Colin Dayton sat in the Chief’s black leather chair with his feet upon the desk. He was flipping casually through a paperback edition of “Big Poker for Big Winners” that his brother Cody had lent him. The tattered corners of the pages indicated that he wasn’t the first “Big Winner” to have read the book.
“Need help with that?” Ryan joked. He was sitting on the floor of the jail cell, watching the officer try to concentrate on an instructional manual that was unfortunately beyond his comprehension.
“Cody gave this to me.” Colin said nonchalantly. “He found it. He thinks it’ll improve my game.” His brother had been dragging him into high stakes games at the casino lately, and the cards had not been in his favor. Cody thought he just wasn’t paying attention, which might have been the case. He was more of a roulette man himself. Less work. Spin the ball and gravity does the rest.
“Why don’t you sit on the bed?” he asked Ryan. “The floor’s got to be cold.”
“I’m sick of sitting on the bed,” Ryan replied. He wondered if he was entitled to an hour of exercise a day. He would have to ask his lawyer that, if he ever got one.
“Don’t blame me if you get hemorrhoids,” Colin shrugged.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “So where is the Code-ster, anyway? Did he pull a bender in Vegas? Is that why I haven’t seen your brother’s sorry ass around here?”
Colin took his feet off the desk and wheeled the chair slowly over towards the cell. “What’s it to you, you a cop?” he laughed, dropping the book through the bars. “Here. You might as well get an education, courtesy of Troy’s finest. I’m better off losing anyway. Cody’d have a snit fit if I ever beat him at his game. Peace in the family and all that.”
Ryan glanced at the book. “It’s from the library. With my luck it’s overdue and I’ll be fined on top of the rest of the shit happening to me in this nightmare.” He flipped to the back page, and found a card tucked in the library pocket. “It’s totally overdue,” he said to himself, noting the book had been checked out in 1970. They didn’t even use this type of library card anymore. He glanced at the name on it and grimaced. Quickly taking the card and tucking it into his shirt pocket, he then closed the book and tried to throw the paperback directly on the Chief’s desk. It landed on the floor, beside the waste paper basket.
“I expected more from you,” Colin said.
It was then Ryan noticed the face of the vampire in the window, watching he and Colin with a look of amusement on his face. “Shit. Not again.”
Colin turned around to see what Ryan was looking at, and noticed the teenager outside.
The vampire tapped on the window and waved at them.
“Come on in,” Colin indicated to the teenager at the window.
“Are you crazy?” Ryan asked. “Don’t let him in unless you’re going to arrest him. He’s the bad guy. Tell him he’s not welcome.”
“The Chief won’t get re-elected if we do things like that, will he?” Colin smirked. “Every vote counts. This citizen of Troy is as welcome in here as you are.”
“I don’t think he’s a registered voter,” Ryan tried to argue. “Seriously, tell him to take a hike.”
“It’s not always about you, Ryan,” Colin offered. “Maybe he wants to see me for something, ever thought of that?” His cell phone began to vibrate in its holder. He reached to his belt and pulled it out, “Troy Police. Officer Colin Dayton here. He listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line. “Okay, I’ll be right there.”
“I don’t believe this,” Ryan sighed.
“What?” the vampire smirked as he entered the room. “Do you think you’re the only one with friends?”
“You,” Colin said to the vampire, “whatever it is that you want, is it urgent? Or can I talk to you later? I have to go deal with a…situation.” He put his phone back. “Never a dull moment in this town lately.”
“I guess it can wait,” the vampire sighed. “I’ll just stay here and keep Ryan company.”
“Can I trust you two to play nice?” Colin asked, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair.
“Don’t lock the door,” the vampire requested, “I’m expecting another visitor.”
Colin nodded. “Just lock it up when you’re done. And if you kill anyone, clean it up, will ya?”
“Wha…t? Ryan cringed.
“That’s your job,” the vampire said to the officer.
“I’ve been kind of busy lately,” Colin sneered.
“You’ve been busy doing a shitty job,” the vampire countered.
