This all started, as most F'd up stuff usually does, at a Denny's around 2 AM. It was almost 20 years ago, and I was in my early 20's. I agreed to give a buddy a ride home after we had been drinking way too much coffee, eating way too much pie and talking way too much BS for about four hours. I dropped him off without incident, but on the way back, I had what would become a life-changing incident. I was passing a cemetery--the cemetery my father is buried in, incidentally, and I saw a man dressed in black crossing the road. I nearly hit him, in part because of how he was dressed, but in part because of the unexpectedness of where he was. He crossed from a spot near the middle of the cemetery fence--he must have jumped the fence from inside the cemetery! The really odd thing, though, was that he was carrying an old-style black doctor's bag, with what looked like a piece of wood sticking out of it.
It wouldn't be fair to say that I obsessed over this incident, but I thought of it often. Being a fan of horror movies, I naturally made the connection that the man in black was a vampire hunter. Or an actor playing the part of a vampire hunter for some indie guerilla film project. Or a psychopath who thought he was a vampire killer. I have to admit, I looked for excuses to go by that cemetery at night, taking that road whenever I was anywhere near it. It was about five years later that I saw him. He wasn't as obvious this time; he still had his bag and his dark clothes, but this time he was a few blocks from the cemetery and his bag was closed. I watched him walk into the parking lot of a shopping mall and get into his jeep. I took down the license number and had a cop friend of mine look it up. Not a known psychopath.
I got an address and this time I staked him out. Hmmm, I just realized what a poor choice of words that is when dealing with vampires. Anyway, I tried watching his place at night, but surprisingly, the jeep never seemed to move. I tried the morning. Bingo. He went to a little dive bar on the bad side of town that appeared to be closed. I watched him force his way into the door with the practiced expertise of a master thief, then slip inside with his doctor's bag. I almost drove away and called the police thinking the mystery was solved and he was just a common criminal. Then I saw him do something that seemed contrary to the M.O. of any thief I've ever heard of. He started opening doors and windows. Even breaking some of them out.
There was a long pause after that. I couldn't see him moving inside--there must have been a basement or something. Again, I pondered calling the police. Then the shrieking began. If you've never heard this sound, consider yourself lucky--it's like no other sound on earth. All I can say is that when I heard it, I knew that it was not made by a human. Mercifully, it did not last long. A few moments later, the man hurried out the front door with his bag, only now, there were clearly blood stains on his clothing.
Anyone who had ever seen a vampire movie could deduce what happened in that bar, but this is real life. My mind would simply not accept the logical conclusion to be drawn from the evidence. I needed more. The next time I followed him, I got it. This time it was a massage parlor in a similar neighborhood up north. This time, the shrieking didn't end so soon. My quarry came charging into the light on the first floor, pursued by something...Something that burst into flames as the man threw his bag through the last blackened window, sending a shaft of light at his pursuer. The flaming mass behind him was shaped vaguely like a human, and it burned to a thick black dust right before my eyes in only seconds. I don't know what possessed me to make the life-changing decision I made next. I emerged from my hiding spot, picked up the man's bag and brought it to the spot where he stood, bent at the waist, holding his knees and trying to catch his breath. "Do you need a partner?" I asked.
No comments:
Post a Comment