B-Movie Attack (6 page)

“What did the vampires do?”

Vickers huffed. He was fresh out of cigarettes, and he hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. “Christ, do you want me to let you read a script?”

“I just want to help. I mean, maybe I can keep my eyes peeled for anything strange—something you might miss. Two pairs of eyes are better than one.”

“Sometimes.” Vickers knew it would be a long afternoon of interviews, so why not try and make the best of it, he decided. “Okay, the plot’s pretty outlandish. The title will knock your socks off.
Morgue Vampire Tramps Find Temptation at the Funeral Home.
”

“Is that like one of those soft core horror movies?”

“It does feature lesbian vampires who are nymphomaniacs.” Detective Vickers laughed. “I guess these vampires have sex with everybody, not just chicks, though, if you read the plot synopsis online. So okay, they have sex with people to gain access to their blood. And they fly around and terrorize people. I read a blip about it on a movie fan website. The film is pretty gory.”

“So you’re telling me somebody faked flying around and biting people.”

“Bull’s eye.”

Officer Baker mulled over the information and turned into the parking garage a block from the Claims and Lost Possessions Branch of Chicago without another word on the subject.

Detective Vickers bent onto his haunches to duck under the yellow crime scene tape. The coppery smell of blood floated up to him immediately. He froze when he noted the narrow trenches dug into the walls. Talon marks.
 

“My God, they were here too.”

“Who?” Officer Baker asked. “Who was here?”

“Nothing. Give me a moment.”

Vickers stopped at the door ripped from its hinges. Ripped wasn’t the proper way to describe it. Decimated. The lock boxes within were untouched except for the corner ones. The steel fronts were twisted into a pathetic version of a peeled-back top of a sardine tin. The break-in was specific. Only one set of lockers had been robbed.
 

“What did they steal?”

A man stormed into the room. He wore a beige business suit and appeared to be in his sixties. His pot belly was so large, the detective could see the shape of his belly button through his shirt. He was bumbling and huffing, his face boiling with contempt. “They broke into my boxes. This is valuable property stolen. Worthless security couldn’t guard their own balls, never mind my reels.”

“Reels?” Vickers stepped up to the man. He noticed his skin was drying around his eyebrows and scalp with a dusting of dandruff. “What exactly were in those lockers?”

Three officers bounded into the room to force the man outside the crime scene, but Vickers waved them off. “I want to hear the man out for a moment, if you don’t mind? You won’t touch anything, correct, sir? What’s your name?”

“I’m Dennis Brauman, head of the Private Film Coalition of Public Morals.”

“Sounds like a made-up organization,” Baker said. “What gives you the right to bust in here, sir?”

Vickers urged him aside. “Answer a few questions first.”

“Where the hell’s my reels?” Dennis demanded, pressing his hands firmly at his hips and pacing in a line. “I can’t let those reach the public. My God, I locked those up for good reason. Immoral trash. All of it. If people see that trash, God knows what it'd inspire in those perverts out there.”

“What exactly were you storing? What kind of reels?”

“I don’t want to say. You’ll tell people, and then people will be interested. Film groups will be up my ass. And the fans. We'd have a riot on our hands.”

“How so?”

“I seized the property for the benefit of society. I was taking the high road. I was doing the right thing.”

Vickers was confused. “Are you saying these reels were stolen?”

“For good reason.” The man's eyes bulged, and he was sweating. He anticipated a negative reaction from the detective. “They’re smut. Nothing better than seedy porno flicks. God awful drivel. It’d turn good people into savages. Rapists. Charles Mansons. Chronic fornicators. Druggies. Hippies. Sickos, you get me? Weirdos.”

Vickers stumbled for words while stifling an incredulous laugh. “Wait, you said you were from, um, the Private Film Coalition of Public Morals, right? Is that a religious group?”

“No sir! We’re a group of normal citizens sick and tired of violence and sex in the cinema. We disbanded nearly two decades ago, but we were strong in the seventies and eighties. We did good work.”

Vickers was already making a new connection, and he hadn’t interviewed a single one of Ted Fuller’s friends. Someone stole Brauman’s reels, and he was venturing to guess they resembled Fuller’s “trash cinema”. The marks on these walls were identical to the marks along the movie theatre walls at the university and the style of wounds on many of the victims in Iowa.

“Would you happen to own any reels by Ted Fuller?”

“Ted Fuller!” Dennis’s face turned ugly and the color of a blocked artery. “That bastard tried to steal my daughter from me. I shut down that relationship. He shot pornos with monsters. I swear to the holy lord he did. My daughter deserves better. She was young at the time, and dumb, my princess. Now she’s married a nice marine. He teaches Biology at Ohio University. He's respectable. She can do better, and she did better, than Ted Fuller.”

“Okay, slow down. So those films were horror movies.”

“Horror movies, stag films, stories that glorified drugs, rape, incest, anything my group found offensive. We took them and never gave them back.”

“They were stolen, huh?” The detective played it over in his mind. “Nobody’s tried to prosecute you?”

“Why would they? It’s trash. And if you’re going to book me, the statute of limitations protects me. I’m damn proud to protect the morals of the viewing community. The MPAA stands behind me. Good taste stands behind me. I’ve contacted my lawyers. The reels are public domain. You can’t arrest me.”

Vickers received a heavy clue to Ted Fuller’s possible motive. A man creates movies, Vickers thought, intends to make a living on them, and then an organization steals the material without warrant or lawful procedure.
 

“My safe is destroyed,” Dennis argued. “They were my belongings.”

You stole them, and now of course you’re mad someone stole them back.
“Well, we’ll let one of the officers get a report from you, and we’ll see about getting back your property.”

Vickers jotted down his name and information. He pointed to a couple of local cops. “Show him out. And thank you for talking with me, sir.”

