THE REAL VAMPIRES

 By

 Paul Beach, © 2003

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PART I

Why are you reading this? Don’t you already know the ending? All of the bad people get killed and everyone else lives happily ever after, until they die of old age. And then everyone in the story is dead. Right? Is that not how just about every story goes? So what is the point?

CHAPTER I

Even the halogen street lamps couldn’t pierce the fog. They were visible, but did very little to illuminate the nearly empty parking lot. The lawn area around the Public Safety building was even darker. Several lights still shone through shade-covered office windows. It was about 7:30 and most people had gone home hours before, unconcerned about the power bill. The front entrance with its double glass doors was mostly dark, but around to the side of the building was another door with a glazed window. Light from somewhere behind the door made the lettering in the window easily readable in spite of the failing twilight – “MULTNOMAH COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY. VISITORS PLEASE USE FRONT ENTRANCE.”

From the darkness behind a large bush near the side of the building a shadow moved. Entering the glow of the dim light emanating from the glazed window, the shadow resolved into a man; a hunched man in layers of dirty, ragged clothes. The ripped and shredded left arm sleeve of his tattered trench coat revealed an arm marred by needle track marks both old and recent. The man’s face was obscured by a dingy scarf wrapped around his neck and head.

The derelict stood hunched against the door, seemed to be working something, when a form suddenly took shape through the window. He lurched awkwardly away from the door, once again becoming one with the shadows, and then the door opened. A woman stood in the open doorway, looking out into the night.

“Oh, god,” she said quietly with a shudder. “It’s foggy!” A slight dread settled over the woman. Was she forgetting something? Perhaps something in her office? Or was it just the disconcerting weather?

A deep breath served to blanket her anxiety with something like composure. She decided that on a night like this, she should have her car keys ready. Rummaging through her purse, the woman stepped slowly out of the doorway, down one step and onto the walk that led to the parking lot. The door began to shut very slowly behind her, but the woman was too engrossed in locating her keys to notice.

The eyes of the junky watched the woman with dim interest from his place in the shadows. And from another nearby shadow, a second pair of eyes also watched the scene develop; dark eyes, with very acute vision, noting every detail; dark eyes that were very accustomed to the shadows. They missed nothing.

The woman had just put her hand on the key chain when she suddenly became aware of someone very close walking up behind her. She whirled, startled, jingling her keys.

“I just thought you’d want to have me walk you out to your car, Darlene,” said Bob Wilson, the stealthy person. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Oh! I’m fine,” said Darlene Lowri, trying to slow her accelerated heart. “You didn’t scare me. But I sure appreciate you walking me out. That’s so nice!”

“You’re very welcome,” said Bob. He was such a good guy. And hardworking, too. Why, here he was, working late, going the extra mile, (getting time and a half), doing his small part to make the world a better place for John Q. Public. And now, after a satisfying hard day’s work, he was walking nice old Darlene Lowri out to her car. “I really am a nice guy,” he thought with false gratification.

‘Nice old’ Darlene was actually only 45 years old, just ten years older than ‘good guy’ Bob. She hadn’t been working late as much as she had simply been avoiding going home. Her abusive husband was sure to be waiting there to start a fight, so that he could ruin another evening and then have ‘make up’ sex with her. She was an attractive woman with a traditional look. Bob, on the other hand, was not overly handsome. He was truly average in virtually every respect – size, intelligence, potential.

The door was again slowly closing behind them when quite suddenly Darlene said, “Oh, damn it! I forgot some papers in my office.”

Heroically, Bob dived for the closing door and caught it just after it closed. “Shoot!” he exclaimed, and there was an added tinge of edge to his voice. Something had jabbed his hand!

“Oh well,” said Darlene. “I guess it can wait until tomorrow.”

And that was precisely what Bob was thinking regarding whatever it was that had stabbed him in the hand. It must have been some loose mechanism on the door handle. But at that moment he was being way too macho to complain of a little pain in front of Darlene. He didn’t even look at his hand. Hell would freeze before he would ever let on that he had been hurt.

And nearby, the dark eyes followed them as they walked together through the fog.

“There you go,” said Bob, as they approached her car.

“Thank you, Bob,” said Darlene. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Anytime, ma’am,” said Bob as Darlene got into her car. She started up the engine, and rolled the car out of the lot, into the street and away, growing hazier and more difficult to see all the way.

