Ending Summer Nights

BANG! She didn’t drop until Mick fired the last bullet.  Six shots, six hits; but she wouldn’t fall.  He had never seen anything like it in all his days as a hired gun.  He put the first three slugs square in her chest at such a close range she should have been knocked back.  Instead, she actually took two full steps and reached out to him with both hands.

Regardless, Mick was as steady as ever.  Sixty-five years old and the hands of a surgeon, he would tell his drinking buddies at the Lucky Green.  He holstered his gun and knelt down by the dead woman.  She was a comely Sally, he thought, always having been a sucker for blondes with long straight hair.  Her high heeled shoes caught his eye.  They were made of some sort of clear shiny plastic, with sparkles trapped inside.  The amber light from the light bulb above the back door of a Chinese restaurant down the alley made them glimmer, as if each shoe held inside it a tiny universe of stars.

Her faux fur coat reeked of powder burns and cheap perfume, forcing a sneeze out of Mick.  With one hand he brushed the loose strands of hair out of her face while rummaging in his pants pocket for pennies with the other.

“I’ll be dammed!”

Underneath her long bangs the woman’s eyes were open, darting from side to side. She was still alive.

From the main street he heard a car approach.  It turned down the alley behind him but he didn’t move; he recognized the sound of the sputtering engine.  It was his son Johnny.

While Johnny positioned the car, trunk side to his father, Mick stared at the woman’s eyes.  He had seen plenty of people die.  There was always a look of confusion mixed with panic, but it invariably faded away into death.  What he was seeing now was not a fight to stay conscious.  This was something different.

“Something wrong, Pop?”  Johnny stepped up behind his father.

“I just put six rounds into this streak of piss, and look at her, still hanging in there.”

Johnny peered over his father’s shoulder but the alley’s shadows left him with little to see but a red dress, blonde hair and a pair of the tallest heeled stripper shoes he had ever seen.

“Best back up some, she’s gonna spill out all over your slacks,” Johnny observed.  “Don’t want that to happen, ya know?  How you gonna explain coming home minus your pants again to Ma?”

Mick looked down to his feet.  His son was right.  He should be in the middle of a spreading pool of blood by now, yet he wasn’t.  “Can’t be, I put six bullets in her.”

“Sure, Pop.  I know you never miss.  I’ll open the trunk.”   Johnny walked back to the ’82 Cadillac Eldorado he’d borrowed from a friend’s junkyard earlier that week.

The woman’s eyes continued to flick around, but she showed no other signs of life, made no sound. Okay, this has to be some sort of weird muscular thing, he told himself.  Pulling the woman’s fur coat open Mick saw five black entry wounds right where he expected them:  three in the sternum, two in the heart.  She’d been hit, no question.

“Shit!”

“What?”  Mick looked up from his examination of the dying woman.  “Something wrong?”

“Broke the fucking key in the trunk’s fucking lock.  God dammed piece of shit!”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Sorry.”

Mick shook his head; the younger generation’s lack of respect always grated on his nerves.  He blamed upbringing, and he’d taught his son not to use the Lord’s name in vein.  But the kid was hanging out with some real low-lifes these days.

“Brought your tools, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll get a wrench.”  Johnny sighed.  Mick knew that the kid hated looking the fool in front of his father.

He looked down at the woman again.  Summer Nights was her name, he’d been told.  Her stage name, anyway.  He’d also been told she was a blackmailing bag of bile, but looking down at her he was beginning to suspect she was more than just a cheap opportunistic slut.

Where was all this bitch’s blood, he wondered, she should certainly be bleeding out?  The low light of the alley masked the details of the wounds so he recklessly ran his bare hand over her chest.  Expecting to find her dress soaked, Mick recoiled when he felt nothing but dryness; dust, her skin felt like ash and sand paper.  He held his hand up to his face but it was clean.

“Don’t you touch me again.”  She turned her darting eyes directly to his.

“Pop?” Johnny said curiously as he walked back to the trunk, his tool belt swinging in his hand.

“Something is very wrong here.”  Mick would have said more, but he heard the woman whispering.  Leaning down he tried to understand her words, but the language she used was foreign to him.

“Fuck!” Johnny screamed louder than he should.

Mick heard his son break open the trunk behind him, but he did not take his eyes off the woman.  He just could not stop staring.  He wanted to, but her eyes held him.

“I sliced open my fucking hand,” Johnny moaned.

“Don’t you bleed on…”

Suddenly the woman’s mouth opened wide with a hissing exhalation.  Mick went cold: protruding from her upper jaw were two large pearl-white fangs.  The shock kicked him to his feet, as if his old swollen knees were brand new.  He took two steps back, bumping into his son.

“Pop?”

“This slapper is touched by the devil.”

“What?  What the hell’s wrong?”

His father did not answer, he simply pointed at the woman’s sneering face.

“Pop, it’s a joke, right?”

“No.”

Mick saw her gaze shift away from him to his son’s injured hand and the blood dripping from it down his shirt.

“Johnny, do me a favor.  Take a step closer to her.”

