We Only Come Out At Night Page 2

  "David…I see a look in his eyes lately. He's having a hard time. You see the way he turns into a puppy dog when Nadia's around. Michael's been ignoring it, but there could be trouble."

  I had a feeling Saul hoped I was going to take that for an answer and drop it. "David's had a crush on Nadia since we met. I think he knows the odds."

  "It's been different lately. And that's not all there is to it." Another pause. "The boy is simply heartsick. He's lonely and depressed. When one feels that way, it becomes all too easy to do something stupid."

  David had been quieter lately than he usually was, but I hadn't seen anything that wrong. But Saul is usually right about things. "So, what do we do about it?"

  After another interminable silence, Saul answered, "Nothing, now. Just keep an eye on him. Be his friend if he'll let you, and hope he pulls out of it."

  "What do you mean by that?"

  Saul flicked his cigarette butt down, down into the yawning darkness below. "Nothing. It is of no consequence. Forget I spoke of it." He didn't want to look at me.

  "If he's so lonely, why don't you let him meet a girl and make her? it's only one more of us. What would be so wrong with that?"

  Saul inhaled, and gathered his thoughts for a moment. "I'm not categorically opposed to the idea. But the fact remains: most were never meant for the gift." This is what Saul calls becoming a vampire, receiving the gift. Us kids always called it getting made because it sounds like the mafia. "Not everyone can adjust. To find those who can truly adapt, who can truly live our life, that takes time and patience and insight. And even I make mistakes. David has very little experience with any of those things. In his desperation, he would likely make an unwise choice, and only make things worse. For all of us."

  I cocked my head and made a face. "So it's bad if he doesn't and it's bad if he does? It's either bad or it's worse?"

  Saul turned and looked at me then, and in his eyes it seemed like I could see the cares of a thousand years staring back at me. Before he swung his legs over to the roof and walked back towards the stairs, he said, "More or less."

  Chapter Three

  I spent the rest of that night up there, until the horizon began to glow orange with sunrise and I finally went back inside. Saul had shaken me. Now that he pointed it out, I could see what he was talking about. Like the way David looked at Nadia and Michael when they were together. I don't think he was jealous of Michael, exactly, only of what they had together. Their bond. He was half in love with Nadia and he wouldn't even admit it to himself, let alone anyone else. I always thought true love was a bunch of shit, and I knew someday Michael and Nadia would hate each other's guts, but David never believed it. He thought life was a fairy tale. I don't know. Maybe he was right, and I'm just a cynic. It's hard not to be jaded when you're a vampire. I don't know how David did it.

  The next evening was normal enough, to start with. Everyone crawled out of their beds, loud music was played, hair was spiked. The normal stuff. Saul smoked out of a wooden pipe, which he did from time to time, and he didn't mention anything about our conversation the night before.

  We decided we were going to hit up a party in town, a legal one this time. They were holding it in a bowling alley. Legal meant security guards and maybe even police, but nothing we couldn't work with.

  Nadia sat on the leather couch by the TV, polishing her combat boots. She wore a black Dark Side Of The Moon t-shirt with the prism logo stretched tight over her boobs. I was playing video games. Behind me, I could hear David trying to convince Michael to agree that Kurt Cobain was the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, and when He killed himself with that shotgun, He died all over again for our sins. Michael kept trying to tell David that he was full of shit.

  "Jesus was just a con man who got caught," said Mike, "and Kurt Cobain was just some shitty junkie musician."

  "You watch your damned mouth," said David, "about Kurt Cobain."

  "And anyway, He didn't kill himself, Courtney killed him. Does that make her Mary Magdalene, or Judas?" Michael tossed an apple in the air, which is weird because where would an apple come from? None of us would eat it.

  David apparently took the question seriously. He thought about it for a second. "Definitely Judas."

  I'd heard enough. "You guys are high," I said. "You are blaspheming and offending my moral sensibilities. You are both going to hell."

  Puffing on his pipe, Saul chuckled. "Christians," he said.

