Location is everything when it comes to Halloween costume parties. Dave's heavy metal band held a party every year, and always in a different place. This year, it was at the infamous "Ranch" where Charlie Manson and his followers once lived. The ranch was still very secluded in the California desert, had been abandoned since Manson was put away (After all, who would live there?), and there were no neighbors, so everyone could be as loud as they wanted to be. Dave couldn't wait.
He had some last minute errands to run so he made the drive alone. He was already late when the car started to overheat, literally in "the middle of nowhere". Due to some very poor directions and his total lack of familiarity with this stretch of desert, he had spent almost an hour going the wrong way. Engine trouble was the last thing he needed. The car spluttered and hacked until it finally ground to a halt on the side of the road. He got out and looked at the engine.
"What the heck am I looking at the engine for?" he asked himself. "I don't know anything about cars."
He returned to the car and got his cell phone from his bag, hit the 1 button to speed-dial his girlfriend, who was probably already at the party. After four rings, her message came on.
"She probably can't hear her phone ringing over the music," he thought.
"Hi, this is Sarah. I can't get to the phone right now. You know what to do!" Beep.
He was about to start speaking when his phone went dead.
"What luck," he thought. He had an impulse to throw his phone on the ground but he restrained himself and began to walk in the direction he had been driving, hoping that some other late party-goer would happen along.
There was nothing behind him for at least fifteen miles and nothing ahead of him that he could see but more desert and a small hill in the distance. The last remnant of sunlight was fading but it was unseasonably warm for October. Santa Ana winds were blowing and the smell of sage was heavy in the air.
"Thank God for small mercies," he thought.
He was dressed as Conan the Barbarian and had an actual sword at his side so he felt well protected against any desert creatures that might consider making a meal of him. The hill turned out to be further away than he thought. It took him half an hour to get to the base. He looked back to see if he could see his car but it was too dark. He hoped to see headlights in the distance so that he could hitch a ride but there were none, only miles and miles of empty highway buffeted by wind and sand.
He mumbled to himself, "Who in their right mind would pick up Conan the barbarian at night on a deserted highway, anyway?."
As he climbed, the cliff on his left grew higher. He was just clearing the top of the hill when he saw what looked like . . . no, it couldn't be. He walked a little further to get a closer look. Yes, it was! On the inside shoulder of the road at the top of the hill, there was an old-fashioned popcorn stand lit with a soft, yellow light. A man wearing a long overcoat and a fisherman's cap was standing behind it, turning the kettle. The wind carried the smell of hot popcorn to him and though the sight was bizarre, he was strangely comforted by the familiar scent of the popcorn and the presence of another person on this dark highway. He approached the man, who was looking down. He wore woolen gloves and the brim of his cap hid his face but Dave could tell by his slight frame and crooked back that he was very, very old.
He said hello to the old man very cheerfully but received no answer. He decided to try to break the ice with a joke.
"Uh, excuse me for asking, but what on earth are you doing out here with a popcorn stand? Are you expecting a big crowd or something?"
"You never know what might happen out here," the man answered in a coarse and monotone voice.
Dave laughed, hoping the old man was kidding, but his laugh was not returned and the man still didn't look up.
"Okay, I'll bite," Dave said. "One popcorn, please."
"That'll be one dollar," the man answered.
Dave got his wallet out of his leather pants, pulled a dollar out and handed it to him. The old man, still looking down, filled a red-striped bag with popcorn and said, "Here ya go. One popcorn."
Dave didn't move, hoping the man would look up to see why he wasn't taking the bag. His need to see the man's face was growing more urgent somehow. Something was wrong here but he couldn't figure out what it was. The old man wasn't moving but he kept looking down. What was he hiding? Dave stood still until the man had no choice but to look up. Finally, the man slowly raised his face, or what should have been his face. Dave's heart leapt. There was nothing there. No eyes, no nose, only two holes where his nose should have been, and a narrow slit of a mouth about one inch wide. Dave stood staring, frozen in horror.
"Seen enough yet, boy?" the old man said, exposing four long, yellow fangs with pointed teeth in between.
Dave jumped backwards and started running up the hill, the old man laughing maniacally behind him. He ran and ran until he couldn't hear that awful laughter anymore and the popcorn stand was out of sight.
