RED RAIN

  Forty-One Stories

  by

  J.R. Rain

  Collections Book 4

  Red Rain

  Published by J.R. Rain

  Copyright © 2014 by J.R. Rain

  All rights reserved.

  Ebook Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Dedication

  To the amazing Sandra.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Vampire Nights

  Book Burning

  The Silo

  My Father’s Eyes

  The Fridge

  Die Spy

  Step On a Crack

  Two Ghosts

  Deal With the Devil

  The Back of Beyond

  Vampire Blues

  Nightmare

  Soul Train

  Vampire Rain

  They Came From the Sea

  Teeth

  Vampire Dreams

  Rearview Mirror

  Death Came Knocking On My Window

  The Santa Call

  Halloween Moon

  The Falcon

  The Angel and the Pistol

  More Sugar

  Mad Dog

  Behind the Shower Curtain

  Nature’s Assassins

  Vampire Gold

  Grampire

  The Bleeder

  Blue Moon

  Vampire vs. Bigfoot

  The Bull

  The Prophetic Heart

  Zombie App

  Merlin’s Tomb

  Samantha Moon’s Blog

  Dark Side of the Moon

  Easy Rider

  The Fire Lord

  Castle for Sale

  Reading Sample

  About the Author

  Vampire Nights

  It was late and I was at a Denny’s.

  Other than a creepy old man sitting alone at the counter who occasionally glanced at me, no one seemed to notice that I had been crying. I ordered a steak, very rare, and was now using a spoon to sip some of the blood that had pooled around the meat. I left the meat itself untouched.

  A rowdy group of high schoolers sat in the far corner of the restaurant. Late night at Denny’s was, as I understood it, part of the partying circuit. Cruise through a handful of parties, then hit a Denny’s late at night and make drunken asses of yourselves.

  Tonight, however, I found their laughing and snorting and general mayhem somewhat comforting. They were buzzing with life and energy, with expectations, hopes and dreams. Granted, the extent of their hopes and dreams might not have extended further than, say, getting laid tonight or their next buzz. Still, a dream was a dream, and these kids were overflowing with them.

  I used to dream.

  The creepy old man slowly got up from the counter, paused as if debating something, and then headed straight over to me. Great. I seriously did not want company tonight. I certainly did not want to listen to the incoherent ramblings of a deranged and damaged mind. I inwardly, and even outwardly, groaned.

  “May I sit?” he asked pleasantly, motioning toward the seat across from me, showing no signs that he had heard my groan.

  He didn’t sound drunk. He sounded, if anything, lucid and friendly. Still, now was not a good night. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather be alone.”

  “Being alone with one’s thoughts is most advantageous, but I will be leaving soon and thought that maybe we could chat for a few minutes before I do so.”

  Leaving soon was good. I looked at him, willing him to leave with my mind, but he didn’t. I shrugged, and he next began the long process of sitting in the booth opposite me. I think one of the kids in the far corner had gotten up to pee and returned again before the old man had finally sat. Yes, that was an exaggeration. No, it wasn’t that far off. I think he might have had a trick hip or a bum knee, or both.

  “My name’s Jack,” he said, smiling serenely.

  “Sam,” I said, not smiling serenely. Or even pleasantly. Or at all.

  There was a hint of body odor to him. Not overwhelmingly bad, but evident. His clothes looked old, too, but not particularly ratty. A smudge of dirt was on his cheek, and there was a hint of a food stain over his shirt pocket. Ketchup maybe. Or blood. He was either homeless or damn close to it.

  I sniffed. No, not blood. Definitely not blood.

  “So, what are you doing out so late, Jack?” I asked, since he was just sitting there and staring at me. He didn’t make me feel comfortable. Very few people could ever make me feel comfortable. If anything, I tended to make them squirm these days.

  He said, “You could say I’m a creature of the night.”

  My breath caught in my throat and I’m sure my eyes narrowed a little, but he kept smiling pleasantly at me and didn’t seem to intend any double meaning to his words.

  “And what about you, Sam?” he asked, still smiling. “What are you doing out so late?”

  “Oh, I’m definitely a creature of the night,” I said, although I wasn’t sure why I said it. Surely no one would see the truth in my words. I was just making a little joke, pleasantly playing on the old man’s own words. Still, I rarely joked about such things. And why I did now was still a mystery to me.

  He nodded but made no comment. He glanced down at the untouched bloody steak in front of me but made no comment. He then looked up at me with such compassion and warmth in his eyes that my breath caught in my throat. If I wasn’t already cold, I think a shiver might have coursed through me.

  He knows, I suddenly thought.

  He continued looking at me. He continued smiling and holding my gaze. A distant memory tugged at me. Very, very distant. I was suddenly certain that I knew him.

  You’re crazy, I thought.

  “You’re not crazy,” he said quietly. “You’re just confused and hurt and lonely.”

  I sat up, suddenly alarmed. The man, I was certain, had just read my thoughts.

  “The ability to read thoughts is in each of us,” he said. “This ability, sadly, has been forgotten. Or, rather, suppressed.”

  “Who are you?” I asked. My voice sounded distant and weak and scared.

  “Just a friend,” he said. “And you, Sam, are a vampire.”

  ***

  We were walking outside.

  The night was cool and the partial moon hung just above the nearby Chuck E. Cheese’s. Only a handful of the brightest stars penetrated the Southern California smog.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I know things,” he said. “I know a lot of things. And so do you. So does everyone. The knowledge is always inside us. Forgotten, but there.”

  “I take it you are not a bum.”

  “I am many things, as are you.”

  I’m a vampire, I thought instantly.

