Unmade: A Neo-Nihilist Vampire Tale (22 page)

            “You
ready.”

            He
simply smiled at the Old Soldier and wondered if he had that same fevered light
in his eyes. Then they took their steps, leading away from the apartment across
the crumbling cracks of the city. The Glasshouse waited with its perverts,
freaks, and undesirables. He could see them gathered around dark tables,
standing, sad and pretentious while industrial music blared, grinding down the
need for thought with machine gun guitars and firecracker drums. He could see
them standing there like statues waiting for blood, waiting for someone to walk
in front of them so they could spring into action and rip the life away from
some unsuspecting piece of meat.

            The
city roiled with people freed from the heat of their apartments for the
evening, people who walked the streets, placing one foot in front of the other
for no apparent reason at all… real people, people with jobs, people with
problems, people with car payments, student loan payments, medical bills, phone
bills, electric bills, water bills... always paying until the final expense
shows up… the funeral bill… casket, coffin, 2 minutes in an oven… $3000. They
walked among them talking and laughing like a couple of football players
getting ready for the big game, trying to forget that they were going to spend
the next few hours crashing into people, potentially ruining their lives with
one wrong twist, one wrong landing.

            They
walked past a movie theater filled with people waiting for one of those
midnight showings, waiting in line, all staring in one direction, sweating
expectation and a cheap version of adrenaline. Their faces gleamed with
perspiration in the hot cloud that hung above the line, little girls and boys
holding their parents’ hands peering around them in wonder at why everyone is
standing in line.

            They
passed limos, parked and spewing beautiful people onto the sidewalk like a
drunk down on all fours. He laughed inside as he watched the people stare
around them like peacocks once they exited the limos, looking up and around,
trying to get their bearings… who knew the lap of luxury could be so
disorienting? Their words swept away like the cooing of birds, meaningless and
fairly unpleasant.

            And
then they passed into the riverside properties, where the buildings weren’t as
tall and the faded history of old time ads could still be seen in worn-off
paint on the tops of the brick buildings, squat and formidable, which crowded
the riverfront. Junkies scanned the ground looking for morsels, a dropped rock,
some change, maybe a place to crawl in and die. Dealers stood around leaning on
railings, trying to look like anything but what they were as their friends
conversed with them, a death dealer in the midst of rot. Occasionally,
toothless, slouched humanoid creatures would nervously approach the dealers, a
little sleight of hand, and they would be off again like droopy rockets made to
explode in dirty dens of sleaze, belts around their arms and needles in their
veins.

            They
crossed the Burnside Bridge again, hot air blowing into their faces… a man with
tears in his eyes would find them gone in a second with that hot wind…
evaporating them, turning them into memories so distant that their validity is
questioned. Their steps hastened as the moment grew nearer and death came and
sat on his shoulder whispering secret tactics and intriguing questions. ‘What
does an eye feel like, when you shove a knife into it? Does it pop? Or is it
like sinking a fork into cheese? What would happen if you sliced the cheeks of
a person, would their head flop back, exposing all of their dental work, while
their body flopped around trying to orient itself to its new upside down and
backwards perspective? Can you use a severed finger like a paint brush? If you
gut someone, will your knife stink like shit?’ Death was full of questions.

            The
river flowed underneath them; only a lonely barge floating along said that the
water was anything real, anything substantial… besides waves of shimmering
light and ripples, the bridges meters eaten away by the purposeful footsteps of
the threesome, destiny inching closer.

            They
sat like wolves across from the warehouse, a bum and a street kid by all
appearances, complete with a brown bag full of liquor that the Old Soldier had
swiped from a crowded convenience store, while he had perused a dirty mag, full
of pictures of spread pussies, air-brushed and gleaming like glazed donuts.

            People
entered the Glasshouse, walking up that long ramp, a gallows ramp as far as he
was concerned, their dark shapes and pale faces bobbing in the night. Little
wisps of smoke-tainted air puffed into the night every time the door to the bar
was opened, accompanied by fascist guitars and dictator drums. The night was
young and the heat and hum of the eastern shore’s machinery permeated the
night, a plaintive cry too pervasive to be ignored.

