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“That is one pretty little lady,” said Travis.
Stefanie was dressed modestly in an old sweater and a pair of jeans. Her eyes were distant but still, the beauty of my not-yet-confirmed widow (I was still officially just a missing person’s case) could still be seen through the cloud of heartache that accompanied her. Only a couple of weeks earlier this was my home. Now I was standing outside just a couple of feet away from the kitchen window and it felt like she was miles away.
By this time my new undead friends had taught me how to control my visible and non-visible projections. If Stefanie would have looked out past the kitchen window, she would have only seen the tattered November lawn.
The kids were helping out with the usual after-dinner routine that was passed down from Ramona. Stefanie was washing the dishes, Jessie was drying them, and Davey was clearing the table. It was a routine that taught the kids responsibility and kept the family close. Neighbors, friends, and visiting family members talked about the tangible love one felt whenever they walked into our home. Imagine how much worse that made the humiliation when reports came out of my blood being found on semen-stained sheets after having been seen with another woman.
Stefanie, Jessie and Davey went through their motions wearing loss and emptiness on their faces. A counselor probably recommended the routine as a way to deal with their grief, thinking the normalcy would be therapeutic. It wasn’t working. They looked numbed, unknowing of where their lives would be headed.
From outside, my mouth pried itself open. I was searching for words. I wanted to go inside where I belonged. I wanted to do my part, putting away the dishes.
Travis put his hand on my shoulder. “You have to let them go, son. If they see what you are now, their lives will be destroyed.”
Donny, the more empathetic of the two, was equally firm. “They’re suffering now, Nicholas, but they will make it. She looks like a strong woman. The kids too.”
“She’s always going to think that I betrayed her.”
“But you didn’t,” said Donny. “You know that. You now know how we can control the minds of others.”
I pointed to my soon to be declared widow. “But she doesn’t know that.”
Donny took me by both arms. “Deep down in her heart I’m sure she knows. She knows how much you loved her.”
“What are you going to tell them?” added Travis. “You know you can’t be in the daylight. What happens when the press finds out about you? What are you going to tell them?”
“There must be some way,” I countered, weakly.
“Like what?” challenged Travis. “Tell me. What happens when you can’t go back to work because the sun will turn you into ashes? Or even your son’s little league games, how are you going to explain that? Are you going to tell your family what you are? Do you think you can hide this from them? You don’t think your little girl’s not going to notice you’re never at the breakfast table? And what about the Mrs.? How will she feel about having a coffin set up in the master bedroom? Or having her husband go out for a midnight stroll so he can feed off one of the neighbors while she’s watching David Letterman?” I wanted to come back with something that would shut him up but I had nothing.
“Don’t make their lives any worse than they already are,” said Donny.
Travis emphasized his seriousness by bringing his face close to mine. “To the rest of the world we don’t exist. And since we feed on the primary species of this planet it needs to stay that way. Up until now we’ve been keeping you going on blood that we’ve had stored away. But now it’s time for you to start feeding on your own. That means taking human lives.” He knew my genetic resistance made that a challenge. “Like I said before, what we have is communicable. If we don’t decapitate or stake our prey, they become one of us. Right now there are probably no more than two hundred or so of us walking around on this entire planet. Some of us are several centuries old. The last thing this world needs is more of our kind. The more of us there are, the less we will have to feed from. The more of us there are attacking the population in our vicinities, the better the chance for awareness of our existence. What happens then? Well? What do you think? It then becomes a matter of survival because they will start seeking us out.” Travis paused to study me. “Am I getting through? ’Cause if you’re going to continue as one of us, you are going to need to feed. And to feed you are going to have to kill. And make no mistake about it. You will enjoy it, even resistants enjoy the kill. It just takes a little longer for you to get used to it.” Travis’ lip curled into an Elvis sneer. “So go ahead. Tell that to the Mrs.”
