Dom threw a stick of gum in his mouth and chewed, the action helping mask his nerves. From the abandoned garage where he’d parked his car, he kept his eyes on the front garden of 1428, and the two fangheads in their regular positions. He checked the time: 1:21 pm. It was almost time to strike, and he was feeling it; the nerves, the anxiety. He managed to get zero hours of sleep the night before. Instead, he lay in his bed for hours just staring at the darkness, wondering exactly what was going to happen today. How events would unfold. He envisaged a million different scenarios, some victorious, some failures. He tried to play out every possibility in his mind, hoping to avoid any nasty surprises. The truth was that he had no idea what was going on inside that derelict, boarded-up house. It was a box of tricks, a mystery, but one he needed to solve. Today.
He glanced at his reflection in the rear-view. He looked pale; bloodshot eyes stared back at him, dark rings hanging under them as if he hadn’t had a lick of sleep for ten years. On top of that, that nasty tingling had started up the moment he neared the house. That venom detector. It trickled and tickled down his spine like the delicate fingers of a specter. He tapped the steering wheel, his jaw working up and down like a piston, his stare fixed on the two guards in their deckchairs.
Come on, he urged. Go...
They stayed as they were. Dom huffed. He wished he could just cut the next hour out of his life, and then continue from there. Preferably with the vamp’s body in his trunk on the way up to Beauchamp’s mansion. He checked the time again: 1:23. What felt like an electric eel suddenly squirmed in his stomach. He took in a deep breath and jigged his knees up and down to get the blood flowing through his legs. He knew he would be nervous, but not this bad.
Just be like Arnie in The Terminator. Storm in there, smoke the guy, then march triumphantly out.
Yeah right. He wished it were that easy.
He stared hard at the fangheads. Come on, isn’t it Big Mac time yet?
They just sat there in their deckchairs like they were at the beach. Man, those assholes had to really be hooked on that venom to do that all day, every day. The realization that he was just like them only last week made him shiver. It was mind control; pure and simple. Dom shook his head in disbelief, expelling air from his lungs.
He then ran jittery hands through his hair. He didn’t know how much more tension he could take. The only good thing was that the street was empty. No hobos, stragglers, or loiterers to bother him. He just watched. And waited. Watched and waited for that magic moment when they’d leave.
And then it would be on.
*****
Craig checked his watch: 1:27.
Time to go. He turned his head to the side to meet Jeff’s almost telepathic stare. Craig tapped his watch. Jeff nodded.
Craig shot up from his seat and cracked his knuckles. Jeff eased himself up from his chair more tentatively. He put his arms across his chest. “You know, Drake would kill us if he knew what we were up to,” he said in a low voice, his eyes darting left and right.
Craig flipped his hand on the air. “Relax, he’s snoozing, so he’ll never know.”
Jeff puffed his cheeks and nodded. “Yeah, maybe I’m just worrying too much that something will happen to him while we’re not around.”
Craig grinned. “And that’s exactly why he gets Marlon to sleep up there with him.”
Jeff met his stare. “Cause he’s twice the size of us?”
Craig shook his head. “No, cause he knows we’re a couple of slackers. Now, let’s go.”
A twitchy grin spread across Jeff’s face. Craig set off, watching the streets with edgy eyes. Jeff followed, scratching his armpit.
They hit the sidewalk and headed away from the house.
*****
Dom’s heart jumped into his throat. The two fangheads just got up to leave. Right on cue. He watched them, jaw slack, bending his head down below the steering wheel, just his eyes peeking out over the top of it like he was the world’s worst spy. All he was missing was a fake mustache. In a few seconds, they were on the sidewalk. A few seconds more and they were turning down the street on the next block. Then, they were out of sight.
Dom’s eyes widened. This was it!
He sprang into life. He immediately pulled down the lid of the glove compartment and grabbed the metal stake and rubber mallet, stuffing them into the belt of his jeans. He then closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. Calm down, buddy. Just calm down.
