Night Time: Two Novels Read online

  “Where am I taking you, Patrick?” I said. Patrick was pretty fucked up, to say the least. He was spitting up blood all over my interior. I felt bad, but I had to keep reminding myself, he and his friend had attacked me first. I had been minding my own business.

  That was two attacks in three nights. Not to mention that I had a MMA fight, too. I had to admit, I was an American Bad Ass who had clearly lost his mind.

  I looked over at Patrick and this poor guy was coughing and wheezing. He might have been choking to death. I didn’t know what to do. If I took him to a hospital, I’d get arrested because I was the one who kicked his ass and my fingerprints were all over him. I needed to take him back to my apartment. I looked at my clock. It was almost 5:00 a.m.

  I had so many questions for this guy. I had seen him become a bird, and then a man. I didn’t know if I was hallucinating on the pain pills, but this motherfucker had, most definitely, been a bird. If I had lost my mind, I needed to continue to believe my hallucinations. Just like anything else, when your mind spirals out of control, if you quit fighting it and ride it out, you can usually figure out how to steer it in the right direction.

  “Is there anything I can do for you?” I asked.

  “Don’t let me out in the sunlight. It’s almost morning. I need to get indoors.” I think I heard him right. Sure, why not?

  Patrick grabbed my right arm with his left hand. “Kyro,” he said. “Help me, I’m hurting real bad.”

  “I know you are, dude. I’m taking you to my place.”

  “You do understand what I am right?”

  I was afraid to answer.

  “I’m a vampire.”

  After a moment, I said, “Of course you are.” That was when my brain went numb. I put my foot on the accelerator and I was suddenly going 110 miles per hour on the freeway. He said vampire, I said to myself. Of course he’s a vampire, I mumbled. He’s also a fucking bird and some other kind of thing called a Mani.

  Patrick squeezed my arm with his left arm and then passed out. Was he dead? I didn’t think he was, I could see him breathing ever so slightly. Plus, the other guy had disappeared when I killed him. Then, it dawned on me: I fucking killed someone! A horrible dread spread through me.

  I got to my apartment and helped Patrick into my room. I laid him on my bed. I could see the sun peeking over the horizon. How was I going to keep the sun out? Could he really be a freaking vampire? And if he was… what the hell was I doing nursing him back to health?

  I had some cardboard boxes in my backyard and I grabbed some nails and a hammer. I covered my bedroom window with the cardboard and I nailed the sides in the drywall surrounding the window. I must have put a hundred nails in that cardboard. There does my deposit on the apartment, I thought. No outside light was coming in, I made sure of it.

  I rolled Patrick on his side and got him some water and some ice. I wasn’t sure if I could fall asleep or even rest. I definitely couldn’t stay here, I needed answers. I looked in the mirror and my beard was gone. Did I shave before I left? I had no clue about anything. I decided to go to the only place I knew to go. After all, she did say she was a werewolf.

  I jumped into my car and headed back to the Radisson Inn over on Beach Boulevard. I parked my car and went up the stairs and to room 202 where I had left Sasha. I knocked on the door and there was no answer. I yelled out, “Sasha!” Nothing. I knocked as hard as I could, and then I heard some rustling from inside the room. In a few seconds, I heard the door unlatch. It opened a little and I saw Sasha. Her hair was soaked. She must have just taken a shower.

  “Hey there,” I said. “Can I come in?”

  Sasha stared blankly at me. “The room isn’t exactly the same as you remember it.”

  “Just let me in,” I persisted.

  Sasha opened the door, and I could tell right away something wasn’t right in the room. It looked like a tornado of wild animals had come through it. There were claw marks everywhere. The door looked like a million cats had gotten to it. Cats with huge paws and claws.

  “What the hell happened in here?” I asked, surprised beyond words. Sasha didn’t say anything. I continued to look around the room; the bed was turned over and shredded, the TV was on the floor, both lamps were busted in the middle of the floor. It even looked like something had gnawed on all of the cords.

  I repeated my question and this time I wasn’t playing around. “What the fuck happened, Sasha? I used my fucking credit card! They are going to make me pay for all this. There’s at least ten thousand dollars’ worth of damage in here.”

  Finally Sasha whispered softly, “I told you, Tommy. You didn’t believe me.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. I sat on the shredded mattress and just stared at the room in absolute horror. I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, I was now finally about to have a nervous breakdown.

  I just closed my eyes and calmly said, “So, you’re really a werewolf.”

  “I told you, look at this place. Do you think in my wildest dreams I could had done this? Look at the door. It would take me years to do that to a door as a woman.”

  “But you did do it,” I said, even more calm. “You did it as a werewolf.”

  “What else would explain it?”

  I truly had no clue what could explain this sight. When I came over here to talk about the vampire asleep in my bed, the last thing I could’ve imagined was that I’d be sitting in the middle of downtown Nightmare Alley. I continued to look around the room and I thought about all the crazy shit that had been happening. Now everything was coming together. In a bizarre, crazy-ass way, this was all starting to make sense.

