VAMPIRES

Blameless as the daylight that crawls through each morning, Carter and Caitlyn shook hands in the Arby’s parking lot, just across from the church.

Blameless as the daylight that crawls through each morning, Carter and Caitlyn shook hands in the Arby’s parking lot, just across from the church. The act was practically a salute, as if she was going out to war. Knowing Ricky and his typical deals, she was.

“I’ll see if I can get us a little extra on top,” Caitlyn smiled, then pulled her tank top down to reveal her bra, the top crescents flashing black on her pale skin.

“Whatever you gotta do,” Carter smiled, and watched her saunter across the road, to where Ricky’s sleek black Camaro breathed exhaust out into the humid night. Caitlyn landed there in the center, then slumped her lean figure over the passenger side window. He couldn’t quite see her face in the shadows, but the street lamps and shadows highlighted the way she perked her chest out. She wouldn’t take too long, unless Ricky got some wild idea. Carter fingered the piece strapped to the skin below his belly and counted to ten. He wouldn’t let that happen.

Catilyn was a ride or die—they had met at some druggie party way back in the day—and she knew how to handle Ricky in a deal. The man was dangerous, volatile, but always seemed to level it around Caitlyn. She could last longer than Carter ever would when he kicked up into one of his rants in the middle of a transaction. She talked to him, showed a little chest, and finished up with the baggies in her knockoff Coach. Shit, if Ricky thought she was pretty enough to simmer down around, Carter would always drag her along for a deal, especially when he was needing it as much as tonight.

Carter pinched his thigh, hard. He craved a cigarette, anything to set off the edge in his teeth, the itch. Caitlyn had slunk into Ricky’s car, which was usually never a good sign. If she was fooling around in there, the jackass would probably need another thirty minutes to splooge in his leather seats. He was a lecher, but Caitlyn had promised a quick transaction. Carter would not stand to go through withdrawals just so Ricky could get his nut off.

The night was a no-man’s land, spreading itself around him like a plasticine nest. Carter was choked by it, the immensity of his need, the immensity of everything out there. He needed a bump. His fingers itched to cut into wrist, his arm, to make the sheer wanting go away. Carter eyed the Camaro and counted to ten. All good feelings fled his body when he realized that Caitlyn really was going to fuck Ricky back there.

That bitch. This was supposed to be easy. A good deal, and then they’d go back to their nasty studio apartment and knock themselves into a doze on their square, shabby rug. They could have walked back by now, have themselves a good time. Carter’s hand’s shook, and he choked on the bile that clung to the back of his throat. He’d be no use to himself if he puked, but that fact was inevitable if Caitlin didn’t get it together and come on back. It wasn’t like it was hard.

Carter kicked a rock and squatted down low on his feet. His face was starting prickle with an ugly, cold sweat. Like he was dreaming, sleepwalking even, he put one foot in front of the other. Ricky’s Camaro hummed, filling up the night air, cicadas harmonizing around the church. He made it across the street and paused, as if he could needle his eyes into the backseat. The outline of Caitlyn’s shabby head was clear through the rear window.

If they weren’t fucking, they were probably getting themselves high as kites on Ricky’s supply. He sucked his teeth and squatted low on the church’s hard gravel. Ricky had this way about him that made Carter squirm. Piercing black eyes and hair that was thinning well beyond the temples always pushed back with grease. He was frightening when Carter met with him by himself. The man spoke in riddles and thinly veiled threats and always asked about the girls Carter was fucking around with and if they were hot enough to bring along. Carter hawked up a ball of spit onto the dusty concrete. The gun at his hip was caking the sweat against his stomach. He’d thought about Rickey’s rat face when he ran the tip of his pointer finger along the muzzle.

He’d given Caitlyn all his cash because he knew, usually, she was good for it. They always split the dope evenly, an unspoken promise, a sealed contract. It would shock the shit out of him if she turned back on their partnership now. If she didn’t make good on the deal, he’d walk home and lock her out of the apartment. She could shack up with whoever and it would serve her right. Teach her to mess with a fix.

Who was he kidding. Carter wasn’t even a thought pissing across those two’s mind. In the dark of the night, it would be easy to sneak up on them, knock on the window, give him a scare, and get his money’s worth. Even if he was cutting into Rickey’s turn with Caitlyn, it wouldn’t matter in the long run. He walked further into the church parking lot, then the bastard Ricky put the car in reverse and cut out of the lot, running each red light up the street. Taillights mocked Carter as the black car turned into shadows.

“Fuck you!” Carter screamed, getting his gun out from his belt. There was nothing, not even a shape of a car to aim at. The thick humidity in the summer air caused the overgrown hair around his neck and temples to string up, catching on the lazy mosquitos buzzing around his hair. Few options out there existed to him, and they only grew dimmer as the stoplights flickered on and off. He could call one of his other contacts in a pinch, but he had nothing on him to trade with. No one with any sense in their head would spot a fiening addict with no cash. The jackass dealers also wouldn’t accept a fuck or blow in exchange; Carter didn’t have the right equipment to work that angle.

The cold cement curb bit into his ass when he slumped all the way down, nearly sprawling there. It felt completely empty, black and bitter all around while his stomach curdled with need. He could put his shoes back to pavement and walk the mile home. Him and Cait’s studio apartment was a shithole, and he knew he had cleaned it out of any sort of useful substance that morning, but it was a place to wait the withdrawals out until she showed back up. His mind reeled, replaying every whir and grunt from the Camaro when Ricky and Caitlyn left him to his own devices. A heat pang of unreasonable anger sped up his spine.

