The Legend Of The Christian Zombie Vampires

Chapter 2

Getting Home

Mitch sat still, holding a blunt that needed ashing. The ashes grew long, and the smoke swirled up off of his fingers. His eyes were red, and his face was stoic. Darius and Gregg laughed it away. Darius stood up and stretched his arms way up and took a deep breath. He looked at Mitch deeply but with cold eyes. “There are some things best left unsaid.” he proclaimed with an eerie bitterness behind his unusually cold voice. Gregg stood up and took the blunt from Mitch’s tremble ridden hand. He pulled Mitch up and opened the faded purple colored door and gazed out at the Las Cruces night. The air smelled of grilled meat. Stars glimmered in the depths of space with kindness or at least soft light. The moon was a deep orange, almost red. Clouds on that night looked almost silver. But they were dull, more like gray. They moved southward like cowards passing the brave stars wanting to go unnoticed in the night. Something seemed familiar about this night. Gregg could not seem to figure out what though. It felt like Deja vu of a reoccurring dream that when you wake up, you can’t quite remember. Somewhere behind the mountains miles ahead, a flash of lightning lit up the rigid tops of the Organ mountains. Mitch walked out of the 46 that night without a word. He seemed shaken and possibly confused by the stories he had heard from Darius and Gregg that night. Maybe he was just stoned and didn’t know exactly how to respond. As he reached the stairwell and descended back to the ground floor of the complex, Gregg closed the door gently and locked it from the inside. He looked at Darius who was high in energy after recalling a story that had been buried for so long. They finished off their evening in light conversation. They talked with smiles, recalling some of their old experiences with friends and women who had come and gone from their lives. After several beers and a few blunts, they passed out on their couches with the lights on. It was just a little after midnight.

4a.m.