I glared back at Travis but lost the staring contest. Instead I chose to turn to what was once my kitchen window. Davey finished helping in the kitchen and darted off to play Nintendo. Jessie was still next to Stefanie, helping her out. They were always very close. She was now starting to develop some of her mother’s features. An authoritative figure would soon be needed to keep his eye on the young men that would be seeking her company. The position was now vacant.
As for Stefanie, Donny was right. She was always strong. But now I had broken her heart twice—not only by dying, but by dying after a sexual encounter with another woman. She was going to have to suffer grief, betrayal and humiliation, all at the same time. In the following years I would return regularly to visit them without being seen. Eventually I would reluctantly accept that as one of nature’s anomalies I had no role there anymore.
Travis saw that the truth was setting in but being the hard son of a bitch that he is, he showed no sympathy. I looked one last time through the window. Davey was back in the kitchen. Stefanie had called him away from his Nintendo. It was now his job to put away the dishes.
#
“It’s time to cut the cord, young man. We can’t go on feeding you our leftovers much longer.” Travis wasn’t one to be subtle. He spoke loud and clear so he could be heard over the loud Euro-disco playing at the Hindquarters, a Soho nightclub he owns with Donny. Judging from the packed dance floor it looked like business was going quite well for my nocturnal mentors. By its nature, you couldn’t find a more convenient occupation for our kind. Night life, nighttime predators, you do the math.
Donny was with us on the balcony leaning over the railing watching nymphs in shoulder-less tops and camel-toe jeans grinding with hairy-chested “studs” trying to look tough in skin-tight Picasso-patterned polyester shirts.
Travis continued to babble his bullshit. “You need to decide if you want this new existence because if you do, you will need to feed off the living. (The guy was like a fucking broken-record.) It’s the only blood that will do. If you’re thinking maybe animal blood will do the trick, it won’t. You were human, you were not an animal. You will need human blood. The more and the better quality, the stronger you will be, making your capabilities like mind-control and projection sharper. And remember, when you feed, it is your responsibility to make sure that the victim never rises.”
“How do you suggest I do that,” I asked, while Duran Duran blared over the sound system.
“Decapitation,” he replied. “That’s generally the best way.”
“What about that wooden stake you were pressing against my chest when you found me?”
“That works too. Whichever way you prefer, as long as it gets done.”
“So is that what you do every night? Drink blood? Cut people’s heads off?”
Travis pointed his finger at me. “How we feed is our business and our business only. How you feed is yours. As long as you properly dispose of your prey, what you do is no concern of mine,” he said, coldly glaring at me before walking away.
“What’s his problem?” I asked Donny, wondering if he was targeting his prey below on the dance floor.
Donny turned to me and shrugged with his usual sympathetic look. “Believe it or not, he really does like you.”
“Bullshit,” I said. I turned and took the steps down to the main floor.
“Come on, Nicholas. Where are you going?” said Donny, following me through the shaking asses and the thrusting pelvises.
At the exit, the bouncer offered to stamp my hand for re-entry. I waved him off and stepped out into the crisp November air. Outside, young Generation X-ers were lined up waiting to get in. Some were couples, nuzzling and kissing in the slight chill of the late fall. I looked at them, wondering how I was going to do this. How was I going to choose whose life I would end to keep myself going? They were all young, happy, unsuspecting and having fun. Some were in love. Some were just out looking for a piece of ass. Whatever they were, I became ill at the thought that one of them could end up not coming home that night. Only weeks before I was a doting husband and father making a comfortable living. Did I really have it in me to become a serial-killing predator?
Halfway up the block I heard the pattering footsteps of Donny coming up behind me. “Nick, what are you doing?”
“You know what? I have no idea.”
“Well come back then,” said the lanky, undead pretty-boy. “Don’t mind Travis. He just doesn’t like being asked questions like that. He can be an asshole sometimes, you know that.”
“Not that I give a shit, but why does he have such a bug up his ass about me?”
