Flesheaters and Bloodsuckers Anonymous: A Dark Humor (11 page)

            Agent Potts did
chortle, the strata of his chins bouncing upon one another in the minor
earthquake.  Bergstom spoke up, “We have the slug well in hand Harry.  No need
to be upset.”

            Harold was unused
to people not reacting to him with fear.  It irked Harold.  He glanced around
his sparse apartment, unsure of what to do next.  These days he had a hard time
figuring out his next move from hour to hour.  It’s a vampire who dies young,
what tries to sit in the sun, he thought.

            Harold grunted
and grabbed some paper napkins from the table, trying not to hiss as he daubed
up the blood on his shoulders.  The coppery scent caught in his nostrils.  His
own blood never made him hungry the way everyone else’s did.  He could smell
all of the same ingredients, and a mixture of adrenaline and other chemicals
leached into the bloodstream by his frightened brain.  Harold hoped to God,
Bergstrom didn’t have the same sensitive faculties to pick it up.  His stomach
roiled inside with buildup tension. 

            “We know you’ve
got to sleep with those nasty burns,” Potts paused for effect, “so we’ll make
this short.”

            Harold tensed
when Agent Potts reached into his front jacket pocket, expecting some
monster-killing weapon or worse a gun, only to see the man pull out a few papers
and a pen.

            He laid them on
the table in front of Harold’s chair.  “Sign these.”

            The vampire edged
over to the table and peered down at the papers.  “What are these?”

            “NDAs, the
government wants assurance in writing that you won’t tell anyone about Zork.”

            Harold glanced
between the two men in confusion before giggling.  He sank into his chair as
not so steady legs gave out.  “That’s what this shit-scare has been about,”
Harold laughed again.

            The agents said
nothing.

            “Sure,” he said,
“I’ll sign your papers.”  Harold picked up the pen and scrawled out his current
alias on the dotted lines.

            “Good,” Potts
said.  The agents gathered up their paperwork.  Can’t have evidence lying
around in questionable hands. 

            “Now,” Bergstrom
said, folding long-fingered hands in front of himself on the table, “You are
assigned to stay in the halfway house, yet you ignore those rules and stay
here.  This won’t do.”

            Harold shifted in
the chair, wondering if he could make it all the way to his car in full
daylight and whether or not the pain would be worth it.

            “If we are to get
any information at all from your insertion into FEBs you must start spending
more time with Donald and the other group members.  Otherwise,” Agent Potts
leaned back, while his partner leaned forward, “We’ll be forced to end your
stint in the program.  Got it?”

            “I got it.”

            After a moment,
they stood and Harold followed them at a snail’s pace to the front door.  When
Bergstrom opened the door, Harold skirted around the crack of sunlight slithering
in through the opening. 

            Bergstrom turned
to Harold.  “One more thing,” he said, pulling down his glasses, “Don’t tell
the slug about this.” 

Chapter Six

            “Well, I don’t
like the idea one bit,” Maria said from the bathroom where she stood curling
her dark hair. 

            Harold was
lighting candles and spreading incense.  Maria peeked out of the room.  He
shook his head and picked up one of the pillows from the bed.  “You think I
want this?  They’ve got me by the balls and I can’t do a damn thing except
cooperate,” Harold said.  He finally broke down when Maria came home that
evening and told her about the feds.  She needed to know, since they could show
up at the door any minute and he’d be spending a lot more time at the halfway
house now.  He beat the pillow with his fists and slapped it back on the bed. 
He reached over and grabbed the other pillow to beat the crap out of it. 

            “I wish you
wouldn’t talk that way,” Maria said.  She finished curling her hair and shook
her pretty head at the mirror.  She smacked her lips together and picked up
some sort of lipstick or lip liner.  Harold couldn’t tell which, but kind of
hoped it was the orange-flavored gloss.  Harold pulled the comforter back and
fluffed it up. 

            “Turn on the
music,” Maria said.  Harold turned on the radio.  He flipped through the
channels until hitting on some slow R&B.  Harold took off his shirt and
threw it at the laundry bin, taking a moment to run his hands over new, pink,
healthy flesh with a relieved sigh.  Every night was a new start when you were
a vampire.

            Maria came out of
the bathroom in skimpy, black negligee.  Harold got an eye full of arms and
thighs and cleavage.  It made him very hungry in a very different way. 

            “What do you
think?” Maria whispered.  She leaned against the doorframe in a most seductive
pose. 

            “Good,” Harold
said, “very good.” 

            After ravishing
Maria, Harold left her snoring softly in bed and got ready for work.  He had a
spring in his step as he locked the apartment door and walked to his car.  Things
were starting to pick up for the night.  He’d gotten a good twelve hours of
sleep after those asshole agents left.  His beauty sleep left skin and burns
now completely healed.  Harold just had great sex and managed to keep from
having a fight with Maria during the short time they were together.   He was
even feeling slightly ravished himself.  He slipped into his car, noting the
time on the dash when he started the engine.  He’d have to stop off for some
dinner before work to really feel like himself again. 

