With Friends Like These

Dawn Cook

Greg peered into the fridge, not seeing the smeared takeout boxes and stale bagels any more. Bending to the lowest shelf, he grabbed two of his room-mate’s juice bottles. The smoked glass clinked as he stood and shut the fridge, having to give it that backward kick so it wouldn’t drift open again. Joe’s music was cranked, the classical music vibrating the silverware in the rusted sink. He’d tell him to turn it down, but the only time his room-mate played the 1812 Overture was when he was trying to impress his latest girlfriend.

Smiling faintly, Greg ran a hand over his late-night stubble and turned to the living room. Night had made the two large windows with their broken blinds into black mirrors. Shuffling to the couch, Greg twisted the cap off the first bottle and took a swig of the tomato juice/body-building protein drink before falling back into the worn leather. The smell of the puke of Joe’s girlfriend from last week puffed up, and he shifted down without a pause. Setting the second bottle on the scratched glass table, he stared at the big, blank flat-screen TV, wondering if it was worth the effort to get up and find the game controller. Though the rest of the apartment sucked, Joe had the latest and best when it came to gaming. No one could say Joe didn’t have his priorities in order.

The music from Joe’s room started to build, right along with the feminine gasping moan, and Greg reached for the remote, turned on the TV and hit the volume to try to drown it out. Damn, he didn’t know how the guy got the girls like that. It had to be his rep because he wasn’t much to look at, thin from his running despite the high-energy protein he slammed down. Greg stood almost a foot taller than him, muscles defined from the running track in the corner, and still, when they went to the bar it was Joe who got the hot girl and he was left with her ugly room-mate.

TV blaring, Greg wedged his steel-toed boots off and kicked them to the side where they lay, the heavy dark mud from the September rains caking off to add to yesterday’s dried clay. His gaze wandered over the pizza boxes from two weeks ago, the mismatched furniture and the bare, cold walls devoid of anything soft or clean.

The upstairs, two-room apartment had seen too many college parties and slipshod landlords to be considered anything but a place to crash for four years and forget about. A mishmash of styles from previous tenants had left their mark. A dusty beaded lampshade from the sixties dangled over the linoleum table. Beside the corded wall phone, a fuzzy print of Elvis was scrawled with the phone numbers of girls long since having gained their diploma, fifteen pounds, a mortgage and two-point-five kids. The matted shag carpet with an ocean of sand underneath was wall-to-wall ugliness, worn to nothing by the door. This wasn’t where he was going to be for ever. It was temporary.

Yeah, temporary, he thought, sitting up in the flabby leather cushions when the buzz from the drink began to hit him. He’d moved in with Joe almost a year ago, a fight between him and his girlfriend over “World of Warcraft” forcing the move. He had offered to make her an avatar so they could kill pigs together in the woods, but she kicked him out after one too many gaming parties with the guys. He hadn’t seen any of his old friends for months. Between classes and work, it was all Greg could do to remember to eat. Thank God for energy drinks, he thought, lifting the bottle in a silent salute.

The moaning from Joe’s room was reaching a desperate crescendo, climaxing in time with the music – cannons, drums, horns and one frantic woman going off all at once. Greg couldn’t help his smirk. The guy had talent.

Greg was mindlessly channel surfing when the door to Joe’s room was flung open, hitting the wall to make the dent just a little deeper. “Hey,” the lanky guy said as he crossed the living room to get to the kitchen, his quick strides making him almost a blur in his black boxer shorts.

Greg grunted something back, turning down the volume before the neighbours began pounding on the walls. Flicking through commercials, Greg paused to watch the one with the caveman. Ooooh, poned again.

Joe was on his fifth year of a four-year running scholarship, abusing the system that paid for everything as long as he kept coming in first. From his room came quiet panting and the soft strains of violins. It was a weird mix – Joe’s classical tastes and low-income clutter. Greg figured Joe had money somewhere. Maybe one of those hard-ass families that wouldn’t let you dip into the family fortune until you turned thirty or something. Joe had the attitude of killing time while he waited for something. The TV and electronic equipment had come with a service plan, not scrape marks from the back of someone’s truck.