Bob had already begun walking the short distance to where his own car was parked. Now that he was alone in the dark fog, he consciously thought about anything except how spooky this night was. He fished his keys out of his pocket and was about to unlock his car.

Suddenly, from out of the foggy night, like a rush of wind, a shadowy form approached him so swiftly that Bob could not even think of how to react. A vice-like bony hand covered Bob’s mouth before he had time to cry out. In a split second, he was enveloped by the darkness and carried away by the shadowy form. As swiftly as it had appeared, the shadowy form disappeared back into the foggy darkness, Bob Wilson with it. His keys swung gently from his car door lock, as the night stillness resumed.

CHAPTER II

The room was dimly lit. The main lighting consisted of three or four neon signs advertising the names of various lager beverages. A string of small Christmas lights outlined a large mirror behind the bar, and a fluorescent tube glowed from underneath a glass shelf in front of the mirror, illuminating a row of bottles sporting different amounts of assorted hard liquors. Each table was adorned with a single candle burning inside a spherical holder, the glow from which cast hideous shadows on the horny faces of the men that sat at the tables, facing the stage. From the stage came the flashing of some cheap, but amusing specialty lighting: a spinning red light that was all too reminiscent of the old police car light; a multi-colored ray that spread apart gently from its point of origin, cutting through the cigarette smoke; and finally, an occasional strobe light for an added effect on the naked female dancer. A small lamp barely lit the area in the corner where an oily-looking DJ was in the act of cueing up his next record.

The aromas of stale and fresh cigarette smoke combined to create the almost overwhelming funk that permeated every square inch of the strip joint. No one noticed the smell, though; everyone there was smoking.

Some old classic rock song was crashing to an end, and the DJ’s voice oozed from the sound system. “That was Luscious Amy Lynn doin’ it there for ya’, fellas. Let’s really hear it for her!”

The applause was a little delayed, but completely heartfelt, to be sure, as evidenced by the even heartier whistles and catcalls that ensued. The naked ‘Luscious’ Amy Lynn scooted hastily to pick up the remaining dollar bills that lay on the edge of the stage, almost as if she were racing to get them before the men changed their minds and retracted their tips. She was a very pretty girl, but her natural beauty was clouded by low self-esteem and poorly applied make-up.

As the hubbub began to subside, the PA started again, this time with a mid-eighties Madonna song, and the DJ puked, “And now, put your hands together and welcome to the stage,” he paused for effect, “Mitzi Titzi!”

The drunken audience roared again with whistles, catcalls, and delayed applause as Amy Lynn skipped off the stage to the left, her perky breasts bouncing gently all the way, and the extremely voluptuous Mitzi entered from the right. The din swelled with renewed fervor, and was not quick to die down.

“That woman’s got a body that would make a priest kick out a stain-glass window!” howled one inebriant.

“Woo-Hoo!” yelled another young wanker as Mitzi paused to flirtatiously blow him a kiss from her full and tempting lips.

Mitzi stood five feet, nine inches tall. With high-heels, she looked giant, especially to the sexual degenerates that were gawking up at her from directly in front of the stage. Her short brown hair was just long enough in the front to cover one of her big blue eyes. Protruding from Mitzi’s chest were two very round breasts that were each easily bigger than her head. Her perpetually hard nipples were visible through the material of the tight mini dress that hugged her tiny waste and curvy butt. The outfit was completed by a leg holster housing a costume gun on the inside of her thigh. Mitzi danced, and every man in the room was hers.

The door to the little back alley strip joint opened, swinging gently to the outside, and a young-looking man stepped in. He was hauntingly handsome, with relatively delicate features. One might have guessed his age to be as low as seventeen. Or, upon looking deeply into his hazel eyes, one might have guessed as high as one hundred and seventeen. His long brown hair cascaded over a gray turtleneck shirt that was tucked into completely wrinkle-free black slacks, finished by a simple black leather belt. The man’s sharp appearance was in total contrast to the rest of the strip joint patrons, and yet, he did not seem to stand out.

 “I’ll need to see some ID, bud,” said the bouncer seated on a stool just inside the doorway. The young man produced a driver’s license from his pocket and handed it to the bouncer, who then scrutinized the little card under a small light hanging from the wall. It was his habit to read the name on the ID’s that he inspected, and this name read Bob Wilson, born March 24, 1967. The likeness on the ID looked nothing like the young man, but the bouncer seemed unaffected. “OK, enjoy yourself, Mr. Wilson,” he said, handing the little plastic card back to the young man.

