of the river washing away the salty tang of
adrenaline and blood.

            The
next few days were blurs. The streets were too hot, the cops too rattled. The
nights were silent and the sirens wailed no longer. The Old Soldier gathered
things in his usual manner, rats, wood, and hangovers in equal portions.  New
clothes appeared. Empty bottles collected in the corner of the room and sweat
accumulated inside of his makeshift coffin. The hunger stayed at bay as a
serenity infected his bones. The nights had cooled, but the days were still
warm enough to turn his single room apartment into a sweat lodge. When he awoke
at night to a haze of cigarette smoke and whiskey breath, the Old Soldier would
fill him in on the things he had learned or stolen.

            The
newspapers spoke of a serial killer on the loose, of men and women being
murdered in back alleys and desolate parts of the city. There were more killings
listed than they had been responsible for. None of the papers mentioned a body
being found in the river, but it was of no consequence.

            They
sat in the apartment, waiting for a sign, waiting to stop seeing the gleaming
hoods of cockroach cars cruising the streets looking for anything out of place.
The city buzzed with the rumors of a killer on the loose, but no one cared
because the victims were freaks in the first place.

            The
Old Soldier poured over the books finding anything that would help them. He
simply sat on the ground watching him drink and smoke and read. When the sky
began to lighten he would crawl into his coffin and dream of blonde hair, copper
hair, and hair so black it seemed purple.

            His
serenity ebbed like the tides, and his hunger grew. The flavors of the rats had
ceased to be filling, and he lusted for more. He wanted the red to wash over
his tongue and his throat. He wanted the flavors, the sensations and there was
nothing he could do to make it stop. There was nothing anyone could do to make
him stop. He had found purpose in death. To delay it was to delay the justice
that he sought. He told the Old Soldier that he was ready and that the
cockroaches didn’t matter anymore. It was time to hunt.

            The
time came and the city swelled with heat, as if it was trying to boil away the
darkness that had enveloped its dirty streets, its unkempt alleys, its
high-rise apartment complexes full of toiling unbeknownsts. He loaded a handful
of splintery, rough wooden stakes into an old bag, which from the stretched out
impression on the bottom looked like it had been used to carry some poor
schlub’s bowling ball. The Old Soldier had purloined it, of course… from where
he didn’t know… he didn’t bother to ask anymore. The Old Soldier’s hands seemed
to be made of glue and his soul made of toil and trouble. He belted on the
makeshift sheathe, made from two pieces of coarse leather that had been
fastened together with a few well paced punches from a staple gun.

            They
stepped out of the apartment and were washed in the unclean heat of the night
even though the sun had gone down over an hour ago. Still, it was better than
the stultifying heat and stench of the apartment.. The Old Soldier lit a beauty
and clamped down on it with his teeth.