Dance on Fire Read online

MONDAY

   

  May 5, 2008

  4:18 a.m.

   

  “Are you sure you’re not going to get in some sort of trouble for this?” the young man asked for the third time. His shift at the glass plant began at 6:00 a.m. In the meantime, he was visiting his new girlfriend.

  “No, Jeremy,” Kingsburg Police Dispatcher Lainie Bishop answered. “Will you please relax? We’re just talking! You’re over there, I’m over here, and nothing is keeping me from doing my job. Now let it go!”

  “Kingsburg, one-five-nine.”

  “See,” she said, taking her hands away from her lap and presenting them to him, palms up. “I’m doing my job.” Lainie put one foot on the thinly tiled floor and pushed off, spinning her chair back around toward the microphone and keyboard which was her charge. She keyed the base microphone. “One-five-nine, go ahead.”

  “Ten-ninety-eight, Draper Street doors.”

  That was shorthand police talk. The Dispatcher was being informed that the task of checking that all of the businesses along Draper Street were secure was accomplished. There had been no doors found unlocked, nothing amiss. “One-six-one and I will be ten-twenty at the fourteen hundred block of Draper.” More Police talk; very official.

  “Ten-four.”

  “Has CPS arrived to pick up that minor?” the officer asked, still official-sounding, but less serious.

  “That’s a negative, one-five-nine,” Lainie responded professionally, although the question had been far from it. It was an inside joke.

  “What minor?” Jeremy asked, but not before his new girlfriend had released the microphone. CPS was an anagram for Child Protective Services. Jeremy was freshly nineteen years old, while Lainie was five years his senior: a fact which lent itself to much ribbing and sarcasm toward the woman by her co-workers. On her end of the line, she sighed quietly. On the other end, down on Draper Street between Marion and Smith Streets, laughter erupted.

  “You,” Lainie answered, dropping her head dramatically into her left hand as if in defeat, her short blond hair falling forward. She couldn’t hear the laughter now or see the faces twisted in glee, but she could certainly envision it quite easily. She looked back meekly at the young man, slightly embarrassed for him, but mostly for her. He wasn’t the one who had to work with these guys.

  After having introduced Jeremy to some of the members of the swing shift who had found him visiting her, some of the officers had begun volunteering to return before ten o’clock and drive the “boy” home before curfew. Others had been less charming. Lainie just knew that Officer Browning, the jerk partner of the voice on the other end of the radio traffic just now, had been the one to plant the pacifier in her lunchbox tonight.

  “Please, Jeremy,” she asked. “Don’t say anything while we’re miked.”

  “Ten-four.” Officer Mancuso completed the conversation, still snickering about Jeremy’s pubescent-sounding voice coming over the airwaves.

  “Man, Nicky.” Mancuso’s partner began the tired argument. “I'm tellin' you, football is boring without Dallas kicking San Francisco's ass!"

  "Mm-hmm!" Officer Nick Mancuso grunted, stepped near a yellow and green fire hydrant and spat a small wad of greenish, yellow phlegm into the street. It made an ugly unmistakable splat which he tried to ignore. He could not see the small mass in the dark, but had heavily evacuating his nose and throat for two days now, so he could well imagine it. The cold in his lungs was getting worse, he knew. Just exactly how he had caught a spring cold, he still could not figure out. He had no allergies to speak of and was hardly ever sick. Yet, here he was. Sure, it was 50 degrees outside and the Graveyard Shift in a small town where nothing ever happened. However, dressed as they were in multiple undershirts, a Kevlar bullet-proof vest, black clothing and twenty-five pounds of equipment clipped to their belts, one could hardly tell.

  Officer Lawrence Browning was the younger of the two and he sounded the part. Brash, often unthinking, he many times uttered an insensitive and stupid comment, realizing too late his mistake. They had been partners now for eighteen months. Eighteen long months.

  Mancuso stared at him incredulously. "And yet it seems to me that we kicked your Cowboy ass the last time we played! Do I have that right?”

  “When was that?”

  “Funny you can’t remember!” he added sarcastically. He half-choked on another piece of phlegm that suddenly broke loose, catching it quickly in his mouth before swallowing it by mistake and evacuating it, too.