The young-looking, sharp-dressed man was, of course, not Bob Wilson, the average-in-every-respect probation officer. The handsome young man took the license, said nothing, and turned his attention to the stage. None of the other club patrons took notice of him as he sat down to the right side of the stage, across the room from the bar. All eyes were on Mitzi.

From out of nowhere, a chewed up cocktail waitress appeared at the young man’s table. “Can I get ya’ anything?”

“I’ll have a Bloody Mary,” replied the young-looking man with just the slightest hint of a faded Italian accent. He was pleased to see the waitress shudder lightly with a cold chill at the sound of his voice. Even through the pungent funk of cigarette smoke, he could still smell the fear that she was at that moment denying, and it whet his appetite even more. “Damn! What I really want is a Mary bloody!” he thought, and a dark smile barely creased his face. If you are doomed to be dark, be dark.

“I’ll be right back,” she said in a voice that was little lower, a little sexier than before, and she walked away feeling warm, throwing just a little more sway of the hip into her step; leaving the young man alone to contemplate his hunger.

He wasn’t really in the mood for a drink. Not alcohol anyway; it did nothing for him. He had not been taking good care of himself lately. There had been times in his past when he had been quite diligent about feeding. This was not one of those times. And he was also getting careless. He used to be so clean, so crafty, so clever, even artistic, but not lately.

Now was not the time to think about this. His hunger was getting too strong and his judgment was becoming clouded. “Hm, sound judgment,” he thought. “I can’t even remember the last time…” But he could.

His thoughts were interrupted by the return of the cocktail waitress with his drink. “Here ya’ go, honey,” she said, trying to make eye contact with him. “That’ll be six dollars.”

The young-looking man handed her a ten spot and smiled tiredly. “Thank you, my dear.”

The cocktail waitress walked away and immediately forgot that he was there. The handsome young man sipped his Bloody Mary. It served only to tease him.

Suddenly, a distraction.

Mitzi had gotten to the part of her show where she revealed her enormous breasts, and the male audience was going crazy. A man would have had to be dead to not be completely aroused by her exotic dance.

The Madonna song was over and an old Prince song was next on the cue – ‘Sex Shooter.’ Mitzi pulled the gun out seductively and began using it creatively to amuse and thrill the crowd of naughty men.

One man stood up and walked stiffly to the front of the stage. Holding up a twenty dollar bill, he bellowed, “Hey, baby, how about giving me a little of that!”

Mitzi’s smile went fake, but nobody noticed except for perhaps the sharp-dressed, young-looking man. She positioned her mostly naked body in front of the puffy man and set about earning the twenty dollar tip.

He was fairly tall, and had probably been handsome once upon a time, but now a layer of soft fat and sweat made him somewhat less than a fine catch. The man wasn’t grossly obese, just sloppy. His grungy looking tee-shirt had been worn very thin and was half tucked into his saggy jeans without a belt.

Mitzi did a fine, but unimpassioned dance for the man, and finally leaned over to receive the money, which she was prepared to take sensuously in her teeth, loathe as she was to have germ-soaked bill anywhere near her mouth. But the sweaty man had other plans. He ran the corner of the twenty dollar bill clumsily up her leg. Getting to the upper thigh he took the opportunity to cop a feel.

“Quit it, Rodney, I’m trying to do a show,” Mitzi said through a clenched smile.

“Oh, you like that, doncha,” said the stoned Rodney, grabbing her leg to prevent her from stepping away.

Mitzi caught the eye of Quince, the bouncer, and he started quickly for the stage, but not before Rodney had hooked a clumsy fingertip around Mitzi’s G-string.

“Rodney, you’re ruining my show!” Mitzi whined.

“All right, let’s go, bud,” said the hugely muscular Quince as he grabbed Rodney by the shoulders.

“But she’s my girlfriend,” Rodney protested, struggling uselessly against the bouncer.

“Yeah, sure she is, mack,” said Quince as he walked the drunk man forcefully to the door of the club. “Now get outa here.”

The bouncer thrust Rodney out the front door of the strip joint, causing him to stumble for a step or two. “Just get your hands off me, man!” Rodney slurred as he caught his balance. As the door swung shut he yelled, “I’ll be waiting for you back home, baby!”

