Bones and Bagger (Waldlust Series Book 1) (12 page)

Like a knife in the back.  No.  Like one of The Seven playing basketball with my pink body inside my own house.  No. Like a surprise attack by a mostly-naked but unabatedly stinky thousand year old Hungarian amazon.  Better.  Like a cabal of demons using my body for a party favorite.  Getting there.  Like the look on Sparky’s face when I showed up still living and breathing and with most of my important parts intact.  Right path.  Like the look on Sparky’s face when I put both hands around his neck and squeezed him like a plastic bottle of catsup.  Hilarious.

Well, not really all that funny but the time it took to cycle through all the possibilities worked out well for me.  My face looked like Gare Teutoberg once more.  And that wasn’t much to brag about.

“Let’s go,” I said as I turned toward my friends. 

They didn’t move.  It’s difficult to fully describe what I saw in their faces, in their stances.  I looked like Gare to them—maybe a few pounds lighter thanks to No Face—but I don’t think I WAS Gare to them.  Not anymore.  I saw what a chimpanzee might see from his side of the bars.  I don’t think it would have surprised them if I’d jumped up and grabbed a cross beam, swung a couple of times, and peed all over them.  Maybe they stood there waiting to dodge a poop ball I’d send their way.

“It’s me,” I said.  “Let’s get out of here.”

“Who is me,” responded southern-accent J-Rod, and it came out as a statement, not a question.  An accusation.

“Me is me,” I responded. 

Sister Christian seemed to understand because she nodded.  Good thing because I had no clue what I was talking about.  Proof enough I really
was
me.  I tried a different approach.

“He’s going to get back up,” I said. 

They all knew I meant No Face.  It’s a credit to their suspension of disbelief that they didn’t run out of the tunnel screaming like they’d just spotted Super Rumble naked.  They looked down at No Face.  Well, I think the Prince only pretended to look, but I didn’t hold it against him because it demonstrated his solidarity with the bagger gang. 

A few minutes earlier my friends returned to this stupid plywood tunnel to offer up their lives in my defense.  Now they weren’t sure they ever knew me.  Maybe it was time to start that walk to nowhere.  I took a hesitant step in the direction away from town.  Away from my apartment, my bagging job, the greedy Herr Doktor and his somewhat Frau.  Away from the two biggest pains in my neck—Helmet and Karl—who provided more delight and reason to come home than I’d felt in decades. 

Most of all, those steps would take me away from my bagger gang—J-Rod the fake Hispanic, Watanabe the Japanese wannabe, Bonny Prince McDonald of the Kingdom of the Ocularly Challenged, and my darling Sister Christian.  I was walking out on the first life I’d found peace in since the passing of my precious Nellie.  She’d expect me to stay and explain things…thought people could love me for who I was, not hate me for what I was.  Like she did.

I was walking out on everything precious to me as I headed for the exit that led to the parking lot filled with cars to somewhere else. And I knew my friends would all be better off without me.

Chapter 18

“Quit pouting.”

Sister Christian’s voice.  I kept walking, and wondered whether that sentence from the free-spirited fifty-something hippie represented her max level of tough love or a full blown intervention.

“We can follow you for however long it takes for you to stop and talk this out.” 

Maybe tough love.

“We can also catch you and hold you down until you hear what we have to say.”

The pendulum swung back to intervention…seasoned with tough love.  They could neither catch up to me nor could they hold me down.  But I wouldn’t stand on technicalities.  I stopped and turned.  I also checked on No Face.  Just my luck to let my pity party make me forget about the main threat and leave the people I brought into this whole mess open to a new attack from some faceless enemy.

No trace of No Face.  Try saying
that
five times. I’ve heard that demons tend to physically disappear when they lose.  Neat trick.  And you will never catch them in the act.  Perhaps they don’t care to stick around for the trophy presentation to the winning team. 

Emotions goad people into stupidity.  Another quote from me.  Was it pure emotion that begged me to turn around and rejoin the baggers…to pretend like nothing happened?  No. That would represent stupidity.  Stay with me, folks.

I could have kicked in the afterburners and left the gang behind, but they deserved more than that out of me.  And what would they think?  They’d witnessed more crazy impossibilities in five minutes than a billion average humans will see in a lifetime.  I could leave them to interpret things however they wanted.

What then?  What if one or more of them couldn’t keep their mouths shut?  What if the incredible things they saw—the demons with loose humanoid forms, No Face eating me alive, the supernatural fight—put so much stress on their sanity they needed to tell someone?  If only to relieve the pressure.  What then?  Forever the crackpot label?  Institutionalization? Would they end up believing their soft minds made the whole thing up? Here’s what they risked: ruined lives.