  Officer Mancuso was almost six years older than his partner with five more years of experience. He was five-feet, eleven inches tall; black hair; thin build. His partner was six-feet, four inches tall; blonde hair, blue eyes, muscular and fully prepared to call his own number on fourth-down and goal with a long two yards to go for the winning touchdown. Though both men hailed from California, Browning looked the part, while Mancuso looked as if he had just emigrated from New Jersey. He was 180 degrees from the type of character that Browning was. Quiet and reserved, he was often accused of being shy or introverted, a notion which could not be further from the truth. Instead, he was a people watcher. Where others might lose themselves in a daydream, the detective within him was always analyzing others. While waiting for his wife in the Fashion Fair Mall up in Fresno, he would pass the time by studying the faces and mannerisms of everyone around him.

  Mancuso reached into his shirt’s left breast-pocket for his pack of Winstons and offered one to his partner, which finally shut him up. Browning quickly accepted a cigarette from his partner and leaned close while Mancuso fished around his patrol car keys in his right pants pocket for his San Francisco 49ers lighter. When he had it, he lit Browning's cigarette first and then his own. He hoped that the sight of the 49ers emblem and colors would not set his partner off again.

  Browning’s eyes lit up just like the tiny flame when he saw the hated team come just inches from his nose.

  “Look…” He attempted to pick up the argument where it had been left off.

  “C'mon, Larr!’” Mancuso quickly interrupted before exhaling cigarette smoke into the cool early morning air. “Don't you ever shut up? No wonder Alicia left you!”

  Browning took a long drag and then pointed his cigarette at his partner. “Cold shot, Nicky. Alicia split 'cause I didn't make enough to support her decorating habit.” He paused. “Besides, I think she likes her men a little more...feminine.”

  “Oh, hell!” Mancuso turned and spat again. “Here it comes.”

  “No, seriously!” Browning continued, undaunted. “Have you seen that guy? What a wuss! You know, to tell you the truth, I'm not even sure he had a...”

  “Well,” Officer Mancuso quickly cut him off before he was given the graphic details of the man’s genitalia. “I’ve met him before. I thought he was a nice guy.”

  Officer Browning took another long drag and then grinned as he blew it out. “See, that’s why you’re not allowed near the junior high!”

  Officer Mancuso raised his hand before his partner’s tanned face and thrust his middle finger upward in playful response.

  “Oooh, Baby!” Browning went into his undersexed collegiate freshman girl imitation. After having spent so much of the past eighteen months together it was quite possibly the only skill that Officer Mancuso could identify his partner having.

  “You're a sick man, Larry.”

  “Pardon me, Officers.” A voice suddenly appeared behind them out of what had once been an alley but was now a small picnic area between Gino’s Italian Eatery and the Apple Dumplin Antique shop.

  The police officers spun. Mancuso lit his heavy Mag-lite flashlight, while Browning ripped his police issue Glock 22 from its holster and pointed the .40 caliber weapon in the direction of the voice.

  “Gentlemen!” the man shouted weakly, offering his empty hands out before him to demonstrate to the men how unarmed and quite safe he truly was.

  Mancuso's flashlight bathed him in artificial light
. He was a Caucasian male, standing at least as tall as his partner with straight long dark hair, probably black, framing a fair-skinned face. He had a better than average build, wore a long brown leather coat, designer jeans, and large motorcycle riding boots to match.

  “Put your frigging gun away, Larry,” Mancuso whispered, reaching out with his free hand and nudging his partner.

  Browning immediately lowered his weapon. “What did you expect me to do, Nicky? He scared the... You know you scared the shit out of me, sir!” Browning berated the man.

  “I apologize for it, gentleman,” the man said with an embarrassed grin as he lowered his hands and carefully approached. “It was...inexcusable.”

  “You're damn right!” Browning continued his assault. “You might get your ass shot off one day!”

  “Thank you, Officer. I will keep that in mind.”

  “Give it a rest, Larry.” Mancuso ordered, turning off his flashlight. “What can we do for you, sir?”

  “I wondered if you might allow me one of those cigarettes?”

  “Sure,” Mancuso answered, reaching into his shirt pocket for the Winstons. “It's probably the only way to keep the blood flowing this early in the morning.”