Greg’s eyes flicked into the kitchen at the snap of Joe opening his own bottle. Joe downed half of it as he came into the living room. He was clean shaven despite it being night, smelling faintly like the girl’s perfume and the shower he’d probably taken before she came over. His boxers hung loose on him, and sweat still shone on his shoulders between the new red marks from the girl’s fingers. Eyes bright from the sex and exuding energy, he stretched out in the chair kitty-corner to the couch. A heavy sigh came from him, and his foot jittered. Up and down, that was Joe. If he didn’t know better, Greg would say his room-mate was an addict, but he’d never found a pill or a syringe. Maybe he was just careful.

“Rough night?” Greg asked sarcastically.

“Rock and roll, baby.” Eyes on the TV, Joe stared, lost, but his hand came out and they bumped knuckles. “Can’t live with them …”

Greg sipped his drink, feeling it wake him up. “And you can’t shoot ’em.”

Joe laughed, still high on the woman in the next room. Greg clicked it to MTV, dropping the remote and stifling his envy. He’d been living like a monk the last eight months, not daring to bring a girl here. Not only would he have to clean, but Joe would give her that little grin of his, toss his hair, and she’d be singing soprano to the 1812 Overture in three days.

“I wanna go for a run,” Joe said, slamming the rest of his drink and standing. “Get up.”

“Now?” Greg looked at the black window. Yeah, it was Friday, but he was too tired from his shift to hit the bar, much less the streets. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Chicken?” Joe started to do warm-ups. “Get up. Don’t make me run down there alone. All kinds of weird crap out there.”

“Which is why I don’t want to go running in the middle of the night.” Greg settled back into the cushions, eyes going to the mud he’d tracked in. Maybe he should vacuum tomorrow. Buy a mud mat with his next pay cheque instead of beer. Did they even have a vacuum? “Grow up, will you?”

A soft, slow laugh came out of Joe, and Greg looked askance at him, thinking his eyes were unusually bright. “The boogie man?” Joe intoned, wiggling his fingers at him. “Vampires going to get you? Ooooh. You’d better watch out. You’d better not cry.”

“Piss on it.” Greg began to click the remote. Pow – blow away the preacher man. Pow – waste the western. Pow – Billy Mayes hawking super knives, cut down mid-shout.

Joe laughed, and Greg’s eyes squinted in anger even as he warmed. “Then you tell me how a freaky white kid can run up the side of a building,” Greg said, eyes flicking to the open bedroom door as the sound of the shower filtered out. Yeah, it was embarrassing, and yeah, he might have been drunk at the time. But he had seen it, and his heart pounded just remembering it. It had given him the creeps, watching the small, dark-haired figure run straight up the wall like he was some kind of superhero.

“Dude, I told you to lay off the drugs.”

“I don’t do drugs, and you know it,” Greg said sourly as he went back to clicking. The bottle was cold against his knee, and he downed it.

Joe had his leg up against the wall by the TV, almost doing the splits as he stretched. “I’m talking your food, man. The stuff they put in it. Look at my juice. One hundred per cent organic. None of that MSG, pesticide crap. It’s going to kill you. Harden your cells till they can’t move, stick in your brain and make you dumb. Look at me.” Joe leaned in to his stretch to become about a foot thick. “No pesticides in this body. I’m keeping it clean. Only put top-grade into it.”

Greg put his empty aside and cracked open the second. It burned going down, the heavy tomato flavour spiced with basil and some kind of pepper. The buzz was kicking in good now to make him feel alive. Joe got it where he worked, when he felt like it, at an organic food store. Greg wouldn’t touch half the crap in the fridge that Joe brought home, but the juice was OK.

“Come on, run with me,” Joe coaxed as he brought his foot off the wall and did a smooth, effortless back arch into a stretch against the floor. OK, maybe that’s how he got the girls. “We can take the river route. Look at the hookers,” he added, grinning.