“Yes, you do that, Rodney,” said the young-looking man to himself as he sipped on his Bloody Mary. “Mitzi is going to be a little late tonight.”

Poor Mitzi’s show was over, at least as far as her composure was concerned. It didn’t matter, though. Every man in the club had already laid down his last dollar trying to coax some attention out of Mitzi Titzi. She had already cleaned up, like she always did. She was amazing looking.

After Mitzi Titzi left the stage, it wasn’t long before most of the room had cleared out, even though there were still girls dancing. Nobody noticed as the sharp-dressed man left the club and disappeared. Some of the dancers were wandering out of the dressing room one by one, or sometimes two, and the bouncer began escorting them out to their cars.

Mitzi emerged from the dressing room with another dancer named Tina. They were chatting flirtatiously. The DJ glanced at them and rolled his eyes. For a second he wondered if the trouble of a sex change operation would be worth it for the chance of getting with the amazon.

Tina Angelino was a smaller, gothic looking girl. She had thin, straight black hair that used to be a different color. Several small tattoos, none of them very interesting, adorned her pale skin. Her ears had been pierced, along with her nose, tongue, right eyebrow, navel, and both nipples, which, along with the rest of her breasts happened to be quite small. On her wrists she wore many numerous bracelets – bangles, black bands, and little woven friendship bracelets. They were worn in an attempt to cover the many rows of scars that traversed her forearms almost like tally marks.

Of all the female dancers at the Bare Cage, she was the least attractive, but she was a tough little girl. Nobody knew that she was only sixteen years old. She had run away from home at fourteen, managed to survive a year of prostituting herself, and then got a job at the Bare Cage with the help of a fake ID and a great couch audition. She looked much older than she was. At first glance, one might have been confused as to why such an incredible beauty like Mitzi would be flirting with Tina.

The DJ had seen it happen before and knew the answer. For another second he wondered if the expense and the risk of getting nailed on a drug charge would be worth it for the chance to sleep with the voluptuous woman. “Hm. Oh well. I’d probably get smothered under her breasts,” he thought. He was not much of a risk taker.

The bouncer opened the door for the ladies. “We’ll be all right, Quince,” said Tina. “We’re just walking around the corner to the Bismarck. My friend is havin’ a little party.”

Her ‘friend’ was just another two-bit dealer like Rodney, only a lot slicker looking. Like Rodney, he was a user, which kept both of them from getting very high on the drug dealer food chain. And then there was poor Mitzi, who would willingly fuck anything for a line of coke. Almost tragic to think about – all that potential being vanquished by an addiction.

The sharp-dressed, young-looking man had seen it so many times before, if he could have cared less there might have still been hope for him. He watched the girls from a dark shadow.

The girls stepped out of the Bare Cage exotic dance club into the Portland night. The streets were shiny from a recent drizzle, and the thin fog made a colorful haze around the streetlights. The temperature of the Indian summer night was comfortable, and for a second Mitzi felt grateful to be alive, until her thoughts turned of getting high, and then she simply felt cheerful in anticipation, with the knowledge of where she was going to get her next hit. Echoes of their chatter and high-heeled footsteps resounded off of the buildings that lined the now empty avenue. The late night traffic just happened to be either far down or far up the street as they turned the corner onto Morrison Street. The sign for the Bismarck Hotel was visible just a half-block up.

Suddenly, a hand on Mitzi’s shoulder stopped her dead in mid chatter. “Hey!”

Mitzi jumped with a start and spun around. “Oh! Rodney!” She gasped with relief. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Hey, baby,” said Rodney, still sounding pretty fucked up. “When you comin’ home?”

“Listen, sugar,” Mitzi said flirtatiously. “Momma’s gotta stay out a little late tonight.”

“But I’ve got some of your favorite candy,” coaxed Rodney, trying to sound like a little boy.

Tina looked back and forth at both of them with a look of disgust. Mitzi turned to her and said quietly, “You go on ahead. Let me just take care of this real quick and I’ll be right up behind you.”

“I’ll be waiting for you,” said Tina seductively. She did not realize that Mitzi couldn’t have cared less about having sex with her.

For Mitzi, this whole situation was just another chance for her to nail another sex-for-drugs connection. With a little finesse, she would be able to score both of them. If she played it just right, she could be taken care of for the next couple of days.

