The Drunkard by the name of Vince Luden drunk for the past thirteen years now before he turned the legal age of twenty one. The gray in his hair showed that much, along with his face that shows the measure of a drunk with the lines edging towards the pencil finishing of early aging. He is a man that lives in the house at the edge of a wheat field that was not planted on this year. The year is late now and Halloween is close to in full swing. The leaves are falling from the trees and the brown is strewn on the ground when he felt the pain in his hip of the pain in the force of coming winter.
He sat alone in his living room that has a cold draft from the big window that is behind the big television screen that serves his life now since the last year when he took an early retirement after he lost his stride in the hard workforce. While he worked on that last day with the little pipsqueaks that call him a person that is long in the tooth, something happened to the forklift that he was on when he cursed under his breath a little, coming out of the forklift with the tines still up in the air. With the little problem became a big accident when he went over the tines like a domino piece that flew from the tower of dominoes on something so monument that is insane by just thinking about it.
His head connected to the tine when he is knocked out for over an hour. By the time he woke up, he can only see black and white with the puddle of blackness that is all over the floor.
“Jesus, Mr. Luden took a tumble over the tines and I think he is dead.” A girl with a tattoo of a rose is holding his head when he fluttered his eyes, trying to see colors with no pain blooming in his body.
Who is that? Is that Chance? Vince Luden moved his head a little when Chance gasped like a woman that jolted herself.
“He’s awake. Mr. Luden is awake.” Chance sounded happy when the others started to grab his head with the blackness turning pure black with his vision being obscured.
I feel like a zombie victim. Vince thought with his mind jumbling with his memory of his father going to the lake when they did a little ice fishing and caught three steelheads and a bass with only a twenty pound fishing line. Then he remembered driving a 1973 Dodge Challenger to Lake Wabash with the windows down and the Radio playing Blue Oyster Cult. Then he remembered the first woman that he had sex with when the snow of winter slowly blanketed on the hood of the Reliant K. The Reliant K had some bugs though during the winter of 1981 when they predicted that it would be the first winter that was bad as the winter of 1978 in the Midwest.
It was a bad winter when he slowly felt the fingers on his face feeling more and more prominent as he continued to remember his teenage years when he worked at a Dairy Queen with a prick of a boss by the name of Horner Pendergrass. Horner was a prick indeed. He is man that is married and then cheated on his boss in the office when “the workforce” was not supposed to know about it. That man treated us like total shit when Vince’s car broke down one night and asked Horner for a ride.
Horner looked at him with some disgust when he sized him up with his toothless grin upon his face.
“I didn’t get any help going home. Why don’t you learn?” Horner laughed when Vince and Horner both walked out of the Dairy Queen with the keys jangling in his hand.
The snow is blowing all around them and the flakes are coming down in half dollars. Horner looked up in the sky with some sort of smile upon his face. The smile is not so assuring at all when he looked down at Vince.
“Better start walking, boy. It’s going to be a long night.” He laughed when he waddled to his car which is a 1966 Buick Rivera and dropped inside of it. He pumped the gas to prime the engine and start the car. He didn’t hesitate when he backed the car up and drove the car out of the parking lot, licking the snow up into the wheel wells when Vince stood there by himself with the snow falling in the sky.
He started to walk home with only his windbreaker on his body as he made tracks on the side of the road. The chill in the air is at a temperature of twenty five degrees when he started to breathe into his jacket, puffing into it one, two, three times when somewhere he heard the sound of someone coming up on his side of the road. He turned and poked his thumb out of the sleeve of his windbreaker jacket when the van passed him, a Dodge Caravan and bumbled down the road with both of the windows rolled up.
The window rolled down and something came out of the window that signs a burning cherry on the white tip. The driver flicked the cigarette from the window when Vince hobbled three steps as the cigarette flew past his left shoulder. The cigarette singed on the cold ground with the snow slowly filling up over the cigarette. Vince perched his middle finger through the middle of the night when the snow kept falling and falling and the miles are so long. Later that week after he got home at three o’clock in the morning, he got so sick that he couldn’t go to work for the next three days. When he got back to work, he was replaced and fired with Horner telling him to get that piece of crap out of his parking lot before the state deals with it.
He told Horner what he thinks of him when he left his office, feeling better with that smile in his eyes. He felt okay while there were many hands filling up his messed up vision. The color came back when he landed in the hospital, almost looking like the walking dead when he stayed there for four days and left there with expensive hospital bills piling up in his mailbox on the next day. There is gauze covering his head when he sat in the bed, afraid of going to sleep when it finally came to him two days after coming home from the place that scares him to death.