Ryan listened intently to their banter. While he had to agree with the assessment of Colin’s work ethic, for two people who had no reason to know each other, it sure sounded to him like they did. “Do you two need some alone time?” he asked.
“None of your business,” the two said in unison.
“You’re not seriously going to leave me here with him?” Ryan asked Colin. “You didn’t even frisk him or anything. He might be carrying a syringe or something.” Geez, Stan would make a better police officer, he thought to himself.
Colin looked at the teenager. “I doubt he’s got a needle. He doesn’t look the type. Besides, you need all the friends you can get right now. Talk about the weather or something. I’ll be back in an hour,” he said as he headed out the door.
“Whadaya mean?” Ryan protested. “He’s white and pasty and looks half-dead. That sound exactly like a guy who’s got a needle.” He made a mental note to have a long chat with Chief Cohen about the hired hands he was entrusting with his precinct.
“So, how’s it going there, buddy?” the vampire asked him. “Getting a little stuffy in here?”
Ryan tried to avoid his gaze. He wasn’t in a making friends mood.
“Stop trying to ignore me,” the vampire told him. “If you ever want to see your brother alive again, you will listen, and you will do exactly what I want.”
“What did you do with Stan?” Ryan demanded, his neck muscles beginning to tense up as he spoke. It was a natural reflex action his subconscious used to prepare him for a potential blow to the head.
“I stuffed him like canolli,” the vampire said. He could intuitively feel the pulse of Ryan’s carotid artery expanding as the adrenaline in him began to take hold. “Try not to give yourself an aneurism,” he chided.
“What?” Ryan asked incredulously, moving menacingly towards his adversary.
“Uh-uh,” the vampire cautioned. “Save it. The orange flag is already down on this play. You’re in no condition to try to out-wit me.” He paused. “Stan doesn’t like the cold much, does he? Those red pajamas he wears are getting a little thin.”
“Okay, I’m listening,” Ryan said, sitting back down on the bed, feeling defeated. The vampire was right. There was little Ryan could do in his current situation. His lack of sleep was beginning to take its toll on him. Attempting to kill the vampire, even if he knew how to do it, would be a tough task to do alone. “If you’ve hurt him, I’ll kill you,” he said weakly.
“Yeah, yeah,” the vampire taunted. “Whatever.”
“If you don’t tell me what you’ve done with him, I’ll find a way to erase you from this earth,” Ryan promised.
“Maybe when you wake up, you will. Besides, we had a deal,” the vampire reminded Ryan. “I’ll give you Mini-You when you bring me the girl, remember?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to that.”
“I don’t remember you not agreeing to that. Here’s how it’s going to work, Ryan. Lucky for you, she’s on her way over here, the girl you call Goth-Chic. Kismet has arranged it so she’s coming to see you. That’s not the smartest thing she could do, but she’s totally messed up in the head right now, thank you very much, and she needs to talk to you because she thinks you’ll understand. You can thank me later. I’m going to be nice and count that as you bringing me the girl. See, I’m not all bad.”
“What are you going to do with her?” Ryan asked. If he could only tap into the vampire’s p
syche, he told himself, he might be able to stop his crazy plan to capture Ellie. A plan that he was unwillingly a part of. Before he could even attempt to help her, he had to somehow find out what had happened to Stan. Blood was thicker than neighbors. Even Goth-Chic.
“I’m going to go into the washroom and I’m going to stay there, until the time is right for me to come out,” the vampire said. “You are going to say nothing about me being there, because if you do, if I get any indication that she knows I’m here, I’ll just vanish. For as long as you live. They’ll find Stan’s body next summer, after it has cured like rawhide.”
Ryan stared blankly at him.
“Nod if you understand,” the vampire said sarcastically.
Ryan raised and lowered his head in agreement, and let out a long sigh. He stumbled back to the bed and collapsed upon it.
What a mess he was in. Less than a week ago he had been a happy-go lucky highschooler with a pro scout dogging him for an easy scholarship. Betty had been over the moon with that news. A free college education courtesy of the 30-yard line. What could be sweeter? And now, now he was locked in jail with a serious case of fright night taking control of his life. It was getting to be too much for him to handle. He reckoned he knew how Betty must be feeling right now. He felt the same, without the benefit of medication.