He tried to let his mind go blank. Blank. Blank. Blank. Nothing in it. He exhaled, opened his eyes again, and in the next instant, he flung open the door, letting in the sound of the outside world, which was dead silence. He stepped out onto the dirty concrete and then threw the door shut behind him. The sound reverberated all around him. Now, standing on the street, he quickly realized that his legs were numb and shaking.
Get it together, buddy, or you die here. Today!
Think about what these things did to you. And he did. He’d been bitten, pumped full of mind-controlling venom, kept in a basement as a slave. And one of the creatures that did it all to him was in that house. He nodded his head in understanding, suddenly feeling stronger.
Payback.
He scanned the area. The street was still thankfully empty. No passing cars, no kids on bikes, no hobos searching dumpsters. Nothing. And now no fangheads. Just him, a bunch of derelict houses, and a sleeping vamp. A shiver juddered through him just as he got moving, hitting the dirty sidewalk, zipping his leather jacket up to obscure his vampire-slaying tools. He had a quick glance across the street at 1428, the empty deckchairs in the garden, and his route over there. He started to jog towards them, his heart hammering like Woody Woodpecker had sneaked into his chest and was pecking away. He puffed his cheeks out in regular bursts. His stomach was turning itself inside out over and over like the local baker kneading dough. It was torture. It’ll all be over soon, buddy, he kept telling himself as he approached the house. He tried to think of good things: things like blondes in bikinis, beer, and money; especially the money he was gonna get from that millionaire limey for pulling this off. Money to get his landlord off his case.
He made it across the street, 1428 just a little way up. By then his heart was going at a million miles an hour and tasted like a nugget of hot lead. He wiped grimy sweat that had the texture of olive oil from his forehead. His mouth was as dry as a lizard’s back. His mind was going in so many different directions he was almost dizzy; coupled with that was the tingling in his spine. He wanted to shake it off, get his thoughts clear on how this was gonna play out, but it was impossible. He just had to roll with it as best he could.
As he approached the house, his eyes glued to it, he slowed to a walk, not wanting things to appear too blatant, wanting to play it cool. On finally reaching it, he stopped and stood at the head of the front yard, the empty deckchairs staring back at him as if he’d just strolled onto a ghost beach. Somewhere in the near distance, a crow cawed. He took a look around him. The next door house was all boarded up too; ugly graffiti covered the boards in ineligible black scribbles. He gazed from it over to the steel shutters obscuring the upstairs window of 1428. The bastard was probably sleeping in there right now. The thought made him shudder. He had a final glance over both shoulders; he was still alone.
Time to go in...
He steeled himself, then took his first tentative step into the yard. The second he did, his breathing seemed to stop and his heart began to hammer so hard, he could hear it; a bass drum in his chest. As for the house itself, it now dwarfed him. It appeared to be bending over him like it was about to swallow him whole, chew him up, then spit the remains out in the back yard for the crows to come and peck at.
Come on, buddy, get a grip, he kept telling himself. Get a grip...
He felt every muscle in his body tense as he moved past those two empty deckchairs rippling in the breeze. The two guards had left their weapons by their sides: a cosh, a hammer, a crowbar. Dom gulped. He definitely didn’t wanna get into a brawl with those two. He sped up slightly, focusing on the house. He finally crossed the garden path and made it onto the porch, his sneakers silent on the old wood. Now the cawing crows were distant, a million miles away like God had muted the world. All he could hear was the tomb-like silence coming from inside the house. A steel shutter covered the front door. It had been pulled away and pushed back so many times, it had been bent and weakened, meaning that he could get past it with ease. He sized the sheet up before he reached out and grabbed it. It was razor cold. He then eased it towards him, biting his bottom lip. The sheet squeaked quietly and scraped a little on the wooden porch. He winced. A slice of darkness spilt out of the gap he had made, bringing with it an ancient, musky, smell that somehow reminded him of old churches. He took a peek into the murk, finding that he was unable to see all the way to the rear of the entrance hall.