"I'm having a nightmare," he told himself. "That did not just happen. It couldn't have."
His mind wrestled with the possibilities until he decided that it was just a prank, a Halloween prank. The old man probably lived somewhere on the hill and had pulled a skin head wig over his face and put in some false teeth to scare him. He couldn't believe how elaborate the whole set-up was, though. Finally, he laughed and decided the popcorn stand was a real nice touch.
He muttered "Crazy, old loon" and brushed it out of his mind.
He looked down and realized he was still holding the bag of popcorn, though only about half was left. He had left the rest in a trail behind him as he ran.
"Well, at least I've got something to eat," he thought. He tried a few pieces and they were delicious.
He turned around and yelled, "Hey! Thanks for the popcorn, you old crackpot!"
Fifteen minutes later, he had polished off the entire bag of popcorn. The night had become so dark, he could hardly see his own feet.
"God, this stinks," he thought. "It must be ten o'clock. I'm never gonna get to the party and I'll probably have to sleep in this stupid desert all night. Just perfect."
Forgetting that he was wearing Conan sandals, he kicked a rock sitting in the road and hurt his big toe.
"Damn it!" he screamed, "Nicely played, God. Nicely played."
Dave had a habit of blaming God when things went wrong. He claimed he was an atheist but that didn't keep him from kicking God around in his lyrics. For instance, the words to one of his songs were -
I believed in you once and bought the lie
until the day you made my mother cry.
What is your plan? Cuz I just don't see.
Your heaven sounds a lot like hell to me.
His toe was starting to throb so he sat in the middle of the road and tried to see it in the dark. It was red and swollen. He rubbed it for a few seconds and started to get up when he felt dizzy and had to sit down again.
"What the . . . ?"
He tried to stand up again but the dizziness returned. He side-stepped for about ten feet and fell down.
"Whoa, what's happening to me?" he said. Then it dawned on him. He'd been drugged.
"That old nut poisoned my popcorn!"
He laid on the blacktop, hoping the spinning would stop, but it only got worse and a convulsive pain twisted his stomach.
"God, God, God . . ." he repeated, writhing. "Please don't let me die out here."
He knew the prayer was tainted as it left his lips. Why would God listen to him? He had been his worst critic for years.
A lot of his songs also revolved around murder and serial killing. Now one had gotten him. The situation was dripping with irony.
Suddenly, through his drug-addled haze, he heard something in the air above him, something big. He tried to focus but the night sky gave him nothing to fix his eyes on. He stared at the moon and was strangely comforted by its familiar glow when something crossed it. Then whatever it was was on him, thumping and tearing at him.
In high school, Dave was a dichotomy. He was in band but he was also one of the top wrestlers in the district. The football and baseball jocks picked on the other "band geeks", but they left Dave alone. So even in almost pitch blackness and in his delirium, he was able to spin the thing around and get it in a headlock. It felt almost human but it had very sharp claws. He was on his back with the thing on top of him and it was lifting him off the ground somehow. Then he saw them. Wings. It was pushing itself up with the back of its wings.
"What are you?" he yelled.
The creature growled, snapped it's teeth and tried to reach around to scratch his face but this was familiar ground for Dave. The more it reached, the tighter he squeezed.
"Well, whatever you are, say goodnight!"
He squeezed so hard, something snapped in the creature's neck. He held it for another minute, making damn sure it was unconscious or dead. It convulsed a few more times, let out a long, rattling breath, and went limp. He pushed himself out from under it and checked himself for injuries. He had too many scratches to count, and one on his left forearm that was pretty deep. He could see the yellow fat layer below the skin. He took off his shirt, ripped off a strip of it with his teeth, and tied it around his bicep for a tourniquet.
"Now let's see what this thing is," he thought. He walked over to it and kicked its arm to check for signs of life. There was no movement. The wings were splayed out around it for twenty feet in either direction. It's feet and hands were human looking until they reached the ends. From there, it was pure talon with razor-sharp claws. The body was thin, sinewy and hard as shoe leather. The creature's ribs protruded like a starving dog's. He leaned over to get a closer look at the thing's face. It was the old man from the popcorn stand! He touched the smooth, flat skin where the eyes and nose should have been, still thinking somewhere in his mind that this can't be real, that it must be some kind of trick, but it wasn't. There was nothing behind the skin. It was not a costume. Whatever it was, it was real, and he had killed it.
