Dark Rain: 15 Short Tales Read online

  “Excellent Solstice,” he’d said to me at midnight by way of compromise.

  But I’d been hoping Wiley would show up and we might at least have some time to be alone together—now what would he think about all these people who’d invaded my home with their racket? Would he even come by? Meanwhile, back in the real world, I hadn’t heard from Malena, either, aside from a text to tell me she’d landed safely.

  Also, it was no big deal, but she hadn’t left a present for me, which wasn’t like her and honestly felt a little weird. Maybe she’d forgotten to buy me one—or more likely just felt that moving in with me and helping to ease my financial problems was the best present she could give me, anyway. Which was totally true. Except it sort of hurt my feelings, anyway. Dumb, I know. But it wasn’t like her not to call—usually she bugged the crap out of me.

  Mom hadn’t called either. And what a unwelcome surprise it was to me that I’d even noticed—and a sign of just how low I’d sunk. Maybe Harper was right, and I was secreting hormones like crazy in spite of being clinically PDOA (DOA?). But hey, I guess Mom was all the family I had. I’d never had a father. Mom said he’d been an Irishman, half Traveler, half Gypsy—a didikoi, as the Romani call anyone of their mixed blood. It was cool that she’d actually made the effort to find out who’d knocked her up, but as far as I was concerned, he was just a rumor. And what looked like a forged last name on a birth certificate: Richard Colum O’Shaughnessy Dadd.

  Meanwhile, the minutes ticked by. Wiley, if he was coming at all, was late—it was already past the time normal families were sitting down at the dinner table to eat their Christmas turkey. I’d lit candles everywhere, then turned out the lights so you could really see the colored lights blinking on the tree Mal had sweetly trimmed for me; sewing together strings of popcorn to put around it was about the only use I’d been. I felt even less use now watching the ghosts dance and sing and carry on.

  It was my party, and I think I was actually about to start crying, something I never, ever let myself do—well, hardly ever—when suddenly Wiley Fontenot was there, with a wrapped box and a bottle in his arms, standing just inside the doorway. He had let himself in. My “young man.” After I’d introduced him to everybody, and we’d all drunk a few toasts, I finally got him into my bedroom where we could be alone, if you didn’t count Kitty hiding under the bed.

  “Here’s your present,” I said breathlessly after we’d kissed. Kissing a spirit feels a little like the tingling sensation you get when you’re about to stick your finger in a light socket. Making love is even more intense, like merging souls together in a thunderstorm, except that I have to be asleep and outside my physical body to do it—which was kind of a problem lately with baby Tamara on board.

  “I brought one for you, too,” said Wiley, handing me mine. “That’s why I ran so late.”

  “You first.”

  “Oh, merci le bon Dieu, un tit noirs!” he said when he’d unwrapped it. “Mais ceci est rouge, l’accordéon. And it’s a Hohner Grand Imperial! Richie, where in the world did you find it? How did you know? It looks just like the one I had in the war.”

  He played a few licks on it while I opened my present. When I realized what it was, I just sat there stunned. It was Sizzle the Bear, the Beanie Baby my mom had burned up in the back yard almost thirty years ago. I mean, it didn’t just look like the same bear—it was my Sizzle. Or his ghost, anyway. It even had the same loose right eye and torn-off left ear.

  “But how—?”

  “Nah, nah, cherie,” he said, smiling. “I ain’t telling. You’re not the only detective round here. Took some finding, though.”

  Maybe I’ve made being dead sound like too much fun. Believe me, it isn’t. Sure, some things work the same, almost the same, but believe me, nothing beats being alive. For one thing, you can still get a little privacy, something that ghosts seem to have no concept of. No sooner had we started to thank each other properly than Mr. Taylor’s friend, the blowsy Lil, sailed into the room.

