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The Filipino women I used to work with believed in ghosts. After working in Y4, I probably should too.
I sat up and turned around. A portion of the photographs had been ripped off the walls revealing mold underneath, dark and crusted, like deep scabs. Shredded images littered the floor showing little strips of flesh, the corners of stained mattresses, and bleak stares with darkness behind.
“I’m so sorry. ” I started backing out of the room, unwilling to turn my back on what was there, out of fear and shame. “I’m so, so sorry. ”
A cold wind went through the room, stirring the photos like fall leaves. And when it finished running through me and out the door behind, the fragments of photos on the floor resolved into the shape of an address number and a name.
I remembered a quote from my grandma—just being sorry never helped anyone. I dusted my hands off and reached for my phone.
* * *
Three cab companies and a credit card number later, I found someone who’d pick me up. They wanted me at the curb at 7:12 on the nose and if I wasn’t there, they’d gladly keep my deposit. After I hopped in I gave the cabbie my next address—much different from the one I’d given his company on the phone.
“You gotta be kidding me. ”
“I’ll triple your fare. ” It was do it now, or not at all.
I watched him weigh the extra money against his personal safety, divided by the time of night, and he must have gotten an answer he agreed with, because he went my way.
I stared out the window as the cab ignored stop signs, rolling through perpetually grimmer neighborhoods until he brought the car to a halt.
“You sure you want off here? I ain’t coming back for you. ”
“If this is the right address. ” I peeled bills out of my bra and handed them over. So much for this month’s student loan payment. The cab rushed off the moment I closed the door.
There weren’t address numbers posted here, but I saw that the third floor on one building had metal sheets nailed up over all the windows. A homemade asylum, a pot farm, or a dark place to keep vampires in captivity—someone had something to hide. I pulled out a cologne bottle and headed for the door.
* * *
The air inside this new place had the smell of cat pee and vinegar—the pungent byproducts of cooking large-scale meth or personal-use heroin. Luckily, I was used to junkies. A hairless girl in the stairwell was picking at a nonexistent scab. I skirted her and mounted the stairs two at a time.
My hand began to throb as I walked down the third-floor hall. I took off my winter gloves and found the bruise covering my entire palm, and it ached, bad. Without thinking about why I knew to do it, I placed my hand on one door after another until I found one that was cold, and the pain stopped.
No landlady and no House here. I hit the door with my marked hand, hard. “Delivery!”
“What?”
“Delivery!”
There were sounds behind the door. Metal scraping against metal. Whispers. The door opened to reveal a narrow-faced man, and the smell of sex and blood washed out around him.
I knew I was in the right place. I just knew.
“What do you want?” he asked. I held up the cologne bottle and pressed the plunger, hard and fast. Nothing happened. He tried to slam the door shut and would’ve too, if my steel toe hadn’t been in the way.
“Fuck this. ” I unscrewed the cap and sloshed the contents at him. He started shrieking. Mr. November had managed to get the good stuff.
“Jesus Christ!” He stumbled to his knees and started scratching at his face.
“Something like that. ” I shoved him out of my way with the door. “Anna?”
The room’s devastation was almost complete. Two lightbulbs dangled from the ceiling on threadbare wires. Waterlogged wallpaper sagged down to the floor. A shiny black camera on a tripod occupied the center of the room, keeping its mechanical eye on a dirty mattress on the dirty floor, where a girl was chained like a bad dog. She looked about nine, but I knew there was no way to tell.
“Anna?” I repeated.
Her eyes flickered over my shoulder, which is why I ducked just in time.
All the sexy vampires on TV and all the weakened half ones I’d seen on Y4—nothing prepared me for the disgusting creature that hurled itself at me, arms out, lips stretched tight against a smile full of knives. I twisted away and ran to get my back against the wall. His breath washed over me as he passed by, with the scent of smoke and rotting apples. I held the open bottle of holy water out in one hand, and held the other up like a grenade, unscrewing its cap with my thumb.
“I just want the girl!” I shouted.
Was killing a vampire still murder? The man I’d first hit with the fluid was still writhing around the floor, his hands against his face—only now, dust was leaking through the gaps between his fingers.
“Get out!” the fresh attacker said with a heavy accent. His gaze flickered to the open bottle. His nose was flat, his nostrils mere slits, and the skin of his cheeks rippled upward to accommodate his wide swath of teeth.
“Hell, no. ” She’d invited me in. Or Mr. November had. I needed to be here. Stone-gray eyes regarded me and then looked at his dust-weeping friend. He squinted and sniffed the air deep, like an animal, then came to a decision.