Once Tina was entering the front door of the hotel and out of earshot, Mitzi turned back to Rodney and put her hands loosely on his shoulders. “Oh, baby, baby, I’ll be home real soon. Have you got any of that candy with you?” She was actually very repulsed by Rodney, but she wanted to make sure that he actually had some stuff before she completely committed to the ‘date.’

Rodney stepped back into a narrow alley that happened to be conveniently located right there and beckoned for Mitzi to follow. “Let me show you back here.”

Just like Mitzi had owned all of the men at the strip joint during her show, Rodney now owned her. She followed his voice obediently into the alley.

Visibility was very low in the dark alley as Mitzi stepped close to the shadow that was Rodney. It took just a second for Mitzi’s eyes to see what it was that Rodney held in his hand, and she gasped when she realized that was not her beloved drug, but a knife!

“Now, bitch!” Rodney’s tone had changed. “Things are gonna be little different tonight!”

Mitzi didn’t make a peep.

“Let’s start by you handin’ me over all your tips for the night, and all the rest of your money!”

Mitzi obeyed, silently. “Slowly!” snapped the paranoid Rodney as Mitzi went to withdraw her fist full of paper bills from her purse.

Rodney grabbed them with his free hand and stuffed them into a pocket on his worn tee-shirt. The unfolded wad of bills protruded in the pocket like a single lumpy breast. He had been having a very bad night. His drug sales were down, due largely to his lack of discretion, which was, of course, a direct result of being constantly tweaked. One of his connections had dropped him, lowering him from the status of client to customer. Another connection was looking for him to collect a note, or kill him. The bill he had used to tempt Mitzi back at the Bare Cage had been the last of his cash. “Now, undo my pants, bitch,” ordered the greasy man as he brought the knife up to her neck. Now that he had some cash to take care of business with, he wanted to take a second and get his rocks off, and since he didn’t really have any coke for her, forcing himself on her seemed to be the only way at the moment. Besides, this power over her felt great!

“Goddamn you, Rodney,” Mitzi said meekly as she started on the task. She had had sex with Rodney many times before, but it had always been for drugs, not her life.

Rodney wanted to believe that Mitzi had been with him because she actually liked him, maybe even loved him, and not simply because he supplied her. The eroding of that denial by the reality of this situation, along with his other mounting problems, complicated by a deep-seated contempt for females,  was enough to drive him to want to use the knife on Mitzi, and then on himself. Yes, after she finished him, he would have to do her. She belonged to him. No one else could have her.

Suddenly a shadow moved swiftly, and the body of the would-be rapist was ripped away from Mitzi by a powerful force! It happened so quickly that at first she couldn’t see where he had gone! A cold, gusty wind seemed to come from out of nowhere, spinning around the frightened stripper. The sound of Rodney’s weak moan from above turned her attention to a fire escape where she could just make out the shadows of two people. The shadows merged and Mitzi heard the clatter of Rodney’s knife as it bounced off the fire escape after falling from his grasp. It fell, tumbling in mid-air to the cement alley floor, clattering again just a few feet from where Mitzi stood frozen with fear.

A terrible voice soaked with lust, power, and the faintest hint of compassion, said, “Get out of here!” To Mitzi, the voice sounded like the growl of an animal, and every hair on the back of her long, graceful neck stood up, but she still understood the message. She ran, her drug-filled mind swimming, her enormous melons flopping wildly. Without thinking where to go, she ran, sobbing, as fast as she possibly could, to get herself away from that terrifying voice.

She ran for her life.

She ran for her soul.

CHAPTER III

Is life nothing more than a sick joke? They spend their whole life, searching for purpose, a meaning for their lives, their existence, but what happens if they find it? They die, because it took their whole life to discover the meaning of it. But is death such a bad thing? If not, why do they do everything in their power to avoid it? And who would want to ‘pull the plug’ to find out, anyway?

It’s very easy to focus on life’s pain, irony, cynicism. I guess that is what love is for – something else upon which to focus.

This is not life.

This is not death.

I do not abide by the laws of life or death.

There is growth – there is change. With every passing generation I grow more powerful, and I grow more fatigued of existing.

Long ago I lost my will to exist, but not having that will doesn’t end my existence - it simply lessens my ability to think rationally.

If I continue like this, I shall become nothing more than a very strong animal. Eventually, they will hunt me down and destroy me. At long last, it would all be finally fine.