  “Hey, break it up, you two,” she giggled. “It’s no fair for the rest of us—we’re tryin’ to find some mistletoe and make egg-nog. We need you to offer us some nutmeg, Richelle. Sorry…”

  “Offerings” are what the dead call anything you send to the other side, usually by burning it. But rust and decay do the same thing over time. So I ended up staggering splay-footed back to the kitchen while Wiley went back to the living room and played Cajun Christmas tunes for the others, who were getting pretty drunk by now.

  The doorbell rang.

  Rang back in the real world, I mean. It took me a minute to realize what it was, I was so used to my ghostly companions by now. Besides, it wasn’t as if I was expecting anybody this time of night; by now it was just after midnight. Somehow I dragged myself through the living room and answered the front door.

  A man stood outside in the night, lit by my porch light. He was about sixty, though his long straggling grey hair and snaggle-teeth made him look older. He had a cigarette between his lips and wore a dingy, ill-fitting old coat that looked like he’d picked it out of a dumpster. Or more likely, at a homeless shelter.

  “Richelle Dadd?” he asked when I answered the door. His voice was hoarse and rasping but with a soft lilting Irish accent.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thing is… I’m not entirely sure of it, but… I think you might be me daughter. Me name’s Dadd, as well, you see—Dickie Dadd.”

  I just stood there, too stunned to move or say anything. The man looked ashamed for a moment, maybe because he was seeing himself through my eyes, and cast his eyes down at the concrete stoop. He was oblivious to all the noise and light the ghosts were making inside the house behind me, Wiley’s fais do-do, as he called it; to the living, the place must have looked lonely and deserted. “Sorry to be disturbing you at this hour of the night.” Distarbin’ yez at this ire of the noight. “Thing is, the lady said it would be all right. She told me to do it this way, you see.”

  “The lady?”

  “The lady cop. Pretty young lady cop she was, happened to be passing by the slammer when I was run in for vagrancy last week. Well, not as pretty as you, if I’m allowed to say. Father’s privilege. Anyhow, she asked me a few questions about meself, then busted me loose, gave me a few bills, and made me promise to darken your door at midnight on Christmas—and so I have. Oh, and she said to give you this.”

  He handed me a blank warrant card. On the back of it, Malena had scribbled, “Merry Christmas, partner!”

  ’ve lived in many places and in many times.

  For now, Seattle suits me. If Twilight got anything right, it’s that overcast days play less havoc on vampires. Not much less, granted, but enough.

  Unlike Twilight, I don’t live with an adopted family of vampires. I live alone, as I have for many centuries. And as I pulled up to my current home, I actually had to think hard about how many centuries it has been.

  Four of them. Four hundred and seventy-two years, to be exact.

  Almost five centuries.

  A half of a millennium.

  Jesus, I’m old. And rich. After all, a vampire acquires a lot of money in five hundred years, and my own was spread liberally around banks the world over, not to mention secret stashes of gold and silver in various caves and beaches.

  And now here I am, in Seattle, living yet another life, in another place, another time. The world continues on. People come and go. Technologies expand. Waistlines expand, too. But I will always be twenty-five.

  Forever young, as they say.

  I pull into my garage and shut off the car, which I sit in as the garage door grinds shut behind me. I could do anything, of course. Go anywhere, be anyone. There are people out there—very talented and corrupt people—who can turn you into anyone, in any country.

  But, for now, I am staying put, living among the hippies and hipsters and baristas. Why? Why do I deal with the rain and gloom and cold?

  The answer might surprise you.

&nb
sp; Then again, it might not.

  After all, Washington State is known more than just for its legal pot, gay marriages, and trendy coffee shops.

  It’s known for something monstrous stalking its woods.

  Yes, I’m here to hunt the ultimate prize.

  I’m here to hunt Bigfoot.

  Don’t laugh.

  I’m being serious. I’ve tasted all types of man and woman and child. All ethnicities, all age ranges. I’ve feasted on the very old to the very young. Yes, I’m a monster. I’ve never claimed otherwise. I have feasted on puppies and bear cubs, on lions and endangered rhinos.

