Here Be Monsters - an Anthology of Monster Tales (14 page)

“My mother died,” I said. “My dad’s on disability. He can’t get around. I have to be home in the daytime with him. There’s no one else who can take care of him.”

“Feels like your life’s being sucked right out of you sometimes, doesn’t it?” John asked, and when I nodded, hesitant, the corners of his mouth hooked in a brief, bitter smile. “Because it is.” A glance beyond my shoulder, split second but pointed. “There’s one behind you right now.”

I whirled, eyes wide, but saw only rows of liquor bottles and phalanxes of cocktail glasses lined up dutifully along the shelves.

“It’s not feeding,” he continued. “Not yet anyway. But it wants to. And there’s only one way to stop it.”

“How?” I asked. As ridiculous as this whole thing sounded, I couldn’t help but believe him. There was such a tremendous, sorrowful sincerity in his face, his eyes. It was as if all of the booze had been wiped from his system and he was sober again—brutally, helplessly so.

He leaned toward me. “You have to see them.” His hand draped against mine, his skin dry and warm. “If you can see them, they’ll leave you alone.” Another fleeting, humorless smirk. “No sport in it for them then.”

As he drew back his hand, he shifted on his stool again, letting his feet fall heavily to the floor. I shook my head as if snapping out of a trance. For the first time, I realized we were alone in the bar. The trio of pool players—along with their invisible, soul-sucking new friend—had left.

“You ever see movement out of the corner of your eye?” John asked, fishing his wallet from his back pocket and dropping a pair of twenties onto the bar. His glass still had vodka in it, but he left it alone, turning with a shuffling gait for the door. “A flash of shadow, maybe, like something’s there, just beyond your field of sight—only when you turn your head, it’s gone?”

I nodded and he said, “That’s them. The periphery people.”

He started to walk away, but paused when I said, “What about you? You said something changed me—the moment where one of these things fed from me. What about your moment? What changed you?”

He looked over his shoulder at me and this time when he smiled, it was something melancholy and lonely. His lips pursed, then parted, as if he meant to speak, but then he must have thought better of it because he closed them again. Still shuffling, the palsied gait of a man far older than his years, John turned again and walked away, leaving the bar without another word.

I locked up behind him, the heavy sound of the deadbolt sliding home as I turned the key as sharp and loud as a gunshot. I tried to laugh it off, to tell myself he was just a crazy drunk, that he’d been spewing vodka-infused bullshit he wouldn’t even remember come the morning.

But then, as I started to turn away from the door to face the bar again, I thought I caught a glimpse of something reflected in the glass—a looming shadow directly behind me, standing just along the peripheral edge of my vision. With a startled gasp, my heart jackhammering in sudden, bright fear, I whirled around, pressing myself back into the door.

I was alone.

At least, to my sober eye.

There’s one behind you right now
, he’d told me.
It’s not feeding, not yet anyway. But it wants to.

I thought of how he’d described them—their ghoulish mouths ringed with teeth so they could latch on and hold tight. Again, I wanted to dismiss it—and him—as utter bullshit, and again, I couldn’t suppress an uneasy shiver just the same.

There’s only one way to stop it,
John had told me.
You have to see them.

I returned to the bar and stood beside the seat he’d only recently vacated. His last shot of Ketel remained where he’d left it, and I reached for it now, lifting the glass in hand, giving it an experimental sniff. I’d never tried vodka before; had felt neither the urge nor desire to drink myself into a stupor.

If you can see them, they’ll leave you alone. No sport in it for them then.

Bracing myself, I drew the glass to my lips, tossed my head back and swallowed. Having drained it dry, I leaned forward, poured another and downed it. Then a third. Then a fourth. And after the fifth, as my mind started to grow murky, and the shadows in every corner of the room seemed to grow elongated and sinister somehow before my eyes—becoming nearly human in shape, creeping closer to me, slowly but surely—I took a seat on the bar stool.

And waited to see.

M.T. Murphy

©2011

All rights reserved.

Edited by Erin Stropes

“Are you ready to become food for the immortals, Lindsey?” he asked.

She stared at the vampire’s glistening fangs and nodded. Her friend hesitated for a moment, also regarding the protruding teeth that had suddenly appeared. Then she nodded as well.

The other vampire groaned. “Doug, did you just rip off that line from a movie?”

“I don’t know. Shut up. We’re doing a thing.” Doug knelt in front of where Lindsey sat on the couch and caressed her cheek. “Don’t mind my friend. He’s a young one.”

The other vampire fiddled with the buttons of his silk shirt and avoided looking at the woman who awaited him.

“
Chad
,” snapped Doug, “Susan is waiting.”

“My name is Britney,” said the woman sitting on the couch. If being called the wrong name bothered her, she hid it remarkably well with a beaming smile.

“Whatever,” Doug replied. “These women are placing their immortal souls in our hands. They have waited long enough. Let’s give them the dark gift.”

With a marked lack of enthusiasm,
Chad
knelt in front of Britney and placed his hand on her cheek. He was a mirror image of the other vampire, with one hand on the victim and the other hand by his side.

Both women were wearing black dresses and heavy white makeup. If they were to be transformed into vampires, they already looked the part.