  Michael clasped his hands to his face like Macaulay Caulkin. "Hell? but I've led such a virtuous and not evil life! I've pretty much never killed anyone at all!" David and Michael somehow started wrestling, and Nadia started slapping them both with a rolled up newspaper while Saul and I looked on.

  Having finished his pipe, Saul interrupted. "Are you children through?" He tapped the ashes out into his hand and pocketed the pipe. Saul was wearing a crisp white Stetson hat, and damned if he didn't look good in that, too. Mikey and David stopped and straightened their clothes, flushed and breathing hard. We all followed Saul down to the cars.

  ***

  The party was better than I would have expected. It was at a bowling alley near Gage Park. We found a parking space, paid our admission, and went inside. It was your basic rave party. Loud techno music, loud people, black lights, glow sticks. All around us drug deals went on behind the backs of the uniformed police and security guards. We pushed through knots of sweaty kids gyrating against each other.

  We'd all fed the night before, so we didn't really have to go, but we get bored. It isn't all business, being a vampire. Of course, if we found someone to eat, that was okay too. I started up a conversation with some high-schoolers. They had some pretty good pot and they were smoking it on the sly, looking out for security guards between hits. It was just a normal night.

  I want to stress here just how fragile normal is. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly everything can go to shit. If you've ever been in a car accident, you know what I'm talking about. Most of the time, you never even see the car that hits you. One second everything is normal, and then, boom. Everything changes. You're lying upside down in a ditch somewhere, picking glass out of your eyeball or gushing blood or something. And it never goes back to normal. Not completely.

  Anyway, David found me, and as he was sharing our pot, we noticed Michael across the room in some kind of argument with another guy. It looked like it was over Nadia. Big surprise there. Me and David made our way over, and we could see David egging the kid on, trying to get him outside. Nadia, for her part, was trying to calm Mike down. The kid was musclebound, a real jock type. He seemed like a hothead. It didn't take much convincing for Michael to get him to go out to the parking lot.

  If we wanted to go back into the party we'd need to pay admission again, but we followed anyway. Saul appeared out of nowhere and we all followed Michael and his victim to a dark corner of the parking lot, at the mouth of a narrow alley.

  Michael liked to start fights, even if he wasn't going to feed. It's like he had to prove to himself over and over again that he was better than mortals, like he couldn't quite believe it.

  Mike reached the end of the parking lot and turned around just in time to catch a vicious sucker punch in the jaw from this kid. Michael pretended to stagger and took a few steps back. "Careful, Michael," said Saul. We were moving further away from the party, into the empty parking lot of a dental office. Better, but still not any place to kill someone.

  "Don't worry, I'm just fightin'—Whuff!" The kid caught Michael with a gut punch. He knew how to fight, I'll give him that. A human would have been hurting. He followed up with a couple of kicks that knocked Michael backward. Blood sprayed from his nose. Nadia clapped gleefully.

  "Get some, fucker," said the kid. He bounced nimbly on the balls of his feet, in a loose fighting stance. A bit of sweat beaded his forehead, but he smiled. Michael inched forward, his hands up in mock hesitation. Then his fist flashed out and connected with the jock's jaw twice, quick little rabbit punc
hes. The jock said, "Gaww!" and reeled backwards in an arc of blood and teeth that seemed to float in the orange parking lot light. He recovered and took a stance as Mikey advanced, but his mouth was a bloody mess, and now you could see real fear in his eyes. He knew he was outclassed. I mean, the guy obviously knew more about fighting than Mikey ever would, he just couldn't touch our speed or strength. Mikey stepped forward to continue beating the poor sap into hamburger.

  Then a funny thing happened.

  Chapter Four

  Remember what I said before, about normal? Well, up until that moment, things were normal for us. None of this was new. Me and Saul and David and Nadia all just stood there, watching Michael. Not because we liked it, but because when you're part of a family, you have to stick together. That's why bikers and gangs and stuff get in so much trouble, because the biggest asshole in the group ends up making bad decisions, and then everyone else has to back them up.