  “Ah, but my dear Officer,” the man began, taking the offered cigarette, “there are certainly more ways than this to keep the blood flowing, as you say, on such a beautiful and perfect night.”

  “Got that right!” Browning said, still visibly trying to calm down. He tossed his spent cigarette behind his partner and into the gutter. “I know exactly what you mean.”

  “Do you?” the man asked, turning in Browning’s direction, seeming genuinely interested.

  Mancuso shook his head as he fished around inside his pants pocket for the lighter once again. If the stranger did not entirely guess where Browning was headed, he certainly did. Sex! It was the only thing Larry Browning ever had on his mind. He just wished that his partner would be more selective in deciding when to mention it. Locating his lighter, he raised it to the man's face and attempted to ignite it.

  “Oh, yeah!” Browning continued. “There's nothing like an all-nighter to get my blood flowing.”

  Suddenly, as if it were the most amusing thing that he had ever heard, the stranger threw back his head and roared with laughter. It echoed loudly around the rest area, the sound reverberating between the brick walls. It did not dissipate immediately, but seemed to hover there just like the Tulle fog that blanketed the Central Valley in the winter.

  At first, Browning joined the laughter, as if thoughts of a pair of long firm lightly tanned legs locked around his waist teased his perverted mind. However, they soon faded. For something quickly and decisively ripped any pretty images from his head. There was something about that laugh that caused everything about the morning to suddenly feel much cooler than it was.

  Mancuso snuck a glance at his partner, whose face drained of color as if he were just a simple child again, and not a graduate of the Police Academy and Fresno State University with a degree in criminology. And now, for Mancuso, bringing the cigarette lighter to life seemed all but impossible for him to manage.

  “Allow me to assist you,” the man said, no longer giggling but using a tone that dripped with mocking amusement. He casually took hold of Mancuso's hand.

  Officer Nicholas John Mancuso shuddered at the touch. He had never experienced any winter like this man's fingers. They felt cold and lifeless. He remembered one night during his first year while training with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department, when they had responded to the ranch belonging to an elderly male who hadn’t been heard from in four days. This man's flesh was just as dead as Mancuso’s first corpse that he’d found lying in a heap on the bathroom floor.

  On the man's first attempt, the lighter came on. Both officers jumped as it flickered to life. “There we are,” the man said with a smile and then leaned close to the dancing little flame to light his cigarette. “You see, that was no trouble at all.”

  Mancuso and Browning did see. They saw the impossible.

  Mancuso looked deeply into the man’s eyes—they were black and cold and lifeless. They looked like a shark’s eyes right before it bites into you.

  This man standing before them, still clutching onto Mancuso's wrist, was dead as well, with unblemished skin that appeared as smooth as a white satin sheet pulled tightly over a bed in a suite at the Ritz Carlton. Only this was no bed, but a grown man's face with holes cut out for eyes and a mouth. And gleaming teeth.

  Mancuso was still thinking of that shark when he beheld the vampire’s incisors. Browning must have thought the same thing because he quickly went back for his gun. He got it as far as the top of his holster before the man's free hand sprang like a trip-hammer, cutting through the air between them. The attacking hand never seemed to get close enough to the weapon, but it obeyed him just the same and leapt out of the officer's grasp. Browning stood there dumbfounded, his empty hand held high as if he carried some new prototype invisible blaster, and was preparing to use it to vaporize this creature standing before them.

  Mancuso's heart sank. His eyes followed after the fleeing Glock as it skipped into the shadows of the former alley.

  He still had his gun, but not the necessary courage.

  “Now I've done it!” The man flicked the unsmoked cigarette into the deserted street in disgust. “I must once again apologize for my behavior, gentlemen. It seems that I have a flair for inspiring fear in the hearts of men.” He paused briefly with a sigh. “Ah! All is not lost. As we were discussing before I made a most incredible mess of things, I agree that there are indeed other, more splendid ways to get the blood flowing, as it were.”

  And he roared with laughter again.

   

   

  4:57 a.m.

   

  The figure moved effortlessly southward, down the west side of 21st Avenue just north of Riverside. He seemed to glide along the sidewalk as if moving on skates. The navigation wasn’t easy considering how the massive roots of the old Magnolia trees caused large sections of sidewalk to jut here and there; their thick leaves littering the neighborhood like some extravagant minefield alarm system were one to be stepped upon.

