F Wilson - Midnight Mass

Zev could think of worse places too. In fact he had spent a number of nights in much worse places since the Lakewood holocaust. He decided to put the time to good use.

"So, Joe. Maybe I should tell you some more about what's happening in Lakewood."

COWBOYS . . .

King of the world.

Al Hulett leaned back in the passenger seat of the big Cadillac convertible they'd just driven out of somebody's garage, burning rubber all the way, and let the night air mess with his spiky black hair.

As usual, Stan was driving with Jackie riding shotgun. Al and Kenny had the back seat with Heinekens in their fists, Slipknot's Iowa CD in the slot, and "Skin Ticket" blasting through the speakers. Al finished his Heinie and tossed the empty over his shoulder so it landed on the trunk top. He heard a faint, frightened yelp from within, then a crash as the bottle bounced off and shattered on the asphalt behind them.

He leaned back and pounded a fist on the trunk. "Ay, shuddup up in there! You're messin with my meditation!"

This brought a howl of laughter from Kenny, which didn't necessarily mean it was real funny, just that Kenny was always a good audience.

He and the Kenman had been together since grammar school. How many years was that now? Ten? Twelve? Couldn't be more than a dozen. No way. Whatever, the two of them had stuck together through it all, never breaking up, even when Kenny pulled that short jolt in Yardville on a B&E. Even when the whole world went to hell.

But they'd come through it all like gold. They'd hired out to the winners. Joined the best hunting pack around.

Coulda turned out different. He and Kenny coulda had their throats chewed out and their heads ripped off just like a bunch of guys they knew, but they happened to be the right guys in the right place at the right time.

The right place was a bar they'd broken into, and the right time had been Easter morning—didn't know it was Easter then, only learned that later.

Al and Kenny and some friends had started partying Friday afternoon in this old shotgun shack back in the pines. By Sunday morning they'd run out of booze, so they rode their Harleys out to Route 9. That was when they learned about all the shit that had went down the past two nights. So they'd broke into this bar-package store and were helping themselves to some liquid refreshment when this dude in a cowboy hat walked in. Said his name was Stan. Said he saw their Harleys outside and was wondering if they was the kinda guys who might like to go to work for the winners.

Al and Kenny weren't too sure about that at first, so Stan said the chai-slurpin, Chardonnay-sippin, Gap-wearin, hummus-dippin, classic-rock-listenin world that had thought "loser" every time it looked at them and had never given them a chance was on its knees now and did they want to help bust a coupla caps in its fuckin head to put it down for good?

That Stan, man, he had a way with words.

Still. . . workin for the vampires . . .

Then Stan had made them an offer they couldn't refuse.

So that was why Al was riding in a Caddy tonight 'stead of on a Harley.

King of the fucking world.

Well, not king, really. But at least a prince ... when the sun was up.

Night was a whole different story.

If you could get used to the creeps you were working for, it wasn't too bad a set-up. Could have been worse, Al knew—a lot worse.

Like being cattle, for instance.

Pretty smart, those bloodsuckers. America thought it was ready for them but it wasn't. They hit high, they hit low, and before you knew it, they was in charge of the whole East Coast.

Well, almost in charge. They did whatever they damn well pleased at night, but they'd never be in charge around the clock because they couldn't be up and about in the daylight. They needed somebody to hold the fort for them between sunrise and sunset.

That was where Al and Kenny and the other cowboys came in. They'd all been made the same offer.

They could be cattle, or they could be cowboys and drive the cattle.

Not much of a choice as far as Al could see.

You see, the bloodsuckers had two ways of killing folks. They had the usual way of ripping into your neck and sucking out your blood. If they got you that way, you became one of them come the next sundown. But once they had the upper hand, they changed their feeding style. Smart, those bloodsuckers. If they got too many of their kind wandering around, they'd soon have nobody to feed on—a world full of chefs with nothing to cook. So after they were in control, they got the blood a different way, one that didn't involve sucking it out. You died unsucked, you stayed dead. Something they called true death.

But they'd offered Al and Stan and the guys undeath. Be their cowboys, herd the cattle and take care of business between sunrise and sunset, be their muscle during the day, do a good job for ten years, and they'd see to it that you got done in the old-fashioned way, the way that left you like them. Undead. Immortal. One of the ruling class.

"Ay-yo, Al," Kenny shouted over the howl of "Disasterpiece."

"What kinda vampire you gonna be?"

Not again, Al thought. They'd worked this over too many times for Al's taste. It was getting real old. But Kenny never seemed to tire of gnawing this particular bone.

Kenny had this pale cratered skin. Even though he was in his twenties he still got pimples. Looked like the man in the moon now, but in the old days he'd been a real pizza face. Once he almost killed a guy who'd called him that. And he had this crazy red hair that used to stick out in all directions when he didn't cut it, but even when he did it Mohican style, like now, all shaved off on the sides and showing the ugly knobs on his skull, it looked crazier than ever. Made Kenny look crazier than ever. And Kenny was pretty crazy as it was.

"I can tell you what kind I ain't gonna be," Al said, "and that's one of them ferals."

"Ay, I'm down wit that. I'm gonna be a pilot, man. Get me some wings."

Jackie turned down the music and swiveled in the front seat. She was thin and blonde, with a left nostril ring and a stud through her right eyebrow, and she had this tat of a devil face sticking out a Gene Simmons-class tongue on her left delt. She dangled an arm over the back near Al's knees and sneered.

"Wings? You'll be lucky if you get a plate of Buffalo wings."

Stan seemed to think this was real funny. Even Al had to laugh a little.

Kenny made this sour face. "Funny. Real fuckin funny."

"How many kinds of vampires are there, anyway?" Al said.

He wasn't just trying to take the heat off Kenny, he really wanted to know. In the weeks since he'd joined the posse he'd noticed that some of the bloodsuckers could sprout wings and fly. Most just walked around like everybody else—only at night, of course—and looked like everybody else, although some had faces that seemed to turn uglier and uglier as time went on.

Then there was the kind that were pretty much like animals. These were scary. Al had only seen a couple of them from a distance and that was plenty close enough. Hardly nothing human left in their faces or the way they moved. Couldn't even talk. The other bloodsuckers called them "ferals" and they were like vampire shock troops. These were the guys they let loose when they first blew into a town. Al gathered they must be kinda hard to control because the other vampires kept them locked up pretty much of the time.

Good thing. Al had a feeling if he ran into a feral at night the thing would be on him and chompin on his windpipe before it noticed he was wearing a cowboy earring.

That special earring—a dangly silver crescent-moon thing—said you were working for them. It gave you a free pass if you ran into one of them at night.

Because the night was theirs.