He watched as the vampire entered the washroom, leaving the door open just a crack so he could see and hear whatever he wanted to. The vampire was in control, Ryan knew, and although every bone in his body wanted to fight him, every nerve ending in his brain was shutting down. He succumbed to exhaustion for almost an hour before the sound of the door opening brought Ryan back to semi-consciousness. He hoped upon hope that it was Chief Cohen, or even Purdy, coming back to check up on him. But it wasn’t. It was Ellie, just like the vampire had predicted. He slowly sat up and turned towards her.
“Oh my God, Ryan,” Ellie gasped, seeing him behind bars. The boy before her was almost unrecognizable. His hair was beginning to grow back, both on his face and atop his head, and she knew he was unlikely to see a razor anytime soon. The corners of his mouth were turned down in anguish and dark circles were forming under his eyes.“I am so sorry,” was all she could say.
“Then get me out of here,” Ryan pleaded. “Help me, Ellie.”
The tone in his voice was eerily similar to the sounds little Brooke had made, begging for help in the dream that started all this. “I’m trying,” Ellie said softly. “I told the Chief about the dream. And Jacey and I went on an artifact hunt for all kinds of crazy stuff that she thinks is going to help. Tom was supposed to find a way to get rid of the vampire by doing some research on the computer while we were gone, but…” she looked at Ryan with tears in her eyes, “when we came back, Tom was unconscious and Stan was gone.”
“I knew Tom would be the dead man fainting. When will you chics learn to count on the brawn before the brain? It’s the number one rule of cavemanism for a reason. Survival of the fittest. Since you hardly know Jacey, let me fill you in. Whatever she’s doing, it’s going to be half-baked.”
“Don’t be so ungrateful,” Ellie responded. “She’s trying to help you. I don’t see many other people doing that. And as for Tom, let’s just say you don’t look so superhuman yourself right now.”
“And you…” Ryan continued, looking away from her, trying to hide the tears forming in the corners of his own eyes, “…Goth, I’m spent. I don’t even know if I have the words available to adequately express how I feel about you right now.”
Ellie walked to within inches of the bars separating her from Ryan. “Don’t you dare blame this whole mess on me,” she said calmly. “You don’t scare me, Ryan Lachey. You can say whatever you want about me. Let me fill you in. If you had invited me, or Tom, or even Jacey along with you that night, this whole thing probably wouldn’t have happened. At least not this way. But you had to be the big star and do it all yourself. Happy now? Your brother is missing, and I think the vampire has him. Don’t pretend to not know what I’m talking about, because I know you do.”
“Shhh,” he whispered, putting his finger to his lips and pointing at the door.
“I don’t care if Roy’s in there,” she said. “I told you. Roy already knows about my crazy dream.”
“It’s not Roy,” he frantically mouthed in silence. Chics, he thought. Even when you want them to understand, even if their life depends on it, sometimes there’s just no getting through to them.
The vampire emerged from the washroom with the toilet plunger in his hand. He sped towards Ellie, swinging his arms like a baseball bat. The rubber bottom of the cleaning utensil hit her hard in the head. It stunned her, throwing her body off balance.
“That’s dirty, you asshole!” Ryan exclaimed.
The vampire smiled slyly at Ryan, then turned and pushed the already dizzy Ellie to the concrete floor. Her head smacked the brick wall on the way down, knocking her out.
“Sometime can I meet a human that actually gives me a challenge?” the vampire asked rhetorically, squatting down next to her. He placed his thumb and forefinger together and flicked twice at Ellie’s cheek. She didn’t respond. “Out cold,” he acknowledged.
“Dude, you don’t hit girls,” Ryan said angrily.
“That’s not hitting her,” he said. “This is hitting her…” He smacked Ellie across the face. She still didn’t stir. “I hate this bitch,” he said. He leaned towards her neck, opened his mouth wide, exposing his overgrown incisors.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ryan screamed.