Time marched on when he had nothing to do, signaling the last of his days, the march over the other end of the hill, and the time when he is supposed to take it slow for the rest of his life. He sat in front of the television with his monthly subscription playing out the reruns again and again as he corrected his groove that is within the chair. He got up with the forth beer empty in need of a fifth when he felt no happiness in drinking anymore. He went to the beer anyway when he thought of one day; he can stop and enjoy life again. He signaled that it is the last he is going to drink on that night.
In the morning, he felt something wrong with him again. His muscle felt like they are on fire when he couldn’t get out of bed. He did when he struggled to get to the bathroom when he flicked on the light to see the reflection of himself in the glass. He singed pain off of his shirt when he revealed the bite that is on his neck. What in the hell bit me? Vince pulled the shirt over his wound and thought of nothing else – but the drink of this day.
That morning instead of grabbing another case of beer from the cornerstone market, he went to breakfast to get some french toast and three eggs of bacon over easy. He felt the need of nourishment when he can actually taste the food that is going down his gullet. He felt happy since the last time he was happy when old drunk Donner dropped his head on the bar and let out an old juicy one that stunk the place worse than a twelve carton of dirty rotten eggs that broke all at once.
Vince smiled at that in secret when he finished up his breakfast and tipped the waitress with a five dollar bill, leaving the place with his skin being anemic on his body. The muscle on his body felt stronger since earlier this morning when he woke up. He felt the sun burning on his skin when he went to the local hardware store next to talk with Jack Jamison about the price of penny nails that he has to buy.
“I pay ten dollars a box for the sons of bitches and up my prices for thirteen ninety nine. Just for a box of penny nails is what pisses me off in this place. I own it and it is highway robbery! I can’t stand these prices anymore and they say the heads in Washington is leaning towards another recession when that orange-colored-umpa-loompa leaves the White House! These sons of bitches and their stupid rules and I am sick of this and…” yadda-yadda-yadda and blah-blah-blah. He kept going on as Vince tried not to crack a smile across his face. He felt the need to laugh this out when he asked for the bathroom key and prodded up the stairs with his laughter breaking out in heavy sobs. He closed the door and let out while Jack Jamison kept bitching to the others that are around the desk. The day is almost half over when Vince started to feel the drink that is coming on. He needed one and needed one bad when he tries to brush it aside.
I’ve turned into a damn alcoholic! That is what I turned into!
He didn’t laugh anymore when he felt the need of wanting a beer and needing one badly. He felt the need worse when he bid Jack Jamison, the old man a farewell when he started his way home. He wanted to stop at the cornerstone market to get a twelve pack from the cooler when he tasted the beer in the back of his throat. He moved the wheel back and forth within his hands when he started to sweat in the cab of the truck. The drive to the market got closer and closer when he fought with the monkey on his back.
You need one. Sure you do. You need a tall, frosty cold one to sooth that itch in the center of your mind. Sure you do. You need the beer and you need one bad. You need one. Don’t be the UNCOOL GUY. You need the beer and you need it. You need the beer bad so you cannot be such a pussy. You have to have it. You want it to fit in!
(Fit it. Fit in to what?)
Vince closed his eyes when he drove past the drive with his foot still on the pedal of the gas. He opened his eyes when he looked at the rearview mirror and seeing nothing in the rearview mirror. His sweating is getting more severe when he pushed his foot off of the gas pedal and breathed in and out in great sobs. He turned the wheel of the truck as the back end broke with the force of physics playing the game. The truck bent into both lanes when the back tires broke into the dirt on the side of the road. He kicked up the pebbles that belted into the wheel wells when he gunned the engine back towards the cornerstone market.
He sat in the parking lot of the cornerstone market with his hands clenched upon the wheel of the truck. The turn signal is still flicking in the instrument panel of the truck when it blinked on and on with the tick that sound like the pins of a slow wheel burning intervals of beeping that dug into his brain.
“Shut up.” He flipped off the turn signal as it died in the cab of his truck. He sat in the truck with the clouds forming in the sky as the sun escaped this day a few hours ago. He continued to sit in the cab of the truck when something blurred past his rearview mirror, seeing that as a compact car that parked in the parking stall next to his truck. A young man came out of the car, closing the door with his colorful shirt that is tucked into his khaki pants. His colic is showing on his head as his hair formed the alfalfa look as he bumbled into the cornerstone Market, going to the wine rack as Vince croaked in the cab of the truck.
Why doesn’t he feel any pressure? Why? He can go through life with not a care in the world with the drink. Why me?