He could put a bullet in his head. The gun still weighed heavy in Carter’s hand, a cool and constant reminder of its own possibilities. Snot came out of his nose when he huffed out a few shaky laughs. Yeah, it would get rid of the ache in his head, but putting a hole there would just cause so much mess. The church ladies would find him the next morning and probably roll his ass out to the middle of the street. God’s house had no room for him.

Rain started, and it dripped down drop by slow drop, bringing with it the smell of licorice and smoke and something distinctly manmade. Carter clasped and unclasped his hand from the gun, then rolled himself up to tuck it back in his belt loop. Something could be made of this. The night wouldn’t go to waste and Carter could turn his mind and body off for a sweet nod to bed.

Black vomit crept up the back of his throat. He turned his head away from the house of God and spewed on the cement. Using his full chest, he hawked bile. The inside and back of his mouth felt like they had been scrubbed down with a brillo pad—one of those real moldy ones that his mom used to clean their two bedroom shotgun with on Sunday morning. There was a glowing CVS in the distance. His eyes strained to read the gray “24 Hours” sign. It was a gift from the Goddess of Dope herself. Carter’s fingers licked the handgun resting in his jeans. He always had a problem saying no.

Like drifting in and out of a dream, he scraped himself there, one foot after another. The automatic doors brushed open and cool, conditioned air mixed with blinding fluorescent light flooded his senses. The cashier perked her head up from her phone and looked him over. Her long dreads were pulled back from her neck and they draped over her shoulder when she stared at him. Carter knew he looked hellish, with his hair stringing in awful clumps by his temples and down his neck. At this point in withdrawals? He knew he didn’t look like a typical day’s customer. Still, he trusted that the gun was nestled firmly in his pants and his presentation was in line with most people that found themselves needing a CVS at 3 am. She looked down at her phone again, and he passed on.

The asiles stacked like monuments around him, the candy package colors reflecting off the lights and into his blurry vision. He did the song and dance of pretending to aimlessly shop- lingering around the condoms and the shampoos. A simple act of joint casing, and there were no other customers there that night. He peered over a particularly tall display of snack bars and scoped the pharmacy’s alcove. It was dark, but not shuttered, an open mouth looming towards Carter. He could be quick, not get anyone else involved.

Looking back one more time for posterity, he shucked himself over the pharmacy’s counter in one liquid movement. His feet misstepped a touch, shifting him onto his bony knees, but he righted himself quickly. The drugs were sitting ducks, little presents for him after the fool’s errand with Ricky and Caitlin. Carter pressed the meat of his hands to the cold linoleum and swallowed down the bile in his adam’s apple. It would do no good to spew all over the place and blow his cover before he even starts looking. Sharp, hot air shot from his mouth, which was gumming itself shut.

The mission itself was simple: he had to check the bottles for oxy, morphine, or anything else that would get him high and get the hell out before getting caught. Carter started at the closest shelf and picked through each bottle gingerly, as to not rattle the pills beyond necessary. He shoved each one back its place when he didn’t find what he wanted.

“WHAT are you doing back there?” Carter startled out of his working stupor, then pressed his hand to his belt line. The cashier stood at the opposite side of the counter, one slim brown hand on her hip, the other holding her phone up. He sucked his teeth and brought out his handgun, which shook and threatened to slip from his sweaty grasp as soon as it was pointed in the general direction of the woman. He couldn’t bear to look at her, couldn’t stop when he was so close.

“Where do you keep the oxy?” he murmured, and waved the gun aimlessly.

“I’ll call the police right now,” she called his bluff, and her thumbnail tapped on the phone’s screen.

“Just!” he shouted, then thought better of it. Bringing his voice low, Carter breathed deep into his nostrils. “I just need oxy, and then I’m out. No one gets hurt.” Hearing no response, he took one long look at her holding her phone, already dialing the police or the manager or someone else who could make his life a living hell. He would go to prison, a dirty prison, and get surrounded by ugly men and three hot meals of slop a day. There would be no going back.

Carter pulled the trigger. He meant it as a warning shot, something to get the woman to put the phone down and listen, show her that he meant business. Instead, the cashier let out a wet scream, and fell, blood spraying across the floor. He had managed to catch her in head. It was too much, split open, writhing on the ground, so he turned back around and continued his business. He was half-gone and almost done.

He combed through the pharmacy in a fervor, dumping pills and bottles and papers on the ground. The array of detritus looked awful, and Carter knew he had to be out of there soon. Someone had to have heard the gunshot, or the cashier had really called the cops on him. If he could just find it—the bulk bottle, the big does, the real put-you-downers— it could all be worth it, really worth it.

Out of options on the shelves, he knelt to the floor in supplication and strained his eyes. Back near the desks, there were a row of four almost unnoticeable safes. He mimicked a crude army crawl towards them on his stomach. On each of them, sharpied over tan masking tape, someone had written “NARCOS—PHARMACIST ONLY”. A feeble groan wheedled its way out from his gut and he pawed at them. Still, he couldn’t allow himself to waste time, and he shot himself up and over the counter, then trudged through the mess and the asiles, red footprints sponging on the white tiles. The automatic doors beckoned him and hot humid air hit him as he ran, out of the pharmacy, and into the night.