Apartment 23 Mitch fell asleep in his bed. His white sheets crumpled awkwardly beneath him, his skin oily and salty from the desert heat and sweat. His eyes twitched and he let out sorrowful sounds. In his head he dreamed… Sand blew from seemingly every direction as he walked alone in an open but empty battlefield. He did not know it was a battlefield just like he didn’t know he was dreaming. The sun beat his skin and he felt like he was on fire as he struggled through the soft sand. His path grew harder, and he was out of breath. Far off in the distance he could see a cross. The horizontal bar of the cross seemed to fall. More like slid down as his weary legs struggled towards it. He heard a metal jiggle. Like someone trying to open a door. The last thing he remembered seeing was piles of bodies as the sandstorm took to a halt. Massive amounts of bodies lie piled awkwardly and seemed to be on fire or smoking. The limbs of the bodies were decrepit. The skin of the fallen seemed so green and torn as if they were rotted from the inside out, but he could not smell death. Mitch heard the jiggle again and woke up startled. He walked in the dark to the door and looked through the peephole. He could see the moon’s light shining down but nobody was in front of his door. He did an about face and headed back to the room. He laid down once again and closed his eyes. He felt dazed from being so tired. As he entered sleep again, he heard a knocking on the front window by the door. He heard the voice of a lady. A deep scratchy, tired voice, it spoke out… “Mijo… Like all things, this too will pass.” Then another knock on the window stood his skin hairs up and he ran to the door much like Poe must have whence a bird once rapped at his chamber door. “Shhh… It’s Diane!” the voice prompted. Mitch opened the door to see nothing. A gust of wind pushed his door open with authority. The knob busted a small hole in the wall where the hinge stopper should have been. The apartments were so ragged and old. It seemed as if it all needed to be bulldozed and rebuilt. Like a story made up, forgotten and told again, the walls of the apartments no doubt, had seen it all. Mitch stepped outside. He looked out towards the Organ mountains. He saw the moon and it was deeply orange, nearly red. The air was hot even in the cool hours of the night. In a daze he closed the door behind him and walked towards the moon. He was still dreaming. As the sun heated in the late morning, Darius and Gregg began their morning ritual. They cooked a nice breakfast. On this day it was English muffins with the center cut out and eggs fried into the open hole. Gregg made a hollandaise sauce fresh with lemon zest and hot sauce. He thinly sliced potatoes and coated them in garlic powder, salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil. He fried them to a golden brown and plated their meal with pride. Darius, no doubt still half asleep, prepared a French press and spiked it with Bailey’s Irish Cream. The apartment smelled like God’s house and Outkast’s album ATLiens blasted from the television, played off of their co-owned PlayStation 4. The two took their seats in the living room. They put their plates down on their coffee table and began to fuel their bodies for what would ultimately be an exhausting day. The table was a short black Pentagon shaped piece. In the center of it laid the ash tray that Mitch had asked about the night before and a remote control for the television. Darius and Gregg began to feel the caffeine set in. The day was in motion, but they sat there. They both took their last bite and Darius grabbed up the plates and cups and washed them in the kitchen sink. Gregg cut open the blunt and opened a small glass jar of pineapple kush. He placed the leaves of God’s gift into the brown soft paper and rolled it into a real B- of a blunt. It kind of curved and wasn’t even, but it was of no importance. Darius came back and sat in as the session began. The smoke rolled from their mouths out into the thin hot air of the day. A little past halfway through the blunt, Darius put it out in the ancient cross ashtray. They both stared deeply at it. It was a reminder of the past in a war that every being of the planet had to fight at one time or another. As they stared so deeply at it, lyrics from Outkast seemed to break the speakers into a clean Angelic sound. The song was Babylon. “Ooh, I fear the battles just begun. Ooh, though we’re here someday we will be gone. So, I’m hoping, wishing, praying. To keep my faith in you, in you” They instinctively and intuitively looked at each other with great intensity and unease. “We need to tell Mitch.” Gregg said. Darius, with a sad long face, took it in and paused. He looked around the room as if searching for an answer somewhere in the room. Then he focused back to the wooden fireproof cross and in a whisper said, “Yeah. We do. He isn’t ready to understand though.” “Neither were we, when the time was ours D.” Gregg replied. “Truth is, you saw the moon last night. You heard him quote Kathy. You did not hold back on The Pink Lady.” Gregg went on. Darius interrupted the argument there. “If Mitch keeps feeling the battle coming then we will see it before he does. We have the cross. You know that it does not lie when the battle is near. Besides, we ended it a long time ago. Why ruin him man? He’s only a kid. Like how we were; so innocent and open. I look at you Gregg and I remember how it tore you into someone you didn’t know. It did the same to me. So, let’s not forget that. We aren’t here to show him life. He will be fine growing up in bliss.” They both looked again at the cross that looked more like a plus sign now. Without hesitation, Darius grabbed half of the blunt, not smoked, put on his Chicago Cubs baseball cap (backwards), and grabbed the house keys. Gregg, still sitting, obviously shaken by the cross, looked at Darius much like a child who’s fallen and looking to a parent to pick him up might, and said in a low voice, “We have to D. It’s time.” He stood up and followed Darius down to apartment 23. ***** Darius and Gregg came down the stairs slowly. They were older now than they once were and knees from hurt from years of being young and carefree. The sky gave no cover, and the sun was furiously torrid. From the stairs, they turned to their left and apartment 23 was three doors down. As they turned left, they saw Mitch’s door open. A man stood in the doorway. He wore a cloak that looked as if it was made of wool. It looked heavy. He had black pants and shoes, his skin from a distance was pale. As they came closer, he turned around. In his right hand, he held a thick brown leather covered bible. In his left hand, wrapped in a Rosary, he held his own wooden cross. Mitch heard Darius and Gregg walking up and peaked his head out of the door. His eyes were red but with no stain of tears. He was visibly taken by fear. The man in front of him looked to be a priest. Mitch said hello and introduced us to Father Rahm. Father Rahm offered the 46 crew a warm hug and greeting with a genuine smile and kindness. Darius and Gregg looked at each other with astonishment but did not offer up anything other than greetings shared. They walked into Mitch’s home and sat on a thick red velvet covered couch in the living room. Father Rahm offered prayers and asked questions. Mitch answered the questions by describing the dream from that night and the knocking on the window as well as the voice that told him to “Shhhh… It’s Diane.” It was uncomfortable, but Darius and Gregg kept quiet and listened as the priest blessed the apartment and hugged Mitch. He left a piece of paper on the couch that had his number to his offices at the church. He said to please call if anything out of the ordinary happened again. “Anytime, day or night.” Father Rahm said in a comforting but young man’s voice. As Father Rahm exited the doorway, Darius and Gregg stood up. They opened the door. Gregg lit up the blunt and handed it to Mitch. The three walked outside. Neither Gregg nor Darius or Mitch knew just what to say or where to begin. Mitch blew out the smoke. He said, “You know, last night…”