Greg threw a T-shirt at him, which had been wedged between the cushions, and Joe put it on, hiding his thin chest and the new passion marks. “We’ll look like a couple of gays down there,” he said, remembering the feeling of watching eyes on them the one time they’d taken the river path after dark.

Joe leaned the other way, hamstring stretching. “Not if we’re looking at hookers.”

Staring at the TV, Greg tried to find a way to say no without looking like he was scared. The river route was a dark stretch of winding pavement between the bar district and the carnival about two miles away. During the day, the long riverside park was the realm of mummy daycares and lunchtime athletes, but at night, it became the property of gangs, dealers and stupid-asses that were too stupid to stay out of the stupid park after sundown.

“Come on, it’s only a mile, then we’ll loop back through the city,” Joe coaxed. “Seriously. If I don’t get out and move, I’m going to explode. Unless you think your vampire is going to come back? Bring your dog sticker if you’re afraid.”

Dog sticker. It was a shiny length of collapsible steel that Greg used to beat off pony-size poodles and yappy terriers who thought a running man was fair game, but the shiny point on the one end when it was extended would beat off muggers, too. Not that he’d ever had to use it.

Groaning, Greg clicked off the TV, got up and stretched for the ceiling to feel his back pop and crack. It would be nothing but crack heads, shooters and human trash down at the river once they got past the bars, but like Joe said, it was only a mile before they got to the better lit path beyond it. And he liked to run with Joe, especially at night when the air was cool and it felt like the world was sleeping. He had never been a slouch, but Joe pushed him. One more block, one more mile. He was in the best shape of his life for all the pizza and beer. “I don’t know how you talk me into stuff like this,” he grumbled.

Joe got to his feet, clearly eager. “Give me a sec to get rid of my bed warmer,” he said, and Greg finished his second bottle in a rush, draining the last thin stream with his head tilted back.

“Dude. You gotta start treating your ladies with more respect.”

But Joe was already walking away, cocky as all hell. “Yeah. Being Mr Personality has them lined out our door for you,” he said, vanishing into the black pit his bedroom was. “Hey, bitch!” came his faint voice, joined by a high-pitched protest when the sound of the water quit. “You gotta go. Me and my man are going running!”

The woman’s confusion grew louder, and Greg turned from balancing his empty bottles on the tower they were building in the corner as she made her stumbling entrance, hair dripping and clothes sticking to her wet skin as Joe propelled her, one hand on her shoulder, one hand on her ass, towards the door.

“Baby, what I do?” she asked, bewildered, bare feet on their nasty carpet. Maybe Greg’s words had done some good, because Joe was more gentle than usual, giving her a kiss and devilish smile at the door before looping her purse over her shoulder and handing her a fuzzy, white, fake-fur coat.

“You’re cool, sugar heart,” he said, shoving a fifty in her pocket. “I gotta go do something. Get a cab, OK? Go eat some pie. Forget about me. I’m bad news. Make your heart break and your momma cry.”

“Yeah, but baby!” she protested as he dropped her shoes on top of her coat and pushed her out. Joe shut the door and turned, the woman forgotten already as he went to the fridge. An exasperated half-scream echoed in the hall, and the sound of a pair of shoes hitting the door made Greg jump, but Joe only grinned.

Frowning and shaking his head, Greg went to his own room to change. Midnight at the river. Shit, those hookers better be hot.

The smell of dew-wet concrete was strong in the light fog, just enough of a presence to give a glow to the lights strung like pebbles on a string as they curved and twisted, following the path of the river. The stress and fatigue of the day was gone, his blood pumping and muscles moving to a rhythm that Greg could imagine went back to the beginnings of time when man fought to eat and ran to live.

Joe was beside him, their footfalls in perfect unison adding to the surreal feel, like they were floating in the muffled night, trees and empty benches passing as if they were momentary fragments of existence. It made Greg wonder if there wasn’t a little magic mushroom in that “organic” drink Joe kept bringing home. He felt too damn good for it to just be himself.