  “We need to get you out of here. We need to tell management that we left, and when we got back, the room looked like this. There is no way in hell they have ever seen anything like this. They will have to believe some kind of coyote got in here—a whole gang of them.”

  “Let’s get out of here.” Sasha grabbed her purse that, ironically, that had nothing wrong with it.

  We left the room; I peeked my head in the room one more time and just sighed.

  We began to walk down the stairs to get to the front desk.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said.

  “I’m taking you to my place, and I have a visitor.”

  “A visitor? Who?” Sasha asked

  “A vampire,” I said. “And he thinks my name is Kyro.”

  Chapter Nine

  The Radisson staff didn’t quite know what to make of the room. They were more worried that we’d be the ones suing them because a wild animal had gotten into the room so they just made sure we were okay and left it at that. Thank God.

  We arrived back at my apartment. I checked up on Patrick. He was in the exact same position I had left him. Sasha had some nurse training. I thought when he woke up that she could check on him. I felt like a turd for not taking him to the hospital. I still considered it, but first I needed to process this and as far as I could tell, he was breathing fine. If he was suffering some internal life-threatening injuries, that remained to be seen.

  I walked out into my living room and Sasha was sitting on my couch.

  “Thanks, Tommy.”

  I just stared at her, perplexed.

  I didn’t even know how to respond to that statement. Thanks? I wanted to say, You’re not welcome. Since meeting you my entire life has spun out of control. But I held my tongue.

  “We need to get you a cage,” I said.

  “A cage?”

  “Yeah, I’m putting this werewolf thing to the test, and sticking your rabid ass in a cage tonight is the only thing I can come up with.”

  “I don’t have rabies. Where will you find a cage to hold a werewolf?”

  “Where you find everything you need, Craigslist.” I went on my computer that was on a desk in my living room.

  I got onto the site and went on Orange County and its surrounding areas.

  I typed in. “Large animal cage.”

  “Wow,” I s
aid out loud. “There’s a page full of cages here. What kind of cage do you want?”

  “You’re really going to put me in a cage?”

  “I saw what you did to that room. I just recently got new furniture.”

  “Look here,” I read out loud. “It says, ‘large cage—used to hold a gorilla—strong bars—nothing gets in or out.’ Damn! $2,500!”

  “$2,500?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s way too much.”

  “It is,” I said. “But I’m looking at these other cages and I do not trust how small they are. The expensive cage is gigantic!”

  “Do you have $2,500?” she asked.

  “Don’t worry about that,” I said. I knew she was a con artist. So she didn’t have to know anything about my income. I just recently had $80,000 given to me when my grandfather died and there was no way in hell she was going to find out that information.

  I called the number and the guy said I could have it for two thousand if I picked it up in San Diego. How in the world was I going to get to San Diego and haul a two-ton cage 100 miles before tonight? I had to do it but I needed to go down there and rent a U-Haul.

  “We’re taking a trip to San Diego, girly girl,” I announced.

  “Can we stop by the store?” Sasha asked. “I need some girl items.”

  I looked at her with zero expression and said, “All right, I don’t need to know any more.”

  We stopped in at Walgreen’s and then we headed down to San Diego and got ourselves a cage big enough to hold a mountain lion. I drove the U-Haul back to O.C. while Sasha drove my Mustang. I called ahead and got some movers to meet me at the apartment to get the thing inside my apartment.

  After the movers helped me get the gigantic cage into my living room, they gave me a look like ‘why do you have a ten-foot cage in your apartment?’ I told them Sasha was kinky and I tipped them well. I also told them to keep it on the down-low that I had a cage.

  So, now it was just time to wait for the full moon to come out.

  I checked on Patrick. He was still sleeping and looked awful. I asked Sasha to check him out. She actually didn’t want to look at him because he was a vampire. I pointed out to her that she didn’t have a choice. She saw it my way.

  My bites from the night before were killing me. My shoulder ached. I was pretty jacked up. I was sitting in my living room, staring at the cage, wondering how strong Sasha was when she turned. Could she knock over that cage? I couldn’t even believe that I was having these kinds of thoughts. I kept reminding myself, ‘go with it, gain control of it, and then all of this might make sense.’

  Sasha came back out of the room after looking at Patrick. “He’s pretty messed up.”

  “Did he wake up?” I asked.

  “Not really. He definitely didn’t know a werewolf was checking on him. He needs a doctor and if he is a vampire, a lot of red flags will go off.”

  “Like what?”

  “There is a reason why the Triat has our bodies disappear when we die.”

  “The Triat?” I asked. “What the hell is a Triat?”

  “The Triat is everything.”

  “You mean God?”

  “No. More like the heart of God.”

  “Look, spare me this tale. If you truly turn into a werewolf, you can give me all the paranormal history you want. But as of right now, let’s take care of tonight. I’m thinking I also need to chain you.”

  “Chain me?” Sasha did not like that.

  “Yeah, you might be really strong. Also, where will you go to the bathroom? I’m going to put some cardboard in there.”

  So, we left again and went to Home Depot and I bought the strongest chains they had. When we got back, I locked the chains from inside the cage, I had no idea what I was doing and the more I was taking this seriously, the more I was convinced that I was in some alternate universe where truth and love have been replaced by werewolves and vampires.