            A short drive
through downtown led Harold to a dark, lonely street off the Brewery 
district.  He parked and slipped out of the car.  Junk and trash thumped along
the sidewalk, urged along by the wind slithering around the corners and up his
trench coat.  As Harold adjusted to the surroundings his sharp senses picked up
on signs of prey.  The soft chuckle of a woman standing with her man echoed
down the street from a block away, lurid noises deadened by the walls of
buildings around him, a scurrying sound jumped out from behind Harold, causing
him to turn and spy a rat running along the gutter.  Nighttime only sharpened
his vision.  He saw used things stuck to the black cement, old gum, wrappers,
and condoms.  Harold stopped to pick up a dirty dollar bill shoved into the
groove of a lamppost.  His skin prickled with the nearby heat of his next
victim. 

            The man called to
him from the corner of an alley.  Whispering softly of promises and the good
stuff, brain candy in exchange for money.  He proffered dime bags and variety
packs, a deep discount for first time buyers and the anonymity of night. 
Harold could smell the fear and excitement in the man, see the second man
hidden in the darkest corner behind the drug dealer.  He, a sheep in wolf’s clothing
and Harold, insatiable hunger, moved towards each other with similar
intentions.  He already knew which of them would come out on top.  The question
is, would the third man get away unscathed?

            They collided in
a scene straight out of a comic book.  Bam.  Pow.  The gun flew out of the
second man’s hand.  Harold slapped him, popping his jaw.  He twisted around on
his feet. 

            Harold sank his
teeth in and gnawed.  Warm blood flowed from the jugular.  The sounds of
ripping and tearing mingled with strangled cries.  It wasn’t like the movies
with a couple of quick pricks and two neat, tiny holes.  This was violence and
gorging and eating.  Nature at her most natural and yet, unnatural. 

            The man that
Harold had smacked screamed and ran out of the alley.  He might tell, go to the
cops or find friends to help him.  More than likely, the man would seek out a
very crowded, well-lit, public place until dawn and never, never sleep with the
lights off again.  Not that it made much difference to him. 

            Dinner fell to
the ground in a heap of clothes and flesh.  It was an older man, goateed,
tasting of petty theft and drug dealing and a little hard time in the slammer. 
A full life.  Harold bent down to check his pulse.  This moment always bothered
him.  That second or two waiting for his victim’s pulse to beat or not against
his fingertips.  It became an eternity lingering between life and death and
then, the soft blub of a heartbeat.  Still alive. 

            He’d have to
finish the job.  Bending back towards the man a second time was a lot harder. 
Stomach full, urges blunted, this now seemed wrong.  Excess blood spilled onto
the cold concrete, but even these few seconds after the attack, Harold could
see it slowing, coagulating as he hadn’t gone very deep and the body began the
slow process of recovery.  The sheep would live to fear another day.  Harold
pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and shaking hands.  In a few hours
the man would awaken and stagger out to the nearest person.  He tucked it back
into his pocket, tugged the trench coat tightly around himself and left the
alley.

            Soon the
adrenaline pulsing through his veins dried up, leaving Harold with a full
stomach and knowledge of his actions.  The rest of his trip into work remained
uneventful. 

            The hospital’s
sterile hallways welcomed him in from the night.  He gratefully wandered down
to the office, memories of the previous week’s events fading under the bright,
cool lights.  He had a job, an anchor and things didn’t seem so bad after all. 
Things were always better on a full stomach. 

            In the lab, David
stood at the one desk they shared talking with a small Asian woman in glasses. 
When Harold walked in, he coughed and turned away from the door.  

            The woman saw
Harold and came at him with her arm outstretched.  “You must be Harold Blank. 
I’m Katherine Orlen with the Red Cross.  The hospital noticed a few
discrepancies in blood unit numbers coming in and out of here.  They’ve asked
us to come in and review your procedures to try to determine the problem.”  She
smiled, catching and holding his eyes while they shook hands.  Her red-rimmed
lips seemed awfully familiar.

            “I’m sure it’s
just a filing error, but here I am.  You know how important our blood supplies
are… Can’t have people bleeding to death in the ER.”  Katherine Orlen erupted
with a small titter of laughter, “Of course I’ll need to speak with you Mr.
Blank.  Mr. Caul here,” she gestured to David, “says you are pretty much in
charge of keeping track of the units.”

            David had
suddenly found something in the desk drawer to be extremely interesting.  He
and David were both responsible for tracking blood units, but that didn’t
matter.  Harold was keeping back a few dozen or so to take home each month. 
What David didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.  Right?  So, why the heck was he
passing this off on Harold?  Unless he suspected something. 

