Good Monsters

by Michael Channing

Chapter Six: "Dear Old Dad"

I woke to the itch of the mid-morning sun. Enough of it squeezed past the door to gild the room in a sort of brassy haze.

I inhaled and found that I still could. A lot you could do with a breath of air. Candles, kisses, weary sighs. It was good to still have options.

But that first breath after dying tasted like the month-old corpse of a skunk. At first it was all around, like the worst scent of Glade ever invented. Then I began to realize the source. It ghosted up from underneath me. But the majority of that ugly smell came from right there in the room. From the pile of bloody clothes. The stench was driving me mad.

I gathered the laundry. Christ, did it stink. To think this shit was once inside of me.

What I did, I did without thought. Just following the normal course of things. The plan was to stuff the clothes into a trash bag to take to the laundromat later. Because that's what you do. I wasn't considering the boiling lava sun waiting for me outside that door.

It hit like an oven blast and drove me to my knees. It was heavy. Something the movies apparently didn't know about. The weight of all that heat beat me down and held me there. The smell of burning hair filled the tight space and overpowered even the dead-rat stench of my cast-off blood. I crawled backwards, wormed my way back into the bathroom and slammed the door. The sun came in under the door like a snake to strangle me. So goddamned bright that my vision went white. I shoved my clothes into the crack beneath the door. The weight lessened, and I could pick myself up from the floor. I stumbled backwards, blind. My hands beat against the walls. I knocked Frankie into the sink. My heels hit the tub, and I fell in, ripped the plastic curtain from the rod, slammed by head against the tiled wall. And lay there helpless, panting out of fear, out of habit.

The world outside wanted me dead. Hell, the whole universe was out to burn me to a cinder.

But that was too big to handle. That's what monsters were for. They stood in place of the big things like Darkness, Sickness, Death Itself. Science is scary, and Science doesn't have a face, which makes it way more frightening. But a big radioactive lizard that stomps cities: that we can see. Let's be afraid of it instead. Let's hunt it down and kill it and give each other high-fives. That's the proper way to fear Science and its nuclear toys.

My eyesight was back. I found myself staring at the metal rod above the shower, the plastic snap-rings strung along it, few shreds of curtain still caught in the clasps. Vampires were supposed to have castles and cobwebs and torch sconces.

Let's not start down that path.

So what could I handle? One or even both of the window shades must have rolled up and let my enemy in. So I'd have to buy new shades. Really good ones. Or block up the windows myself. Neighbors tended to be suspicious of folks with windows made out of cardboard and duct tape. So I could spend a bunch of money I didn't have or go all out ghetto in my new apartment. Or move in with miss Night-Owl across the way.

Kidding.

But this was good. Making plans, breaking this enormous fist-fuck of a situation into manageable tasks. So put new blinds on the list. And get some cleaning stuff to scrub the smell of dead blood out of the tub. Wash the clothes, probably the bed sheets, too. New shower curtain. Coffin, preferably new but a good used one would do. Crate fulla rats. Black cape. Manservant; probably find one at Labor Ready.

I woke up. There was no phase out, no drifting, no dreaming. Just a blank moment of lost time.

Felt like I'd slept in a rock tumbler. But it was dark out. I felt the night floating in the pit of my stomach, like cotton candy. I concentrated on that, and my aching bones ceased their complaining.

I stood and looked down at where I'd slept my first day as a vampire. Sprawled in the bathtub on three ratty couch cushions and a mildewed shower curtain. I made a vow to spend my next day in a more dignified locale.

I returned Frankie to his rightful place on top the TV. And found that the living room window shade hadn't actually rolled up. It had fallen off the wall. I kicked it, and the damn thing spun and retracted its vinyl tongue with a whir.

I kicked it again. Stupid fucking window shade. I kicked it harder. Fucking thing nearly killed me. Now I gotta buy new shades, and I don't even have a job. What the fuck kinda job am I gonna get? I can't even go to the goddamned bank or the window blinds store because I'll never see the goddamned sun again. You stupid, goddamned fucking piece of shit window shade!

When I was done kicking and stomping and beating the shade against the floor, the roller was bent and the vinyl was torn, and it would never again work as actual window blockage. I stood staring at the unspooled mess on the floor, quite aware of the absence of a racing heart or heaving lungs in my chest. And I tried to figure what to do.

How many times have you pretended to sleep in the morning, listening for the shower then the sink then the closet, waiting for the front door to squeak open and slam shut? How many rooms have you avoided simply because the silence inside them was too heavy? You can handle this. All that came before was practice.

I put my bloody clothes in a trash bag, balled the bedspread into another. Got a roll of quarters from the change box, which was an old cigar box I bought at some yard sale when I was a kid. For a moment I hesitated. Thought about just staying in and unpacking the rest of my crap, hanging out with Frankie. But I forced myself out the door to face whatever the world had to throw at me.