They’d left the noisy, migrating, bar-hopping, street-wide party behind only a few minutes ago, but it seemed like miles now that they’d found a pattern of strides beside each other and the asphalt seemed to flow under them. The district had been busy for Friday, the unseasonably warm September evening bringing everyone out. He’d felt like malevolent eyes had been on him as he ran beside Joe in the district, straight down the middle of the blocked-off street, but every time he looked, it had only been laughing pedestrians saluting him with their open bottles, probably thinking they were asses for running in the night instead of partying. It had been a relief to leave the glow and alcohol-induced noise behind and let the cooler, muffled darkness enfold them, reminding him of why he’d said yes.

Before them, past the twists and turns yet to run, he could see the bright lights of the carnival, the Ferris wheel rising high above the trees still holding a few dry, brittle leaves. Behind them lay the bars, the sound of the music thumping like the heart of the night. Between was the river, the flat smoothness of the water contrasting with the darkness and the lumps of shadows looming and falling behind them as they ran.

Moving easy, Greg glanced at one of the city bridges that spanned the slow flow, empty of traffic at this hour. A glint of metal, a motion where none should be – something had caught his attention, and he stared, trying to figure out what he was looking at. Shit, he thought, his pace bobbling. There was a man, under the bridge, not standing under it at the edge of the water, but standing under it at the apex of the arch, hanging upside down.

Heart pounding, he came to a grit-sliding halt. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed, pointing. “Joe. Look!” The cool night air turned oppressive as the breeze from his passage stopped, and Greg felt a sweat born of fear break out on him.

Joe pulled up three steps ahead of him, turning to look where Greg was pointing.

“There!” Greg said, voice loud, but no one was there now. “There was a guy. Right there. On the bridge!”

“God, you’re worse than a little girl,” Joe said derisively.

He started to move, and Greg reached out, grabbing his arm. Warmth flooded his face at the mocking slant to Joe’s brow, and he hesitated. He couldn’t say that the man had been standing on the underside of the arch. Not now.

“Come on. Let’s go,” Joe said as he pulled away, a new eagerness to his eyes.

“No, wait.” The man under the bridge forgotten, Greg panted, seeing his breath steam in the September chill. Something wasn’t right, and he squinted at Joe ahead of him, breathing just as hard in the light of a street lamp. “How come your breath isn’t steaming?” he asked.

Eyebrows high, Joe opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

A soft thump behind him spun Greg around. Autumn leaves drifted down around the spare man now standing there, his pointy-toed boots planted firmly on the asphalt. Shit, they were going to get mugged by a fashion-challenged gang member in a torn black leotard and funny hat.

“Because he’s not warm-blooded, ass,” the man said, confidence in his stance and words even though he stood almost a foot shorter than Greg.

“Hey, uh, hi, Michel,” Joe said as he came forwards to stand beside Greg, looking both nervous and angry. “Long time no see.”

Joe knows this guy? Panic ran cold through him, and his legs hurt now that he had stopped. What the hell was going on?

The man looked Joe up and down, not reaching for a gun or a knife, just standing there with a disgusted expression on his face. “Johann … Johann … Johann. I told you not to come down here. Ever.”

Shit. It was a gang. An Asian or other foreign gang by the sound of the freaky accent the man had. He knew Joe was too up and down to not be on drugs. He could see the headlines now. TWO FOUND DEAD AT THE RIVER. LIFE GOES ON.

“And I told you I’d be back,” said Joe.

Greg stiffened as he looked at his room-mate, his attention drawn by the never-before-heard hard tone to his voice. The casual, slipshod, sex-hungry guy was gone. He was mean looking, face showing new lines etched from a past anger, his stance aggressive as he stood with his fisted hands slightly from his sides and his head lowered.

“Is this your idea of a joke?” the guy said, jerking Greg’s attention back to him.

“No, man,” Joe said, his words casual, but his tone tight. “And he ain’t a bribe. He’s just with me. I wanna come home. You don’t know what it’s like being alone.”

Greg tried to swallow. Shit, there was no one else out here, and the faint thumping of the music echoed louder. “You know him?” he said, then cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “Joe, you know this jack-off?”

