Scenario 7: the Vampire

1.
         It was a dark and stormy night. I hate to say that, but it was. It had been a bright and sunny day, but now it was night - and it’s always dark at night, and that’s always when the storms come. Just once I wish it was a dark and stormy day, or a bright and sunny night - it appeals to my sense of the ironic - but unless my circadian rhythms get turned upside down, that won’t happen.

         In my other life, I was a writer. Maybe that’s why it hurts so much to begin with a cliché. I suppose I still am a writer - I’m writing this right now, anyone who writes is theoretically, if not artistically, a writer - but I can’t think of myself that way anymore. It used to be that writing was my escape, where I went to get away from things. I was proud to call myself a writer. Now I do it out of necessity rather than joy. Maybe you can’t understand why, but that has changed my whole perspective on who I am, what I am.

         A writer wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing- sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere, with frozen hands, soaked through from the rain- if he could be at home with a notebook or a laptop in front of him, watching the lightning through the curtains. Possibly, a writer would also be having a large glass of his favorite whiskey - on the rocks, of course - as he watched the storm. A writer wouldn’t be in the middle of one of those thunderstorms waiting to meet someone he didn’t know for reasons he wasn’t entirely sure of. Therefore, by my own standards(highly subjective, I’ll admit), that was not who I was anymore. What I had become, I was less sure of. But all I knew for sure was that my ass felt cold and sore, I couldn’t even feel my nose anymore, and I was beginning to seriously question my own sanity.

2.

         “Oh good, you came. I wasn’t sure if you would, with the weather the way it is.”
         I whipped my head around. I hadn’t heard anyone coming up behind me, and that scared the hell out of me. I stood up, quickly trying to put some distance between this guy and myself - although, I suppose, if he had wanted to hurt me, he could have done so quite easily while I had been lost in thoughts of my possible mental decline.

         I looked him over for a moment. He looked more nervous than I was, which was encouraging. He kept glancing at me, the woods, the road behind him, back at me, and up at the sky. I wasn’t sure why, but seeing him watching the sky made me feel very uneasy.

         “Who the hell are you?" I asked. "What is going on here? I get an anonymous letter that sounds more like a threat than a warning, telling me to meet you here... Well, here I am, and I want some answers!” My anger had been almost completely disippated by the physical discomfort of sitting in the rain, but now it came flooding back. Thankfully, a little warmth returned with it as well.

         The guy backed away from me with his hands held up in front of him defensively.

         “Hey, man, chill out! I wasn’t threatening anybody, but there’s stuff -” he scanned the area again, and I got the same chill again, watching the path his eyes took- road , forest, sky, and back to me- “There’s stuff going on here that you would not believe. I don’t believe half of it myself, and I’ve seen it!” He had moved closer to me and lowered his voice. I could smell garlic strongly on his breath, but not, as I had half expected, alcohol.

         At first, his face had been hidden by shadows from the trees around us, but my eyes had adjusted to the night remarkably well, and I was shocked to see as he moved closer how young he was. Maybe twenty, but probably not even that old. His hair was shaved to the scalp, with the exception of a stripe of longish hair down the middle that had probably been a mohawk before the rain pasted it in odd patterns to his head. Only his ears were pierced, surprisingly enough, but those were pierced past the point of mutilation and forced open with gagued plastic rings. I had seen this before, my son had had a friend who had done the same thing, but his were relatively small. This kid's looked as though you could stick your finger through the hole with room to spare, and they made his earlobes oddly elongated, reminding me of pictures I had seen as a kid in National Geographic, of self-mutilating tribes in Africa.

         “Is this some kind of a joke?" I asked him. "Are you one of Ryan’s friends?” My son had been gone for six years, but this kid was only a few years older than Ryan would be. It wasn’t inconceivable. Thinking of Ryan hurt, and I could feel my throat constrict and my nose begin to run. This always happened before I cried, and I took a deep breath, forcing myself to relax. I did not want this little punk to see me crying over my son.

         He allayed my suspicions a bit by looking extremely confused. “Ryan who? Look, man, I thought about this for a long time and I need to talk to you. You’re the only person who would understand what’s going on. I know you would, man - I’ve read your books.”

         “My books? Is that what this is about?” A new set of suspicions rose in me. Even though I had quit writing - well, publishing, anyway - about ten years ago, the good and bad thing about books is that they never really go away. You just kind of throw them out there, rejoice if they sell enough for you to live off of until you can write another one, and never really let yourself think about the fact that all those books out there means that there are now just as many people out there reading those books. Some of them will read it and hate it. Some of them will read it and enjoy it, and possibly pass it on to a friend. And sooner or later, someone will read it and take it a little too seriously.