  I stepped out of the cage and realized this damn thing took up my entire living room. It took almost the entire open floor that separated the TV from the couch.

  I looked outside and said to Sasha, “Well, how does it usually happen? The whole turning from human to werewolf thing.”

  “I really don’t know. I have almost no recollection when I become a werewolf.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said, sarcastically. “Seriously, that would be too easy. What I don’t understand is, if there are werewolves running around, why aren’t there more instances of attacks?”

  “There’s a strict code the Carni live by. We drive off to remote areas that are far away from the Tandra.”

  “And Tandra is what you call humans?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, why are you here and not in some remote area?”

  “I don’t really have anywhere to go. I’m pretty much an ostracized werewolf. A lone wolf, you might say.”

  I looked at her and just thought, of course she is.

  “And what about my little vampire friend in the bedroom? He referred to himself as a Mani.”

  “Mani are vampires,” Sasha said plainly, as if she was saying something you hear every day.

  “Okay.” I shook my head trying to wrap my mind around all of this crazy information. “He didn’t become a bat either,” I said. “He actually became a black bird.”

  “A raven.” Sasha corrected me. “Mani transition into black ravens and red hawks.”

  “Red hawks?” I asked.

  “Yeah, men become black ravens and women become red hawks.”

  “What do Carni become?”

  She laughed. “We become werewolves.”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot that part. But you can’t control it, but vampires can?”

  “Yeah, it’s not fair, but that’s the hand we were dealt.”

  “How does someone become a werewolf?”

  “They get bitten by a Carni when it’s a werewolf and survive the bite.”

  I thought about the other night. “Hey, those three guys I fought on the street. Were they Carni?”

  Sasha was quiet. “Um.”

  “Were they?” I persisted.

  “Yes.”

  “Were you ever going to tell me that?”

  “How could I? You didn’t even know I was one until today.”

  “So the one that bit my shoulder was a full-blown werewolf?” I asked.

  “He wasn’t when he bit you.”

  “So, what happens when one of these freaks bite you and he or she isn’t a werewolf?”

  “I don’t really know. I never heard of that happening before, especially the kind of bite you got.”

  “Great, I’m a trailblazer,” I said, sarcastically. I sat down on my couch and had to put my feet up so they wouldn’t smack the cage. “Sasha, some weird crap has been happening to me the last couple of days.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like at times, my hearing is off the charts.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah. I could hear car alarms that are—”

  “—blocks away.” Sasha finished what I said.

  “Holy shit!” I continued. “I also had an extreme amount of facial hair last night and then it went away in the morning.”

  “What about your eyes? Did you notice they were yellow?”

  “I didn’t even look at my eyes.” I sat there dumbfounded. “What do you make of it?”

  Sasha shook her head and said, “It’s like you’re in some weird werewolf purgatory. It’s like you’re not fully a werewolf, but you have the potential to become one.”

  “You’re fucking kidding me. I don’t want to be a freaking werewolf. How do you reverse it?”

  “You can’t reverse it, Tommy.”

  “What does that mean?” I shouted.

  “It means that you are becoming immortal and there is no secret antidote!”

  I began sweating. I could feel my heart rate go up. The room began spinning. Holy shit! I’m was having a heart attack! My
chest felt tight. I fell to the floor and blacked out.

  The next thing I remember was that Sasha was sitting me up on the couch and giving me some water.

  “Tommy? Tommy?” she asked. “You all right?”

  I put my hand on my chest. “I don’t know. I think I had a heart attack.”

  “I doubt that. You wouldn’t be able to breathe. You had a panic attack.”

  “A panic attack?” Who was I? Tony Soprano? I don’t have panic attacks.

  “It’s to be expected. I just told you that there’s a good chance that you’re in some kind of werewolf limbo phase.”

  I looked at Sasha and just wanted to scream at her at the top of my lungs. Why did I go to Shiners that night? And why did I go outside to talk to her? This was crazy. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe none of this is true.

  I sighed and got up. “I better get you in the cage,” I said. “I’m not going to put chains on you, but if you get out of hand, I might.”

  “You think you can put chains on me once I become a werewolf? Good luck!”

  “What are you? A buck-ten?”

  “When I become a werewolf, I’m bigger, my clothes become a part of me and I become heavier and larger.”

  “Oh, that makes sense.”

  “It might not make sense, but that’s what happens.”

  “Get in the cage,” I said, with as much authority I could muster. This woman walked into my life and screwed it up in so many ways. Look at me. I was completely fucked up. I had insane bites all over my body. I had a vampire sleeping in my bedroom and now an almost-werewolf in my living room, in fact, she was moments away from transition to a werewolf. All I could do was continue to play this out. “How you doing in there?” I asked.

  “I’m all right. You better lock the door.”

  “Oh yeah, what was I thinking?” I got up and locked the door and I sat on the couch facing the cage. The sun was setting and I looked on, staring at Sasha. And even though I was pissed, she was damn sexy. She looked good in her little white shorts. It’s been awhile since I fired one off, so to say I was horny was an understatement.