  And now I will hunt and feast upon the greatest prize of all.

  That is, of course, if it really exists.

  I’ve spent many months planning and plotting.

  I’ve even watched some of those ridiculous shows on TV, the ones that are all growl and no results.

  Foolish mortals. Yes, I say that in jest, but it’s the truth. Never send a human to do what a vampire can do better. I am, of course, the perfect hunting machine. My ears can pick out the smallest sounds, the slightest rustling—breathing from across great distances. My eyes see deep into the dark. Hell, to my eyes, there is no dark. The night is alive with incandescence. And I’m fast. So much faster than those bumbling idiots weighed down by camera equipment and backpacks.

  I will wear nothing but the clothing on my back.

  It will just be me and them.

  And I will find them, too.

  Oh yes, I will.

  The ultimate prize.

  The woods are dark.

  But not to my eyes. No, to mine, the woods are alive with supernaturally bright filaments. Thousands of them, millions. All melding together to illuminate the night—for creatures like me.

  Hunters like me.

  It is late, perhaps 2:00 in the morning. I have about four hours left before sunrise. And when the sun does rise, I want to be long gone… with a bellyful of a rare and very prized blood source.

  I’m in a prime spot along the Olympic Peninsula. In fact, not far from the now famous Forks, with its glittering vampires. Lord, we are so much more than fictional heroes… or villains. Writers only partially get our stories right. Mostly, they get us wrong. Granted, I’ve made it my life’s purpose to cover my tracks, to conceal my true nature. But a few of us get sloppy, and a few of us even fall in love with mortals. I don’t fall in love. I take what I want.

  Like now, for instance.

  Now, I want to taste the blood of this legendary creature. This sasquatch. Yes, legendary even to vampires. You see, we vampires don’t know all, see all. We’re not plugged into some supernatural network. I, like the bungling idiots you see on TV, have to find them just like everyone else.

  Except, of course, I will find them.

  All I want is one.

  One beautiful creature to feed upon. One beautiful creature to destroy. To claim. To conquer.

  Yes, I’m the asshole of the vampire world.

  Pray you don’t cross paths with me.

  Speaking of paths, I find myself on a narrow one now.

  A game trail, no doubt, one that winds through thick ferns and stinging nettle. Of course, unlike with mortals, the stinging lasts only seconds. It’s good to be me. Bad to be anything I’m hunting.

  Like sasquatch. Luckily, I am in a location along the densely forested peninsula that is considered a hotbed for Bigfoot sightings. I know this because I feasted on the director of a popular Bigfoot organization just last night. Such a shame he died tragically in a house fire. Damn faulty wires.

  I chuckled now as I moved stealthily through the forest, my hiking boots whispering over tree roots, compacted dirt, and fallen leaves. I doubted even a guard dog would hear me. Hell, I barely heard me… and that’s saying something. Something else was out here. Something that was neither animal nor human. What that something was remained to be seen. And feasted upon.

  Centuries of hiding—hell, millenniums of hiding—were about to be undone in one wild night of hunting.

  Quickly, I moved through the forest, pausing only briefly to listen, to sniff the air—sasquatches are known for giving off a tremendous stink—and to feel. Yes, feel. We use a sort of sixth sense. An ability to feel our way through any situation.

  Like I said, we are the ultimate hunters.

  I was thinking about that now, reveling in my, well, greatness, when something thunderous crashed into me.

  Rarely have I been hit so hard.

  In fact, I couldn’t think of a harder impact, especially one that sent me tumbling head over ass through a tangle of blackberry bushes.

  And I mean a tangle. As I extricated myself from the thorny vines, I was a bleeding mess. But being who I am, the wounds healed quickly.

  As the kids say, that’s how I roll.