         “Those are fiction. Fake. Christ, I come all this way, sit in the rain, to meet with a punk male version of Annie Wilkes.” I turned and started walking away. The kid grabbed my shoulder, and I turned on him, all the fear and fury I felt erupting. “They’re FAKE!” I screamed. “They are pretend, nightmares that I had that I added a plot to and called it a story! Can’t you people get that through your fucking heads?” I was nose to nose with the kid now. I had gathered enough steam to begin berating him some more, when I noticed the expression on his face. It was pure terror. His throat was working as though he was choking, his eyes were so wide that they were almost bulging - but his expression wasn’t directed towards me. He was looking past me. Up. At the sky.

         I felt a cold cramp of fear work its way down my back. That was the feeling I got when my instincts were working overtime... I felt that way when my dad died, I felt that way just before all the business with Ryan started, and I had felt that way when I read the note that someone - presumably this kid - had slipped under my front door while I was napping earlier that afternoon. It was pure, uncivilized fear, and I always listened to it when it hit me. I hadn’t moved, I was still in the kid's face, but I backed off an inch and put my hands on his shoulders.

         “What?” I whispered. I could see his mouth twist like it was cramping as he tried to force words out .

         “They know.” He was whispering too. His voice was quiet but harsh. I smelled garlic again. A sudden wave of hysteria overcame me, and I thought, I'm so close I could kiss him. I almost laughed at this thought, but I managed to force it down.

         “Who knows? What do they know?”

         “We have to go. Now. Meet me at Salvadori’s." His voice was quiet, but I could hear panic hovering underneath his controlled whisper. "I’ll tell you everything, but we have to get the hell out of here. Right. Now.” Faster than I thought possible, he turned away from me and took off down the dirt road. After just few seconds, all I could see of him was the white soles of his sneakers kicking up mud behind him as he ran.

         I turned and looked up at the sky, in the direction he had been staring. The rain still stung my face, even as numb as it was, and I could feel the drops needling into my eyes as well. I squinted, but that didn’t help much. I couldn't see anything through the rain. I thought I saw something, but it could have been a cloud, or a bird, or just the rain bouncing off my eyeballs. I certainly didn’t see anything that would inspire such terror.

         Less than thirty seconds had passed since the kid had run off, and I have to admit that just going home crossed my mind as I walked to my car. But the memory of how frightened the kid had looked, and my own instinctual fear, convinced me to meet him at the restaurant. He had some explaining to do, and against my better judgement, I suddenly found myself wanting to hear those explanations.

3.

         I got to Salvadori’s before he did. It was a cheesy, hole in the wall Italian restaurant, with decor that consisted mostly of cliches - braided garlic garlands hanging over the doors and windows, plastic tablecloths in red and white check pattern and the obligatory straw wrapped wine bottles with candles stuffed into their necks. Like most places that looked like they ought to be shut down by the health department, the food was excellent. They had breadsticks that were so good, people came from all over the county to try them. Oddly enough, I was suddenly starving, and ordered veal parmesagne and a double order of bread sticks to hold me over while I waited for my entree. I skipped the wine. I didn’t need anything to add to the sense of unreality I already suffered.

         The kid walked in about ten minutes after the waitress brought me my bread. It was steaming hot, dripping with butter, and tasted like heaven. I was savoring my third piece when he walked over, shook himself like a dog, and sat down across from me. In the light of the restaurant, I could see that he was painfully skinny, his cheeks almost hollow. He glanced at me briefly, for permission. I nodded, and he proceeded to destroy the rest of the basket of bread. He ate like a machine, in perfect unvarying rhythm - bite, chew, chew, swallow - until the basket was gone. I looked longingly at the last breadstick as he picked it up, and sighed. Well, I still had my veal coming.

         “Rob Saunders,” I said, when he had finished chewing, and extended my hand. He looked at me, puzzled. “We haven’t been introduced,” I explained patiently. “Although you obviously know who I am, I am being civilized and introducing myself.”

         The boy had the grace to look embarassed.

         “Sorry. I’m Scooter.” I raised an eyebrow. “I know, I know,” he said, “but my real name is Layne. When the kids here decided that they wanted to call me Scooter, I was just grateful that they hadn’t gone with ‘E-Layne’ like the kids at my old school, and it stuck.” He took my hand, and shook it. “Pleased to meetcha, Mr. Saunders, despite the circumstances. I’m really sorry about all the spy stuff, like the note and where we met, but I had to make sure you were okay before I talked to you.” He waved an arm, indicating the restaurant, and looked frustrated. “If I’d been thinking, I just would have had you meet me here in the first place. God, I am such an idiot sometimes.”