Donny sighed. “When we found you, it was because we sensed Simone feeding. We were trying to catch her so we could destroy her. But by the time we got there she was already gone. It was just you in that room. Normally we’d have just decapitated you so we wouldn’t have another one of us in the area. But I told Travis to hold off because I thought maybe you might have known something that could have helped us.”
“So it was you, then.”
“Me what?” asked Donny.
“You,” I repeated. “You’re the reason I’m still here.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean; you should have let him do it. You should have let him cut my head off!”
I turned to walk away again but Donny pulled on my arm to stop me. “Listen, you can’t just go out there yet.”
“You, it’s on you. I have to kill people for blood now? Guess what? Every life I take now is going to be on your head. Not that you give a shit with that nice line of fools lining up in front of your club to be your supper.”
Donny cocked his head to the side like a shamed puppy dog being yelled at for pissing on the carpet. “I thought maybe we could help you get started. You know, somewhere else outside the city. I mean, if you don’t want this, we can always, you know...”
“That’s not the point, dammit!” I confronted him Travis-style. “Let me ask you something. Have you ever killed anyone? Because according to the two of you, you’re both genetically resistant. So tell me. How do you do it? Does taking someone’s life away give you any problems?” Donny remained quiet. And then it occurred to me. “Wait a minute. You never killed anyone, did you?” His eyes drifted towards the line I front of the Hindquarters. “So what then?” I asked. “How do you feed?”
Donny thought for a moment then shook his head. “We never told you how Travis was turned, did we?” I didn’t answer. I just waited for him to continue. “During the prohibition era, Travis ran a speakeasy here in the city for the Capelli family.”
“Prohibition Era!”
“He doesn’t look too bad for a 100 year-old, does he?” said Donny, trying to lighten the mood. “I worked for him there. And of course back then, relationships like ours were not something you wanted to have known, especially when you were involved with someone like Capelli. So we did our best to be discreet.”
“So what’s this got to do with—”
“Easy,” said Donny. “You’re so impatient. You remind me of Travis sometimes.”
“Never mind that. Where’s this story going?”
“Well, if you stop interrupting me...”
“All right, go ahead.”
Donny shook his head and continued. “Simone was Capelli’s goomar. And she was a manipulative, horny little bitch that everyone in the boss’s group had had a little time in bed with. And though he always suspected something was going on, he was never able to prove anything.”
“Was she already—”
“Oh yeah,” said Donny. “That tramp goes back centuries”
“So what’s that got to do with you? I’m sure neither of you were screwing her.”
“Let’s put the sarcastic quips aside, shall we?” Donny continued. “I don’t know how, but someone found out about me and Travis because Capelli went ahead and put out the word on us. I think his exact words were, “I want that pervert and his faggot boyfriend dead.”
“So what happened?”
“Well, I guess he forgot that Travis had done a few jobs for him in the past because he sent only one man to take him out.”
“Travis was a hit man?”
Donny beamed. “Travis was never someone to be messed with.” He went on to describe how Capelli’s goon was found at the back door of the speakeasy with his throat slit. After that Simone mesmerized Capelli with either her mind control or her lady bits and convinced him that she could handle Travis. But after she left, one of Capelli’s other men secretly put a tail on her because he never trusted the hold she had over the boss and wanted to see what she did when no one else was around.
“Was that when she got Travis?” I asked.
Donnie nodded. “Well, you already know what a horny wench she is. And though she isn’t necessarily his type, she had him under the same spell that she had you.”
I hung my head. “That doesn’t make me feel any less responsible for what happened a couple of weeks ago.”
“I understand, but it wasn’t your fault,” said Donny. “Travis didn’t want this either. And who knows? Maybe Simone didn’t even want him to turn because if she was planning on staking him or removing his head, she never got the chance. While they were lying naked together and she was feeding off him, the doors burst open with three of Capelli’s men spraying machine gun bullets at them.”
“Why didn’t she attack them?”
