The Scene (14 page)

“You’d better clear some shit up before you walk out that door. Who drugged you? And why did you wake up in a stranger’s house?” The beginnings of an interrogation were looming in the air. His issue with grilling me like a suspect was one of the downfalls to our relationship.

             
“It’s a long story. It’s over and handled now, so don’t worry about that. I’m going home to get my shit, then we’re heading out. Make whatever calls you need.” I turned to make my way to the door when Mike grabbed my shoulder.

             
“Be careful,” he said solemnly.

             
“You know me.” I smiled

             
“Exactly.” His eyes dropped to look at his feet.  “I miss you.”

             
“Ugh, Mike not now. We can talk all you want when I get back.”

             
“No, we won’t.” He knew me very well. “Call when you leave.” I nodded.

             
“Hey, thanks.” I held up the envelope.

             
“Yeah.” Mike put his large arms around my shoulders and squeezed. I didn’t squeeze back.

             
“See ya.” I pulled away from his embrace, then turned and walked to the door.

             
“Thanks, Mike. I’ll get her back safely. Promise.” I heard Tatum say from the entryway.

             
“Bye,” Mike said now from the front porch.

             
I was in the car moments before Tatum walked down the driveway. I hated when he did that to me. It makes it so much harder to be friends. Tatum opened the passenger door and slid into the seat. I was in reverse and down the driveway before she had a chance to shut the door.

             
“I hate it when he does that to you. You’re such a bitch afterward,” Tatum said putting on her seatbelt as I hit the freeway heading back home.

             
“Tell me about it.”

             
“He still loves you, you know. It’s been almost a year since the big blowout and he still has your pictures in his house. ‘Let’s be friends’ just isn’t working out for you two is it?” Tatum will always tell it like it is.

             
“I don’t know. He fucked up, not me. Why should I have to be all nicey-nice with him? The fucked-up thing is that I miss him too, and every time he does shit like this it makes it harder and harder to stand my ground.”

             
Tatum stayed quiet the rest of the drive home; I was glad. I didn’t want to talk about Mike anymore. More than anything I just wanted sleep. It became very clear to me then that I would not sleep for quite a while. I was hoping we could take Tatum’s car to Fresno so I could nap awhile. And we’d need her GPS. I had no clue where we were headed.

             
I started wondering if I was on a wild goose chase. It did seem a little ridiculous that two female reporters were headed off to solve a crime that no detective could. The entire thing began to sound like a cheesy made-for-TV movie. Good defeats evil and all is well. I still wasn’t one hundred percent sure what the evil was in this story. And if I was the good, how the fuck was I supposed to defeat it.

             
A stake and hammer might do the trick.

CHAPTER 14

             
Tatum and I scurried up the dilapidated steps that lead to my apartment. Successfully avoiding the low tree branch, Tatum made it to the front door before I could. She worked the lock with the spare key and opened the door with little effort.

“How do you always do that?” I asked out of breath.

“Do what?” Tatum responded as she made her way into the apartment.

“It’s like a magic show every time you open my front door. Even my Super can’t get the door open that easily.” Tatum shrugged as she walked directly to the bathroom.

I started gathering up the documents that were scattered about my coffee table. I knew at some point I would have to settle my brain down for a few minutes and really narrow down what knowledge I had locked away in my head. There had been so much information crammed into my overworked brain over the last few days, that I wasn’t even positive I knew anything important.

Why am I driving to the sticks to accomplish nothing?

“Are you going to pack a bag? We should at least take a change just in case.” Tatum startled me when she spoke; her voice echoing from the bathroom doorway.

“Um…yeah, I guess.” I must have seemed a little out of it.

“What’s your trip, you seem really out of it?”

“I don’t know. Nothing. Everything. Ugh! What are we doing?” I said
voice filled with dread.

“I’m going to Fresno, and apparently you’re going crazy.” Tatum took the papers from my hand and began finishing the task I had begun moments earlier.

“Maybe. I freaked out and almost stabbed you with a knife. I woke up in some guy’s apartment with no recollection of the night’s events. Hell, I even sweet talked my ex-boyfriend into giving me pictures of naked dead girls! Oh, I’m crazy alright! I’m a fuckin’ loony! What more can I say? There are vampires in L.A. They’re killing strippers, and leaving their exposed bodies behind dumpsters in alleyways. Vampires, Tatum. Vampires! And you know what else? I think Malcolm and Cyrus, and that crazy Russian bitch, are the shittiest ones of them all!” That was it, I had officially snapped.