It’s very dark in there, was his first thought. He took in another deep breath and squinted his eyes; the darkness inside grew darker. What the hell am I doing? he suddenly asked himself as he stared into that abyss. Why am I doing this? Turn around, go home and think of something else while you’ve still got the chance cause once you go in, you might never come back out. He mulled it over. Then shook his head. There was no turning back. Go home to what exactly anyway? Loneliness? Isolation? Eviction?
Besides, he was working against the clock and he didn’t have time to waste thinking about crap like that. He steadied himself, then carefully eased past the steel sheet. He stepped onto the bare floorboards of the entrance hall, suddenly feeling like the world’s most stupid burglar who was about to rob an empty house.
Now, he found himself swallowed whole by the inner darkness.
The crows outside were now muffled, the silence surrounding him now amplified and it was an uncomfortable feeling like being sent on stage in front of a silent and expecting audience for the first time while they waited for the act to start. He felt exposed, out in the open in a place he didn’t know jack squat about. An alien in a foreign world.
Get upstairs and kill the vamp! his mind shouted at him, kicking him into gear. He scanned the gloom ahead of him, locking his eyes on the flight of carpetless stairs over to the left, just visible in the light spilling in through the ajar sheet/door. Dom reached into his jacket and pulled out the metal stake from his belt, letting it dangle by his side. It felt heavier than it did before as if it had morphed into an anvil. The passage he was in led straight into what looked like the kitchen with a closed door embedded in the right-hand wall. Suddenly, he was asking himself if the vamp could be in that room. He’d just assumed that he would be upstairs. Bedrooms were usually upstairs and this asshole would be sleeping. Yeah, but, this was a vampire and this was a derelict house. He could pick his bedroom anywhere he wanted. He checked his watch. In the sparse light, he could see it was 1:32. It was only a few minutes beforehand when he was in his car, but that seemed like a lifetime ago. But one thing hadn’t changed and still remained the same. He didn’t have much time. He had to get moving upstairs.
But if the target is in that room downstairs and you get stuck on the upstairs floor? Suddenly things were going a bit wonky.
I haven’t planned this as well as I thought I did...
And another thing, it would be pitch black further in the house, and he didn’t think to bring a flashlight with him. He could just about see the end of the front hallway because of the light coming in from the entrance, but inside those rooms, it would be like nighttime, cause the windows were all boarded up.
An idea hit him. Maybe the lights work.
Hmm. He spun his head left and right to see the outline of a light switch on the wall next to him. He reached out and flicked it. Nothing. Great. He huffed as he reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out his lucky Zippo, the one Mary Lou from Kentucky bought him as a parting gift, even though he didn’t smoke. Well, what could you do when God got your bra size and your IQ level ass backwards? Poor chick... Cute as hell, though.
Dom sparked it and held it out in front of him, suddenly grateful for Mary Lou’s unintentional genius foresight. It lit up the surrounding walls and floorboards in a small yellow circle, illuminating the way for him. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do. Now he could finally get going.
He allowed for another of those deep, steadying breaths, just as a drop of sweat dripped off the end of his nose and hit the floorboards with a small duff sound that seemed a lot louder in there than it actually should have.
Christ, this isn’t going well at all!
He decided to take off his jacket and dump it on the floor to help him cool off. He could get it on his way out.
If you get out…
Now in only his tee, he took a cautious step forward, his breath baited, his neck craning his head around this way and that as if he expected something to jump out of the darkness. Now, every horror movie he’d ever seen whirled around his mind in vivid images like a self-destroying movie reel of torture. His mouth was sand paper and his face an oily mask. He wiped it with the back of his hand. The trusty Zippo in his hand illuminated a small area ahead of him, revealing that the kitchen most probably contained no nasty surprises. But, you never knew… By then, he’d nearly made it to the door. He carefully placed his feet down on the floorboards, almost tiptoeing along, his teeth embedded into his bottom lip, turning it white. Now he was deeper into the hallway, he could hear his breathing like he was Darth Vader, the sound of the crows now a dull drone somewhere in the background. He could smell the stink of himself coming from the sweat patches under the arms of his tee, which was now plastered to his back like Velcro. He stopped by the first door and listened for a second, his eyes fixed on the stairs. He didn’t like them being empty like that, it was the same effect as watching a lonely swing in the park swaying to and fro on the wind as if a ghost kid was riding it. There wasn’t a sound coming from inside the room, but that meant nothing. If Mr. Vampire was asleep in there, he wouldn’t be making a peep. Well, there was no choice, he had to go in and check it out.