The reason why that is the drink is genetic and his family line has long drinks of alcoholics that are violent drunks indeed. His grandfather wound up in a nursing home after he tried to kill grandma with a hammer. He stayed there until he died with the advanced form of dementia, also being that a WWI Vet that served the trenches with the rest of the blokes in that hell. Dad never stopped the drink when he killed himself with his liver failing, bloating him up like a summer sausage until his liver burst that killed him in his sleep.
Vince remembered all of this when the clouds got thicker and thicker in the atmosphere as his hands came off of the steering wheel. HE sighed as he rolled his eyes behind his eyelids. What is wrong with me? Vince thought when he remembered his youth again before he got so damn old. He croaked, hearing it through his failing ears in the cab of the truck. He hunkered over the wheel of the truck when he garnished his courage to grab the ignition to start the engine. He did this with tears coming down his face. He sat up when he pulled out of the parking space and headed on for home. The pain came back into his muscles when he got home, hobbling around the truck and heading for the front door that is in bad need for some paint.
He went inside and opened the door, closing it behind him as the gorilla on his back got more and more severe.
What in the hell is wrong with you? Get back into his truck and drive back. You need the alcohol and need it bad. The drink is what you need to watch some of that shitty programming on the boob-tube. You don’t want to be the UNCOOL guy. You don’t ever want to be the UNCOOL guy. If you wound up being the UNCOOL guy then no one will ever chum with you again!
Vince placed his hand upon his hand, rocking his head back and forth as he sat down in the chair in the kitchen. He can smell the sour stank of milk that he left five hours ago in a cup when the sun slowly shone down in the west. It touched the horizon like playing peek-a-boo with the earth when it dipped below the horizon as the sun left the sky until it become nevermore on this day. It is night now with the night creatures coming out. Vince is in the living room now with his eyes glaring at the television screen with his mind somewhere else. He started to sweat with the voices coming to him, knocking on his brain before dancing on his mind like a slim ice skating rink that danced and danced on his mind until it drove him mad.
He clenched the arms of the recliner with his eyes opening more and more to the voices that are driving him mad. He felt like he is going to die when he started to see black spot dance on his arms when he looked down with the panic attack coming on.
“Oh god, what is this?” Vince blurted with his teeth clenched. He jumped up from the recliner, fighting the phantom spots that are dancing upon his arms like circular jolts that strafe faster than his eyes can see.
He continued to fight off the phantoms on his arms when the spots went away as his eyes pulsated. He stopped when the television played off some dramatic show that for the life of him, he couldn’t remember the title of. He peered through the second set of eyes when he sees the fog that is in the middle of a long and dark tanned field. Vince cocked his head when he felt a snap in his back as the fog did not clear, not feeling this second space when the fog rounded about the second set of eyes. The eyes bounced on a pair of legs that are moving fast as clods of dirt moved past in little spans of miniature seconds. The eyes ran over the field that is dead and barren when Vince got up from his spot to see the veil of the eyes that appeared.
They are coming from outside when he stood in the living room with not a spot of alcohol in his veins. The set of eyes are outside his house when it looked up at the second floor towards his bedroom when the eyes moved down towards the first floor outside his house. The set of eyes stood there, waiting and watching for once when it did nothing else but stand there.
It knew that he knew when he continued to sweat. He didn’t want to go towards the window when he wondered towards the blinds with his house slippers on his feet, making little tip-tip-tip sounds towards the blind when he felt the pagan fright of the thing that is outside his house. He opened the blind just a little bit to see the dark horizon of the beast that is outside his house when he sees the two pair of eyes meeting each other through the glass that is fragile.
One can see just fine in the darkness and the other cannot see in this night. The thing outside his house casted a dim glow of fire in those eyes when it called out to him.
“I’m cold.” The voice is that of the voice of a little girl. Then another appeared from the fog that formed a bigger shape that he cannot see from those eyes when it stood next to the smaller figure, not moving like a statue when it commenced to mend into the voice with the girl that stood next to the other.
“I’m cold.” They both called synchronous to the house that is in the middle of nowhere. Then a third figure showed up and stood with the other two when they repeated – all three of them the sentence over and over again.
“I’m cold. I’m cold. I’m cold.” They say over and over again when Vince closed the blind with his sweat pouring over his vision. He hobbled to the phone that is in the kitchen when he pushed the phone off of the receiver. He placed it to his ear when he got nothing when he dropped the phone and cursed in the kitchen with the light on his back. He looked at the door that is next to him when he opened it and grabbed the double-barreled shotgun that is hidden in the cove. He broke the gun open and shoved two double OO buck into the barrels and closed the breach on it as he shoved twelve shells into his front breast pocket.