Yes, I shall fade into a color of gray thought, then black. I suppose I shall not even miss my essence.

It has just been such a long time, so much time. I am tired of time, I’m tired of light, of color, of feeling, of killing. I long for an eternity of complete oblivion.

The old woman lay asleep in her bed, breathing quietly, illuminated by the soft light of the room. It was bright enough that a passing attendant would be able to peak in and check on the old woman, but not so bright that she should have any trouble sleeping.

The attendant for the nursing home had indeed just made the rounds, when another form darted into the room, quickly and stealthily, so as not to be seen or heard. Once inside the room, the young-looking man cast his gaze upon the sleeping elderly woman. Slowly now, he moved to her bedside. He knew that it would be at least 30 minutes before the nurse would again pass by. The digital clock on the little night stand read 3:12.

The handsome young man stood there like a statue for over a minute, just looking down at the withered old woman. Her previously long hair had been recently cut, and was now just a tuft of gray, her large ears now easily visible. The lines in her face were only the result of a loss of elasticity in her skin, and not from years of stress or anger, hence her wrinkles didn’t contort her face at all, but simply reflected a life full of good years.

With a sharp intake of breath, the old woman awoke suddenly. You might think that she would scream at the sight of someone in her room but the young man was not a stranger to her. She smiled weakly, looking into the eyes of the young man. “Why, Marcus,” she said quietly. “You still look so beautiful.”

Even after twenty years, the young-looking man had never gotten used to seeing the old woman in this condition. The image of her young, fresh, beautiful face was indelibly etched into his memory, and he couldn’t hide his sadness at the contrast of that image and sight of her now. It wasn’t that he found the old woman ugly, not at all. But her wrinkles were a prediction that she would soon be gone. Time was stealing her away. “Ah, Maria, my love,” he said. “You are as beautiful as the day I first laid eyes on you.” And he meant it.

The old woman, Maria, laughed softly and then coughed lightly. “Marcus, how can you say that? I’m old and gray.”

Marcus just shook his head.

She continued, “And look, they cut my hair. They said it was just getting to be too much trouble. And Marcus, I’ve been getting more confused lately. Why, Leslie came to visit me the other day and I didn’t recognize her at first. I think my memory is going.”

“Oh, Maria,” Marcus began as he knelt by her bedside and took her hands in his; he had always been totally honest with her. “I believe I can surely relate to your feelings of disorientation. But always understand and know that I love you more than any other person in this universe, and you are most beautiful to me. You are in me; deep in me. I do not want to go on without you.” Tears welled up in his eyes.

Maria also began to cry softly for her own mortality. She didn’t really want to die, but growing old had been hell on her. Health problems, one right after another, had afflicted her since her mid-sixties. Now, with the added frustration of going senile, she knew that she would rather be in control of the when and the where. She looked tearfully into Marcus’s eyes. “I know you hate it, Marcus, but have you given any further thought to what I asked you?”

“Yes,” he said, closing his eyes.

“Do it now, my darling,” Maria pleaded. “My affairs are all in order; please, I’m ready!”

Marcus hesitated.

“Please,” she implored, “don’t make me go on like this. After all the time we’ve had together, you…..” her crying stopped her, but she had meant to say “you owe it to me!”

Marcus touched her face tenderly. Looking into her eyes, those beautiful deep brown eyes, he asked, “You are sure?”

“Yes,” came the quiet reply.

He closed on her slowly, bringing his lips to hers. They kissed, for the millionth time perhaps, now, for the last time, but, oh, what a kiss! Lifting her carefully, Marcus put his arms around her and held her fragile body close to his.

The old woman began to feel waves of warmth and euphoria all throughout her body, much more powerful in effect than morphine. In the ecstasy she drew in a deep breath of air. Her arms reached around Marcus and held him tightly.

Finally, convinced that she would feel no pain, but only immeasurable pleasure, the vampire carefully bit into the inside of her lower lip and sucked. Maria continued to kiss him as he slowly sucked the life blood out of her.

As they lay in their lovers’ embrace, hearts beating against each other, Maria’s life flashed in summary in her mind – her fine childhood, her excellent teenage years, her fairy-book wedding and marriage to the handsome Warren, the birth of their daughter Leslie, and then the heartbreaking news of Warren’s death at Normandy. She had been a young widow mourning over her husband’s grave in the waning light of dusk fifty-nine years before, and now her mind filled with the image of Marcus approaching her from the shadows.