The vampire stopped. He looked at Ryan. “You’re probably right,” he admitted. “I shouldn’t kill her here. Colin’s not around.”
“You can’t kill her,” Ryan argued. Internally, he was digesting what the vampire had said... ‘Colin’s not around.’ There was something going on between the two of them. That made his predicament all the more sinister.
“Of course I can kill her,” the vampire reminded him. “That’s what I do for a living. It’s my job.”
“You said it was Colin’s job. It’ll just be easier, you know, if you wait until both of the twins are around,” he guessed.
“Why, Ryan Lachey,” the vampire chuckled. “There is a light on in that brain of yours.” He moved Ellie’s body away from the wall and struggled to take her in his arms. “She’s a lot heavier than she looks,” he said to Ryan, “just so you know.”
“Why don’t you get me out of here?” Ryan offered. “So I can carry her for you.”
“Well, that light bulb moment of yours ended pretty quickly, didn’t it?” he laughed. “Nice try. But we’ve got a party to go to and you’re not invited.” He threw Ellie over his shoulder and waved good-bye to Ryan.
“Wait!” Ryan shrieked. “What about Stan? You said you’d let him go. Where is he? Are you going to bring him here to me or are you taking him back to the house?”
The vampire turned and laughed at Ryan hysterically. “You know, as I think back, you’re right, Ryan. We never really did have a deal. I mean, we didn’t cut our palms and become blood brothers or anything.” He shrugged. “So unfortunate.”
“You son-of-a-bitch,” Ryan screamed. “I am going to get out of here, and I am going to hunt you down. I am going to pluck every hair from your head one by one, and I am going to enjoy doing it. Then I’m going to sit back and watch my palm prints fade from around your neck after you’ve taken your last breath, you fucking piece of shit.”
“Wow! That’s a couple of run-on sentences,” the vampire laughed, kicking Ryan the TV channel changer that had fallen on the floor. “Entertain yourself, mortal. Maybe there’s a Supernatural all-nighter on that’ll get you inspired.” He adjusted Ellie’s weight, spun their bodies around like a centrifugal top, and dematerialized before Ryan’s eyes.
“How the fuck does he do that?” Ryan wondered, as he sat on the bed with his back to the wall “Okay, Lachey,” he said to himself, “let’s evaluate the other team. We’ve got a d
eranged psycho-sucker playing centre, and a duffus cop guarding him on the right.” He pulled the library card out of his pocket and took a closer look at the signature. “Shit,” he said, reading through the scrawl. “It’s Kevin’s dad’s. And if Cody gave Colin the book, that pretty much means the no-show brother is guarding his twin on the left of the field. The question is, is anyone running interference?”
Before Ryan could think this thought through further, he felt his eyelids becoming increasingly heavy. It was only a few minutes before his body toppled sideways on the bed, and he began to snore.
His slumber was far from peaceful. Ryan instinctively curled up on the bed with his back to the wall, much like a dog would for protection. The grey blanket stamped ‘Property of Troy Police’ was lying at the bottom of the steel framed bed, and despite the fact that he lay there shivering, he did not have enough awareness about himself to pull the cover over his body.
He fell into a fragmented dream of no particular significance. One moment he was on the football field, hitting the ball with his six string guitar, the next he was arguing with Betty whether Stan could drive the Toyota. Throughout it all his shoulder throbbed and his legs became cramped, but he refused to change position.
“Jacey’s my best friend,” he cried out delusionally.
He broke into a cold sweat, and eventually the dampness against his shirt woke him from his REM stage. “Fuck,” he said, finally reaching for the blanket. “I’m seriously going mental in here and it’s only been a few days. There’s no way I could do this for the rest of my life.”
He sat up in the corner, draping the wool around him. “Somebody’s going to slip up somewhere, and I’m going to have to be ready. I just need some time to myself to think clearly and write the playbook.” He continued the thought process he was going through earlier, placing the vampire and the two Dayton’s on one side of the field, and himself, Ellie, Tom and Jacey on the other. “We’re doomed,” he acknowledged as the outside door to the police station began to open once more.