He clamored towards the door when he opened it, swinging the door open with the barrel of the gun when he demanded who are you? The three figures are gone in the fog when he rolled the barrel around upon every inch that is on his stead. He checked the end of his porch and found nothing. He went to the other side of the house and found no tracks that are in the dirt. He saw nothing around the house when he went back inside with both triggers pulled on the barrels. He closed the door when he wondered what in the hell was that as he stood there against the door with the gun still at the ready.
He closed his eyes and opened them when he sweated, feeling the oncoming fate of withdrawals that are shaking through his body. He looked around the kitchen when somewhere he heard the sound of three voices that are calling in the darkness:
“I’m cold. I’m cold. Please let me in. I’m cold.” They repeated in a droning voice when Vince moved away from the door with the shotgun at the ready.
“I’m calling the police! I’ll shoot if you step on my porch, I swear!” Vince blurted out with his mind racing a thousand miles an hour. He kept the butt of his gun upon his shoulder when a silhouette appeared through the window of his door.
He fired one barrel when the window shattered out in a thousand pieces. The thing that he shot twirled back from the door in a dance of death as it dropped into the dirt that is in front of his house, doing no more as cricket did not play on their mating calls. Vince ran to the broken door to peer outside when he saw the body that is lain out in front of his house.
The others; where in the hell are the others? He broke open the gun and threw the spent shell out of the barrel, racking in another load into the gun as he closed the breach. The body still lain on the ground when something appeared through the broken door, the girl that was just a form from before.
“You killed my brother. Now it is blood for blood.” The girl showed her fangs when Vince raised the gun and powered her with buckshot. The girl was quick though when Vince swore that he shot her. He opened the gun when someone broke through the kitchen window in a shattering mess. Vince is knocked off of his feet when something flushed around his torso.
“How does it feel, old man?” The thing raced foul senses through his mouth. He clenched tighter and tighter when Vince got a foothold on something that he cannot see when he pushed his weight back against the wall. The thing that is behind him stumbled back when it connected the wall, being stabbed into something when the thing cursed in a language that Vince had never heard before.
He turned and grabbed the gun on the deck at the same time.
“You can’t kill me. We are all one.” The thing barred its fangs when Vince leveled the gun and blew his head all over the kitchen.
“Fuck you!” Vince screamed while he pulled the trigger. He dropped the gun and shoved a fresh load into the barrel as he closed the gun.
The girl; that is all that is there left is the girl. He looked at the broken door when he knew that there is an intrusion, no; two intrusions when he looked around the kitchen for the second intrusion of where the monster came from. He looked around with his mind racing and racing with the DT’s coming on. Something pounced behind him when he turned at the sound of the wood changing by the small weight. Vince turned the gun when the girl appeared in laces of night that is in the other room. The eyes of fire burned through the darkness.
“Come. It’s time for me to drain you. Just a little bite and it will all be over.” The girl came forward into the light when the girl looks something monstrous, not looking like a little girl at all. It looked something like a cross between of a girl and a denizen of the night. A creature of that of a vampire that is cursed in the land that is so back drawn that it has forgotten what century it is when Vince pushed the gun against his chest.
“Come here.” The little girl commanded.
Vince shook his head when the girl started to become impatient.
“Come here.” She started become unhinged with her anger bubbling up inside of her.
Vince started to back towards the counter that is bloodstained. Everything is bloodstained in the kitchen that was once occasionally clean.
“Come here and give in!” She snarled with her fangs showing when Vince dropped the length of the gun towards her when she bounced against it, trying to take a piece out of him with those sharp fingernails that swiped against his shirt.
“There will be more. You’ll see. If you kill me, you will be marked until you are dead!” The girl moved her fingernails across the space, trying to cut his throat when Vince did a riposte that proved his own weight indeed.
The girl dropped onto the floor when Vince leveled the gun against her.
“You won’t shoot a…” That was all that she said when another recoil bumped Vince’s shoulder again.
The blood flew all over him when the kitchen looks more like mayhem than a kitchen a minute ago. He heard stories about it but it was never true until he seen them. It is true about the stories of the night children that scurry about. It is true when he left his house to fetch Chris just two miles down the road to get the sheriff that is probably in Bluefield, playing poker with the other sheriffs in other towns that come to settle their own personal score.
It is true about the vampires after all when he seen the sight of them in this land. No outsider should know. It is too much for them to reconcile.
General