  Anyway, this kid was backing away from Mike. He wound up against the wall of a building. I remember, for some reason, that a plaque on the wall read dr gene schalder, dds.

  Mike threw a right. Then that funny thing happened.

  Maybe Mike was a little cocky. Maybe he threw his punch a little slower than he could have. And who could blame him? Who knew? This kid, quicker than shit, sidesteps and locks up Mikey's arm in some kind of kung-fu wrist-grip. He sticks his foot out and twists Mike off balance, then flips him over his shoulder.

  We all were getting ready to laugh our asses off. The problem was, the window. Mikey went over this kid's shoulder and ran headfirst into the big plate window. It cracked like a gunshot, and his head punched a jagged hole at the bottom of the pane. Cracks spread up the glass. A burglar alarm went off. God, it was loud.

  Mike was just starting to pull his head out when the rest of the pane of glass broke loose and fell. It didn't seem like anything at first. His body just jerked once, like an electric shock, then he fell away from the window.

  His head was gone.

  I think I screamed, but I'm not sure. Maybe it was just David and Nadia. Saul lunged forward, so fast he seemed to teleport. Before Michael's body hit the ground, Saul had his hand around the kid's neck and had lifted him off the ground one-handed. Over the alarm and the screaming I didn't hear his neck snap, but his head suddenly lolled down over Saul's fist and his body spasmed crazily. Saul threw the jock's body at the wall, where it left a bloody smear.

  We all just kind of stood there for a second. It seemed like we should be doing something, but it was already finished. David's body lay there, sprawled headless over the low hedge next to the window.

  "Jesus, what do we do now?" I asked Saul. We were all looking at him like scared little kids, because that's what we were. Nobody expected this to happen. We just didn't. We were all supposed to live forever, and here's Michael laying on a hedge, killed by a mortal. By a jock, even. I didn't even like Michael all that much, but it hurt. You don't have to like your family. That really isn't what it's about. "What do we do?"

  Saul, for his own part, also seemed to be struggling for control. But he was winning. "Scatter," he said. "Split up and stay out of sight. I'll get the van, and we'll meet at the Exxon station at sixty-third and Pulaski, at—" Saul looked at his watch. "—four o'clock."

  David took a step back into the shadows.

  "What about Michael?" Nadia searched Saul's face for a response. "Do we just, like, leave him? Just leave him here?" Bloody tears escaped down her pale cheeks. She looked lost and hurt. A pink bra-strap had fallen off her shoulder and it peeked out below the sleeve of her t-shirt.

  Turning to face her, Saul seemed to be made of stone, his eyes hidden in shadow. "What about Michael? We go, he stays. Exxon. Four o'clock." With a thumb and forefinger he pulled his hat down lower over his eyes, and walked away into the shadows. Nadia fixed me with an imploring look, like I should be doing something else, but I didn't know what to say. I just shrugged, feeling dumb, then I turned and walked away.

  David had already gone. I could hear sirens on the way. Nadia just stood there in her Pink Floyd t-shirt, like she couldn't understand quite what happened. She said, to me, I think, "Where do I go?" I didn't respond. Finally, she stumbled and ran.

  When I was a few blocks away, a police cruiser sped by. I heard it coming for miles, so I had plenty of time to duck out of sight when it passed. Pretty soon they'd find the bodies. Then all hell would break loose. I broke into a run, which for a vampire is pretty damned fast, and in no time I'd put some real distance between me and the crime scene.

  After a while I slowed down to a walk. I was still in a daze. It just didn't seem real. They were supposed to die. We didn't die. We never died. So how could Mikey just be dead? It didn't even make sense.

  ***

  I found myself passing by a run-down, windowless corner bar, marked by a blue neon martini glass. I wished I could have gone in and had a drink like a normal person, but I know I don't look old enough to drink. I was only seventeen when I got made. Besides, I realized with a start, I was in my old neighborhood. Someone in there might recognize me. My dad could be in there. My parent's house and my old high school were only a few blocks away.