            “Can I just put
my stuff away and clock in first, Katherine?”  Harold asked.

            “Ms. Orlen,” She
corrected with a tap of her pencil on her clipboard.  “Certainly, I’ll just
wait here and have another word with Mr. Caul.”

            I bet you will,
Harold thought.  He slipped through another door in the office to the back room
with a few lockers for hospital employees.  Harold put his stuff away, rinsed
out his bloody handkerchief, spent ten minutes scrubbing his fingernails until
they shone white and pale and checked himself in the mirror for any stains. 

            After
double-checking his locker for anything he might have forgotten, Harold came
back out to find Orlen and David deep in conversation.  Orlen stood inside
David’s comfort zone talking up at him in hushed tones.  David stood his ground
but leaned as far from Orlen as he could without falling over.  Beads of sweat
dotted his forehead, glinting like bright beacons under the overhead lights.  
“I’m not sure I can follow through on this,” David whispered.

            “There’s no need
to worry Mr. Caul.  As long as you play along your debts to Mephisto’s will be
canceled.  If you can’t stay in control of yourself, I’ll be forced to take
action.”

            David saw Harold
in the doorway and jumped back from her with a sheepish smile.  Orlen turned to
Harold, not a hint of worry on her face.  “Shall we take a look at the blood
units?”  She asked.

            “All right.” 
Harold pulled on his lab coat and ushered her into the cold storage room.  He
thought about taking a great big bite out of her and blaming the bloody death
on David.  After all, backstabbing can work both ways.  Ah, but then he’d have
to talk with the cops and there was already so much to handle.  Harold’s
stomach clenched around that last meal.

            “This is the
check sheet where we mark how many units get taken out and put in.  Here is
where we do daily counts to make sure everything stays put.”  And where I also
fiddle with the numbers a bit when making a personal withdrawal, he thought. 
Orlen took a close look at each of the documents pasted to the inside of the
cold storage door, writing notes on her clipboard.  She moved around inside the
cold room, peering into glass cases, double-checking random bags of blood, even
checking the floors, corners, and ceiling of the room. 

            “You also have a
computer registry?”  She asked. 

            “Yep.”  Harold
led her out of the room.  David worked on some urine samples at the testing
station.  Harold sat at their shared desk and kick started the computer,
pulling up the software showing how many units of what went where within and
outside the hospital.  “We also record the information on every blood unit in
this program and who it went to, under which doctor’s orders.”

            “Do you have any
kind of double-checking system for each other when blood units are withdrawn?” 
Orlen asked.

            Harold looked
over at David’s back.  He should really kill David and make him disappear. 
Blame the whole missing blood thing on him.  Harold was already under so much
scrutiny from the feds and Harold didn’t want any more attention brought his
way.  At the moment, privacy laws kept hospitals from randomly testing their
people for Abeos, but an employee messing with the blood supply would give the hospital
cause to test everyone, including Harold.  Harold sighed.  He also needed to
question David about this
Mephisto’s
. 

            “Only the two of
us working in close quarters, those on other shifts and the video cameras,”
Harold muttered.

            Orlen paused in
her note-taking to peer up at him.  She pursed her lips, but apparently opted
to ignore the tone because Orlen finished writing and placed the pen in her
bag. 

            “Well, I’ll be
speaking with some other employees at the hospital today, only to ensure the
blood units have been going where they are listed as going on the registry. 
I’m positive things are just fine here,” Ms. Orlen said with sugary sweetness,
“but I will drop you a line if anything pops up.”  Orlen smiled and slipped out
of the small office, leaving behind a strained silence. 

            Harold glared at
David, willing the bastard to turn around and face him.  He didn’t, so Harold
walked right up behind him, close enough to see the minute creases mapping the
back of David’s neck.  Harold snorted on the man. 

            David turned and
slid around Harold.  “Don’t fucking do that,” David said.  Harold followed him
to the desk, crowding him along the way.  David tried to push Harold back. 
Soon he hit the wall, trying with all his weight to push Harold back.  “What?” 
He yelled, “What the fuck do you want?”  A nurse walking by their office
checked in with concern.  Harold backed up a few steps.    

            He waved at the
nurse with a smile.  She was a nosey old woman who patrolled the floor and
spent her time getting into other’s business.  Harold wondered if she already
knew there were discrepancies in the number of blood units going in and out of
their bank.  He didn’t need her spreading gossip around the hospital. 

            The nurse frowned
and continued on her way.  Harold went to the door and closed the blinds on its
glass window and lowered and closed the blinds on the other two large windows
facing into the office.  He needed to find out how much David knew about the
missing blood units and this might not look pretty to anyone walking by.  When
Harold turned to David he was standing by the edge of their desk, ready to bolt
for the locker rooms.  He held up a hand to stop Harold from advancing on him. 
As if that would stop Harold from ripping his limbs off one by one.