A Soft Barren Aftershock

  “Shit! Goddam shit!”

  Stan’s raging voice and the sudden braking of the car yanked Al from his reverie. He opened his eyes and looked at Stan.

  “Hey, motherfu—”

  Then he saw him. Or, rather, it. Dead ahead. Dead ahead. A corpse, hanging by its feet from a utility pole.

  “Oh, shit,” Kenny said from behind him. “Another one. Who is it?”

  “I dunno,” Stan said, then he looked at Al from under the wide brim of his cowboy hat. “Whyn’t you go see.”

  Al swallowed. He’d always been the best climber, so he’d wound up the second-storey man of the team. But he didn’t want to make this climb.

  “What’s the use?” Al said. “Whoever he is, he’s dead.”

  “See if he’s one of us,” Stan said.

  “Ain’t it always one of us?”

  “Then see which one of us it is, okay?”

  Stan had this pale, cratered skin. Even though he was in his twenties he still got pimples. He looked like the man in the moon now, but in the old days he’d been a pizza face. Once he almost killed a guy who’d called him that. And he had this crazy blond hair that stuck out in all directions when he didn’t cut it, but even when he cut it Mohican style like now, all shaved off on the sides and all, it looked crazier than ever. Made Stan look crazier than ever. And Stan was pretty crazy as it was. And mean. He’d been thinking he was hot shit ever since he got out of Yardville. His big head had got even bigger when the bloodsuckers made him pack leader. He’d been pissing Al off lately but this time he was right: somebody had to go see who’d got unlucky last night.

  Al hopped over the door and headed for the pole. What a pain in the ass. The rope around the dead guy’s feet was looped over the first climbing spike. He shimmied up to it and got creosote all over him in the process. The stuff was a bitch to get off. And besides, it made his skin itch. On the way up he’d kept the pole between himself and the body. Now it was time to look. He swallowed. He’d seen one of these strung-up guys up close before and—

  He spotted the earring, a blood-splattered silvery crescent moon dangling on a fine chain from the brown-crusted earlobe, an exact replica of the one dangling from his own left ear, and from Stan’s and Artie’s and Kenny’s. Only this one was dangling the wrong way.

  “Yep,” he said, loud so’s the guys on the ground could hear it. “It’s one of us.”

  “Damn!” Stan’s voice. “Anyone we know?”

  Al squinted at the face but with the gag stuck in its mouth, and the head so encrusted with clotted blood and crawling with buzzing, feeding flies, darting in and out of the gaping wound in the throat, he couldn’t make out the features.

  “I can’t tell.”

  “Well, cut him down.”

  This was the part Al hated most of all. It seemed almost sacrilegious. Not that he’d ever been religious or anything, but someday, if he didn’t watch his ass, this could be him.

  He pulled his Special Forces knife from his belt and sawed at the rope above the knot on the climbing spike. It frayed, jerked a couple of times, then parted. He closed his eyes as the body tumbled downward. He hummed Metallica’s “Sandman” to blot out the sound it made when it hit the pavement. He especially hated the sick, wet sound the head made if it landed first. Which this one did.

  “Looks like Benny Gonzales,” Artie said.

  “Yep,” Kenny said. “No doubt about it. That’s Benny. Poor guy.”

  They dragged his body over to the kerb and drove on, but the party mood was gone.

  “I’d love to catch the bastards who’re doing this shit,” Stan said as he drove. “They’ve gotta be close by around here somewhere.”

  “They could be anywhere,” Al said. “They found Benny back there, killed him there—you saw that puddle of blood under him -and left him there. Then they cut out.”

  “They’re huntin’ us like we’re huntin’ them,” Kenny said.

  “But I wanna be the one to catch ‘em,” Stan said.

  “Yeah?” said Artie from the back. “And what would you do if you did?”

  Stan said nothing, and Al knew that was the answer. Nothing. He’d bring them in and turn them over. The bloodsuckers didn’t like you screwing with their cattle.

  Kings of the world ... princes of the day ...

