Vampires Don't Sparkle! (8 page)

She did.

He leaned forward, pushed her hair roughly from her neck, buried his fangs into the flesh, and he drank.

He drank.

She slipped to her knees and still he drank.

She felt her knuckles strike the floor, and then her forehead, and still he drank.

-----

It wasn’t quite daybreak when Peter woke up, and she wasn’t in the Suburban. And she’d left the damn car door open and the bugs were inside, all over the place. He had gnats in his nose, and he sneezed them out onto his sleeve.

“Where the hell is she?”

Probably out to pee, couldn’t wait any longer. He thought young people had stronger bladders than that.

He struggled out of the blanket, climbed from the Suburban, and relieved himself against the front tire.

Then he noticed that the string of keys was no longer around his neck.

“Shit, oh shit.”

He fumbled around inside the vehicle, dug in the cushions, felt along the floor among the balls and bits of trash. But the keys were not there.

“Kelly!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

She didn’t answer.

“Fuck!” She couldn’t have taken his keys. She would have done that. She said she respected him. She was a good girl, a kind girl. She wanted to please him.

“Kelly!”

He stormed around the trailer to the tent. No way would she have disobeyed his rule. No way would she have tried to see what he told her not to see. She was a tender-hearted soul. She wanted to do good. And she was afraid of the snake he’d lied about.

He entered the tent. He saw the last exhibit’s door standing wide open.

“Oh, fuck!”

He didn’t want to look.

And of course, he had no choice.

She was there, inside, lying on the floor, her hair tacky with dried blood, her eyes open and staring at a dust ball just inches from her nose. On the side of her neck were two brutal, raised puncture wounds.

The big cage was empty.

“Kelly!”

He dropped beside her, picked her up, shook her. “Kelly!”

There was a faint stirring inside her body. She was still alive.

“Kelly?”

The last town they’d driven through was too small for a hospital, but surely there was a doctor. A doctor who could do a blood transfusion? Someone who could bring her back around.

“Kelly?”

Kelly shivered, groaned.

“Kelly!”

And then her eyes turned toward him. They were a ghastly yellow, putrid like piss-filled pools. She grinned a dead woman’s grin, and he saw the needle-like teeth.

“Shit!”

He dropped her, leapt to his feet, and clawed open the plastic safety kit, keeping his gaze on Kelly, who was now staggering to her feet and snarling, “I smell your blood.”

Peter removed the sharpened stake and wooden mallet from the box. He held them up. “You did this to yourself, damn you! You ruined my show! You freed the Darkton’s great Mystery! How am I going to tell your mother that I had to drive a stake through your heart?”

Kelly shuffled toward him, groggily grinning her terrible grin, her lips hitching. Peter poised the stake before him, the mallet at the ready.

But in that instant he realized he had to explain nothing to Kelly’s mother. He realized that he’d lost nothing, really, but his temper and a little time.

He tossed the stake and mallet aside and shoved his still-wakening daughter into the cage. She fell hard, growling, slashing with her fingers, snapping her fanged jaws. The lock was slapped into place and locked. Peter stepped back. Breathing hard, and considered his handiwork.

“This’ll do,” he said.

Kelly’s lips formed a sluggish, “No….”

“Yep, sorry, dear. You brought this on yourself. You wanted to be part of the circus, so welcome to it.”

He pulled the curtain down and left the trailer.

Outside the tent, sunlight was creeping through the trees, washing the field, and awakening the songbirds.

Kelly would be falling to sleep right about now.

Peter lit the Coleman stove, opened a can of Spam, and cooked himself a nice breakfast.

ROBOT VAMPIRE

R. J. Sullivan

R. J. Sullivan’s first novel,
Haunting Blue
, is an edgy paranormal thriller. First released in 2010, Seventh Star will soon release the Authorized Edition. R.J. is hard at work on the sequel,
Virtual Blue
, coming from Seventh Star later this year. 
Haunting Obsession
, a Rebecca Burton Novella, was published last year. R.J. enjoys many filmed and literary takes on the vampire: the classic Universal films, Hammer Horror, Anne Rice,
Dark Shadows
,
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
, and he even loves Frank Langella’s
Dracula
. He draws the line at sparkly vampires playing baseball in the Washington forests. Learn more at www.rjsullivanfiction.com 

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H
ow delicious to feed upon the innocent.

The memories, the triumphs of the demon’s reign of terror still burned bright in its being, even the final tragedy over 13 centuries ago.

How glorious to apply the delicate twist, the lightest touch that would turn jealousy to rage, grieving to anger, hopelessness to reckless abandon.

The demon recalled little Tetsuo, who pouted when Mommy wouldn’t play with him. So as Mommy balanced herself on the stool trying to hang the lantern, the demon coaxed the baby to grab her ankle. Not hard, but enough to send her toppling to her death.

Or Akima, jealous of her best friend’s party dress, who grabbed the butcher knife to cut off the offending garment, slicing flesh and clothing with equal indifference.

Thousands of twists, thousands of sweet tastes for the demon to savor.

It could also twist the adults, the sophisticated and the learned. And those victories could also satisfy. But it preferred to turn the young, the innocent. By destroying the young, it could also destroy the adults — the parents, the friends, the community. With one random act of madness, the demon could scar the psyche of an entire village.

The demon loved the blood. To taste the blood was sublime. To spill the blood proved almost as satisfying. Since the dawn of humankind, the demon bent their souls and controlled their bodies, and from its worshippers, it demanded sacrifice.

It demanded the blood.