This was turning into a new crime altogether: stolen reels. But not just any reels, Ted Fuller’s reels—the same Ted Fuller who’d married Dennis’s daughter a long time ago. Did Ted Fuller perform the reel heist and the killings on campus? If there was a revenge motive, how come Dennis hadn’t been harmed, especially if Ted Fuller knew about the stolen films the man had in his possession? Why wait so long to finally steal them?

He turned to Officer Baker. “What else is here?”

“Two security guards were here when the crime occurred,” Baker explained. “One was Wayne Carton. He’s recovering at the hospital from a broken pelvis and shattered ribs and three large lacerations across his chest. And security guard Al Denning didn’t fare so well. His throat was completely torn out. The man's dead.”

“Damn.” Vickers’ chest clenched. “I need that search warrant. I’m certain Ted Fuller’s involved in this. It’s so obvious. If it weren’t for red tape, I could barge into that sociopath’s apartment and end this. Al Denning didn’t have to die. None of those people had to die.”

“Then call it in,” Baker suggested. “This is an emergency. It sounds like we’ve got a psychopath, maybe a whole group of movie fanatics.”

It was the first solid idea from the young man all day.
 

The detective smiled. “Then let’s get to it.”

Chapter Six

Ted Fuller suffered the longest afternoon of his life. His attempts to break his wrists free of the rope restraints didn’t go unnoticed. The five graveyard tramps occupied the bed once again, draining his sex and stretching his libido to unreal limits. They dug welts in his thighs, like they were dogs demonstrating dominance on a weaker species. His shoulder blades were lanced with needle-sized cuts and dark purple bruises. The vampires were sucking blood from his neck and arms intermittently. The draining was excruciating to the point his nerves were no longer able to feel the agony. He was numb through and through. The loss of blood and their saliva in his bloodstream had a strange paralyzing effect on him. His vision was fading in and out. A drawn-out
whaaaaaah
sound in his ears made it difficult to listen.
 

He was helpless to stop them.
 

While he was in this state, they turned out the bedroom’s lights and played another film.
 

Chicago’s a chopping block
, he thought.
Everyone will die. And it’s because of me.

Ted couldn’t focus on one thought at a time, so he stuck to executing an escape. But all he could do was think, for he sank into the bed deeper and deeper. Every muscle was mush. A feverish heat blanket covered him. He sweated and stank of sickness. And the vampire women stank too. They smelled of unkempt sex. The twang of iron and spilled blood wafted on their breath and radiated out their undead flesh. Their flesh was ice cold the last time they made love to him. The harrowing realization he was having sex with corpses—and that they could mimic life and death at their will—chilled him.
 

It’s not your fault.

They're fucking movie characters.
 

He eyed the shotgun that was feet from the bed. That was his safety net. They’d overtaken him before he even knew he was in trouble. Thinking back on what couldn't be changed, he was helpless to watch the images playing out on the wall. He caught random pieces of conversation as well, mostly of the vampires strategizing their attack.
 

“How can we secure the city?”

“This isn’t Anderson Mills. It won't be as easy. Fog won’t obscure an entire city. The military will intervene. We need more time. Something better to keep the authorities busy.”

“You can’t block an entire city.”

“Yes, you can! Don’t give up so easily, you infernal slut!”

He heard the clanging of reel tins. They were shuffling and trying to locate the correct film to meet their goals. “This one’s a good start. Ease into it.”

“
Mr. Baker’s Delights
.”

If I could only break free, I could unplug that device, and this would all be over!

Ted was soaked in sweat, the sheets sodden. The room spun at all angles. He couldn’t affix his eyes onto one object, he was so dizzy.
 

He broke the spell and caught the movie that was playing on the wall. A pasty-faced man was peeking at a glass display of baked goods with a wild expression on his face, his wide eyes and his mouth even wider, gawking. The store sign appeared in the background: “Ferguson’s Bakery”.
 

The man said exuberantly, “I can’t get enough mince-Molly. I'll order your freshest.”

A middle-aged woman behind a counter of cookies, cakes, pies and pastries replied with a vexed expression on her face, “Sir, we don’t carry mince-Molly, whatever that is.”

“You carry mincemeat pies, correct?”

“Sir, I’m going to call the police.”

“And your name is Molly, right?” The voice hardened. “Surely you can whip up some fresh mince-Molly. I'm starving, and I can't stand to wait for good food when I'm so hungry.”

A scream followed the shattering of glass, but Ted’s eyes suddenly dried and he had to close them to re-hydrate them.
 

He'd missed the brief killing scene.

The vampires piped up after searching through more reel bins. “Yes, this is the film. I’ve found it. It’s perfect. Play it after this one. We'll entrap the city. Then after Chicago, we move on to another city, another town, until everyone’s dead.”

“I knew this would go well after Andy Ryerson perished.”

Ted attempted to plead for mercy for the city and for himself, but he soon slipped into a exhausted sleep.
 

A middle-aged gentleman was reading the flyer posted on the inside of the door before entering Peggy Sue’s Bakery Creations, a Chicago favorite. The flyer was for the annual contest for the best pie or pastry. The winner received a one thousand-dollar prize and an official place on Peggy Fulbright’s menu. The gentleman tore the flyer from the wall, tucked it into his pocket and muttered, “Ah yes…
yes
. My pies are swell. Surely, I'd win.”

Peggy Fulbright watched the strange man enter. The customer resembled Gene Wilder, except he was bald on top with carrot red hair bulging from both sides. He was five feet tall, no more than one-hundred and thirty pounds. His eyes were constantly wide as though excited, though his lips were relatively void of expression. The contradiction was inhuman. What troubled her even more was the fact he was wearing a black apron covered in powdered sugar and a baker’s hat was wadded up in his left pocket.