  If you could get used to the creeps you were working for, it wasn’t too bad a set-up. Could have been worse, Al knew—a lot worse.

  They all could have wound up being cattle.

  Al didn’t know when the vampires had started taking over. People said it began in Eastern Europe, some time after the communists got kicked out. The vampires had been building up their numbers, waiting for their chance, and when everything was in turmoil, they struck. All of a sudden it was the only thing on the news. Dracula wasn’t a storybook character, he was real, and he was suddenly the new Stalin in charge of Eastern Europe.

  From there the vampires spread east and west, into Russia and the rest of Europe. They were smart, those bloodsuckers. They hit the government and military bigwigs first, made them their own kind, then threw everything into chaos. Not too long after that they crossed the ocean. America thought it was ready for them but it wasn’t. They hit high, they hit low, and before you knew it, they were in charge.

  Well, almost in charge. They did whatever they damn well pleased at night, but they’d never be in charge around the clock because they couldn’t be up and about in the daylight. They needed somebody to hold the fort for them between sunrise and sunset.

  That was where Al and the guys came in. The bloodsuckers had found them hiding in the basement of Leon’s pool hall one night and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

  They could be cattle, or they could be cowboys and drive the cattle.

  Not much of a choice as far as Al could see.

  You see, the bloodsuckers had two ways of killing folks. They had the usual way of ripping into your neck and sucking out your blood. If they got you that way, you became one of them come the next sundown. That was the method they used when they were taking over a place. They got themselves a bunch of instant converts that way. But once they had the upper hand, they changed their feeding style. Smart, those bloodsuckers. If they got too many of their kind wandering around, they’d soon have nobody to feed on—a world full of chefs with nothing to cook. So after they were in control, they’d string their victims up by their feet, slit their throats, and drink the blood as it gushed out of them. When you died that way, you stayed dead. Something they called true death.

  But they’d offered Al and Stan and the guys undeath. Be their cowboys, be their muscle during the day, herd the cattle and take care of business between sunrise and sunset, do a good job for twenty years, and they’d see to it that you got done in the old-fashioned way, the way that left you like them. Undead. Immortal. One of the ruling class.

  Twenty years and out. Like the army. They gave you these crescent-moon earrings to wear, so they’d know you were on their side when they ran into you at night, and they let you do pretty much what you wanted during the days.

  But the nights were theirs.

  Being a cowboy wasn’t so bad, really. You had to keep an eye on their nests, make sure no save-the-world types—Stan liked to call them rustlers—got in there and started splashing holy water around and driving stakes into their cold little hearts. And if you wanted brownie points, you went out each day and hunted up a victim or two to have ready for them after sundown.

  Those brownie points were nothing to sneer at either. Earn enough of them and you got to spend some stud time on one of their cattle ranches—where all the cows were human. And young.

  Neither Al nor Stan nor any of their pack had been to one of the farms yet, but they’d all heard it was incredible. You came back sore.

  Al didn’t particularly like working for the vampires. But he couldn’t remember ever liking anybody he’d worked for. The bloodsuckers gave him the creeps, but what was he supposed to do? I
f you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Plenty of guys felt the same way.

  But not all. Some folks took it real personal, called Al and Stan and the boys traitors and collaborators and worse. And lately it looked like some of them had gone beyond the name-calling stage and were into throat-slitting.

  Benny Gonzales was the fifth one in the last four weeks.

  Apparently the guys who were behind this wanted to make it look like the vampires themselves were doing the killings, but it didn’t wash. Too messy. These bodies had blood all over them, and a puddle beneath them. When the bloodsuckers slit somebody’s throat, they didn’t let a drop of it go to waste. They licked the platter clean, so to speak.

  “We gotta start being real careful,” Stan was saying. “Gotta keep our eyes open.”

  “And look for what?” Kenny said.

  “For a bunch of guys who hang out together—a bunch of guys who ain’t cowboys.”

  Artie started singing that Willie Nelson song, “Mama, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow up to be Cowboys” and it set Stan off.

  “Knock it off, god damn it! This ain’t funny! One of us could be next! Now keep your fucking eyes open!”