One day, it grew overconfident. It controlled the mind, and eventually the body, of 16-year-old Hisamu. The young man resented the attentions his parents doted upon his twin brother. Whether true or the fancies of an over-active mind, the reasons no longer mattered once the demon compelled Hisamu to slice his sibling’s throat.

Then the grieving parents arrived with local Shinto monks — demon fighters who knew the creature’s true name.

The demon, still using the young man’s body, fled into the village catacombs, but the locked gates and the labyrinth of dungeons could not fool these clever men for long. They knew the grounds near their temple much better than the demon, and soon they cornered it, calling its name, driving it out, speaking in the ancient tongue, known only to few, the words that compelled it to obey.

Leave, Ananjaku; Flee, Ananjaku.

Abandon this innocent flesh and all mortal innocents.

We call upon the forgotten gods of old to bind you.

You shall never enter the flesh again.

May your words be rendered impotent to the heart and flesh.

We curse you, Ananjaku, to eternally wander the world, to witness the charity and goodness of a people forever beyond your reach.

The binding words drove Annajaku from the lad. The binding words held it fast.

Still, the child, thrashing and insane from the trauma of his actions, had to be slain. The parents’ tears flowed for the rest of their bitter lives, and the demon’s final act of evil left a scar across generations.

Victory proved hollow. The demon could no longer tempt flesh, child or adult. It could only whisper, cajole from outside. Victories came few and far between, and only with great effort. Exhausted and beaten, Annanjaku resigned itself to wander the world.

Until that one day when a new soul called out, one not tied to the flesh, one the demon sensed it could commune with.

-----

He was late.

Gentoshu Akkai’s Honda Civic screeched into the parking space in the loading dock behind the Nippon Budakan concert hall. He sprang out of the vehicle and flashed his VIP badge to the approaching security guard. Gentoshu grunted in commanding Japanese, “I need backstage now. Can you escort me?”

“
Hai!
,” the security guard snapped back. “Follow me.”

“Hurry.” Though a career computer engineer and one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, Gentoshu took full advantage of the free gym facilities at Rogi-Tech Industries. Kicking his legs into a light jog, he focused on the neck of the security guard and kept pace easily as they jogged through the back dock, through a side door, and into the darkened halls of the prep area. Even as the guards scrambled to step aside, Gentoshu flashed his badge to each one in their turn.

As he ran, the mini-hard-drive that dangled on the lanyard around his neck thumped against his chest. They closed in on the closed door of a room familiar to him, the portable robotics mini-lab and kiosk assembled in the dressing room.

Without the program updates imprinted on the lanyard, their star performer would follow the old instructions, pre-set prior to rehearsals. And that simply would not do.

Not tonight, of all nights, when Rogi-tech Industries would premiere Jinan, the most sophisticated artificial performer in the world — at least until their next model. Jinan, they hoped, would be Rogi-Tech’s finest moment in robotics achievement, not to mention Gentoshu’s crowning achievement in the field of artificial intelligent programming.

“There you are! She’s supposed to go on in ten minutes!” Toshio snarled in Japanese as Gentoshu burst through the door. No formality, no pleasantries, Toshio had no time for such nonsense during what he viewed as a crisis. The pudgy, and in Gentoshu’s unspoken opinion,
prissy
talent handler and show choreographer wagged a finger at him in disapproval. “How could you let this happen?”

“Traffic,” Gentoshu snapped, matching Toshio’s angry tone. He would not be intimidated by the self-important choreographer-for-hire during this crisis. Gentoshu fumed quietly, ranting in his head.
Don’t start with me. Your Tokyo debut will go off as scheduled, give or take five minutes.

Gentoshu bee-lined to the three tall bookshelf server computers stacked on a wheeled stand, supported on a box-and-lock transportable casing. Several cables extended from the contraption into a small light-up disc which lay close to the ground. The recharging kiosk lay next to it — a step-platform with a pair of foot positions outlined in black on the glass surface. Standing in place, Jinan could absorb electricity through small copper contact plates attached to her heels.

Currently, Jinan herself stood on the kiosk, erect, expressionless, silently recharging her battery cells while an assistant adjusted the silver bow on the waist of the robot’s gown. The sight reminded Gentoshu of the times he’d walk past a window display of a major department store while the decorators dressed the mannequins.

“Do you know what happened during rehearsal today?” Toshio screeched in Gentoshu’s ear.

Gentoshu repeated Toshio’s typical complaint of the past two weeks, “Jinan bumped into a background dancer?” He squinted at the computer monitor, trying in vain to block out the incessant bleating and focus on the task of uploading the updates.

“Don’t I wish!” Toshio raised one hand before his face, channeling the persona of the failed stage actor Gentoshu had pegged him to be. Toshio placed that hand across his forehead. “No, this time … she fell off the stage!”

In spite of the time crunch, Gentoshu glared at Toshio. “Was she damaged?”

Toshio shook his head. “It took two people to put her back in place, and she repeated the same incorrect moves again. We stopped her from falling off the stage a second time, of course. But I take that to mean she wasn’t damaged.”

Idiot!
Gentoshu shuddered. He wiped sweat from his brow. For all of the handler’s emoting, it was Gentoshu’s ass on the line if tonight ended in a disaster.

Fortunately, all of Jinan’s delicate circuitry was protected by several layers of shock-absorbing foam and a final outer layer of hard but malleable plastic. She could take some punishment, and you wouldn’t want to arm wrestle with her if she applied full strength.

She danced, she flipped. In theory, she could carry a full size human over her head if the choreographer called for it, but that had yet to be put to the test.