Keen's Turn: The Vampire's Appeal

Chapter 7: Night Scuffs (second quarter)

✶✞ Hello there. Thank you for being here with me.

Quick question—should I go back to hiding the chapter titles (as opposed to spelling out the second halves)? And, if you like, why? ✶✞

Sleep on Saturday night had not been easy, and Sunday was little better. His bandaged leg throbbing, he lay awake in the light from the street, staring up at the punctured ceiling, with the vision of the vampire projected on the flaking paint.

He turned onto his unhurt side and found this worse, knowing that taunting smile was still plastered on the plaster above. Though his body and mind were exhausted, no rush of incoherence came swelling in to blot out his thoughts and carry him into dream. The thoughts ran ragged ruts in his head, while the aches of his injuries sent shocks of adrenaline through him. He considered trying sleeping at the desk again, but the idea of the effort involved in rising compounded with his days of sleep debt to finally put him under. By the time he found himself conscious, he was on the verge of being late for work.

Work was painful as ever, and Jared found it harder than usual to concentrate. On the way home, he stopped at a dollar store and bought glue and a roll of white wallpaper, along with a screwdriver to fix the mezuzah. After applying the glue to the wallpaper, he dragged his desk around the apartment, teetering on top of it, holding strips of the paper over his head and trying to position them, swearing as they lost tension and drooped like the end of a tape measure, then sticking before he'd gotten them lined up properly, then tearing as he tried to remove them to try again.

He managed to get two handfuls of paper cuts, crunch one of the desk legs through the molding, and drip glue on the bed before he'd finally finished his task. He collapsed in the desk chair and grimaced at the ceiling. Calling it a sloppy job would be a bit generous, but at least you couldn't see the holes. If you turned out the lights and squinted, it almost looked like it did before.

The next few days after work found Jared back at the library, scouring the fiction and non-fiction sections for books on vampires. He went to the library's newspaper microfilm archives as well, finding the cornfield article from Sue's files, but though there were related articles, he found nothing else of substance.

At last, Thursday evening came, and in advance of sunset, Jared made his way to the intersection he had memorized. After settling himself on a low wall behind some shop front bushes, he began an anxious watch on the stream of passing people and vehicles.

Would the vampire show? Or would he guess that his coat, and the note inside it, had been compromised? Would he anticipate Jared's attempt at stalking and try to jump him first?

With these and more unsettling thoughts playing over and over in his mind, he sat fanning himself or scratching at the bandages on his side and leg, eyes darting between passersby. At each exiting patron from the building behind him he turned; at each cab that pulled up, he tensed. And the shadows lengthened, until they lost all definition, and twilight became dusk.

Jared began checking his watch, counting down the minutes until the given time. Only fifteen minutes. Ten. Five.

Looking up to scan his surroundings again, his eyes caught on a dark figure just across the street, moving among the dwindling foot traffic. The hood was down, and though the back was turned to him, there was no mistaking the coat. Jared pulled farther in behind the bushes, watching through a gap in the leaves.

The vampire had stopped beneath a streetlight and seemed to be surveying the building on the corner, head tilting up from the lobby's arched door to the windows in the stories above. Then he turned, walked back, and took up position two buildings down, his back to the stonework and his air that of one casually awaiting an appointment.

Having observed this with bated breath, and once assured of the vampire's not having seen him, Jared turned his own attention to the building now under discreet surveillance. It was much the same as many of the others on this block—a lofty though not sky-scraping stone edifice, ornamented in the style of the previous century. Most of the windows had gone dark, leaving whole floors black. No one came in or out.

A bus trundled by, blocking his view. Down the street, the vampire pulled back his sleeve as though checking his watch, then resumed gazing obliquely at the door. Tugging at his damp shirt, Jared turned back to the building.

Someone was coming out of the lobby. A woman, holding a briefcase and purse and smartly arrayed in a black pantsuit and matching heels. She stepped out onto the sidewalk, and Jared's heart rate picked up. She was beautiful—gorgeous—like a movie star lit up in the street spotlight. Even with a road between them, he could make out her long, wavy black hair, her pouting lips red against her pale face, her figure tall and slim and voluptuous.

He'd never seen such a person in person. It was hard to take his eyes off her.

But take them off he did, as a spasm of anxiety returned them to where he'd last seen the vampire.

The vampire had also seen the woman. The look he was casting her was distinctly hungry, and not the sort of hunger a man usually turned on a woman like that. As she started down the street toward him, she stopped, suddenly, head turning, but he'd already pushed off the wall to stride ahead of her in the same direction she was going. With a nervous air, she looked about and behind her, then, shaking her head slightly, walked on.

Just ahead of her, at an arched entrance inset from the sidewalk, the vampire paused to open a door, then slipped into the shadows. Jared felt a surge of panic as he realized what was happening—the door was left ajar, and the woman was walking straight toward it.

Abandoning his own post, Jared made for the street, swearing at the flow of traffic obstructing his path. The woman was halfway to the door. Frantically calculating, he stood at the curb, bouncing on the balls of his feet, tensing to go and thinking better of it, tensing again—he was almost out of time. He plunged into the street, palms slamming against the hood of a cab, rolling across it, narrowly missing being flattened by a truck in the next lane. He made the sidewalk to blaring horns and to shooting pains in his leg—the woman was seconds from the door.

He opened his mouth with no idea what to say, when she stopped short, head bent, eyes on a grate beside the doorway. It was a vent to the subway, and as a train passed by underneath, a blast of noxious air billowed out of it. She sidestepped, out to the curb, and kept walking, passing the door and turning into a store at the end of the block.

Jared watched, adrenaline easing, until she emerged with a small shopping bag, stepped off the curb, and raised an arm. A taxi at once detached from the stream and pulled up to receive her, then drove away. With a sharp glance back at the doorway, Jared spun on his heel and got around the side of the building on the corner, craning his neck out.

The vampire, a dejected slant to his shoulders, emerged from the shadows and stood looking out at the street. He remained there a few moments, then pulled a piece of paper from his coat and brushed the bottom with his thumb. Rolling his shoulders back, he tucked his hands into his pockets, turned, and headed off into the dark. Jared jolted from his hiding place to follow, but he was too close behind his quarry. He waited while the vampire gained ground, and when he went to follow, he had already lost him.

Shit.

At least the woman was safe for tonight. But for tomorrow night...

What do I do? I don't even know when he's coming again.

And even if Jared did come here every night, the vampire was faster than he was.

I gotta warn her. If she's on edge she can keep to public spaces. And I can get him in the meantime.

He shouldered his bag and stretched his aching leg. He hadn't been able to save the others on the vampire's list. But this woman he was going to save. And before that list got any longer, he was going to drive a stake through the vampire's heart.