  Al studied the houses drifting by as they cruised into Point Pleasant Beach. Cars sat quietly along the kerbs of the empty streets and the houses appeared deserted, their empty blind windows staring back at him. But every so often they’d pass a yard that looked cared for, and those houses would be defiantly studded with crosses and festooned with garlands of garlic. And every so often you could swear you saw somebody peeking out from behind a window or through a screen door.

  “You know, Stan,” Al said. “I’ll bet those cowboy killers are hiding in one of them houses with all the garlic and crosses.”

  “Maybe,” Stan said. “But I kinda doubt it. Those folks tend to stay in after sundown. Whoever’s behind this is working at night.”

  That made sense to Al. The folks in those houses hardly ever came out. They were loners. Dangerous loners. Armed loners. The vampires couldn’t get in because of all the garlic and crosses, and the cowboys who’d tried to get in—or even take off some of the crosses -usually got shot up. The vampires had said to leave them be for now. Sooner or later they’d run out of food and have to come out. Then they’d get them.

  Smart, those bloodsuckers. Al guessed they figured they had plenty of time to outwait the loners. All the time in the world.

  They were cruising Ocean Avenue by the boardwalk area now, barely a block from the Atlantic. What a difference a year made. Last year at this time the place was packed with the summer crowds, the day-trippers and the weekly renters. Now it was deserted. The sun was high and hot but it was like winter had never ended.

  They were gliding past the empty, frozen rides when Al caught a flash of colour moving between a couple of the boardwalk stands.

  “Pull over,” he said, putting a hand on Stan’s arm. “I think I saw something.”

  The tyres screeched as Stan made a sharp turn into Jenkinson’s parking lot.

  “What kind of something?”

  “Something blonde.”

  Kenny and Artie let out cowboy whoops and jumped out of the back seat. They tossed their Heineken empties high and let them smash in glittery green explosions.

  “Shut the fuck up!” Stan said. “You tryin’ to queer this little round-up or what? Now you two head down to the street back there and work your way back up on the boards. Me and Al’ll go up here and work our way down. Get going.”

  As Artie and Kenny trotted back to the Risden’s Beach bath houses, Stan squared his ten-gallon hat on his head and pointed toward the miniature golf course at the other end of the parking lot. Al took the lead and Stan followed. Arnold Avenue ended here in a turret-like police station, still boarded up for the winter, but its big warning sign was still up, informing anyone who passed that alcoholic beverages and dogs and motorbikes and various other goodies were prohibited in the beach and boardwalk area by order of the mayor and city council of Point Pleasant Beach. Al smiled. The beach and the boardwalk and the sign were still here, but the mayor and the city council were long gone.

  Pretty damn depressing up on the boards. The big glass windows in Jenkinson’s arcade were smashed and it was dark inside. The lifeless video games stared back with dead eyes. All the concession stands were boarded up, the paralysed rides were rusting and peeling, and it was quiet. No barkers shouting, no kids laughing, no squealing babes in bikinis running in and out of the surf. Just the monotonous pounding of the waves against the deserted beach.

  And the birds. The seagulls were doing what they’d always done. Probably the only thing they missed was the garbage the crowds used to leave behind.

  Al and Stan headed south, scouring the boardwalk as they moved. The only other humans they saw were Kenny and Artie coming up the other way from the South Beach Arcade.

  “Any luck?” Stan called.

  “Nada,” Kenny said.

  “Yo, Alphonse!” Artie said. “How many Heinies you have anyway? You seein’ things now? What was it—a blonde bird?”

  But Al knew he’d seen something moving up here, and it hadn’t been no goddam seagull. But where ...?

  “Let’s get back to the car and keep moving,” Stan said. “Don’t look like we’re gonna make us no brownie points up here.”

  They’d all turned and were heading back up the boards when Al took one last look back ... and saw something moving. Something small and red, rolling across the boards toward the beach from between one of the concession stands.

  A ball.

  He tapped Stan on the shoulder, put a finger to his lips, and pointed. Stan’s eyes widened and together they alerted Artie and Kenny. Together the four of them crept toward the spot where the ball had rolled from.