Tatum stood in front of me
, hands full of papers, eyes wide, mouth open. I took a few steps closer to Tatum; she was very nervous by this time. I can only imagine how I must have looked to her. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what I was thinking myself. Only a foot or so from Tatum now, I spoke in a low tone.

“Vampires. We are chasing Vampires.” With that I walked slowly into my bedroom and began robotically packing a small overnight bag. 

Tatum never came into the bedroom with me. I could hear her shuffling papers nervously. She opened the hall closet door for a few moments, then closed it again. I assumed she was packing her bag as well. She kept spare clothes in that closet. I packed slowly, running the images over and over in my head. Naked girls missing blood, dead and decaying behind random dumpsters. Mike and his sweet sensibility, always so protective. Embrace and all that that entails: Cyrus, Malcolm. Malcolm was a constant in my mind recently. His fiery red mane was so intriguing and chilling in the same breath.  There was something in my gut that screamed foreboding in his presence, be that only once. Never in my life had I ever honestly questioned my own sanity. For a moment, standing in my living room, wild-eyed and blaring at Tatum, I believed in vampires.

“Do I need to call in the Thorazine?” Tatum’s sudden voice pierced the silence I had crawled into. I suddenly realized I hadn’t packed anything in quite some time. I stood, eyes lax
, not focused on anything in particular. Only interested in the events playing within my mind.

“D?” She touched my elbow, and I jarred to life.

“Yeah?” I looked at her as if nothing had ever happened.

“You okay?” Her tone held concern and fear.

I looked down at my half-packed bag then back up to meet her eyes. “No. Vampires? Have I cracked? I feel weird. I feel like I’m on a roller coaster that’s running with no controls. One minute I’m focused, the next I’m questioning my own thoughts.” I had lost a lot of energy during my freak-out and felt very lethargic.

“No. You just care, is all. That happens sometimes, caring. It’s hard when one is as supremely ruthless as you are, but it does happen. You spent too much time working and not enough sleeping. You just need sleep. I’ll drive, you get some rest. Get yourself some undies
. I’ll finish the rest.” She grabbed my bag and made her way to my bathroom.

Without another word
, Tatum and I moved about the apartment grabbing clothes and toothbrushes, deodorant and a hairbrush. Together we cleaned up the photos and packed them all back together as they had been. Tatum rinsed the dishes in the sink so they wouldn’t mold over. I fed the goldfish and turned off all the lights. At the end of our dance, we met in the middle.

“Okay, let’s go.” With a nod
, Tatum opened the door.

I followed mindlessly behind her carrying my duffle bag and one of the large yellow envelopes. We both entered the little black sports car. Following the usual mundane procedures, we were buckled safe
ly and ready to hit the open road.  Tatum punched the destination into her GPS and we were off. We didn’t speak another word to each other.

I was with Tatum until we were safe and moving freely on the freeway. Then I was gone.

My eyes began to flutter open. I could see…nothing. I blinked my sleepy eyes and looked again. I understood then why I hadn’t seen anything; there wasn’t anything to see. We were surrounded by plowed fields. The sun was still out but it was preparing its daily descent into the horizon.

“Where are we?” I asked, voice very scratchy.

“Delano, north of Bakersfield.” She never took her eyes off the road.

It was almost six o’clock by this time; the sun still had a good two hour fight left in it. I felt like an idiot for wigging at Tatum. She wouldn’t even look at me. I sat quietly in the passenger seat and watched fields of crops whiz by. Eventually, there were grape vineyards, cotton fields, and bright lights ahead.

“Is that a truck stop up there?” I sat up and stretched my neck.

“Yeah. You gotta go?”

“Barely holding it right now. And I’m fucking starving.”

“You got it.” She still hadn’t looked at me.

Tatum pulled into the florescent truck stop and found a spot in the front. I made a beeline for the bathroom; she lingered in the gift shop.

Sweet release.

“Better?”
she asked, as I exited the ladies room. Her smiling face finally pointed in my direction.

“Yeah, lots. You hungry?”

“Very. They have a taqueria in the back. You game?”

“I’m always game for explosive diarrhea.” I smiled back to her and it seemed as though we had found our niche again.

We both placed our orders and found a booth with the least amount of graffiti on it.

“I don’t really think there are
real
vampires. You know that right?” I asked Tatum seriously.

“I’d like to think not. Although…” She trailed off as she left the table to retrieve our dinner.

We sat and ate silently for a few moments until the feelings of voraciousness wore off.