“He’s my brother.”

The man facing them inclined his head, making a sort of half-bow, half-dance step back. It would have looked stupid on anyone else, but he made it look good, even as Greg could see the mockery in it. “I’m his older, smarter brother.”

He began to circle with an eerie grace, and grit ground under Greg’s heel as he turned to follow him, his skin prickling.

“You bring me a peace offering, and it doesn’t have tits,” Joe’s brother said, eyeing Greg from under his shaggy bangs, looking at him like a dog wanting a bone.

“I thought you might be tired of them,” Joe said, and Greg couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not. “No, I told you, he’s not a present.”

“You taught him to run?”

It was mocking, and Joe was starting to lose his swagger, a hint of desperation beginning to show. “I wanted someone to run with, Michel. He runs good, even as big as he is. Leave him alone. I just wanna come home.”

His chest had stopped hurting, but Greg’s pulse still hammered. There was a shadowy figure on the bridge, standing at the railing as a car whizzed past. “Hey, look. You guys have a lot to talk about. Whatever. I gotta go,” he said, starting to back up.

Greg sucked in his breath as suddenly Joe’s brother was beside him, stinking of anger and domination. “I’m going to take your pretty boy,” he said, smiling at Joe to show his teeth in threat. “And I’m not letting you come back. Bugger off.”

A chill ran through Greg as the man turned his eyes to him, mocking and eager. “Run. I like it when you all get hot.”

“Screw you, you asshole,” Greg said, taking two steps backwards. There were two of them, and only one of him. But on the bridge in the thickening fog, were three figures now, standing apart but watching, silently watching. Gang members, or help?

Greg made a fist and dropped back to fight, but Joe was girling out, hunched and pleading. “Let me come home, Michel. I swear, you let me come home!” His jaw clenched, and a panicked determination coloured his voice. “Let me come home, or you’re going to die tonight!”

“By your hand?” Joe’s brother laughed, and Greg breathed easier when he turned his focus on Joe instead. “You can’t kill me,” he said, boots scuffing. “Momma would be pissed. Daddy would send his dogs after you. You’d be shredded before the sun came up.” Lips parting, a slip of a moving tongue promised unwanted attention as he looked at Greg. “That’s the rules. No fighting between brothers, or we’d all be dead in a hundred years. I can eat you, though.”

“Michel, no!” Joe shouted, and his brother lunged.

“Hey!” Greg exclaimed, falling back when Michel grabbed his arm. Lashing out with a fist, he stumbled when he hit nothing. He found himself yanked upright and spun around until his arm was twisted to his back. Michel, though smaller by almost a head, had him.

His breath coming fast in his ear, Michel lifted ever so slightly on his arm, making Greg grit his teeth and grunt. “You’re a strong little worm,” the man behind him said eagerly.

“Mother f– Ow!” Greg yelped, going limp when Michel lifted his arm an inch more and pain flooded him.

“I bet you’re a tasty little worm, too.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Greg shouted, lunging backwards when he felt the grazing of teeth on his neck. Shit, the freakazoide was trying to bite him! His wildly darting eyes went past a wimping-out Joe to the bridge. There was a whole row of figures, all different in height from the size of a child on up – just watching.

Panic gave him strength, and he dropped, slipping out of Michel’s grasp and lurching away, almost on his hands and knees. Regaining his feet, he stood beside Joe. His hands shook, and anger filled him. Why the hell wasn’t Joe helping him? “Your brother is freaking insane!” he yelled, his voice going dead in the rising fog.

“Yeah, I know, man. It was a real drag growing up with him.” Joe glanced at the watchers on the bridge. “Michel, I’m telling you. Don’t touch him!” he said loudly, and, laughing, his brother came at Greg again, mouth open and arms grasping like it was a big joke.

Greg back-pedalled, his heart pounding and his only thought being to not let the freak get a hold on him again. This time, Joe stepped between them, the blur of his motion almost too fast to see.