  I carefully scanned my surroundings. Whatever had hit me was gone, having slipped back into the shadows, hidden even from my near-perfect night vision. A whispering of sound to my right, perhaps the slightest brush of a foot over leaves—remember, nothing escapes my hearing—and something slammed into me hard enough for me to believe I was in the path of a charging rhino. Which I had been once, before I feasted on the creature (and made it appear a poacher’s handiwork).

  Anyway, there were no rhinos in these forests. There was, in fact, nothing big enough in the Olympic Peninsula to hit me as hard as I had been hit. And as stealthily. Grizzlies had long been pushed to extinction in Washington State. And black bears were far too slow and loud and stupid to plow into me with such precision, silence, and strength.

  So what had hit me?

  I didn’t know, but whatever was out there had me spinning around as I scrambled to my feet, had me looking wildly over my shoulder and behind and up into the trees—had me feeling, well, mortal.

  And for the first time in a long, long time, I felt fear. Real fear.

  I hate when that happens.

  So I continued scanning the forest, as my heart thumped in my chest for the first time in years. I literally couldn’t think of when anyone—or anything—had gotten the upper hand on me.

  The forest was silent.

  No, not quite silent. There might have been breathing. Except it was coming from seemingly everywhere at once. I kept turning in circles, doing my damnedest to get a handle on what was out here; in particular, on what it was, taking these small, shallow, controlled breaths.

  I reached out with my mind. I can do this. I can do many things to hunt and kill and feed. Except I was having difficulty focusing now. Knowing there was something out there, something seemingly faster and stronger than me was unnerving.

  Impossible, of course. I am the greatest hunter. The most successful hunter.My own breathing intruded now, which is strange, since I don’t need to breathe. No, I was breathing out of habit. A habit of fear. A fear of being hunted.

  There. Another sound. A tree branch snapping, and now I was on the move, covering the open space of the forest floor quickly, pouncing upon the site where I’d just heard the snap—

  Except, there’s nothing here.

  I spun around, when something reached around my neck, something much bigger than me, something more powerful than anything I’d ever encountered before. Something inhuman. Hell, something not of this earth.

  It is a hand, clamped around my throat, lifting me off the ground.

  I fight it, using my own great strength, strength that has let me hunt and kill and maim and spread fear around the globe for centuries.

  Except I… cannot… fight it.

  Sweet Jesus.

  This isn’t happening.

  The hand continues to squeeze. My hiking shoes dangle as I go down fighting, struggling, even as my neck is being literally crushed.

  Now, I hear the sounds of more heavy footfalls.

  Grunts, too.

  And deep-throated growls.

  Coming from seemingly everywhere. My eyes bulge, slowly being forced from their sockets as the powerf
ul hand continues to squeeze.

  Hazy images take shape before me.

  Huge images. Hairy images. Unspeakably horrible images. They surround me, watch me curiously, heads tilted…

  My vision fades. The pain is excruciating, unbearable. Even my supernatural ability to heal cannot keep up with the steady pressure. Still, I fight the clawed hand. The clawed and hairy hand. I dig into it, raking it with my nails, but this only causes the creature to tighten its grip.

  The others draw closer, turning their heads curiously, and as their lips draw open, I smell that ungodly stink, even as their mouths drip saliva.

  The snap I hear is my own neck.

  And it is only when the creatures descend upon me, tearing at my flesh and making wet feasting sounds, do I realize that the hunter has been the hunted.

  am a superhero.

  Well, kind of. If you call a hulking man with a tail, two horns, and a bad attitude a superhero, then I’m your man.

  Or whatever the hell I am.

  Anyway, I haven’t always been this strong—or this weird looking. I haven’t always been known as The Bull. No, there was a time when I was very much like you. I call those the simple times—back when I had to only worry about paying my rent, or what TV show to watch, or if I hadn’t paid my cable bill, what DVD to watch, if I hadn’t paid my electricity, what Starbucks to hang out in, or, well, you get the idea.