“You have to admit, there are some really fucked-up people involved in this underground vampire scene. Any one of them could be our villain. What if it’s Malcolm? Boosting his clientele by making vampires into something tangible.”

“What if it’s Cyrus?” she said quickly as though she had been thinking it for a while now.

“Cyrus? He’s a doofus
. Why would he be in on it?” I was slightly defensive I’ll admit. But I had already nearly accused him outright in my own thoughts once that day.

“You never know, right?”
she said simply.

              “What about Reggie?” I was trying to steer the subject away from Cyrus.

“That little waif couldn’t physically hurt anyone.”

“Unless she had super human vampire abilities.” I smiled around my taco.

“True. Unless she had that.”

“You know who I vote for? That atrocious Russian whore, Dominika.  Now that bitch is terrifying.”

“She is really scary. If anyone has super vampire powers
, it’s that bitch.” I nodded agreeing with her statement.

We ate quietly for a while longer. I enjoyed people watching. I ate and looked around at people coming through the door, ordering their food, pumping their gas; it’s all very fascinating.

“What if it’s Mike?” she spoke suddenly.

I looked at Tatum like she had just stabbed me through the heart. Why would she ever say a thing like that?

“Not Mike. Never Mike.” I stared at her straight faced, scared she would pursue the theory.

“Just saying if this were a movie, Mike would make a great plot twist.” She said lighthearted and moved on. “Okay, so what have we narrowed it down to?”

“Well, we left out one key possibility.”

“What’s that?”
she asked, swallowing her last bite of food.

“What if we don’t know and never will? What if the villain is a mystery guest who doesn’t appear until the last scene?”

“Because that would be boring, and my story is not boring.” She laughed and took a drink of her iced tea.

“I wish it was that easy. So, let’s just say, for fun’s sake, the impossible were true. What if there really were vampires? What then?” I knew she would begin questioning my sanity very shortly.

“Well, hypothetically, if there really were vampires then we could potentially be in pretty big danger don’t you think? If we are speaking about a hypothetical instance, then we could imagine any gruesome thing. Seeing as though vampires are things of legend and myth, we could assume everything is true. And if that were the case, then we’re in way over our heads.” The look on her face made me shudder.

“If it were possible.” She nodded in concurrence
. “Otherwise, we could assume that a man who thinks himself a vampire could execute the same damage and not have super powers. In fact, the entire thing seems a bit messy for a professional, if you ask me.” I shrugged as I spoke.

“What makes you see it as messy? I see a methodical, educated individual; someone with reasonable knowledge of the medical field.  I see someone who knows exactly what they want and knows how to get it. However, I also see lustfulness; an uncontrollable need to feed. If one were to utilize my analogy
, one could reasonably make the comparison to vampirism, and they would be right.” She was really starting to freak me out. She was sounding worse than me at this point. At least my vampire theory came about during a complete psychotic break. She spoke as though the prospect of actual vampires was not only possible but down right plausible.

“And what does this tell us?” I tried to keep up with her thought process. Careful to not agree with her too eagerly.

“We watch way too much TV.” She took another sip of her tea as I released the breath I had been holding.

“That may work to our advantage. Obviously whoever
’s drinking the blood of hookers and exotic dancers thinks himself a vampire, or at least feels the need for blood. The more we are aware of the possible behavior of such a person, the more efficient hunters we will be. And if in the event Malcolm and the lot of them pop out of the shadows hissing and flashing fang, well, we’ll be prepared for that too.” I smiled and picked up my garbage.

“I’m glad we’ve got our wits about us.” She chuckled to herself as she cleaned up her mess as well and we both made our way to the trash bin.

“You ever think that maybe the vampire craze has caused…well…a vampire crazy? It has happened before you know. Richard Trenton Chase killed people and drank their blood to keep the Nazi’s away. Granted, he was a complete basket case, but, it wouldn’t take much to throw a teen over the blood sucking edge,” I said, utilizing the small amount of information I gather from a vampire documentary on the History channel. She was quiet for a few moments while we got into the car.

“It is possible. I think there
’s a lot more to all of this. I hope, anyway. God, how boring would that be. Teen turns vamp tramp wreaks havoc on cities. Well, it’ll make for a decent book, I guess,” Tatum said as she turned the car on and made her way back to the freeway.

The sun was beginning to descend slowly revealing shades of pinks and purples in the sky above us. It would be dark soon.

There had better be no such things as vampires or we are in deep shit.