“Out of my way!” Michel all but growled, and Greg watched in open-mouthed awe as he tossed Joe aside to land thirty feet away, stunned and unmoving on the grass. A shadowy figure seemed to melt from behind the nearby tree, kneeling on one knee to help Joe up.

“Son of a bitch,” Greg breathed, hunched as he shook out his dog sticker. The click of the metal cylinders aligning themselves pinged through him, and he held it like it was a long knife.

“Michel, I’m telling you to stop!” Joe cried, but the man was coming at him, and Greg braced himself, jamming the point of the dog sticker right into him. A shudder went through Greg at the feel of the sudden give of flesh, and Joe’s brother’s eyes, inches from his own, widened.

“Stay away from me, you fucking ass,” Greg said, even as his stomach turned. Shit, he’d just stabbed a man.

“Gaggh … oooh,” the man leaning against him moaned, one hand on Greg’s shoulder, the other holding the end of the stick jammed into him. But Greg’s relief turned to fear when the pained sound coming from Michel turned into a chuckle, and then a laugh. Letting go, Greg backed up, horrified as Joe’s brother plucked the metal stick out of him and tossed it to the sidewalk where it glinted wetly. His laughter grew, echoing in the fog where everything else seemed to be sucked up by it. And still the figures on the bridge didn’t move.

“Michel, don’t,” Joe said from the shadows, his voice low and devoid of emotion. “I’m telling you now, as mother and father are my witnesses. Don’t bite him.”

Michel only laughed louder, the high-pitched edge making the hairs on the back of Greg’s neck stand on end. “You lose!” Michel shouted, flinging a hand wildly as if grandstanding to the people on the bridge. “Everything that is yours is mine, little brother. It always has been, and it always will be. And that includes this. Your friend. God, it’s pathetic!” He came closer, and Greg refused to back up, his heart pounding at the sight of Michel’s eyes, glinting in the light when all else was dim and foggy. “Only vampire blood can kill another vampire,” he said, a mocking smile quirking his lips. “But you’re unusually strong. You might last long enough to be a diversion.”

Vampire? Feeling his expression go slack, Greg remembered the figure standing upside down under the bridge, the feeling of being watched whenever he and Joe ran, the man he’d seen run up the side of the building only a week before his girl kicked him out and he met Joe on the bus.

In a jerk of motion, Michel reached for his shoulder, and yanked Greg forwards and into him. Pain seared his neck, and Greg screamed, howling as he realized the heavy weight on his throat was a head and that the man was taking a chunk out of him. His entire body jerked as a flash of heat burned. He was eating him. The mother was eating him!

And suddenly the weight and fire were gone and he was airborne. He hit the sidewalk and slid, his running pants tearing and the skin scraping from his thigh. “What the hell!” he shouted, orientating himself. He was thirty feet away, and that son of a bitch who had bitten him was kneeling in the golden haze of the street light, gagging as he vomited.

Ignoring the pain in his thigh, Greg got to his feet, awkward since his hand was clamped to his neck. “You’re fucked!” he shouted as he strode back, shaking as he halted ten feet back. “You’re all fucked! What fairy-tale-assed life do you think you’re living in?”

They were two deep on the bridge. A handful more watched from the opposite side of the river, misty figures in the cloying fog. If they were gang members, why didn’t they come beat the shit out of them?

Michel’s head was on the asphalt. He tried to find his feet, failing as he choked on his own vomit. Face scraping, he turned to Greg’s voice, and Greg’s next wild outburst hesitated. The man’s eyes were haemorrhaging, bleeding like tears. More blood leaked from his ears and nose in a slow flow. “You … ” Michel gasped, and then he vomited a gout of blood, his body twisting with convulsions.

Greg stared, his neck throbbing as he shook. What the hell is going on?

Joe stepped into the light beside his brother. His narrow shoulders were stiff and the hardness was back in his stance. “What’s the matter, big brother?” he said, nudging him in the ribs with his foot, and Michel vomited again, gagging into a wet moan. “My friend too spicy for you?”