  It was easier to navigate only if one had been here before. And he had.

  A sign upon a white picket fence down Riverside Avenue read: Caution. Area patrolled by Basset Hound. The figure turned its direction and allowed the slightest of grins, but continued on his way.

  The morning was a bit cooler than it had been, considering summer was well on its way. The slightest of breezes could be felt every few steps. The figure kept his head tucked half hidden within the drawn up collar of the trench coat; however, like a turtle peeking outside his shell. It was unnecessary. Both the canopy of trees and the early hour kept out whatever light might have otherwise been present and concealed him well enough.

  But one could not be too careful.

  He stopped. There, two houses further across the old street, was movement. He waited, ensuring that his presence was yet undetected. The hour was getting late, he was extremely well aware, and very soon people would begin to invade the waning night’s last moments and the inherent danger they brought would drive him back into the shadows for another day. Finally, the hunt was on and he began to pursue what would become his last meal of the day.

  He was across the street and up the immaculately groomed yard in no time at all. He passed directly before one open-curtained window and then another as he went, but there was no light present within, so he continued on his way, undeterred. He came upon a gate. He gently placed his hands upon the wooden door but never took hold of the latch. Instead, the figure slid his hands up to the top of the fence and scaled it as silently and effortlessly as a snake. A long mane of shoulder-length dishwater blonde hair spilled out of the trench as he went over.

  The first window he came to there in the yard behind the house held his prize. The window sat above a row of four foot tall ye
llow rose bushes. He crept toward it carefully, but easily, as a ghost might, hovering over the ground, soundlessly. He had years of experience.

  From beyond purple lips, the vampire's fangs pushed eagerly out of his mouth, anticipating the warm rush of young blood. At the foot of the bushes, the vampire stopped and reached for the window’s ledge. Cold fingers gripped it tightly, followed by the other hand and other fingers as he leaned forward and peered into the young boy's bedroom. He saw youthful brown locks of hair which curled and surrounded a nice pink neck, no doubt warm. The boy’s headboard was against the window, so he was facing the other direction and would never know what hit him. The vampire surveyed the window frame and the old bronze latch intended to prevent access from the outside. He smiled at the old rusted mechanism which probably held fairly well in 1931 when it was first installed.

  It wouldn't even stop a poor thief, let alone me, he thought. Had I sought to gain entry, nothing would stop me.

  Immediately, like the bar on a mousetrap that suddenly springs into action, crushing the mouse’s neck, he reached down behind the rose bush and took hold of the cat that he had followed into the yard. It had just lay down across the decorative walk-on bark and had closed its eyes for its latest nap, never suspecting that it was being hunted until it was too late.

  The vampire strolled across the yard, away from the child's window toward the safety of the shadows. The quite startled, thin and undernourished tabby cat hissed weakly within the clutches holding it captive, and then sank its teeth into the skin of the vampire's left thumb. It fazed him little.

  "Poor creature," the vampire whispered, feeling every one of the animal’s thin ribs. "You have not tasted an adequate meal in quite some time, have you?"

  He was reminded of Southern California now which he had just recently abandoned. There had been a great many types of animals there with which to take a meal. There had also been a great many types of human animals on which to feed, most never to be missed, had that been his desire. It was not. The place had been nicknamed the city of angels. It still made him laugh. It had been his experience that man outnumbered the vampire there, but just barely.

  Wanting to remain on the move, however, and wanting nothing to do with his own kind—with their violence and upheaval and dissention—he’d left. With as long as it had taken him to find two small meals, and both cats, he wondered how long it would be before he was forced to move again.

  It was painfully obvious, as he soothingly stroked the cat’s back, that this animal and he had much in common. He, too, had had very little in the way of nourishment this night. Standing there before the slumbering child’s open window, the vampire felt lonely. It wasn’t a particularly new feeling for him, but one he usually felt coming. Neither he nor the cat belonged anywhere. So, while whispering softly and tenderly into its ears, gently caressing its ragged and matted fur until it closed its tired eyes, the vampire quickly snapped its neck and put it out of its pitiful misery. It was a maneuver that he had perfected.