  As they got closer, Al realized why they’d missed this spot on the first pass. It was really two concession stands—a frozen yogurt place and a salt water taffy shop—with boards nailed up over the space between to make them look like a single building.

  Stan tapped Al on the shoulder and pointed to the roof of the nearer concession stand. Al nodded. He knew what he wanted: the second-storey man had to do his thing again.

  Al got to the top of the chain-link fence running behind the concession stands and from there it was easy to lever himself up to the roof. His sneakers made barely a sound as he crept across the tar of the canted roof to the far side.

  The girl must have heard him coming, because she was already looking up when he peeked over the edge. Al felt a surge of satisfaction when he saw her blonde ponytail and long thick bangs.

  He felt something else when he saw the tears streaming down her cheeks from her pleading eyes, and her hands raised, palms together, as if praying to him. She wanted him to see nothing—she was begging Al to see nothing.

  For an instant he was tempted. The pleas in those frightened blue eyes reached deep inside and touched something there, disturbed a part of him so long unused he’d forgotten it belonged to him.

  And then he saw she had a little boy with her, maybe seven years old, dark-haired but with eyes as blue as hers. She was pleading for him as much as herself. Maybe more than herself. And with good reason. The vampires loved little kids. Al didn’t understand it. Kids were smaller, had less blood than adults. Maybe their blood was purer, sweeter. Someday, when he was undead himself, he’d know.

  But even with the kid there, Al might have done something stupid, might have called down to Stan and the boys that there was nothing here but some old tom cat who’d probably taken a swat at that ball and rolled it out. But when he saw that she was pregnant—very pregnant—he knew he had to turn her in.

  As much as the bloodsuckers loved kids, they went crazy for babies. Infants were the primo delicacy among the vampires. Al once had seen a couple up then fighting over a newborn.

  That had been a sight.

  He sighed and said, “Too bad, honey, but you’re packing too many points.” He turned and called down
toward the boardwalk. “Bingo, guys. We struck it rich.”

  She screamed out a bunch of hysterical “No’s” and the little boy began to cry.

  Al shook his head regretfully. It wasn’t always a pleasant job, but a cowboy had to do what a cowboy had to do.

  And besides, all these brownie points were going to bring him that much closer to some stud time at the nearest cattle farm.

  Sister Carole checked the Pyrex bowl on the stove. A chalky layer of potassium chloride had formed in the bottom. She turned off the heat and immediately decanted off the boiling upper fluid, pouring it through a Mr Coffee filter into a Pyrex brownie pan. She threw out the scum in the filter and put the pan of filtrate on the window sill to cool.

  She heard the sound of a car again and rushed to a window. It was the same car, with the same occupants—

  No, wait. There had been only four before. Two in front and two in back. Now there were three squeezed into the back and they seemed to be fighting. And did that third head in front, sitting with the red-haired cowboy in the passenger seat, belong to a child? Oh, my Lord, yes. A child! And in the back a woman, probably his mother. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the poor thing was pregnant!

  Sister Carole suddenly felt as if something were tearing apart within her chest. Was there no justice, was there no mercy anywhere?

  She dropped to her knees and began to pray for them, but in the back of her mind she wondered why she bothered. None of her prayers had been answered so far.

  Sacrilege, Carole! That’s SACRILEGE! Now tell me why you’d be thinking the Lord would answer the prayers of such a SINNER? God doesn’t answer the prayers of a SINNER!

  Maybe not, Carole thought. But if He’d answered somebody’s prayers somewhere along the line, maybe she wouldn’t have been forced to turn the Bennetts’ kitchen into an anarchist’s laboratory.

  The Lord helped those who helped themselves, didn’t He? Especially when they were doing the Lord’s work.

  Artie and Kenny had been fighting over the blonde since they’d all left Point. She’d put up a fight at first, but she’d been nothing but a blubbering basket case for the last few miles. By the time the Mercedes hit Lakewood, Artie and Kenny were ready to start swinging at each other.