“Did you wear what we instructed?” Doug asked.

Lindsey nodded breathlessly. “Yes. I’m wearing the black lacy kind.”

“And I’m wearing the same thing, only white,” Britney said.

“Good.” Doug brushed a few stray blonde hairs out of Lindsey’s face. “Close your eyes and we can begin.”

Both women did as he instructed.

The two vampires looked at each other and took identical straight razor blades out of their back pockets. They slowly positioned the blades over the women’s throats.

Doug nodded. It was time.

A thunderous knocking shattered the silence.

Lindsey and Britney jumped and looked toward the front door. Their hosts jumped as well, narrowly avoiding slicing them open prematurely.

“Holy heart attack,” cried
Chad
as he quickly hid the razor from view by holding it against his leg.

 
“I thought your brother and his wife were gone all weekend,” Doug said, palming his own razor.

“They are,”
Chad
replied.

The knocking sounded again, this time louder. The walls shook, and a large, ornate painting of a sad clown fell to the floor, cracking the glass of the frame.

“My brother’s going to kill me,”
Chad
groaned.

“Just see who’s at the door and get rid of them,” Doug said.

Chad
opened the door as far as the security chain would allow and peered outside.

A man with dark, shaggy hair stood outside, sniffing the door frame and mumbling to himself. With his faded Rolling Stones shirt, leather jacket, and jeans he would have easily blended into a crowd, save for the ridiculous sideburns that dangled past the edge of his jaw line.

“Can I help you?”
Chad
asked as insincerely as he could manage.

“This is the place,” the man said with a hint of an Irish brogue. “It has to be. But the scent is all wrong. I don’t smell death. I only smell…” His eyes drifted away from the door frame and settled on
Chad
’s open mouth. “Ah, there we go. What big fangs you have.”

He shoved the door open, ripping the chain out of the wall and sending
Chad
tumbling to the floor.

Doug brandished his razor, but did not make a move towards the intruder. “Who the hell are you?”

“Name’s Mickey,” the man said. “But that’s not important.” He ignored the vampires and glared at the women on the couch. His already red irises took on an eerie glow. He smiled, revealing his own abnormally large canine teeth.

The two young women trembled in horror and looked helplessly at their vampire hosts. The vampires made no move to protect them.

Mickey took a step towards the couch. “Do I really need to tell you what to do next?”

Neither woman moved a muscle.

“Run,” he snarled.
 
They scrambled to their feet and rushed toward the door.

“No,” Doug gasped. He tried to grab Lindsey’s wrist, but Mickey clamped a hand down on his throat and flung him to the couch.

The women ran out the door and did not look back. They clamored into their rusty old sedan parked on the curb and drove away, leaving the neighborhood full of young urban professionals none the wiser.

Chad
found a reserve of courage and rushed at Mickey, thrusting the blade into his neck.

The shaggy stranger didn’t flinch as the metal sank into his skin.

Chad
tried to push the blade in further, but Mickey grabbed his right hand, squeezed, and twisted, breaking
Chad
’s thumb, index, and ring fingers with a sickening crack. The young vampire barely managed to let out a yelp before Mickey tossed him onto the couch next to Doug.

He removed the blade from his neck and tossed it to the floor. “Even for vampires, you guys are really weak.”

“Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.”
Chad
held his injured hand and buried his face in the arm of the plush maroon couch.

“That’s right.” Doug tried to sound forceful and confident, but instead he sounded like what he was: a guy who was in over his head and knew it. “We are vampires. We may be young, but our master is old. If you lay another finger on us, you’re dead.”

Mickey slammed the front door and regarded the vampires with narrowed eyes. “Okay. If you’re vampires, what does that make me?” He smiled, again displaying the four disproportionately large, pointed canine teeth.

“A lonely vampire looking for friends?” Doug asked, with a hint of hope in his voice.

Mickey shook his head. “Not even close.”

His smile faded and he lunged for Doug, pinning him back against the couch and forcing his head to the side. He sniffed his neck. “All wrong,” he muttered, and reached over to drag
Chad
’s head down and smell him as well.

“What the hell is this?” he growled. Then he forced Doug’s mouth open. He grabbed the two sharp, pearly-white vampire teeth and pulled. They popped free with little resistance, revealing normal human teeth beneath.

He looked at
Chad
. “And you?”

Chad
held his broken fingers tight against his body and voluntarily removed his own fake vampire teeth with the other hand.
 

Mickey stood and took a step back, looking the two men up and down. “You aren’t vampires. Eight-hundred-dollar silk shirts? Leather pants? Ten gallons of hair gel? You’re just…” He paused, searching for the right word. “You’re just stupid.”

“Please don’t kill us,” Doug blurted. He suddenly noticed he was still holding the razor.

Mickey noticed as well. “You going to use that?” He turned his head, giving both men a view of the damage caused by
Chad
’s razor. Only a barely noticeable scab remained.

Doug tossed the razor away without hesitation.

“I should kill you both right now for being idiots,” Mickey said, “but you have sparked my curiosity. Why are you playing dress-up, and why were you going to murder those two women?” He sat down on the coffee table in front of them and drummed his claw-tipped fingers on the wood.