Out After Dark
Brandon Luffman
Copyright © 2011 Brandon Luffman
Out After Dark
After the rain, the concrete of the alley floor looked black and shone like the carapace of some strange beetle. Out beyond the alley, the dim orange glow of a failing streetlight was more than enough illumination for Eric to see the outline of the woman in the leather jacket. Gregory was right. I shouldn't have come out tonight, he thought. Still, man doesn’t live by bread alone, right? The ‘night life’ in Gregory's safehouse just wasn't working for him anymore. He had to live damn it!
Eric tried to ease himself deeper into the shadows that filled the alley like black smoke, pushing his back up against the rough brick. No sudden movements. Don't draw her eye.
The woman stood mostly in silhouette, with only the deep chestnut of her hair glowing like a dark halo, and the dim gleam of her leather jacket. The rest was a dark shape cut sharply from the night; a pleasing shape, but terrifying none the less. She appeared to be looking his way, but without seeing her face, he couldn't tell if she had spotted him or not.
Initially, his hope had been that she was just out enjoying the late summer evening. First, he had seen her at the bar. She seemed to be there alone, not staying with any particular group, but moving around the place, talking with others briefly before moving on. Twice he had seen her looking his way, but he didn't know if she had been watching him or just searching the crowded, noisy bar for her next social encounter.
Later, he had moved on, this time to a club with a loud band playing terrible covers of bad music. It was darker there, and the crowd had moved like a hurricane churned sea, swaying this way and that, bodies of strangers pressed against each other intimately before being swept into contact with a different set of strangers. The music pounded independent of the crowd, there being no discernible rhythm to the current of sweaty bodies; a constant swirling motion.
As he passed among them, sampling the sea of humanity, he had caught a glimpse of black leather and chestnut hair. Her eyes had locked on his - dark and intense - and some recognition had passed over her face. Carried away by the tide of bodies, he'd looked back and she was gone. That was when the first flutters of unease had begun to worry at him.
Working his way to the entrance, he had slipped out into the night, passing a nod with the bouncer on his way. Trying to look unconcerned, he had crossed the street and followed the sidewalk for a block, not allowing himself to look over his shoulder until reaching the corner. Glancing back, the woman stood in a shadowed doorway across the street, halfway up the block from the door of the club. Unease had become fear.
Eric had continued walking, holding the pretense of confidence as best he could, passing through alleyways and down side streets. For an hour now she had followed. At first she had kept to the shadows, but soon she was openly stalking him. The few pedestrians they passed gave no sign that they had noticed the casual chase, although a low word had been shared between the woman and a man walking the other way as they passed by. He knew he was being hunted now.
A block later he had nimbly ducked into the darkened alley, seeking out the deepest shadows he could find within. But, the woman had seen, and now she stood at the entrance to the alley, watching and waiting. Panic was not far now and Eric struggled to calm himself.
The woman placed a hand under her jacket and took a step into the alley. “Come on out and play, you little bastard,” she said, her tone conversational.
Eric moved slowly down the alley, the rough brick sliding under his palms as he kept his back to the wall, his eyes on the woman. She advanced as well, calmly moving into the shadows, allowing her eyes to adjust. Her hand came out from under her jacket as she walked, bringing with it a large handgun. She had small hands, but the slender fingers were long and the ease with which they handled the weapon belied their strength. Another step forward and she brought her left hand down with her right, holding the pistol in a two-fisted grip. The dim light seemed to be swallowed up by the weapon's dark finish, the end of the barrel a darker hole in the night. From this end, it looked large enough to drive a truck through.
While Eric had moved cautiously, the woman had advanced with confidence and the distance between them couldn't have been more than twenty feet at best. Soon, she would spot him and it would all be over. I'm not fast enough to take her, and whatever that gun is loaded with will do more than just slow me down. Time was up and he had to move.
A metal garbage can, loaded with trash, stood near the wall a few inches from his left hand. Slowly reaching down, he gripped the handle on the side of it. With a grunt of effort, Eric swung the trashcan in an arc, flinging it at the woman. Without looking to see if he had struck her, he fled down the alley.
It was dark, but the dim light from the street was enough to see most of the obstacles strewn in his path. Ahead a chain link fence spanned the alley, discouraging vagrants and criminals from entering the passage beyond. Eric vaulted to the wall and off again, grabbing the fence halfway up and scrambling upward it as fast as he could.
A wall of noise hammered his ears as the handgun went off. The sound was an enormous thing, seeming to take on a presence of its own in the enclosed walls of the alley. Sparks flew from the side of a dumpster and a hole the size of Eric's thumb appeared in the metal perhaps two feet from where he hung on the fencing.