He said a small prayer to himself before he reached for the doorknob. He slowly began to turn it, easing it round bit by bit, not wanting it to make a sound, telling the vamp there was an intruder in his nest. All the while, sweat dripped off his skin. He felt it run down the back of his legs, down his arms and down his chin. The doorknob finally went all the way around.
And stopped.
Dom puffed his cheeks and then flicked his light out.
A second.
Two.
Three passed before he slowly eased the door open, praying that its hinges weren’t as decayed as most of the house, that they weren’t about to inform the thing asleep somewhere in 1428 that intruders were inside by screaming at the top of its voice with their dry, rusty mouths. Easy, buddy…
Easy…
A guardian angel must have been watching over him because luckily for him, they didn’t make a peep. Instead, the door swung smoothly open into another dark room. Dom wiped away the sweat from his forehead, then poked his head into the gap between door and frame. The room beyond was pitch black as he expected it to be.
God, I wish I’d brought a flashlight along... he bemoaned with deep chagrin. He flicked his Zippo on again. He shut his eyes briefly, then took a big step fully into the room, his stake bared like it was a deadly weapon. His head swung left and right, trying to soak in as much information as possible. The flame on his lighter showed him bare floorboards that ran all the way to the blocked up windows, a tattered, cushionless sofa sitting on them. But no sleeping vampires. His chest relaxed and he brought the Zippo around; a smashed-up TV was pushed up against the far wall.
Apart from this, the room was empty and he was glad about that. A wave of relief washed over him. He was suddenly grateful for the experience of walking into a room with nothing but a metal stake and a Zippo, and surviving. It would give him a much-needed confidence boost for later on. He let the lighter go out, plunging the room into darkness again before he stepped back out of the room and into the gloomy corridor. There, he wiped more oily sweat from his face and puffed his cheeks. The adrenaline flowing through his body was giving him a bizarre kind of rush that he supposed would be the same as running out onto a battlefield with an AKA47. It was a danger rush, the kinda thing you experienced while walking through the cemetery at midnight. But it was greater than that, more concentrated. More intense.
He shook his legs to try and stiffen them up and checked the time again: 1:35. He was taking too long, he had to get moving.
Having already realized the kitchen was empty, it meant the ground floor was clear.
Now it was upstairs.
He stared at the staircase; it now resembled a trail of hot coals. He didn’t want to go near them, never mind actually step on them. The hard truth was he had no choice; there were no vamps on the ground floor, so he had to be sleeping upstairs. That tingling in his spine told him so. He tiptoed back the way he came, careful not to step on any bits of grit loitering on the floorboards. When he reached the foot of the stairs, he stared up them. The summit was a black hole. One or two paintings had been hung on the adjacent wall, but it was too dark to make out what they were.