Gregg Gregg stopped him there. “Mitch… When The lights came on in the room at The Pink Lady that night, I became uneasy. Scared even, much like I felt last night. Much like I feel today. I don’t really think that you should go to that club. It’s been twenty plus years since we last went and Juarez just isn’t the same man.” Mitch looked at Gregg. He looked him dead in the eyes and nodded his head that he disagreed with the old man’s advice. “Don’t you see Gregg? Darius?! Something is happening here, and I know in my heart that the two of you aren’t sharing some truth!” Mitch spoke with authority and annoyance in his vocals. “Gregg, look at me! I know you’re a John Lennon fanatic! Wasn’t it John who begged to Give Me Some Truth? Darius! I know you’re getting older, man. Would the Ghetto Boys feel you here? Wouldn’t you like to teach me some real life and say, Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangster?” Darius and Gregg went back upstairs. Mitch followed them, begging for an explanation. The three men entered the 46. Darius went off into his room while Mitch and Gregg sat at the coffee table in the living room. Gregg continued to explain how they got home after their night at The Pink Lady. “You see young man,” he began. “When the lights came on, Darius was there. When the man who he said might have been a pimp entered that room on that particular night, I knew nothing good was going to come of meeting him. I’m not gonna say that it was the move of a coward, but I’ll tell you that I did what I had to. To stay alive. I looked into his eyes, and I did not see a person. Shit, I did not see a man. I saw a being I could not explain but I was young and stupid, so I did not show him my fear, though I’m certain he sensed it.” Gregg had beads of sweat gathering over his brow line. He took a deep breath and continued. “Mitch, the lady. The one on the piano. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen at a glance. When she led me up those stairs… Well, we sat on that bed, and I looked in her eyes. They were red. Red as the moon was that night. It was almost as if when she led me to that room, she led that man. She called on Darius. She controlled that crowd without saying a word. That scared me. And when Darius came in… I knew we had to go. So, when he said hi, on cue, I began saying my goodbyes. Darius probably sensed it. He followed me out and we got followed. We never saw who, but we both knew once we found the shadows on the late-night streets, we were not alone. I remember that night when it all began. We both felt it. We knew something that we couldn’t control was happening. The moon…Mitch, you should have seen. It was red like thick blood fresh from a cut. Mitch… On our way out, I took this ashtray from The Pink Lady. It mesmerized me. It took over my sanity. I want you to turn away from all this. I want you to run. Run far away from this, you heard Kathy. She’s warning you as only she can.” Darius sat down with a jar in his hand. It was the handful of weed that he had received that night, so many years ago. It was still sticky and moist. He handed it to Mitch. He looked at the cross on the table and nodded his head in approval to Gregg. He looked at Mitch and this is what he said.