He had fed on her there, and it had been life-alteringly intimate for her. Maria had had a good life, due largely to her deep love for this strange, passionate man that seemed infinitely old but never aged, and also due to the love that he reciprocated.

Marcus and Maria had continued their love affair unbeknownst to anyone, even after she re-married in 1955. Occasionally they had sex, but mostly she just allowed him to feed on her, an experience that she preferred to sex, though she would have to come up with some interesting stories to give her husband about the bite wounds.

Marcus had always been there for her during the most difficult times in her life. His wisdom and support had helped her to overcome any problem that presented itself in her life. All but one – the problem of aging and dying.

Maria had been very considerate of Marcus’s vampirism. After he had told her that he had never created another vampire, and never intended to, she never asked him to make her immortal, though she would have let him do it in an instant. He had been somewhat secretive about his past, but what he had told of it sounded amazing. She could remember the time that he had said to her, “Maria, my sweet. My time with you has been like a bright, happy holiday amidst a dark, smelly swamp of years.”

        It was a slow death, but for Maria it didn’t feel like death at all. She was feeling more pleasure and ecstasy than she had ever felt before in all of her long life. The puncture wounds in her mouth couldn’t bleed very fast, so the lovers’ last kiss lasted for several minutes. With each passing minute Marcus expected her to come to her senses and stop him from killing her, but she only held more tightly, as with each passing second she felt more and more wonderful pleasure. Maria gave everything she had left to the vampire, every bit of life. It was her wish.

Finally, Maria’s heartbeat weakened. Her embrace relaxed. Weakly, she brought her right hand up to Marcus’s lips, and their Kiss of Death came to an end. “I love you,” she breathed, looking deep into Marcus’s eyes. Purple eyelids closed over her dark, beautiful eyes. She did not inhale.

Marcus kissed her on each of her eyes, and then her forehead. “I love you, Maria, my sweet Maria.” And he broke into sobs holding her one last time. He was at a complete loss to conceive how he was going to continue with his eternal condemnation.

At last he stood up, and composed himself. He inspected Maria’s lower lip and was satisfied to find that the puncture wounds were not conspicuous. Sure, there would be a little wonder when they rolled the body of Maria Carver over and didn’t see the usual purple, blotchy signs of blood settling down, but Marcus was not worried that the mortician might discover that the body had been exsanguinated. To the ‘authorities’ it would look as if she had died peacefully in her sleep.

The vampire stole out of the room and the nursing home without another look.

CHAPTER IV

“Whoa! WHOA!! Stop the tractor!” yelled Chuck Gillespie, the sight foreman. The back-hoe had just uncovered what appeared to be human bones.

“Damn!” yelled the operator from his seat on the back-hoe. “Call the cops. And you’d better call Bechard.”

“I know my job,” growled Gillespie, but this was a real pisser. As is so often the case with contractors, Gillespie and his crew were behind schedule and Bechard didn’t accept excuses. Gillespie was tempted to instruct Matt on the tractor to roll right on over the old remains. “Take five, everybody!”

Minutes later, police were on the scene, and only a few minutes after them Detective Darrel Henderson arrived. Just at about the time they had determined that the bones were most probably human Jimmy Bechard, a square-shouldered man, came driving up to the construction sight in a shiny, certified pre-owned Lexus. He was quite old, but he hid it well by the unbent manner in which he carried himself.

Gillespie got close to Bechard and tried to explain without groveling too much. After listening to Gillespie’s fretful song and dance about all of the delays that were beyond the foreman’s control Bechard said about the discovery of the bones simply, “That’ll slow you down.”

Detective Henderson was of medium height and medium build. His track record as a homicide detective was very impressive. He attributed his success to an uncannily acute sixth sense. His hunch’s had never yet steered him wrong.

Right now, it was just too damn early in the morning for him. His dark hair was freshly slicked back but he was not yet functioning at 100 percent. The construction sight was on Pacific Street, just down the street from Lloyd Center; there had to be a Starbucks nearby, and if there wasn’t, there should be! Henderson was grilling Matt Corbin, the back-hoe operator. The two men stood directly over the jumbled pile of scattered bones as two other police officers spread the yellow ‘police line’ tape.

Henderson asked, “How long had you been digging in this area before you noticed the bones?”

“No time at all,” answered Matt. “And I froze the tractor the second we spotted ‘em.”