Those thoughts coalesced into a kind of muddy impediment to walking.  The running in a dream thing.  The gang took a couple of steps toward me.  Tentative, not the running-through-a-sunny-meadow-into-a-group-hug type of steps. Did I really want to lead them deeper into my shadow world? 

No honest answer existed, though my heart said yes.  If I weren’t a vampire and therefore immersed in an alternate society with players as foreign to normal people as honesty is to a politician, then my friends would not have felt compelled to participate in a demon near-orgy.  So by virtue of showing up I’d already brought them into it.

But I couldn’t just not show up.  I’ve already said that vampires live in an alternate society.  That’s probably too grand a description.  Alternate society sounds like different planet.  Not true.  More accurate to say vampires all belong to an exclusive club.  And because of our natural repugnance to each other, think of the club as more virtual than physical.  Oh, and it’s exclusive because only a few hundred of us exist.

So here’s where I’m going with this: If I’m to have any life at all, it’s going to be among the non-infected, not other vampires.  That might sound selfish, and it probably is.  But would you rather have super-human killing machines running around that are also emotionally maladjusted and socially inept? Well, other than me, that is.

The gang took another step.  I’m making it sound like they were marching or dancing toward me.  Good.  Because they were doing some manner of tentative movement in unison.  But even a snail eventually gets to where they’re going and I knew my decision—should I stay or should I go—would need firming up in a few seconds.

J-Rod must have realized he looked kind of stupid doing the Electric Slide in that dark tunnel.  He shrugged his shoulders and picked up his return-from-grocery-delivery pace.  I couldn’t help the smile forming on my face.

The Blood Feud was just the vehicle, a metaphorical tank blasting away at my cover story.  What really exposed both my friends and me was the person declaring the feud.  And when I followed the mental back trail, I came upon the image of Sparky.  Laughing maniacally while he took a flamethrower to everything dear to me.

Sparky with that old knife-in-back trick.  Sparky, the target of Soyla.  Sparky, who seemed to expect the demons and who managed to get away before any bleeding commenced.  Sparky, who’d somehow gotten one of The Seven to put in a personal appearance at my flat.  Sparky, who’d surely committed an act so monumental in idiocy that powerful people—or things—wanted him erased.  Sparky. Sparky. Sparky.  The rest of my autobiography could likely be written with endless repetitions of Sparky.

Not all Sparky, though.  Another player existed.  And I wanted to get my hands on her.  Sarah Arias.  But then, who wouldn’t want to get their hands on
her
?  Sarah Arias owed explanations.  Important questions not only to me but now to the continued existence of my friends.  Why the sudden popping into our group after months of casual disregard?  And on that particular night.  How did she influence one of The Seven to back down?  How could she see Karl and Helmet?  Why did the demons attack shortly after she left the gang?  And.  Would she consider foregoing the group thing next weekend for a private date?

Sarah Arias.  I wanted answers.

Chicks hug each other and cry in these kinds of situations.  Guys don’t know what to do.  Shaking hands would seem formal and a bit awkward.  Heaven knows I wouldn’t even consider hugging J-Rod.  We sort of looked at each other while the others gathered around.

“Hey homey,” Latino J-Rod said.  “Who the dude you rip the face off, man?”

Outstanding question.  I wanted to answer with the truth but thought the truth might get my friends into even more danger.  How do you make up a lie sufficient enough to glaze over demons of various sizes and shapes—some remotely human-looking, others who could never fit that category.  Did enough nuggets of verbal misdirection exist to explain a demon taking bites of my flesh and then me getting off the ground to KO the crowd?  Probably not.  And there was my teeth.  A good liar would need a career day.  Sister Christian stepped in.

“Later,” she said.

She wore a serious look of determination that I’d never seen with her before.

“Gare knows he has a lot of explaining to do,” she said.  “I say we get out of this urine-smelling hole and get back to his apartment.”

I thought it might be better for them to depart the urine-smelling hole via one of the staircases and hop the first train stopping at the platform.  I thought that alright, but I said nothing.  People willing to sacrifice their lives for you deserve more.

“Right, Gare?”

Sister Christian spoke louder than normal.  Her serious and final side.  I imagined for a second what she’d look like in leathers and a whip but… Inappropriate.  I know.

“Right, Gare?” Sister Christian repeated.

“Of course,” I said.