“Well Nicholas, even though we’re dead, those bullets can be pretty painful. And they leave permanent damage underneath our projected appearances. Once our skin is torn, it doesn’t heal that well. Our projections only give that illusion. I don’t know if you’ve seen Simone’s skin without her projected appearance, but I can tell you for a fact that Travis’ body is full of bullet holes.”
“Let’s leave Travis’ naked body out of this. What happened after that?”
“They were on the fifth floor of a hotel. Travis had been hiding there after killing the man Capelli sent after him. When those other guys went in that room and started shooting, Simone jumped out of that bed and dove right out the window.”
“Shit, they must have wondered how the hell she did that.”
“You’re right about that because when they looked out that window, expecting to find her naked body splattered on the concrete, she was gone, nowhere in sight.”
“What about Travis?”
“They stuffed him in the trunk of their car to deliver to Capelli. But when they got to Capelli’s house and opened up the trunk... well, let’s just say that Travis always has had a taste for Italian food.”
“He turned that fast?”
Donnie nodded.
“But isn’t he genetically resistant?”
“Yes,” said Donny patiently. “But as I just explained, Travis had no problem killing before he became victim to Simone, so taking lives after his change was never an issue.” Donnie then giggled.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was thinking about Buffalo Johnny.”
“Who’s Buffalo Johnny?”
“He’s the only one of us I know that doesn’t actually kill anyone.”
That got my attention. “What? How?”
“Donny!”
It was Travis pushing through the line waiting in front of the Hindquarters. “What’s going on?” he asked as he approached us.
“Nicholas wants to leave,” said Donny.
“Then let him go,” said Travis. “Feel free to go on if you wish, young man. There’s really not much more to teach you at this point, so as long as you’re not feeding here in the city, you can go wherever you want.”
“Why do you want me out of New York? This is a big city,” I asked.
“Two reasons; first, this city is ours, three of us are too much for one city. Second, you’re a dead man, a dead man whose face has been all over the local newspapers. You can’t be here.”
He had a point. The risk of running into people who knew the living Nicky Negrón was much too high. What if it got back to my family?
Regardless, Donny’s Buffalo Johnny story piqued my interest. “Donny says I might not have to kill anyone to feed.”
Travis gave Donny an incredulous look. “What are you talking about?”
Donny giggled again. “I was going to tell him about Buffalo Johnny from Upstate.”
“Buffalo John—” Travis looked at Donny like he was crazy.
Now they really had my attention. “Who’s Buffalo Johnny?”
Travis shook his head at me. “Johnny’s a rare case. It’s not the best way to—”
“To what? There’s a way for me to get by without having to kill anyone and you’re not going to tell me?”
“Well, if you can find someone willing to...” For the first time Travis seemed a little awkward in trying to express himself. Donny giggled some more.
I started to lose my patience. “Why the hell are you laughing? Who is Buffalo Johnny?”
Donny shrugged as if saying, why not. “He owns a night club like we do, near Niagara Falls.”
“So?”
Donny raised an eyebrow suggestively. “Well, he has some ladies that come to him once a month for a feeding.”
“I don’t get it. I thought we have to kill them. What aren’t you telling me?” I then thought for a moment. “Wait a minute. What do you mean monthly?”
Donny giggled again. “Johnny is very popular with the ladies.”
“Are you telling me—?”
Travis nodded. “The blood is of good quality, too. It’s been known to hold some of us up for close to a month. And it’s true,” Travis admitted. “You don’t have to kill the woman if you can wipe her memory. But there lies the problem. Menstruating women tend to be difficult to hypnotize.”
“But that’s kind of like rape, isn’t it?”
“Well you could find yourself a girlfriend,” scoffed Travis. “But you’re probably going to want to avoid close relationships with humans. It creates a lot of problems. Questions, explanations, it goes on and on.”
“So then my choices are rape or murder?”
Travis gestured Donny to join him back at the club. “Whether you violate or kill your prey is your business, just don’t do it in our city.”