::the open end::

by ML Kennedy

(Author’s note – The bad news is: This is short and late. The good news is that another chapter should be coming soon… ish.)

Click below to catch up if you’ve just joined.

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, & Chapter 6

If you’ve been here all along…

The cell phone is ringing as I attempt to hold it between my ear and shoulder. This technique doesn’t work particularly well on such a tiny thing; there’s something the old ones did better, eh? I veer over some yellow lines in the road while attempting to catch the mobile phone, which managed to wriggle free from my head‘s grasp.

Maybe these things really are dangerous.

I wonder if Pennsylvania has a law against using a cell phone and driving. I’m almost in Ohio and only a few places there have bans.

A woman screaming out of my phone interrupts my wandering mind. “Ohmigod, Richard, I was starting to think you weren’t going to call!”

Shit, I should’ve gotten into character instead of thinking about distracted driver laws. What did Richard sound like? How did he talk? Ah, nuts to it. “I got ‘em,” I say in a gruff-ish whisper.

“You got him? What’s wrong with your voice?”

“He had me by the throat for a bit. I’m a little worse for the wear.” That sentence sounded a bit too much like Batman; I’ve got to tone it down a bit.

“So, are you sending the heart?”

“What heart?” Not the best response I could’ve given there. I’ve need to relax. Plus, I kind of sounded like the Godfather.

The voice on the other end freaks out a little bit. “Whaddya mean ‘what heart’? The vampire’s heart! Are you driving it? Are you sending it? What the-”

“I meant ‘what heart‘. There was no fucking heart! Dude just exploded like in Blade!” I’ve just got to amp it up a bit. Play this thing harder. I can make this work.

Do the kids still say dude?

“Tell me exactly what happened,” she demands. I probably should’ve gotten my story straight ahead of time.

Let‘s improv.

“So, I cornered him at this gas station. He’s buying Slim Jims and talking to the cashier. I wait for the cashier to move out the way and I emptied my uncle’s MAC-10 into him, the vampire and not the cashier. Uh, but anyway the bullets turned to steam before they could hit him.”

“What?!”

“Yeah! And so then he pulled me in with his eyebeams! When I was getting sucked in, I stabbed him in the chest with a bowie knife! And, I mean, he just laughed, pushed the knife all the way in and regurgitated it at the gas station attendant. It cut her head off! So, then, he grabs me by the neck and starts lifting me into the air, as vampires tend to do. Thankfully, I had my secret weapon or else I would’ve been a goner!”

“What secret weapon?”

“Cotton balls.” Fuck it, I’m already pretty out there. “Cotton balls soaked in holy water. I swabbed his hand with a cotton ball, and he acts like he touched a hot pot on the stove. So, then, I throw some at him, and he flies backwards over the counter. And I can tell he’s real hurt, so I shove three cotton balls in his mouth. Not two seconds later he explodes in this eerie green fire. There wasn’t a thing left, especially not no heart.”

Perhaps I have amped things up a bit too much. I would guess at the eyebeams part. Perhaps I have left subtlety back in Erie, PA.

“What am I supposed to tell Sloan?” She asks me this question with a mix of accusation and terror.

I wonder if Sloan is a man or a woman. Avoid pronouns. “Um, tell Sloan: vampire exploded, Richard is probably on camera at a murder scene, Richard is going to hide with cousin in Elma.”

“I’m not telling him that crazy story!“ Mental note: Sloan is a dude. “Who the hell is Elma? Besides, how are the cops going to know you killed the vampire if there is no body?”

“The attendant. The decapitated attendant.”

“The attendant can’t tell nobody if he don’t have a- oh, right. I‘m an idiot.”

“Listen, I’m going to lay low for like a month. Radio silence. I’m not going to call you. Ignore any calls from New York state. It’s going to be people asking too many questions, trying to shut us down. Do you understand.”

“I don’t like this Richard. I’m really afraid.” Her voice is the sound of despair, and I feel like a heel. I lose the cell phone signal, and ignore the subsequent ring. A twisting in my gut confirms that I’m an asshole.

A big blue sign with white letters reads, “Ohio Welcomes You to the heart of it all!” and Ohio is the color of blood.

Related TOE posts:

• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 6
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 3
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 2
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 1
• TOE Short Story :: The Mosquito Song – Ch 5