P Deutermann - Darkside

When they get to the alley, they turn on the boys and make vampire faces at them, hissing, showing teeth, looking ridiculous, of course, but setting up the play. By now, they’ve undone their tops a little, giving the village idiots an eyeful, then pretending to discover that they’re exposing themselves, hissing some more, making witch signs, but grabbing at their clothes, maybe a little scared now as the big bad boys approach while the poor defenseless vamps retreat farther into the alley. Toward where I’m waiting.

“Who-ee! It’s Draculady! Hey, Draculady, bite this. How ’bout it? Want to suck something? Here it is, witchy woman!” Grabbing at their crotches and laughing their asses off as they turn into the alley, their jeers and taunts becoming more explicit. They’re aroused now, sensing the possibility that they can maybe get some. Hell, there’s no one around. The girls have been flashing T and A for the past block, begging for it, really. There’re three of them and just two weird-ass St. John’s College bitches playing at being vampires or some other equally strange college-girl shit. The girls stop halfway down the alley, blank brick walls rising into the dark on either side. They back up to one of the walls, spread their arms out behind them, flat on the wall, breasts heaving in obvious excitement, moving their bodies. The boys are locked on now, alpha dog intent, responding to a raging short circuit between his brain and his crank, the followers eager but not sure who’s going to do what.

Then the girls start chanting weird shit in unison: “Begone! Begone! Fie on the lot of you.” The boys, jeering again at the vampire act, approach in a loose semicircle. The girls let their slit skirts part just a little, showing off some more, but keep chanting. “Oooh, I’m so scared!” the alpha dog goes, rubbing his crotch again, letting them see his action. “Don’t bite me. Please, don’t bite me!” Trying to laugh, but mostly focused on what they’re showing them.

And then: I’m there. Behind them. In full fucking costume: black cavalryman boots that add about two inches to my height. Black midshipman uniform pants stuffed into the boots. White Ballanchino formal shirt with no collar. And the cape: this huge fucking cape, black outside, all red satin inside, sweeping down to the tops of my boots. My face painted dead white. Eyes circled in yellow-looking makeup. Teeth glistening with a little Vaseline. My very big teeth. My shaven head covered in a black rubber wet suit hood. I’m stretching up to damn near seven feet tall, arms wide under the cape, black rubber gloves on my hands. Sometimes I stick two extra-long white plastic fangs on my canine teeth.

The girls know the drill: They look behind the followers, put trembling hands to their mouths, open their clothes up just a little more. Alpha dog, he’s on autotrack, can’t tear his eyes away. But the followers? They see the girls looking over their shoulders, and they turn around to see whassup. Which is when I let out a sound like a king cobra, the hiss from Hell, causing their blurry, drunken eyes to get as big as saucers and their stupid mouths to drop open like turtles. At which point, I slam their slack-jawed heads together like the pair of cantaloupes they really are. As they go down, alpha dog, who hears the cobra bit, is turning around to check it out, tearing his eyes away from the girls at last, not seeing them lunge for him, grabbing his arms, pulling them behind and up, not even aware they’re doing it because all he can see is my face, my painted, hooded death’s-head face looming down at him, my eyes coming unhinged as I cross them ever so slightly and bare my glistening teeth, and then-here’s the topper-I fucking roar.

He faints. They always do. Get the guy sober, he’d laugh at the thought of a vampire. But drunk? And after the girls have set him up? It’s pure fear, helped along by the girls doing their weird vampire shit. He turns around, suddenly he can’t move, his buddies are flat on the ground, and he’s looking up at the biggest human-shaped thing he’s ever seen, which looks, sounds, and acts like every vampire nightmare he’s had since he was a little kid, and it’s right fucking there, fangs and all, right in his face!

They faint. And sometimes they leak a little. Yes, they do. The girls run, of course, bursting with laughter. I follow, but not before I do some things to the big man on campus. I usually don’t really injure him, but he might just hurt a little-when he wakes up, of course. This last time, we took his buddies’ pants down, arranged the two of them in the 69 position, and called the cops just for grins. But usually, we just fly out of there, running down the block behind the bar, back to the lair. A cop car saw us once, the guy driving so surprised when he got a look at me that he rear-ended a parked car, which gave us time to disappear through the St. John’s campus and back to their shitty little apartment-excuse me, Goth lair. Must stay in character, we must. And when we get back there, guess who’s really excited now? Heh-heh.

We’ve done it a couple times this year, all to different town slobs. You’d think the word would get around. On the other hand, I’d bet it’s not like they want to talk about it, right? Like: Hey, man, listen to what happened to us last night. Like: You remember when we went after those Johnnie bitches in their vampire costume? And then…I don’t think so.

I know, I know: One of these nights, the guy won’t faint. Or it’ll be some dude we’ve done before. But I’m ready for that, too. In fact, I’m getting more ready for that possibility every day, especially now that June week is approaching. Just between you and me, I’m planning a little solo op. Maybe go lurking in town on my own this time. Let a previous victim get a quick look. See if I can get him to chase me. See if I can get him to catch me down in my tunnels. See what happens then. More good training for my next incarnation in the glorious Corps.

It’s like I want to experience some maximum violence before I leave here. Maximum. Like what happened to that plebe. That was certainly extreme, don’t you think?

As of Wednesday morning, Ev still hadn’t heard back from Julie. All through his eight o’clock class, he’d been anxious to call Liz DeWinter to see if she’d heard anything. At the break, he tried her office, but she was already in court. Frustrated, he went down to talk to the HSS division director, Captain Donovan. Ev technically worked for Professor Welles, the chairman of his department, but Captain Donovan was the senior military officer. Growing increasingly anxious, Ev had felt he needed a military opinion, not a civilian one. But the captain had not been helpful. He’d heard about the incident, of course, and also about Julie’s involvement. He’d been polite but firm: Let the Academy do its investigation. That way, we get the facts. Then we focus on any required actions. Ev expressed his concerns about the administration possibly using Julie as a scapegoat, but the captain had dismissed that notion. Let them do their investigation. It was the Navy way.

He’d gone back to his office to get ready for the next class, more uneasy than ever, and really wishing Julie would call. He was sitting at his desk, correcting some papers and chewing absently on some folded-up mystery meat, when Liz called.

“Talked to Julie,” she said. “Kind of anticlimactic. Her big meeting with the company officer turned out to be a nonevent. He just wanted her to know that the visit from NCIS was a room inspection, quote, unquote.”

“Sounds to me like your presence has been a shot across their bows, then.”

“That was the point, Ev.”

“I talked to my boss this morning,” he said. “Checking to see what was filtering through the military network.”