Bechard charged up. “Hold it! You’re not turning this into a crime scene.”

“Please, sir,” said Henderson, as politely as he could. “Don’t get in the way of my investigation.”

The old man was several inches taller than the detective, and Bechard looked down at the shorter man as he pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “You don’t have an investigation,” he said, hitting the CALL button.

The other two street cops looked on with mild amusement. They had heard some pretty wild stuff about this rich and eccentric Jimmy Bechard and they wanted to see how the hotshot detective was going to handle the old man. Henderson gazed down at the pile of bones in frustration as if the answer to this entire problem might be found in their random arrangement.

“This is Jimmy Bechard speaking. Mister Fritz Lemmon will take my call.”

At the mention of the police chief’s name Detective Henderson and the uniformed cops blanched. Normally they would consider any civilian’s effort to call the chief and complain to be futile, but this was Jimmy Bechard. They were pretty sure that the eccentric real estate developer was not on the Chief’s Christmas card list, but it might be possible that Bechard had other political contacts that could lean on the chief. They listened to Bechard’s side of the conversation as it continued.

“Hey! I just wanted to let you know before it went any further that one of your boys is on my sight and is about to step in some shit.” He held out the phone toward Henderson. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Yeah,” said Henderson into the tiny device. It was Bechard’s turn to listen to half of the conversation.

Henderson continued, “Aw, hell, they dug up some human bones on a construction sight…..Old!.....No, all mixed up, I see a skull…..” His eyes suddenly grew wide and his brow threatened to touch the fabulously low line on his slicked-back hair. “What? But....OK, whatever you say.” He turned to the two patrolmen. “I can’t for the life of me figure out why but we’ve been instructed to leave.”

The two cops hesitated, but Henderson just nodded at them. Shrugging, they turned toward their cruiser.

“Ahem!” Bechard scowled and gestured at the yellow tape. “Don’t leave your goddam crap on my construction sight.”

They did not protest.

Henderson turned to Bechard and handed him back the phone. He said, “Will you at least allow me to collect the remains?”

“You’ve got five minutes,” Bechard said shortly.

Henderson only wanted to do the right thing, but this asshole was going to make it difficult for him. He tried one last ditch effort to appeal to Bechard’s sympathies. “Honestly, Mr. Bechard, how can you just do this? These remains may constitute a past disappearance. They are the remains of someone’s son or daughter, maybe even someone’s parent. Don’t we owe it to those still living victims to identify the remains and possibly determine the cause of death? Don’t they deserve some closure?” Henderson was quite proud of his extemporaneous little monologue.

However, Bechard was unimpressed. “That’s why I gave you five minutes to pick them up. Seriously, detective,” (and he said ‘detective’ with palpable contempt) “they’re dead. Whoever might still be mourning their loss will someday be dead. Life goes on! You and I will be dead someday, and I’ve got a lot of shit to accomplish before that day so hurry it up so my men can get back to work! Furthermore, I just gotta tell ya’, it really burns my ass that tax dollars go to pay for investigations such as this. I think that if the family and friends of this dead person here really wanted to know what the hell happened to their fallen loved one, they could hire whatever professional help they needed to do the ‘investigation’ themselves. Course, then guys like you would have to find legitimate work!”

The skin on the back of Henderson’s neck and ears burned red. He spat, “Well, not everyone has all the money in the world!” There! He had won, hadn’t he? He ran to his car and grabbed the only thing that he had to put the bones in – a garbage bag. Then he appropriated a nearby shovel and hurriedly began to put the bones and some of the dirt into the bag. For a second he thought that it was kind of sad that someone’s remains were being transported like garbage, but then he snapped right out of it. He knew that he really didn’t give a shit. Like Bechard, he didn’t personally care at all about anything of the homicides he was supposed to be solving. It was just his job – a job that he liked, true! But still just a job.

On the other hand, he did not like Bechard at all for being such a smug, rich old bastard! Henderson would do his job, by God! And he would do it on Bechard, regardless of the rumors of his political connections.

He would start by trying to identify the remains, then he would have his useless partner search the county records for the history of the title on this property that Bechard was so avidly developing. He could approximate a time of death, and find out who owned the property at that time. Along the way, he would dig up as much dirt on Bechard as he could. It would be easy. His mind started whizzing on the ‘What If’ game. He wouldn’t need that coffee to wake up after all.