Christopher Buehlman - The Lesser Dead

I checked my watch. 9:12. Plenty of time. Two kids on their way home from karate class sat in sweat-stained white uniforms, a green belt and a yellow belt. They babysat a rumpled gym bag between them, one foam shin and foot pad trying to peek out of the zipper like a tongue out of a mouth.

“What style do you kids take?” I said.

They looked at me, not sure if they should trust me, and then the bigger one said, “Waychee Roo.” I knew about Tae Kwon Do and the great Bruce Lee’s Wing Chun Kung Fu. I’d heard of Dim Mak, the Death Touch; all the comics had ads for that. I had been about to send away for the Black Dragon Society book, but Cvets had pointed out that secrets for sale aren’t secrets and that any vampire, even puny little me, could wipe up the floor with Count Danté, however much of a badass he looked like with his ’fro and his snarling and making his hands into claws like he was a big funky wizard about to cast a spell of whoop-ass.

But I didn’t know Waychee Roo from a poke in the eye with a stick.

“What’s that?” I said.

“It’s Okinawan.”

“You guys use numchuks?”

He shook his head sadly, like if he’d been a slightly luckier child he could have joined a dojo where they used numchuks.

“I have a pair,” I said.

“You mean nunchaku?”

“Yeah, numchuks.”

“Are you a black belt?”

“Yeah,” I said. Maybe not, but I could kick a black belt’s ass, that had to count for something. I noticed how tan these lads looked, which was not really tan at all, but after hanging out with pale, cold Peter and the rest, these warm-body blond kids looked almost like Arabs.

“Cool,” the small one said.

“Show us something!” said the brother.

I looked around at the dozen or so other people on the car. Nobody was paying much attention, so I grabbed a pole and extended my body straight out, held it just for a second, pointing my toes.

“Cool!” said the small one.

“My uncle can do that,” said the older one. “He’s a gymnast. He almost went to Munich, but Dad says it’s good he didn’t.”

“Bad guys,” the little one said.

“Yeah? Well, I’ll show you something even cooler when the train stops again.”

They leaned forward, all eyes.

When we pulled into the Lexington station, I waited till just the last second, waited until the leavers had left and the getters-on had gotten on, then I jumped up and karate-chopped the pole with my forearm, not snapping the pole cleanly like I thought, but denting it good and knocking it loose at the top. It was loud. Everybody looked. I had broken my arm. I made a little squealy sound without meaning to.

The big one said, “Kee-YA!”

“Cool!” said the little one, but a big black guy in a striped tie looked angry, said, “Why’d you do that, man? People ride this thing.”

I laughed and ran, just beating the shutting doors, cradling the busted arm, which was even now resetting and knitting itself whole.

The Bakers’ place was all wrong.

First of all, nobody came to the door when I rang so I had to go back outside the building and climb around to the balcony window, which was locked. I tried to peek in but the drapes were drawn. Had they gone on vacation? I went back around through the front lobby, took the stairs two at a time, rang the doorbell again. Nothing. I put my ear to the door and thought I heard talking. I knocked. Nothing. I was about to pull out Gary Combs’s American Express card and jimmy the lock when I heard the elevator ding, so I waited. A lady with curlers under a head scarf came out with a bag of corner-store groceries, the neck of a wine bottle sticking up like a periscope. I know I looked bad leaning against the wall looking at the ugly hallway carpeting, and she slowed up, her hand fishing in her purse for her keys. Her elbow vised down on her purse a little. She came a step closer, pulled her keys out. Jesus, she lived in the apartment next door.

“Can I help you?” she said, scared, but more that I’d try to take her purse or, God forbid, her wine than that I’d hurt her. I wasn’t exactly intimidating.

“Everything’s cool,” I said, using my little-boy voice. Then I got a good look at her. Pretty in a washed-out, Katharine-Ross-with-crow’s-feet kind of way. I switched to my sexy James Dean voice and poured on the charm, made myself look older. “Is anybody home now at your place?”

“No,” she said, saliva running out of her mouth and into her grocery bag.

“Expecting anybody?”

She shook her head no.

“Do you have a television?”

She nodded. Then she dropped her keys and unbuttoned her coat, rubbing herself in the zipper area, still holding her groceries, which I took from her.

“Jesus, not here. Pick up your keys and ask me in.”

She did.

For an older broad, like thirty-five, she had a good body. It was sitting naked on the couch next to me, a brown couch, thank God, because she was kind of a bleeder. I had tasted the bitter, high-in-the-nose notes of aspirin as I sucked from her thigh and went back for seconds on her wrist. My timing was perfect, too. The naughty stuff was over and now Soap was on. Dinner and a show is my favorite. I confess I wasn’t paying much attention, though; Jody, the gay one, was ranting about something, but I was in my head, still worrying about how I was going to replace Margaret’s books and find out what was wrong with Peter and the others. The sound from the neighbor lady’s Magnavox was weird, like it had an echo. That was when I realized the same show was on next door. Somebody was watching Soap at the Bakers’. They must have had the volume up to three-quarters. What the fuck? They didn’t like that show, not without me there.

Something banged against the wall. Once. Twice. Three times.

“Coming,” my companion said, like it was the door, and stood up, a fresh runner of blood going down her leg.

“No,” I said. “Go get dressed.”

She stopped and swayed, then walked down the hallway bare-assed, one curler loose and bobbing as she went. Bloody footprints on the carpet; the carpet wasn’t that dark, I was making a mess here. I hate aspirin.

I was thinking it was time to get going when the phone rang.

“I’ll get it,” she sang out from the bedroom. I couldn’t hear what she said to the caller over the TV, but then she said, “Joey? Is that your name? It’s for you.”

My heart beat once.

“Tell them I’m not here and hang up.”

Mumbles from the bedroom. She came out. I stood up to go. The phone rang again. I picked it up.

“Curler residence,” I said, trying to make a joke, but I said it flat because I was scared.

“Joey.”

A kid’s voice.

American.

“Joey.”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Mikey.”

“Mikey who?” I said, though I knew good and goddamned well who.

“From next door.”

My heart beat again.

The televisions blared their nonsense.

“You know,” he said. “The fat kid you bite and take blood from and laugh at. Why aren’t you watching TV with me? Do you like Ms. Kemp better?”

I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what to say. I was trying to think but couldn’t. He kept talking.

“Are you putting your penis in her vagina? My daddy wants to do that to Ms. Kemp. He told his friend at the bar. He doesn’t put it in Mommy’s anymore, she says it hurts her now since she’s got lady problems.”

I made a fish mouth. Nothing came out.

“I’d like to put my penis in Ms. Kemp, too. Maybe I will. I’ll be right there.”

Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

I had never charmed anyone over the phone before; I didn’t know if it would work, but I thought so.