  The vampire kissed the top of the dead cat's head. He held it to his breast as if it were his dead child for a time before feeding on it. When he had drained it of most of its blood, he buried what little was left in the flowerbed between two of the rose bushes.

  Before he took his leave because of the fast approaching dawn, something urged him to steal one last look at that young boy in the window. He turned deliberately, as if another part of him, the part of him in charge of archived memory, knew what was coming and hoped to spare the whole from some great emotion. When he took his glimpse, the feeling that overtook him was one of great sadness.

   

   

  Cimpulung, Romania

  July 13, 1737.

   

  The young boy awoke with a start to the horrible sounds of hell unleashed upon the earth. The commotion knocked him half out of bed.

  Wolves!

  That was his first thought as he awoke to find himself scrambling free of the covers and onto the safe neutrality of the middle of his bed. He had seen them before, so he knew what they sounded like. His father had had to scare them away from their home many times. He spun to face the glass-less window behind his bed, bracing himself for the sight that he fully expected to see should he be brave enough to push back the shutters. He could already visualize the ravenous beasts throwing themselves against his bedroom window, hunting feverishly for a way inside to get at him. He could picture them very clearly already gathering themselves into a mad frenzy. However, the din had ceased just as quickly as it had begun.

  The boy waited. His lower lip quivered nervously as he stared sullenly at the foreboding shutters, trying to ratchet up the courage to push them open.

  Just to take a peek.

  His eight year old heart pounded thunderously within his small chest. Other than the sound of his quick and rapid breathing, the cottage and property was deathly silent.

  Now he began to doubt.

  Cautiously, only after making quite certain that whatever had occurred beyond his window was completely over and was not about to start anew, he crept back along the length of his bed. Hand over hand, he crawled; knee rubbing against knee. Absently pulling his old blankets out of place, dragging them with him, he inched forward. It was a snail's pace, but eventually, he made his way back to the goose feathered pillow that he had known his entire life.

  Taking a deep breath, the boy took one final move forward. Cautiously, still summoning up that courage, he reached out slowly with one small right hand. There was no latch or lock on the shutters, so he simply pushed.

  The boy looked.

  With the absence of moonlight he could not see very far. He craned his scrawny neck and could see a little further now. The yard appeared empty.

  Straining his eyes to see as much of the yard as he could, the boy tried to calm his racing heart to attempt to picture how it had appeared during the day. He and his mother had stolen some time to play beneath that very window in between chores while his father had toiled in the field. He was having trouble with this, however, because of the fear that he still could not shake. Hidden below the surface—behind the silence he could not trust—was something, he was certain of it.

  The boy tried to inch further, placing both hands upon the walls of his room while he poked his head outside. He was careful not to fall out.

  He could not see or hear any wolves. There were no animals of any kind, or signs of any type of struggle. The boy furrowed his brow, crinkling his nose in the process, as he attempted very hard to understand what it was that could have pulled him from his sleep.

  That’s when it happened again.

  The poor boy’s head whiplashed around as the sudden sound seamed to leap out of the darkness at him like a monster, worse than any wolf. Once again, he heard the sounds of the wild.

  It wasn't wolves. It was his mother, letting out a horrible, bloodcurdling scream from her bedroom next door.

   

  4:58 a.m.

   

  “You're kidding!”

  “It's true, Candy!” Jane Lynch reassured. “I heard the whole thing!”

  “Wow! What I wouldn't have given to see that,” Candace said through rapid breaths, jogging alongside her good friend of more than twelve years. They had been running every day before work, except on Fridays, since January. The last name in the office pool had them giving it up by June 1st. It was the two hundred twenty-five dollar pot which helped to keep the women motivated.

  “I know. I couldn't believe how lucky I was.”

  “Then what?” Candace asked excitedly as they swung left at the Citibank Building from Lincoln Street onto Draper, onto what the locals referred to as “Main Street” and was the very heart of town.

  The decorative red bricks beneath their running shoes were set at an angle now, seeming to turn with them, or in the very least used as a marker to keep them on the course. The Citibank sign before them was also an LED display that gave both time and te
mperature. It flashed 5:01 a.m. and then 49 degrees Fahrenheit, but neither paid it much mind beyond a cursory glance. This would be the coolest day of the week, and it was cold enough already without having to see actually how bad it was. They just kept up their pace and continued on their way. Shade trees and large blue celebratory banners hanging from blue poles lined the course now on the right; a Mexican Restaurant, pizza joint and other shops on the left.