Not all that much, as it turned out. What I found was that when you become one of the undead, the sun might hate you, but the rest of the world just doesn't give a shit. Not the traffic lights or the traffic. Not the rain that spattered down just enough that you needed the wipers but not enough to keep them on continually. I had heard the moon had a soft spot for the misbegotten, but tonight it had a more pressing engagement beneath the cloud blanket. No one gave a rat's ass that I had died a few hours ago and was now walking among them, carrying my dirty laundry. Certainly not the folks at the laundromat.

They looked up sleepy-eyed as I came in then back down to their books or text messages or video games or folded hands. I bought a box of detergent then stuffed clothes and bedspread into a machine, dumped in the soap, dropped quarters into the slot. Did a little dance. Sacrificed a virgin. Fucked a chicken. Well, I could have, and none of those poor souls would have raised an eyebrow.

I sat down in one of the plastic chairs bolted to the wall. The guy two chairs down got up, wandered a bit, then sat back down further away than he started. I knew it wasn't a conscious decision on his part. Some unknown, below-the-skin urge said it would be a good idea to scoot. The fact of my presence slid off their brains like water off a newly-waxed duck.

I looked around at my fellow nighthawks and tried to read their minds. Didn't work. Apparently that wasn't something I could do. But I could tell they were bored, doing the chores that had to be done. This one kid was fighting off the ennui by drumming on his chair. His dad kept telling him to stop. Cut it. Chill the fuck out.

That's when I noticed the dad.

His eyes wouldn't stay still. Except to watch the door. Left knee bounced nonstop. Nervous hands picked at his face. This was a man strung out and jonesing for whatever revved his corroded engine. A man looking to score. And he'd brought his son along.

"I hate you," I said out loud.

He flinched as if he'd been slapped.

Kid Ringo kept drumming his knuckles on his chair. Sounded like he was trying to get "Wipe Out" going but couldn't catch the rhythm right.

His dad leaned over and told him, "Cut the shit before I put you on the floor."

And Ringo, god bless him, rapped faster and harder and lost the rhythm completely, but it didn't matter. Not to Ringo, not to me or the rest of the world. And it didn't matter to the good folks at the laundromat when Dear Old Dad cuffed him hard on the back of the head and sent him sprawling on the black and white chessboard tile. Everyone suddenly found a lot of things way more interesting than a father beating his kid in public. Hey, who could blame 'em? They could get shows like this for free at home.

Looking elsewhere, they didn't see what I saw. They didn't see Dear Old Dad change his face.

Another face pushed up from underneath his regular one. This second face was harder, meaner, sneering with contempt at all it saw. It wore a grin that might gnaw the meat from a young boy's bones then suck the marrow from the center.

Ringo pointed a trembling finger at this beastly version of his father and said, "Fuck you."

Wish I'd had balls like that when I was his age.

Dear Old Dad stood and towered over the kid. His hands balled into fists. "Say that again, you little shit." Insanity blazed in his eyes.

Everyone in the joint had given up the pretense of apathy. They smelled blood and strained forward to watch.

Ringo said it again, quietly, with a quiver in his voice that moved my heart regardless of its stature as a glorified paperweight. "Fuck you."

The animal-father lashed out. His palm struck Ringo across the temple, and the boy went flat against the floor. Dear Old Dad lifted a boot--old Army-issued footwear from some war with a number in its title--and he would have brought it down on the boy, crushing an arm or a leg or even his windpipe, had I not given him an order.

Die, old man.

The boot paused in mid-air.

Do the boy a favor, and just fucking die.

He twitched as my instruction dug into his rotten junkie brain and took hold. Then he ran out the door. There was a split second in which no one moved. Maybe the people there suddenly became aware of their voyeurism and felt ashamed. Maybe they were disappointed the scene had ended without carnage. Then came a sound that never fails to set the human heart aflutter with anticipation. The high squeal of braking wheels.

Ringo looked at me as that shrill howl drew out. No one had managed to catch the sight of me and hold me in their gaze. But Ringo did. Maybe my interference had made him aware of me. But now that he had me, I couldn't shake his stare.

The shriek of squealing tires ended with a sound very few people actually get to hear in reality but is instantly recognizable to us all. The dead thud of half a ton of steel impacting with the fragile bag of bones and meat that is a human body.

I don't remember which of us made it to the street first. But there we were, looking down at the lifeless shell of Dear Old Dad bleeding out onto the wet pavement. The headlights of the car that hit him filled his eyes. They shined like stars.

Ringo knelt beside him. Reached out and touched his chest. Tucked a hand into the dead man's pocket. Slipped out a roll of cash, and ran.

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