Dark Moonlighting (6 page)

“Anthony, buddy, you’re killing me,” I
responded. “I’m not that much older than you are,” I lied. “Start
calling me Nick so I don’t feel like I’m ancient. And if I ever
catch you calling me sir, so help me God...”

For the sake of accuracy, I think I should
explain something at this point. In case you were wondering, no I
was not stupid enough to use the same name for every aspect of my
life. Nicholas Whittier is my original name. It is the name I was
given when I was born, the name used at my trial and the name that
will soon be printed on my tombstone. It would be impractical to
use that name consistently. If one of my police colleagues had
Googled my name and found an article I wrote in a medical journal
or discovered my name attached to a high profile legal case, I
would have been in big trouble. Anyone curious could find that name
in centuries-old public records in a matter of seconds thanks to
modern technology. I was using four different aliases at the time:
one as a doctor, one as a lawyer, one as a cop and one for my
apartment life just to be on the safe side. I got used to switching
these names around every time I moved to a new community. This
practice occurred every fifteen years or so. Any more time than
that in one place and people started to seriously wonder why I did
not look any older than when they had met me. So, long story short,
I replaced all the aliases in this book with Nick Whittier so it is
less confusing for the readers.

“Sorry, Nick,” Anthony apologized. “How was
work? Did you cure cancer yet?”

I did not socialize with many of my neighbors
in the apartment complex. I always found it safer to minimize my
personal relationships. For those who I was forced to make chit
chat with, I had decided that medicine would by my official
profession. My conversations with Anthony often went beyond small
talk though. I had befriended the young man six months earlier when
he moved in next door to me. He was a nice kid, and I found it easy
to interact with him. Though he dressed like a Crip, he spoke like
a Huxtable.

“Anemia,” I clarified. “Technically we
already have a cure I’m just researching… stuff that would bore you
to tears. What are you doing home so early on a Friday night?
Young, rich kid like you should be out partying.”

“I didn’t really feel like going out
tonight,” he responded sheepishly. “I’m trying to spruce up my
apartment, but the painting I bought is giving me trouble.”

“Debating where to put it?” I guessed.

Anthony shook his head. “I know where I want
it; I’m just having trouble hanging it. I ran an internet search
for ‘how to find a stud’ but all the results were gay porn.”

“I can give you a hand,” I said after a good
laugh. “I’ll be over in a minute after I take the mail in.”

Anthony thanked me and retreated to his
apartment as I entered my own. I tossed my keys on the kitchen
counter and was only halfway done sorting through my mail when I
felt a familiar sensation on my leg. I looked down into the
expectant eyes of an eight-year-old calico cat.

“Hello, Oliver XLVIII,” I greeted the animal
in a ridiculously high-pitched voice. “Did you miss me? Daddy
wanted to come home this afternoon, but he had to meet with a
dickhead lawyer. Yes he did! Daddy would very much like to eat that
lawyer, but that lawyer is very influential and people would ask a
lot of questions if he went missing. Yes they would! Even if the
police didn’t think Daddy was a suspect, they’d start poking their
noses into Daddy’s life, which would be bad.”

Oliver XLVIII purred in delight as I picked
him up and ran my hand over his back. At least I think he was the
forty-eighth cat I had by that name. I lost track during the
seventeenth century for a time, but forty-eight was probably a
pretty good estimate. I always enjoyed having an animal in my life.
Dogs required too much attention, but cats were independent enough
that I did not feel bad if I left them alone for a long time. Given
how much time I spent away from home, cats were always a perfect
match for me. I suppose I could have gotten a bird or something…
but what would be the point? They just sit in a cage all day long.
Anyway, cats provided an emotional connection for me that was so
often lacking in my relationships with other humans. My cats never
judged me when I left home dressed all in black. They never scolded
me when I came home smelling of blood and sweat. The cats just
wanted me to feed them.

“You just want me to feed you.” I said to the
animal.

Oliver XLVIII jumped out of my arms and ran
to his bowl. Animal behavior was one of the few things I had not
studied, so I never knew if he was reacting to the words I spoke or
just my tone of voice. I grabbed the bag of cat food from the
cabinet underneath the kitchen sink and filled his bowl up. Having
gotten what he wanted, Oliver XLVIII ignored me and tore into the
processed nutrients.

I looked around my apartment’s living room
out of habit. Nothing was out of place or required my attention.
The single fake plant near the door did not require watering and
did little to spruce up the place. The room was Spartan, consisting
of only a couch and a ten-year-old television. I never had company
over and so had no need for extra seating. The sheer number of cat
toys and scratch posts made it look more like Oliver’s apartment
than mine. Since he was home alone so much of the time, I felt
obligated to spoil the animal.

After patting my cat on the head I left my
apartment, walked next door and entered without knocking. I found
Anthony standing in the center of his living room with his hands on
his hips. I knew a little about art, and I could tell that the
painting that was leaning against his wall was an expensive piece.
He could certainly afford it. Although he was only
nineteen-years-old, I wagered that he had more money accumulated
than I did. Anthony did not brag about his success, but his
windfall had been widely publicized. He had designed a social
networking website shortly after hitting puberty. The website
allowed students at various schools to connect with each other,
share photographs, send messages and even start relationships. It
was completely abandoned once
Facebook
started, but Anthony
had wisely sold the website for several million dollars before that
happened. Now the young man had plenty of time on his hands and no
worries. He had told me about a new piece of software he was
designing, but the specifics went way over my head.

“Well, what do you think?” Anthony asked.

We had first become friends several months
earlier when he had swallowed his pride and asked if I knew how to
change a car’s oil. There was something disarming about the boy
ignoring his embarrassment and asking me, a stranger, for help. He
had been new in the apartment complex, and evidently he had not
heard of my reputation for being a loner from the other residents.
He was not intimidated by my facial scars. Perhaps he was even put
at ease by my obvious flaw. To his credit, he never once asked me
how I got the disfigurement.