“Why?  What the fuck, Pop, my hand–”

“Just do it.”

The closer Johnny moved to their “victim,” the more animated she became.

“Johnny, it looks like we were hired to kill a vampire.”   Mick grabbed his son’s shoulder before he got too close.

“What, like in that movie with Brad Pitt and your favorite, Pop; Tommy-boy?”

“He’s not my favorite.”  They had had this argument before. “I just fancy Top Gun.  Anyway those are movies, boy, this is real.”

Johnny pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and started winding it around his hand.  “Who hires a pair of hitmen to kill a vampire?”

Mick shook his head.  He had never allowed religion into his profession before.  Now, however, he questioned God and contemplated damnation.  Clearly this woman was lost.

“Somebody who obviously had a problem that needed to be solved.”

“Who was it?  Someone from church?”  Johnny winced while he wrapped his hand.

“No,” Mick answered, “but he was referred to us by someone from church.  He wanted this slut dealt with because she was a bloodsucker.  Here I thought he meant she was blackmailing him about bopping his secretary.”

“So you think he knew?”
“Yes.”  Mick leaned over the woman before he spoke again.  “He knew what you were, didn’t he, Summer?”

He unholstered his revolver.  Staring deep into the woman’s eyes he emptied the used shells into his hand.

“Pop, I don’t think bullets will kill a vampire.”

“Six put her on her arse.”

“Truly, but she’s still moving.”  His son pointed down.

“All I need is one more.”

Rummaging about his jacket pockets Mick found the last bullet he was looking for.  One more, one shot, just one more shot.

“Time!” Johnny called as his digital watch beeped.  “Cops will be here in five, gotta shit or get off the pot.”

“One shot,” Mick told his son as he chambered the round.

“I tell you, I think we need to cut off her head to kill her.”

“She wants your blood,” Mick said, raising his gun.  “She sees you bleeding.  She smells it.”

Aiming the pistol at her head Mick looked one last time in her deep-set eyes.  She sang out a line of words that made even less sense than those she used before.  Whatever she was, whatever it took to kill her; Mick no longer cared.  His head was swimming now, and her words seemed to fill his ears.

Turning suddenly Mick buried the revolver into his son’s belly and pulled the trigger.  Johnny’s guts splattered out his back and dribbled down the front over Mick’s gun hand. Shock stole the scream from his son’s lungs but not the utter dismay from his eyes.

Unable to control his actions, Mick shoved his dying son to the ground right on top of the vampire.  The moment Johnny’s body landed on hers, Summer came alive.  She wrapped her arms and legs slowly around Johnny as he moaned in agony.  Summer took her gaze off Mick and turned her attention to Johnny’s neck.  Biting down hard her teeth tore through flesh and muscle alike.  Johnny shuddered and quieted leaving only revolting sucking noises to fill the night air.

“What have I done?”  Mick tried to reload his gun, but his hands shook too badly.  He dropped the first bullet to the ground where it rolled under the car.  A tear trickled down his old jagged face as he spilled two more rounds to the street.

“You have no weapon that can kill me.”  Summer rolled his son’s corpse to one side and slowly stood.  Mick could see she had regained her strength.  He had never failed a job before, but known men who had.  Some of those men ended up targets themselves while others crumbled under the stress of knowing their families were in danger.

“You will tell me who sent you to kill me,” Summer said, stepping forward.

Mick’s emotions steadied.  He was stronger than this.  “You killed my son, you filthy demon!”

“You killed him the moment you looked into my eyes.”

A whiff of something from the Cadillac’s trunk brought an idea into Mick’s mind.  He turned his back on the beast, remembering a passage from the Bible, Corinthians 3:15.

“Only a coward is afraid to face death,” she hissed.  “But your blood will serve nonetheless.”

He rummaged in the darkness of the Cadillac’s trunk and found what he was looking for: a plastic jug.  The click-clack of Summer’s shoes grew louder as she walked calmly toward him.  Mick breathed a prayer.  His test was upon him.

Popping the lid of the gas container with his right thumb, Mick spun around on his old Oxfords.  “I have never failed a job.”

Clicking the green Bic lighter in his left hand he added, “Never.”

The gasoline container erupted into a burst of fire that engulfed Mick, the vampire, and the old Cadillac behind them.  Through the crackling flames Mick’s heard Summer scream.  Taking one last look into her eyes, the old man finally saw it: the gaze of death.  He had seen it so many times before.

Image © Boris Vallejo

©  2010 Kevin James Breaux

Kevin James Breaux is a published artist, photographer and writer.

“Kevin is both a storyteller and an artist, and that’s evident in the art he creates: every picture tells a story that is both complex and subtle. I highly recommend him.” — Jonathan Maberry author and two time Bram Stoker Award winner.

Having written several novels Kevin is currently seeking publication for his newest work. ONE SMOKING HOT FAIRY TAIL, a dark urban fantasy that runs 86,000 words and is a fast-paced read with summer blockbuster movie elements and a devastating emotional resolution.

For information about his writing and art please visit www.kevinbreaux.com .