  “He told her everyone was complaining. She hadn't done a thing since they’d been sleeping together, marching about like a queen, treating everyone like she was the new CEO after a hostile takeover.”

  “Ain't that the truth?”

  Jane continued. “She said some B.S. about how she never realized she’d been doing that. She’d be better from now on...”

  “Sure, now!”

  “But see, by this time, he's not even listening. It’s over. She doesn't know it yet.”

  “Wow!” Candice exclaimed as they jogged from cement sidewalk back to brickwork.

  On the right, a tree planter area bordered the next intersection. Most of the streets throughout Main Street were decorated in similar fashion. This particular one contained shrubs, flowers and other greenery kept very well groomed by the Model Drug Pharmacy which was located across from it.

  “I haven't gotten to the good part.”

  “What?” Candice asked as they crossed Smith Street and continued west. Their usual route took them westward through town where they would eventually cross Draper at California Street and then head back for home. The two friends lived one block from each other and both worked for a large payroll firm in town. They were more like sisters than friends.

  Their footfalls reached the sidewalk once again, bringing them across the entrance of the Bank of America. They paid little attention to the police cars that sat silent and unoccupied on the street.

  “Her jaw literally dropped when he told her she was fired!”

  “Wow!” Candice exclaimed once again as they reached their normal rest stop between Gino’s Italian Eatery and Apple Dumplin Antique store.

  It was here that they allowed themselves ten minutes to rest. The area extended its entrance on Draper to the alley that ran behind the restaurants and shops. A sign had been recently erected pointing the way through to the historic old jail that sat behind the newly refurbished Fire Station. A large orange Swedish Dala Horse statue stood before them as if guarding the site. In fact, it wasn't to dissuade, but to invite. Two stone tables and two wood benches encouraged visitors to stop and sit for a while. There were small trees in stone planters, and one fully grown shade tree and four screens installed for holding back the squelching 100-plus degree summer days which arrive all too soon.

  “Stupid vacation days! Always happens! Take a day and someone either quits, gets caught with someone in the copy room, or gets fired.” Not that the copy room had ever been used for anything other than the occasional mild flirt session.

  Jane continued her workout by jogging in place while Candice leaned over, feet spread apart, her hands on her knees to catch her breath beside the Dala Horse. "Then security came in and handed her stuff already boxed up."

  “Shoo!” Candice winced with surprise, waving a hand across her face to do away with two flies that had suddenly materialized before her face.

  She stood upright and stretched her back, raising her hands behind her head. She took a step and a half into the area as something caught her eye. Her left hand went immediately to her mouth and her eyes ballooned as what she was seeing was being made clear. Jane didn’t see it, nor could she hear the faint whimpering over her own labored breathing.

  “Then Jack points at the open door in his office and tells her…” Jane continued, still running in place, slipping into a bad imitation of their boss's voice. “'Call my wife! She’s had two lovers herself this millennium.'”

  Candice reached out blindly with her right hand and squeezed Jane's left arm, her other hand still frozen against her mouth as if sealing a crack in a dam. It was all that she could do. Never in a million years could she have found the words to describe to her friend the horror that was displayed there in the former alleyway, now all ornate brickwork and tree planters, cement tables and mutilated policemen.

  “Hold on,” Jane attempted to continue, glancing down the street, oblivious to the grizzly scene behind her.

  It was not until Candice dug manicured fingernails through her friend’s sweatshirt that she seemed to understand that something might be wrong. She just had no idea how horribly wrong it was until Candace suddenly yanked her forward to share her find.

  “What’s gotten into you, Candy?” she demanded and then fell silent.

  Before them, in the very heart of the space, stood that solitary tree. It poked its canopy between two screens and into the nautical twilight. Before it grew a shrub in a stone planter surrounded by rail ties. A police officer was in that planter as well. At least part of him was. Jane froze.

  “Jesus!” she whispered, stepping back in shock.

  Candice Gutierrez never heard it.