I waited to see what happened next because I’d been so wrapped up in mental fantasyland that I’d lost the thread of the conversation.

“Well then,” she said, “Let’s go.”

Ah, go where?
 

Oh, yeah.  Where else? My place.  Seems I’d recently converted it into a hostel.  But the trains would stop running soon and I knew nobody had enough money for a taxi.  Four more overnight houseguests on the way.  Hope nobody minded a damp towel.

At least Karl would be happy.  Ghost tail wagging the entire body and happily running from one human to the next.  Peeing all over the floor. 
Right
. I thought about delaying things by offering No Face a couple of bites of my left butt cheek in exchange for a few more rounds of combat.  Probably wouldn’t work, anyway.  I didn’t think the demon would be showing his face in public for a while.  Ha. 

Except for Watanabe humming that 70’s tune “Kung Fu Fighting” under his breath, we walked in silence.  And why shouldn’t he feel pride?  If you ignore the minor detail that his roundhouse kick took out the Prince, everything else went fine.  And I would have been demon poop had the gang not returned.  I needed a nanosecond to turn the tables on No Face and company and my friends provided it.  I needed to remember I owed them gratitude.  And to bite my tongue.

Sister Christian didn’t put her arm through mine for the trip back to my flat.  Nobody else walked next to me either.  Everyone hung back a little.  I didn’t blame them.  The better to escape in multiple directions should I prove as crazy as the situation they’d just survived. 

The casual snub should have made me lonely.  It did not.  A few minutes before I’d decided to abandon everyone—to include Karl and Helmet—with no goodbyes and with no looking back. 
That
would have been lonely.  My friends returning to my flat and Karl and Helmet waiting?  Not lonely at all.

Only one thing ruined my visions of settling into my comfy chair with friends and family gathered around.  Sparky.  I’d try to get answers out of him but he could make lies sound more believable than the truth.  I could torture him.  But then he’d just lie with more conviction.  Torture sounded good, though.  Sparky would forgive me just ahead of the next time he needed something.

I led the group up the hill toward Louisenstrasse and we took a left into the shopping area.  The stores were shuttered as tight as the flats located above them.  Germany is a nation of people who obey bed time.  It’s the way things are done.

I cut through the Louisen Arkade, a kind of small building of indoor-outdoor shops.  We passed the drugstore and took the escalator down to the street level.  We turned down Kaiser-Friedrich-Promenade.  A brief glance at the boutique hotel near my flat.  Nothing stirring.  We made it to Herr Doktor’s house and I opened the exterior door.

Up the stairs and…my apartment door ajar.  Perhaps pygmy cannibal number one of seven, unchallenged ruler of all things vampire,
didn’t close the freakin’ door on the way out
. I held up my hand and the gang knew to stop. Funny how your average fight with a few demons can make people attentive…in a jumpy kind of way.

I pushed the door open—the slow, creaking way—and hoped for a pygmy-free environment.  How many times has that one crossed your mind in the past few months as you open your front door?  What had my life become?

Finding the foyer free of both cannibals and famished shape-shifting demons, I edged into my own place like a cat burglar into a Colombian drug lord’s palace.  I saw Helmet standing by the computer.  I wished I’d been a bit stealthier through the door and caught him
sitting
in front of the computer with mouse in hand. 

The day I prove to Helmet he can manipulate the mouse and keyboard will be the same day he starts scooping ghost dog poop off the floor.  And he knows it.  Why do I feel compelled to prove to him he’s able to do something we both know he’s doing?

Helmet stared at me as I inched into the living room.  I pointed around the flat and gave him the arms out, palms up questioning pose.  Anybody else in the apartment?  Helmet continued to stare at me.  Thanks for the assist, buddy.

A glance back toward the door and four demon-shy faces peering in.  I concentrated my hearing to pick up on noises.  And yes, someone in the kitchen.  Demons wouldn’t fix themselves a late-night snack and cannibal pygmies like to boil their people in big black pots over open fires.

“Sparky?” I said.  “Is that you, you piece of chicken poop?”

The noise stopped for a few moments and Sparky peeked around the kitchen door.

“I thought you’d be hungry so I borrowed a few things out of the pantry.”

And as soon as he mentioned the word hungry I picked on the awesome aroma of Italian sauce.  Maybe I’d smelled it before…in the part of my brain
not
worried about getting jumped by gangs of pygmies or demons.  Italian sauce.  And pasta maybe? I decided to hold off on deboning Sparky until I found out when the chow would be ready.