            They
sat and they waited… their plan was a little crazy but much more efficient in
the long run. No more of this one-by-one bullshit. He felt strong and vengeful,
his reservations melted away by the heat, ground down by the non-stop droning
of machinery and industry. Tonight they would make a dent… tonight was the time
of destruction, the whittling away of numbers and reproducers. What use to kill
one, when any vampire could make another vampire that night. No, they had to be
exterminated and that required mass extinction, difficult and dangerous, but
necessary if they had any hope of winning.

            He
watched the gruesome parade as vamps led weaklings on leashes into the
Glasshouse. He watched as tall lanky men dressed in black velvet sauntered through
the door on four-inch platform boots that made them look even taller.
Dreadfully hip people in makeup and painted black fingernails all walked up the
ramp, disappearing like a cheap magician’s trick in a cloud of smoke and a
blast of dramatic music.

            The
night paraded on, as death whispered possibilities in his ear and whiskey-stained
breath hitchhiked on clouds of the Old Soldier’s beautiful smoke, enveloping
him just as completely as the monsters that entered the Glasshouse… he felt
himself steadily rising, as if he himself was walking up that ramp, ready to
set foot on the gallows. When the time came, he would put the noose on himself.

            As
soon as he saw them, he knew they were the ones… a group of five, three women
and two men, one of them walking on those ridiculously tall boots, wiping his
unkempt hair out of his eyes every few steps or so. The women looked like dead
Gypsies, wrapped in elaborate dresses, covered in sterling silver jewelry that
twinkled on their fingers, ears, noses and lips… their hair wild like a child
that has just woken up.

            They
strolled in revelry, their drinks coursing through their vines, burning up time
and night with the illusion of mirth and a sense of everything being right in
the world. They stumbled up the street cackling, laughing, and having a better
time than anyone in the world had ever had… and he hated it.

What right did
they have to be happy? What right did they have to walk down the street,
flaunting smiles and wrapping their arms around each others shoulders, while
the world around them hummed with decay and their victims wandered the night
thirsting for blood? What right did they have to be alive?

            “Absolutely
none,” he muttered unconsciously.

            The
Old Soldier looked at him askance, with a raised eyebrow. He didn’t say
anything though, just stumbled along in his patented, drunk-bum walk, producing
a beauty and lighting it with the ease of a man who had spent most of the last
25 years getting drunk. Sometimes he thought that the Old Soldier was like a
sailor who had gotten so used to the rolling of the ocean that he would simply
fall over if it ever stopped. He wondered if the Old Soldier would have more
trouble walking sober than he did drunk.

            The
group wandered ahead of them in the distance, weaving and laughing, never
knowing that their demise stalked on behind them, matching their pace with
precision and menace. They wandered through the streets, passing out of the
industrial district and into Southeast Portland, an area filled with Stanks and
houses that were slightly run down, but still coveted by the trendy middle
class. The sidewalks were lined with trees and there were even quite a few
lawns. The blocks were bordered by nonstop lines of parked cars, the driveways
filled to the brim with them so that every house seemed to have at least three
or four cars all to itself. On every block, bits of unintelligible graffiti
waited to be discovered, waited for someone to come along and puzzle out their
meaning. The telephone poles sprouted flyers like bizarre facsimiles of trees,
nails protruding and wrapped in layers of flyers that had been rain-soaked and
heat-dried so many times that they acted like a layer of bark… trees that read
like a failed dreams encyclopedia of indie bands and musicians whose careers
were as doomed as the group that he followed.