  I didn't mean to go back, I'll tell you that for sure. But once I realized where I was heading, it was like I couldn't stop. The next thing I knew I was back at Middlesex High, padding through the shadows on the asphalt ball courts, past the chain link fences and the old brick buildings. After a while I wound up sitting on the metal table in front of the cafeteria where we used to eat lunch. The graffiti we'd scratched into its surface was still there.

  It seemed like something out of another life. I remember back then I was so angry all the time, so righteously indignant, and right then it all just seemed petty and stupid. All of those people I hated back then, I don't even know where they are now. They disappeared. I don't even remember their names. All of a sudden all those grudges, all that attitude, it just seemed pathetic. I wish I had known then how little it all mattered. Somehow it seemed right that the school should be empty and dark. What else would your past be like, if you could go back and walk through it?

  I checked my watch: two-thirty. Still plenty of time to kill. I decided to get out of there. Hanging around your old high school at night is the kind of thing fat middle-age jocks do, with their old letterman's jacket and their prize game-winning football. I reached the far gate, hands bunched in my jeans-pockets, and walked down the street.

  Another two blocks brought me to my parent's house. That was even worse. Like I said, it was the last place I wanted to be, but it seemed like I couldn't stay away. Like it just pulled at something inside of me.

  My parent's house was in an old neighborhood, and it showed its age. The place seemed tired. Worn out. Coming back here made me feel old. The huge elm trees in the planting strip lifted the sidewalks with their roots. Edges crumbled, paint peeled, weeds grew from cracks. The houses seemed to slouch.

  To my surprise, the front room light in my parent's house was on. I didn't expect anyone to be up at this hour. A thought occurred to me: maybe they moved. That seemed wrong somehow, like they shouldn't be able to do that. I crossed to the other side of the street so I could look in the window without being seen. I don't have any idea what I'd say to my folks now. Sorry about disappearing four years ago, it's just that I'm a vampire. Yeah, that'd go over well.

  One glance told me that my parents still lived there. My mom's plants, the wind chime, the sprinkler. So much the same. And if that wasn't enough, I could see all the same furniture in the living room through the big front window. The light came from the end table lamp next to the couch, and my mom was sitting in the big easy chair. My breath caught in my throat. God, she looked so old! Not old, so much, as broken down. Defeated. She just sat there, at three in the morning, hair streaked with gray, her hands clasped together in her lap. A paperback book splayed on the table next to her like she had been reading, but she wasn't reading then. She just stared
forlornly out the window. I wondered suddenly if she was thinking about me.

  When I left, it seemed like the right thing to do. Be a rebel, stick it to them, strike out on my own, screw you Mom and Dad. I didn't even think about what it would do to them, to have their only son disappear without a trace. In one instant, all that spite and anger I'd been holding on to left me. I felt like the worlds biggest asshole. I wanted to cry. The more I looked at her, the worse I felt. It was killing her. I could see it in her face, her posture, the way she seemed to shrink into her chair. For the last four years I've been having a ball, and the whole time its been killing her. And I couldn't even go back. I couldn't ever fix it.

  My mom reached out slowly, without looking, and picked up a framed picture from the table. She held it in her lap and sighed. Somehow, I knew it was a picture of me. Something wrenched inside my chest, like a knife twisting. But all I could do was walk away.

  Chapter Five

  I made it to the Exxon station with a few minutes to spare. There was the van, a black smudge washed in the light of the big red-white-and-blue sign. I could see the glow of Saul's cigarette. Smoke drifted, snakelike, from the driver's window in the still, warm air.

  Behind the wheel of the van, his cowboy hat pulled low over his eyes, Saul took a slow drag off his cigarette. His bicep strained against the sleeve of his black t-shirt. I climbed in the back; Nadia had already taken the shotgun seat. She just looked confused. She sniffled back some tears.

  "Hey," I said.

  She twisted in her seat to look at me. "Hey. Have you seen David?"

  I hadn't. It was three fifty-six, and when Saul says he's going to leave at four o'clock, he's going to leave at four o'clock. He can be a real hard-ass sometimes. We sat without talking and watched the green dashboard clock count down. Four came, and Saul started the van.