Up there’s where you gotta go, buddy. He gave himself a wry smile before reaching for the rickety banister rail with his free hand. Carefully, he put a foot on the first step and placed his weight on it, testing it for sturdiness and squeak factor. It passed both, so he got moving up them, sparking up his Zippo. The sudden light shone something up next to him and his head spun. His eyes locked onto a giant messed-up face with a massive hooter. He flinched back. It was some kind of weird painting; looked like the effort of a five-year-old. He shivered; something about it creeped him out. Its flat eyes watched him as he turned his head back the way it came. He puffed his cheeks and started climbing the steps one by one. As he did, the gloom at the top of the stairs began dancing in a kaleidoscope of shadow and light with every movement, the shadows created by the banister spindles resembling bars on a jail cell. There was a cautious, restless fear gnawing away at him; on the one hand, he wanted to get business over with. Quickly. But on the other, he was scared to make too sudden a move just in case he made a sound and the vamp jumped out to surprise him. He licked his dry lips with a tongue that felt like it had been sun-dried. As he passed more weird paintings hanging on the wall—1960s ladies lying on trees, weird portraits with swirly lines—he found himself transported back to when he and Eddie were kids playing Resident Evil on Playstation, walking around the creepy old mansion shooting badly pixilated zombies. This, this felt just like that freaking game. There were weird paintings hanging on the walls of that mansion too, just to freak you out while you played it. Exactly, the—
His foot landed on a loose step and the floorboard moved down like a pressure plate. It screamed in agony; a long, drawn out sound like rusty nails wrenched out of a wooden plank. The silence shattered, the noise lasting for what seemed like forever. Dom’s heart leaped up into his throat; he stopped dead in his tracks like the music had been killed during a game of musical statues. The only things moving were the flickering flame on his Zippo and his eyeballs rolling around their sockets in crazy circles. In his chest, his heart hammered like a hummingbird’s wings, the sound of it pulsing in his ears.
Did he hear? Did he hear?!
He remained rooted where he was for a prolonged second. Waiting. Waiting for something to happen. Expecting the vamp to jump down from the top of the stairs and tear into his throat. His eyes rolled left and right, sweat dripping, tickling the end of his nose. He tried his best to ease his breathing, but his chest was desperate for air as if he was suffocating. The following seconds were an infinity.
But, nothing happened.
Soon, thankfully, silence punctuated by the occasional caw of a crow took over and everything settled down again, the danger averted.
Dom’s chest loosened. He was finally able to inhale deep, which felt glorious.
I can’t take more of this, he realized with mild alarm. He wiped the grime from his nose and forehead with the back of his free hand. Slowly, he lifted up his foot once more. The floorboard clicked back into place without another creak. He thanked his lucky stars for that before lifting his Zippo up high; the top of the stairs was illuminated. He was now about halfway up.
Slowly, with the caution of a professional thief, he carried on up the stairs step-by-step, being uber careful where he placed his feet on his way to the summit.
*****
Marlon’s eyes snapped open to full darkness.
His head spun; he couldn’t see jack. But he could hear, and he knew he definitely just heard something. What the hell was that noise that just woke him? It was a loud creak like a floorboard or something. Outside the room somewhere. At first he put it down to the effects of the venom, but the high had already worn off; his head was pretty clear. No, he knew he definitely heard something. Something felt wrong. Drake was pretty paranoid about the danger he was in, which explained the guards outside. Maybe it was them, patrolling the corridors. Maybe...
Marlon scanned the darkness while his mind ticked over. If it was a threat, it needed taking care of; he enjoyed the venom rush and he wanted more of it, not less. If someone wanted to take out Drake, then Marlon could kiss that venom high goodbye. That thought was suddenly the worst thing in the world. Besides, Drake was his responsibility now. He had to protect him at all costs. In the darkness, he could feel a snarl emerging on his face. There was no way he was gonna sit there like a chump and let some punk kill his buzz; kill his new father.
He began fumbling in the dark till he found the bare lamp on the floorboards. He flicked it on. The room was then lit up in artificial light. He stood up, laying eyes on Drake sleeping soundly on his makeshift bed. A sudden rush of love and compassion flooded his heart. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Father,” he whispered. Drake’s eyelids flickered, but he didn’t awaken.
Marlon threw on his pants. He dug his free hand into his pocket; he pulled out his folding knife. He opened it up, the blade razor sharp and virginal. If there was some punk out there meaning to do Drake harm, he’d see them off.
“I’ll just be gone for a second, Father,” he whispered before he tiptoed toward the door.