His morbid curiosity made him want to see the teeth again. He walked to the side of the road and picked up a stick, then returned and used it to pry open the creature's mouth. He was closer than ever when the mouth suddenly opened wide. Dave screamed and jumped back onto his feet, back-pedaling away from it. The creature sat up and yelled, "Seen enough yet, boy!"
Dave reflexively pulled his sword from its sheath and hit the creature with a diagonal cut across the shoulder. His blade passed right through it. It's head, right arm and part of the torso slid off and the rest of its body fell backward.
"That oughta do it, eh?' he yelled. "Die, you freak!"
Both halves of the body quivered for a few moments then finally went still. Dave half sat, half fell onto the street, overcome by emotion and the idea that he had just killed something. He had never killed anything before, let alone something that looked human, sort of. He decided to pull the creature, both halves of it, to the side of the road so that he could bring authorities back later to look at it. He felt elated for a moment at the thought that he would be famous for discovering a new life form, and right in the backyard of Los Angeles. He would be famous, and he could use that fame to promote his band. The first heavy metal lead singer to prove the existence of vampires! Things were looking up.
He walked for another thirty minutes or so, still feeling the effects of the drug the old bloodsucker had given him, when he heard what sounded like whining coming from the side of the road. He stopped and listened more closely. There it was again. It sounded almost like a puppy. He waited for about a minute and heard it again. This time, he got a fix on the direction it was coming from. He walked to an area where the mountain split a little and saw a figure sitting on a small boulder. It looked like a woman. She was covered with a black blanket and crying softly. After the night he'd had so far, he was hesitant to approach her, but he couldn't just leave a crying woman alone at night in the middle of the desert, especially with things like that old man flying around. Maybe there were more.
"Excuse me," he said. "Are you okay?"
"Go away," she replied.
"Look, I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure you're okay. I'm stuck out here, too. I could sure use some company walking. My cell phone is dead and I don't even know how far the next town is."
"Leave me alone, please . . ." she said, and began to cry more deeply.
"Normally I would, but I can't just leave you alone out here. It's not safe. I don't want to scare you, but I just got attacked by something. I think it was a . . . I can't believe I'm saying this . . . I think it was a vampire. He pretended to be a popcorn vendor but the popcorn was drugged and when I was about to pass out, he attacked me. The old guy could fly! I know this sounds crazy but I swear it's true. He had wings as wide as a barn door. I killed him with my sword. Cut him in half. He's laying on the side of the road about a mile back. And it's face . . . you should see it's face. It had no eyes, no nose, just a mouth full of sharp teeth like an ugly, old hyena."
"Really?" the girl asked.
Her tone of voice had changed. It was almost serene.
"Yeah, really," he answered.
The girl stood up and asked, "Did he look anything like this?"
She let the blanket fall to the ground.
As he fell backwards off his rock, he screamed and kicked at the dirt to get away from her. Her face was the same as the old man's but her body was young, stronger. She was totally naked and resembled a large dog standing on its hind legs. Suddenly, the little slit of a mouth opened wide, impossibly wide, and she let out an ear-piercing scream. She had fangs, too. Longer fangs than the old man had. She had wings just like the old man, too, and almost as big. They unfolded and spread out in both directions.
"That was my father you killed!" she screamed. "Now you will die!"
She let out a shriek so loud it made Dave feel like his skull was going to split in half. In blind terror, he tried to run but his knees were weak with fear. The instinct to survive gradually kicked in and he started to run faster, faster than he had ever run before.
"God, please let this nightmare be over!" he prayed. It was the first sincere prayer he had said in years.
He heard flapping wings somewhere in the sky above him. There was nowhere to hide on this road. He was totally vulnerable. He looked up, trying to get a fix on where she . . . where it was, but again, all he could see was stars.
Deciding to go out fighting, he stopped running and yelled, "What am I running from you for? I'll slice and dice you just like I did your old man."
He unsheathed his sword and stood in the ready position, listening closely to every sound.