“You want it here?” I asked, pointing to an
empty space on the wall. I moved to the location after receiving an
approving nod. “Let me show you a little trick to find a wall
stud,” I lectured as I clenched my fist and pressed my ear to the
wall. “You have to knock against the wall and listen. If you’re
over a stud it’ll… there it is. You hear the difference?”

Anthony practiced knocking and smiled
triumphantly when he found the location of the stud himself. I gave
him a hand hanging the painting and nodded approvingly once we
managed to get it straight.

“Thanks for the help Mr.,” he started.
“Sorry, Nick.”

“No problem,” I responded as I headed for the
door. “Now I’m going to go sleep like we old people are prone to
do.”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Anthony said. “I
tracked down that IP address you asked about. Turns out it was from
Illinois like you thought. The computer is up in Chicago.”

My heart rate jumped at the good news I had
just received. I glared longingly at the little piece of paper that
Anthony fumbled with and eventually removed from his pocket. When
he handed it to me, I read over the address three times in
excitement. It was all I could do not to lick my lips. I wanted to
leave for Chicago immediately, but knew I had to be patient. It was
already early morning, and the sun would be up in only a few
hours.

“Excellent,” I said happily. “I was hoping it
wouldn’t be too far. Thanks, I couldn’t have tracked it down
without you.”

“It was no trouble. God knows I owed you one
for all your help. Just out of curiosity,” Anthony began
delicately. “Is this an ex-girlfriend you’re trying to track
down?”

“Something like that,” I responded.

I was still staring down at the address as I
walked out of my neighbor’s apartment.

The problem was always that damn predatory
instinct. If it was just a matter of blood I could have gotten it
from work. I could have stolen it from the hospital’s blood bank
without raising eyebrows. I could have sucked it off the asphalt if
I was the first cop to arrive at a crime scene. Hell, I might have
been able to go around late at night and pay homeless people for
their blood. Unfortunately, being a vampire is about more than just
drinking blood. The virus makes us killers.

In the early years of being a vampire, before
I suppressed my feelings of guilt, I sometimes went months without
killing. I even commended myself for the control I was able to
exhibit. Those attempts at morality always ended the same way.
Eventually the thirst and the need to kill became too strong. After
months of fasting, I would finally snap and go for the first human
I saw. I came to realize that vampires have a compulsion just like
arsonists or pedophiles. I abandoned my practice of waiting to feed
for several reasons. First, I found that attacking random people in
an uncontrollable rage is a good way to get a mob of pissed off
villagers after you. Though it is completely healed, I swear I can
still feel the wound from a pitchfork that was jammed into my ass
outside of Marseilles in the early fifteenth century. Secondly, I
prefer to pick my targets. The best way to overcome the inevitable
remorse of taking another human being’s life is to only kill those
who deserve to die. After years of experimenting I settled on
hunting, on average, once per week. I could kill more or less
without too much difficulty, but for general health and happiness I
found that a weekly schedule worked the best.

I barely slept that night after receiving the
address from Anthony. I tried to watch television and read the next
day, but found that I was too distracted. Though I was comfortable
with my routine and had fed the week before, I was particularly
excited about my latest hunting target. I forced myself to stay
home until five that evening. It was still light out when I left,
but it would be dark by the time I reached Chicago. I found it
quite difficult to keep my foot from slamming onto the gas pedal
during the drive.

I found the address without difficulty thanks
to the map I had printed off of the internet. I made a mental note
to destroy the paper later as it would be a pretty damning piece of
evidence if it were ever to be discovered. Though it probably was
not necessary, I drove past the address and parked three blocks
away just to be on the safe side. I never took anything for granted
when I hunted. Centuries of experience had taught me the lesson of
being paranoid. The alley I parked in was empty of foot traffic
like the rest of the neighborhood. I exited my car wearing all
black clothing and kept to the shadows as I made my way back to the
address.

The location I was after had probably been a
nice office building thirty years earlier. It had fallen into
disrepair like all the others on the block. The address was printed
in rusty letters near the front door of the small building. No
company name was listed, and it easily could have been mistaken as
an abandoned building. I knew better though. After a quick look
both ways down the street, I grabbed the door handle and was
delighted to find it unlocked.

The interior of the building was a single
small room, but it looked larger because of all the empty space.
There were ten computers near the front of the room that looked
like they had seen better days. Their owner had not bothered to put
them on tables. The computers sat on the floor amidst a tangled
mess of power cords and network cables. There was only one other
person in the room besides me. A man sitting cross-legged in front
of one of the computers turned at the sound of the rusty door
opening. He was white and in his mid-thirties. His clothing was
stained with grease and grime. I could see the muscle tone beneath
his T-shirt and tell that he took pride in keeping in good shape.
It was too bad that he had wasted so much time exercising. All the
sit-ups in the world would not save him now.

“Ocupado,” the man shouted at me irritably.
“No bums.”

“No,” I said to him flatly.

“No?” the man questioned. “No, what?”

“To answer all your questions,” I clarified
as my heart pounded in my chest. “Do I want cheap prescription
medication? No. Do I want to know the trick to make women more
attracted to me? No. Do I want a larger penis? Well yes, but I
don’t think you are capable of providing that service.”

The man stood up slowly without taking his
eyes off of me. He pointed the palms of his hands towards me and
started to back farther into the room. His combative tone changed
instantly when he realized that I was not a homeless man looking
for a place to squat.

“Listen buddy, you’ve got the wrong man,” the
man started nervously. “I’m just the tech support guy. They were
having trouble with their internet connection, so they called me
in. Your beef is with the boss of this place.”