         “Okay...Scooter. Calm down. Do you think you could start by telling me what is going on here? I mean, you looked like you were scared out of your skin back there."

         Scooter closed his eyes and shuddered. He dipped his hand into the collar of his ragged T shirt. I had noticed that he had a fine gold chain around his neck - I'm not sure how, the studded dog collar he also wore kind of drew the eye away from it- and I assume it was some sort of medallion, like a St. Christopher’s, from the way he grasped it with one hand and crossed himself with the other.

         “Look,” he said, “I know this is going to sound crazy, but you felt it. I could tell you did. So you have to believe what I’m going to tell you. You have to-” He cut himself off as the waitress approached with my veal. She set the plate down in front of me, asked if we would like anything else, and left. Scooter remained silent the whole time she was within earshot. I glanced at my veal - it smelled delicious, but my appetite had left me as suddenly as it had come upon me in the first place. I noticed Scooter eyeing my plate, and wordlessly I pushed it over to him. He let go of his necklace to grab a fork and dig in. He must have heard my gasp, because he paused briefly to tuck the chain back into his shirt, barely interrupting the movement of the fork between the plate and his mouth.

         This was getting stranger by the minute.

         “What is that?” I asked him. It looked like a large gem of some kind, rather than the medallion I had assumed it was. It looked like almost like a raw opal - at least it had the same cracked look to it that you saw with some opals- or a large diamond that had been shattered and painstakingly pieced back together. It had flashed, green and blue and red, as he tucked it into his shirt.

         “Nothing. I don’t want to talk about it. It has nothing to do with why you're here.”

         “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that? Oh, wait, I can't, since I don’t even know what you're talking about! You slip me a letter that scares me half to death, ask me to meet you. I meet you, and you’re not there five minutes before you get so scared you look like you’re about to have a stroke, and then you tell me to meet you here and run away. Now we’re here, and all you’ve done is stuff your face, and flash around a rock that looks like it could pay off my house and my car with plenty to spare. So why don’t you put down the goddamn fork and clue me in already!” My voice had steadily risen during this tirade, and the kid - I absolutely could not refer to him as Scooter - was making frantic shushing motions.

         “Look, Mr Saunders," he said, "I think this place is okay, but you have to settle down. Please. I don’t know, they might have regular people working for them, too, but - please, just be quiet!”

         “What's going on? What is this all about?”

         “Vampires, Mr. Saunders. That’s what this is all about. I need someone to help me get away from them, and you were the only person I could think of that might be able to help me.” His face crumpled. “But I think they saw me talking to you, and I don’t know if even you can help me now.”

         I was very still, and said nothing for a moment. I was afraid that if I moved, or spoke, I would lose all control and strangle the little idiot right there in the restaurant. A very long time seemed to go by before I recovered enough to speak, and then I could only manage one word.

         “Vampires?”

         “Yeah. Look, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is the only place I haven’t seen any of them, maybe it’s cause of all the garlic they hang around this place, I don’t know. But they’re real, and they’re after me, and I need help.” He was shaking now, making his mutilated earlobes jiggle in a distracting way.

         “I take it you read Shadowlights.”

         He nodded vigorously, making the movement of his ears even more obvious. His face was triumphant.

         “I knew you’d understand. I knew it! God, I’m so glad I decided to talk to you! I just knew - Hey, what are you doing?”

         I had stood up and grabbed my coat. I threw a twenty down on the table and checked to make sure I had my car keys.

         “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m leaving. The last thing I need is some schizophrenic who’s picked one of my books to build his delusions on hounding me. Don’t bother me again, or I’ll get a restraining order. Hope you enjoyed my veal, asshole. Now you can tell everyone back at the loony bin that Robert Saunders bought you dinner.” I paused. “By the way, kid, here’s some free advice - whoever you stole the rock from, give it back. It's too unique, you won't be able to pawn it anywhere without getting caught.”

         Amazingly, the kid didn’t look upset - well, not angry, anyway. He looked like a puppy that had just been kicked, hurt and confused but still hopeful. I felt a twinge of guilt.

         “Mr. Saunders, please, I know how it sounds, but its true! You have to believe me!”

         “Don’t worry about a tip, kid. I covered it.” I turned and left. All the way out to my car, I could feel the weight of his eyes on me, but I restrained myself and never looked back.

4.