Joe looked up at Greg, and Greg backed away, eyes flicking from the dying man to the one now jauntily coming his way. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Greg shouted, not knowing what else to do. His voice was swallowed by the heavy fog, and the shadowy figures on the bridge began to become indistinct.

Running shoes scuffing, Joe halted beside him, then turned to look at his brother’s last grasping motion, bloodied nails rasping on the asphalt. His expression held only a light disinterest and, turning to Greg, a sliver of his usual devil-may-care attitude started to show itself. “Let me see your neck,” he said, and Greg smacked his reaching hand away.

“Oh, hey, relax, man,” Joe said, dodging Greg’s next swing and coming in close, too close for anything but a shove, but Greg’s knees were shaking and he didn’t move lest he push himself over. “I know you’re freaking out,” Joe said. “I’m still me. Still your friend. Let me see.”

Breathing fast, Greg stood still as Joe prised his fingers from his neck.

“Look, you big pussy, it’s stopped already,” Joe said, smacking his shoulder to make him stumble. “You’re going to be fine. Hell, you’re going to be more than fine.”

Greg caught his balance, looking first to the gathered figures on the bridge and then to Joe in mistrust. “Who are you?” he rasped, hand falling to hide his scraped thigh.

“I’m a vampire, dumb-ass. What did you think?”

Greg stared, trying to make sense of it. There was a man in a puddle of blood on the sidewalk. He’d bitten his neck. Joe said he was a vampire. He was losing it. That was the only thing that made any sense. Desperate for an answer, he looked to the bridge and the hazy outline of watchers. He was going to die. Game over. Hit the reset.

Giving him a sideways smirk, Joe strode to the unmoving pile of blood and nudged him with his foot. “You dead?” he said loudly, as if expecting an answer, and when the body was silent, he hauled back and savagely kicked him. Again and again, he slammed his foot into the limp body, sending it rolling in soggy spurts across the grass until it fell into the river.

“I told you not to eat him,” Greg heard him say as Joe stood on the riverbank and watched the current drag Michel down and away.

Greg stumbled to stand beside him, running shoes going damp as he tried to figure this out. “Shit, man. What did you just do?”

Ignoring him, Joe took a deep breath. “I’m here now!” he shouted, his voice echoing on the flat river in the fog. “I’m here! It’s me, now! I’m back!”

“Joe, you just killed him,” Greg said, voice hissing as he looked at the people on the bridge, tall and short all inclining their heads in the mist. “You just killed your brother!”

Joe’s eyes caught the light from a street lamp, making him look wild and unpredictable. “No, you did, my man. My man Greg.”

“Me?” A cold feeling prickled through him. Joe’s brother had bitten him, then fell down, vomited his stomach out, and died. It wasn’t his fault. Frantic, he looked at the bridge and the witnesses, his face going cold. There was no one there. That fast, they were gone. Had it even happened?

Fists on his hips, Joe faced the river, breathing deep. “You feel that, man? That’s a new wind blowing. Blowing my way, now.”

Greg turned away, stumbling when the soft bank made his steps wobble. He thought he was going to be sick, but the memory of Joe’s brother vomiting blood was too new, and he was scared to see what might come out of himself. “You’re freaking me out, Joe.” Head bowed, he dabbed at his neck to start a soft ache of feeling that quickly ebbed. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it did seem like it wasn’t bleeding any more. Maybe he hadn’t been bitten as hard as he thought.

In a quick motion, Joe clapped Greg across the shoulder and pushed him back up the gentle incline as the fog began to turn into a soft mist. “I’ll never forget this, Greg. I owe you everything. Hell, I’ll give you everything.” Once on the asphalt, he drew them to a stop, and Greg turned, pliant when Joe aimed him back at the river. “You all see him?” he shouted again, though there was no one left. “You get a good look. You fuck with him, you fuck with me!”

“Dude, what are you on?” Greg said, glancing over his shoulder at the red smear on the sidewalk and the funky hat, the only evidence left. “We gotta get out of here. This is a nightmare.”