He yelled at the sky, "Come on! Come and get some, you ugly witch! I'm gonna . . ."
Before he could get the words out, there was a flurry of wind and flapping wings and he was on the ground. His sword slid across the blacktop and stopped about twenty feet from him. He felt warm blood running down his neck from a deep gash on his forehead. He scrambled to his feet and ran for the sword. He grabbed it and had just straightened up when she was on him again. She screamed, the sheer volume of it shattering the night and shocking him into almost total insensibility. He swung the sword but the creature grabbed it, threw it away, and hit him again so hard he almost lost consciousness. He saw her face up close and the insane thought raced through his mind that she would be less frightening if she had red eyes like monsters are supposed to have, but that face covered with nothing but crawling, writhing skin and only a mouth full of teeth as sharp as hypodermic needles was somehow more horrifying than anything he had ever seen in any horror film.
She was much stronger than her father, which was why he had to drug his victims first. In fact, they both had used tricks to set a trap for him. Since she pretended to be a stranded girl, she must have some weakness. Otherwise, why all the deception? He began to search for her weakness. So far, she seemed invincible. It dawned on him that without eyes, she must fly with radar like a bat. She was blind! Sight was his only advantage.
He knew if she got those wings around him he was finished, so he made one last effort to fight. He hit her in the mouth as hard as he could and succeeded in knocking out three of her teeth, including one of her fangs. Her head moved slightly backward, then her eyes fixed on him again. She spit out the teeth. They landed on the ground at her feet. The fang was about five inches long and had come out with the root. She laughed a laugh that sounded more like a horse's whinny and as she did, he saw new teeth grow in immediately to take their place. He swung at her again but the creature grabbed his arm, then one of his legs, picked him up over her head and slammed him on the ground. The impact knocked every ounce of air out of his body. She scooped him up in her wings. She sniffed at him like a dog sniffs an old bone. Trapped in her arms and wings, he shuddered in horror. She had made him a believer that evil spirits do exist.
"What are you?" he asked again.
A man's voice came from down the road.
"Show him what you are, my dear."
The creature looked over and said, "I will, father."
Dave could barely move, but he managed to turn his head just enough to see the severed upper torso, head and arm of her father, the old vampire he had killed, lying in the road. Part of the body had already grown back. The eyes opened and glared at him.
"Kill him! Kill him!" he yelled.
"Yes, father," she answered.
"What am I, you ask?" she hissed. "Come, I'll show you."
She wrapped her arms around him and carried him off into the hills. She squeezed him so hard, he couldn't get his breath back. He was at the creature's mercy now but he knew from the ferocity of her attack and the claws that dug into his sides as she carried him that she had no mercy for him, and that he meant as much to her as a fly means to a spider.
The creature suddenly dropped him and he hit hard ground. He was sure he broke his shoulder in the fall. The pain was excruciating. He felt the inside of his mouth with the tip of his tongue and felt empty holes in his gums where his front teeth should have been.
He began repeating, "God help me, God help me, God help me" like a mantra, grasping for some hope, some small bit of comfort.
This new place was even darker than the road so he assumed he was in a cave. He tried to move but she picked him up, slammed him against the wall, and began to drool a slimy substance over him, making an "aaaahhhh" sound as it flowed from somewhere deep inside her. The smell was nauseating. He vomited but the creature didn't seem to notice or care. Finally, he was totally paralyzed in a cocoon of rancid slime. The creature let out a shrill but somehow friendly-sounding noise and Dave heard what sounded like many small wings coming down one of the cave's corridors.
"Oh, God," he thought. "Children. She's calling her children. I'm . . . dinner."
In the darkness, he felt dozens of small bodies landing on him and innumerable fangs sinking into his flesh, like thousands of tiny needles, and sucking greedily. This had all been so surreal and intense that he hadn't had time to think about it, but he suddenly knew with absolute certainty that these would be his last moments alive, and that the stories of vampires or gargoyles, or whatever these things were - were all true.
He began to cry uncontrollably, thinking about his friends at the party, his girlfriend, who was probably still expecting him to show up, and his parents, who would never know what happened to him. And the last sound he heard before he lost consciousness forever was his own terrified and desperate screams.
Gold trophy winner
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~~Tori~~