Darius “First off, it’s not an ashtray it’s a talisman! Damn Mitch aren’t you supposed to be in college? You don’t know what a talisman is?” Mitch shrugged and continued to look perplexed. “It’s a fucking mystical object, like a fucking iPhone to hell.  Here roll this up for me.” Darius hands Mitch a hollowed-out cigar and some of the weed from the jar. Mitch begins to roll the weed into a blunt. “Mitch you’re right we aren’t telling you everything. Honestly, I don’t think you are ready to hear it. But there has to be a reason why Kathy is talking to you. She doesn’t just talk to anyone. There is a war coming my friend and some real freaky shit is about to go down. Diane is close, and I can feel her presence, if she is close then Satan himself isn’t far behind. I don’t know what these motherfuckers are plotting but I know it can’t be good. That night at The Pink Lady it wasn’t a party, and the red shit wasn’t foam. It was blood. The Pink Lady is a popular night spot for vampires, and yeah motherfucker vampires are real.  The tall man with the slicked back long hair wasn’t a pimp he is known as The Father of Nothing, one of the most powerful demons in the underworld. He was all like men are usually so weak and fall so easily into the traps of the undead and how did I resist the charms of his minions? I was like I don’t know about all that I’m just not a fan of getting my face licked. He laughed a very eerie laugh and told his ladies to take me upstairs. I saw Gregg sitting on a bed with the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I was having a great time laughing and joking but when that woman on the bed looked at me, I froze in my tracks. I literally couldn’t move but the weed in my pocket started to burn. The smoke hit my nose and it was like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. I reached into my pocket, and it was as if nothing had happened. No burn marks, ashes, nothing. I kind of just stared in my pocket when Gregg came up to me and said, it’s time to go! On the way home it did feel like we were being followed. But unlike crackheads trying to follow you to steal your wallet, this felt like we were being hunted by something invisible. It was almost like we were being followed by shadows. When we finally got home, I took the weed out of my pocket and spread it on the table. I examined it like a scientist …the shit doesn’t burn. You can smoke it, and it will get you high, but it doesn’t burn. It only turns to ash in that ashtray when the moon begins to turn red. Diane is coming. Evil is coming. Vampires, zombies, demons, and all of that other scary shit you think isn’t real. It’s very real and it wants to take over. You still don’t believe me… I can just tell by the look on your face. Pick up the ashtray and turn it around. Does it say anything?” Mitch picked up the ashtray and examined it. He turned it around and read the back only there were no words. Mitch looked very confused, almost angry thinking that this was more of their bullshit. Darius lit the freshly rolled blunt, passed it to Mitch and spoke. ” Here you hit this. Hold it in for three seconds then blow the smoke on the cross.” Mitch did as Darius suggested, took a drag off the blunt, picked up the ashtray, and exhaled the smoke on the back of the cross. The cross looks more like a plus sign now and there is an inscription that reads. I’m coming back for my side of the apartments I would suck a dog’s dick before letting that bitch take over. Mitch dropped the ashtray and jumped back in his seat on the couch and yelled “What the fuck! What did you put in this weed? “ Darius picked up the ashtray and placed it back in the middle of the table, grabbed the blunt out of Mitch’s hand. As he extinguished the cigar in the ashtray, orange smoke began to trickle from the table slowly filling up the room. “See Mitch, I told you it’s a fucking iPhone to hell. This whole apartment complex is one big gateway to the underworld. Twenty years ago, we closed it and saved the world. Shit, we didn’t get a parade or anything. Kathy used to live in your apartment, she was a great lady. The fucking oracle and one tough broad. She sacrificed herself to close that shit as a matter of fact. Diane was a demon lady who lived in apartment 1. She was sweet but she is also Satan’s personal assistant and keeper of his hell hounds. Diane really did say that strange shit about sucking a dog dick. But again, she was a sweet lady and a pretty good cook surprisingly. Besides the whole plot to bring hell to earth thing she was alright. Take a look downstairs and you will see the apartments start at 2. Look, I know you think we’re crazy, but there is a lot you don’t know, and don’t want to know. My advice to you. Go home and stay out of it.”

(To be continued)

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