“The nightmare is over,” Joe said. “It ended tonight. I can go home, and you’re coming with me.”

“Whoa, wait up, dude.” Greg dropped back, hand raised.

“You don’t want to go back to that peehole, do you?” Joe said, then grimaced, using a finger to tilt Greg’s head so he could see his neck in the brighter light. Mist cooled Greg’s face and neck, and he pushed Joe’s hand off of him.

“Yeah, you’re almost healed up,” Joe said, leaning to scoop up the abandoned hat. “You’ve been drinking my stuff. You can’t go back there. You’re with me now.”

“The protein drink?” Greg stammered, looking at the dark smear and pushing the hat away when Joe tried to give it to him. “Is that what killed him?”

“I told my mom you were a smart bastard.” Joe looked at the hat, then wound up and whipped it into the river. “I can’t kill my own brother. You heard me tell him to leave you alone. I tried to stop him. Everyone saw it. Not my fault.”

The watchers. Vampires? “The juice?” he tried again, remembering how bad it had tasted at first, and then how it seemed to wake him up, make him alive. “It’s vampire juice?”

Joe glanced sideways at him as he started them back in motion in a fast walk, headed for the bright lights of the carnie rides glowing in the mist. He looked totally slipshod, totally Joe, but totally someone new. It was like he’d taken off a homeless man’s coat to show the three-piece suit of confidence underneath. “The juice is just juice. But I’ve been putting a little of my blood in there,” Joe said, watching for his reaction and yanking him forwards when Greg threatened to stop.

“Oh my God!”

“God had nothing to do with it,” Joe said, a hint of humour in him. “If God cared, he would have struck down my prick of a brother before he perverted the family. No, it took you to do that.”

Only vampire blood could kill a vampire. That’s what he had said. “Joe?” The sidewalk seemed to move under him on its own, and he kept moving by rote. “Joe, did you make me …” Shit, he couldn’t say it.

“A vampire?” Joe laughed, and Greg exhaled loudly, scared. “No, man. You gotta be born one. You’re better than me at surviving, warm-blooded and shit. You’re my bodyguard now. No one can touch you. You’re safe.”

The wailing of sirens lifted faintly over the park’s trees to them, and they both stopped. It was eerie, like they were linked somehow.

“Shit,” Joe drawled. “Someone dialed 911. God, it was easier before cell phones.” He looked at the bright lights a mile ahead of them. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, starting to run only to halt not three steps away.

Greg hadn’t moved. He wasn’t a vampire. But Joe was.

“You’re not going to freak on me, are you?” Joe said as he came back. “You’re under my protection. My dad would run his dogs for you, now. You’ll be OK. No one will touch you. If they do, they die.”

“You killed your brother.” Greg pointed to the glistening asphalt, the blood slowly washing away. He half expected Joe to be gone when he turned back, but he was still there, thin body slumped to look like he always did with a half-smile on his face and the rain beading up on his smooth, always smooth, chin.

“No, you killed my brother,” he said. “And stop worrying, lame-ass. I don’t have any more brothers. I was the last. Seventh son of a seventh son. It starts with me, this generation. Shit, man, we’re going to have fun.”

Greg felt his face go pale. “I’m a seventh son, too.”

Joe smacked him on the back to get him moving again. “Yeah. I know. Let’s run. I want you to meet my family. They’ll be waiting by the funnel cakes for me.” Jogging backwards, Joe started putting space between them. “Come on, man. Let’s go! We got chicks to pound.”

Not knowing why but for that it felt good, Greg started to jog after him and, in a moment, he was beside Joe, feeling like he belonged there. His blood began moving, and the aches in his legs and knees disappeared. He was Joe’s bodyguard?

They ran effortlessly from light to light, almost as if they were holding still and the earth was turning beneath them. “Joe?” he said, breathing fast, but not that bad.

“Yeah?”

He hesitated, not wanting to sound like an idiot. “Can you fly and shit?”

Joe started to laugh and, with that buoying him on, Greg ran in the rain, feeling pretty damn good.

Table of Contents

Start