            They
stumbled up the street, shadowed by overhanging trees and illuminated by buzzing
streetlights, so that their pale faces lit up occasionally like fireflies in
the gloom. Two blocks up one street, take a left, three blocks up another
street, take a right and walk a mile and you’re there, in front of a dusty old
house just like any other, a strip of lush, green lawn, a layer of sidewalk
cracked by the tree roots growing underneath it, and a row of parked cars, one
with a “Keep Portland Weird” sticker on its bumper. He watched from the corner
as they all stumbled up the porch steps. The man in the tall boots fumbled for
his keys, while his friends made almost unintelligible comments about his
sobriety… the screen door opened with a screech and the crew filed in… no puffs
of smoke or music to greet them… all except one woman who lit up a cigarette
and stood staring out into the night as she leaned on the railing of the
elevated porch. The door closed behind her and all he could see was the orange
flare of her cigarette as she inhaled.

            The
Old Soldier finished relieving himself in the street and stood next to him, a
small splash of streetlight illuminating his face.

            “So
this is it, huh? Doesn’t look like much… certainly doesn’t look like a den of
the devil. Why don’t you go introduce yourself to that fair maiden on the
porch?” The Old Soldier pulled back into the shadows, flared a match and
started puffing on one of his beauties.

            He
readied himself, loosened his knife in its sheathe and walked nonchalantly up
to the porch. Before he took a step, he paused and looked at the source of the
glowing orange light.

            He
put on his best fake smile and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have another one
of those would you?”

            The
woman paused, clearly debating whether he was trouble in her mind. She decided
that he seemed harmless enough, fumbled in her purse for a second, and held out
a cigarette to him. He climbed the rest of the stairs onto the porch proper and
gingerly took the cigarette from her hand. From the angle that he stood, a
streetlight across the way lit up all of the silver on her lips, ears, and
nose… so that it looked like electricity sparkled on her face. He put the
cigarette to his lips and waited.

            She
looked confused for a second and then it dawned on her, “Oh, you need a light.”

She put her
head down and started digging in her purse for the ever elusive lighter and
that’s when another slash of electricity joined the dancing dollops of light on
her face. His knife arced through her throat, a quick flash in the night like a
flying saucer, glimpsed for a second and then gone. The woman’s last breath was
a combination of cigarette smoke and flecks of blood. She tried to say
something, but she couldn’t produce any air with which to make her vocal chords
vibrate… the only sound was the gurgle and squish of her throat muscles
constricting in vain. She fell to the ground and then the Old Soldier was there
holding open the ex-bowling ball carrier. He reached in and pulled out a stake…
as her feet thumped upon the wooden boards of the porch, he drove the stake
through her breastbone with all of his strength piercing her heart and in her
last spasmed movements the weak rays of streetlight caught her eyes and filled
them with the electricity that had been dancing on the jewelry in her face… he
locked eyes with her, and they pleaded in a way that her voice could not, begging
for help, begging for an explanation… and then it was gone… her blood flooded
from her neck, dripping down between the boards to land in the dark world that
lived underneath the porch. He let the blood drip, hungry but not ready to eat.
Killing was just like swimming… you don’t do it right after you eat... and
there was still more killing to do.

The Old
Soldier hunkered down on the porch, tossing the lit nub of one of his beauties
into the woman’s pool of blood with a hiss.

“I’ll wait
here, just in case any of them tries to get out. You go in there, be a shadow,
and take them as quietly as possible. We don’t need any neighbors calling the
cops.”

He turned to
go inside. The door handle turned easily enough and when he opened the door he
saw the dim interior of the monsters’ lair. Trendy, recycled furniture filled
the living room and at the back of the room he could see a hallway with a light,
which gave him just enough light to maneuver by. Books littered the glass coffee
table, nothing diabolic, just a couple tomes scattered among mindless
magazines. The couches were arranged around the TV, clearly a focal point for
gathering as the walls were lines with racks of DVD’s. Dark art covered the
walls, pictures of winged creatures, runny and blurred as if they had been left
out in the rain, pictures of dark goddesses bound, tortured and shining.
Candles stood in pewter sconces that were affixed to the walls… there were no
body parts, no drained corpses… but he never killed where he slept, so it kind
of made sense.