With an effort, he reached the top of the fence and threw himself over. Falling to the ground on the other side, Eric tried to roll with the fall with limited success. His sport coat tore at the sleeve as the concrete scraped his shoulder. Leaping to his feet, he continued running down the alley. If a scraped shoulder was the worst he suffered tonight, he would be grateful.
Twice more the gun thundered behind him, the sound somewhat less with distance but still terrifying. While one shot was clearly off the mark the other had thrummed by his ear, the slug burying itself in the wall a foot from his head and peppering his face with stinging fragments of brick.
Ahead, the alley ended in a brick wall that towered three stories above him. Eric was a strong climber but he would never scale this wall and live. A door was set in the wall before him and he summoned all his strength, slamming into it at full speed. The wood splintered and bowed but did not break. Staggering back, Eric mule kicked the door and, at last, the wood frame around the latch shattered. He dove inside as the hand cannon roared once more.
Climbing to his feet, Eric checked himself for extraneous perforations while he surveyed his surroundings. It was darker here than it had been in the alley, but skylights dotted the high ceiling and the skyglow of the city gave everything a dim grey aura. He appeared to be in some sort of factory. Rows of machinery stood in three ranks, with room to walk between each machine and perhaps enough room between the rows for three men to walk abreast. The wall beside him featured crude shelving, little more than plywood bolted to angle iron. Various tools, lubricants, and machine parts sat on the sagging shelves. Beyond the rows of machines, stretching into the darkness, opposing rows of larger shelves stood from floor to ceiling. These were much larger, with crates stacked here and there suggesting that it was a warehouse area for whatever was manufactured here. The air was filled with the old scents of sweat, dust, and machine oil but it was impossible to tell if this place was abandoned or just in poor repair.
A rattle of chain link from the alley told him all he needed to know. His assailant was still after him. Eric made his way into the dimness of the factory floor.
He had reached the third and final row of machines when the woman stepped through the entrance from the alley, kicking the splintered door wide. He bent low and watched as she swept the area with her pistol, her eyes scanning from her left to her right, following the barrel of the gun. F
rom this distance she was little more than a dark blur in the shadows, the glint of her narrowed eyes the only clear feature. As she moved onto the factory floor, she made no effort to quiet her movements.
Eric backed away from the machines, heading into the darkness between the warehouse shelves and keeping his eyes on the woman coming behind him. He had almost made up his mind to break into a run and was turning when a faint click sounded from ahead.
Whirling around, he just had time to see the man at the end of the aisle. He stood with his feet spread wide in a firing stance, a massive automatic handgun, like that of the woman, leveled at Eric in his two handed grip. He wore a long coat that reached his ankles and a shotgun hung in a scabbard on one hip, an empty holster on the other. On his head was some sort of night vision apparatus. Eric took these details in, and then the world exploded.
Eric was thrown to the floor as the slug hammered into him. He felt the bones of his upper arm and right shoulder shatter, and fire seemed to spread from there all through his body. Fucking silver! was all he had time to think before the back of his head struck the floor and stars bloomed and detonated in front of his eyes. Immediately, he tried to roll away and under the shelving, but another roar from the gun and his right thigh was a bloody ruin of fire and pain.
Within seconds they were on him. The man in the trenchcoat rushed forward, keeping his gun trained on Eric's head. He was suddenly flanked by two others, a man and a woman. The man held a short handled sledge hammer and the woman carried a wooden rod, the end carved into a point. Eric could do nothing but moan with pain as the poison worked from his leg and shoulder through his body.
Running to join her hunting party, the woman in the leather jacket approached. “Don't forget the fangs,” she said, “We can't get the bounty without the fangs, and sometimes they retract when they die.”
Stepping forward, she holstered her pistol and drew something else from under her coat. Eric struggled to clear his vision. Focusing on the woman, he saw that she held a pair of locking pliers. As she knelt beside him, she spoke to the others. “Hold him.”
The taste of metal filled his mouth but was quickly forgotten. The woman had experience with this sort of thing, it would seem. She expertly locked the pliers on one of Eric's fangs, ripping it from his head with a twisting pull. The pain was enormous and his vision fluttered with the agony. He tried to wriggle away, but he was far too weak to break the grip of the man and woman who held him down.
A crash of breaking glass came from the darkness, followed by another and then a third. The hunters jumped to their feet, filling their hands with weapons and looking about with panicked expressions. There was a rush of footsteps and then the hunters were gone. Here and there, Eric heard the sounds of a scuffle, more running feet, gunshots, and a slamming door.
Moaning, he tried to move again. A voice spoke from nearby. “Lie still, you'll feel better in a day or two.” Gregory, thank God, he thought.
Looking up, Eric saw him kneeling nearby. There was a smile on his face, and his fangs were bright in the shadowy darkness. “I hate to say 'I told you so' but...”
Eric's relieved laugh was painful, but he couldn't help himself.
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