  “True,” he said, as if I had spoken the words aloud. “But you are much more than a vampire.”

  “And that does not freak you out?” I asked. “You aren’t concerned for your safety?”

  “If you wanted to kill me, to feed on me, to partake of my blood, I would happily give you my life.”

  We were walking down Harbor Boulevard, about two miles south of downtown, about a thirty-minute walk to where I had been attacked by a gang a few months ago.

  “You would give up your life?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I would assume you had a very good reason for such a request.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Maybe it’s not time for you to understand.”

  “Who are you?” I asked again.

  “Who do you think I am?”

  I didn’t know. I couldn’t begin to know. I wasn’t sure what was happening, truth be known. One minute, I wanted to wallow in self-pity alone at Denny’s, and the next, I was walking with an old man who knew my deepest, darkest secret.

  “I think I might be dreaming,” I finally said.

  “Whether you are dreaming or awake, hallucinating or experiencing, the truth will always be the truth.”

  “And what is the truth?” I asked. We were passing an all-night donut shop. I could see someone partially covered in flour, working in the back. Who knew donut making was so messy? Messy or not, I briefly longed for a chocolate long john. For a chocolate anything.

  He said, “Truth is feeling.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You can feel when something is true. More people should trust their feelings.”

  Jack, I saw, was walking with his hands clasped behind his back, even while his bum right leg seemed to be giving him problems.

  “Are you an angel?” I asked suddenly.

  “Does that feel right?”

  “It feels close,” I said.

  “Good, then go with that.”

  “Then it’s true?”

  “Does it feel true?” he asked.

  “Oh, brother.”

  He grinned again, and surprised me by suddenly reaching out and taking my hand. He had a firm grasp and we stopped on the sidewalk. I resisted a very strong impulse to yank my hand free. I rarely touched people. My skin is cold to the touch and often elicits questions. I don’t need such questions. And I don’t need to be reminded that I feel like a corpse in a cold morgue. I think he sensed I might pull away and gripped my hand even tighter.

  “It’s okay, Sam,” he said.

  I relaxed. His own hand was very, v
ery warm. He gripped me urgently and I felt wave after wave of love radiating from him, through his hand somehow, and into me. I nearly broke down and wept.

  “You do not feel like you deserve love,” he said, perhaps reading my thoughts again, or perhaps sensing my pain.

  “No,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m a monster. Monsters don’t love.”

  “Do you love your children, Sam?”

  I was about to ask how he knew I had children, but I think I had accepted that this old man knew stuff about me that he really shouldn’t, and that he was probably much more than just an old man.

  I nearly pinched myself to see if I was awake, except that pinching myself no longer had the same effect it might have had back when I was mortal.

  “Yes,” I said. “More than anything. But that’s different.”

  “How so? Love is love.”

  “I do not feel like I can be loved in return.”

  “Do your children love you, Sam?”

  “Usually.”

  “Always,” he said, correcting me gently. “I promise you that.”

  “Who are you?”

  “Who do you think I am?”

  “Never mind.” I pulled back my hand and we started walking again.

  “But I know what you mean, Sam. You do not think you are worthy of romantic love.”

  “Of course not. Who would love me?”

  “No one,” he said, “in your current state of mind.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that being loved is up to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When you love yourself, others will follow. Perhaps even a very special someone.”

  We walked in silence. The old man didn’t so much walk as shuffle and drag. I slowed my pace. The night was quiet. Just a few cars. A sliver of moon hung in the sky above The Olde Spaghetti Factory near the downtown Fullerton train station.

  “Am I immortal?” I suddenly asked.

  “Do you feel immortal?”

  I thought about that. “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I imagine you do.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” I said.

  “Sometimes we already know the answers, Sam. Some questions don’t need to be asked.”

  “But how am I immortal? How? What’s keeping me alive?”

  He was walking with his hands clasped behind him again. “There are many things in this world, Sam, that defy explanation. As it was designed to be.”

  “That doesn’t help me.”

  “Some of life’s mysteries are not meant to be known.”

  “But I am now one of life’s mysteries. I want to know.”

  “To know what?”

  “What’s keeping me alive?”

  “You are always alive, Sam. All of us. Our souls never cease to be.”

  “How does this physical body stay alive?”

  He nodded. I knew he knew what I meant, and I suspected that he enjoyed making me work toward clarity. “Ah, it’s in your blood, Sam. It’s always in the blood.”

  “My tainted blood.”

  “Why do you call it tainted?”

  “Because it is.”

  “I see,” he said, and nodded, “and if it is tainted, as you say, would such a thing make you any less than who you are?”

  We started walking underneath the overpass, where Harbor dips down below the train tracks. I heard rustling from somewhere nearby and knew that we were being watched by those who lived under the bridge. A very different kind of creature of the night, the mortal kind, the homeless kind.

  “Perhaps not,” I said, “but it has changed my life considerably.”

  “Change is good.”

  “So, being changed into a vampire is a good thing?” I asked, looking at him sideways.

  “You have been given a chance—a very rare chance, I might add—to express yourself in ways that many people will never, ever experience. You could choose to see this as an opportunity or as a curse.”

  Suddenly, and with little warning, I erupted into tears. I buried my face into my hands as the old man reached around my shoulders and held me close. It was the first real compassion I’d felt in a long, long time. I turned and hugged the old man back, and I suddenly, in the deepest part of my being, knew who he was.

  When I finally got control of myself to speak, I did so into his shoulder. “So, I am not evil?”

  “No, sweetheart.”

  “And I have not been forgotten?”

  “By who?”

  “By God.”

  “Who could forget you, Samantha?”

  “Are you a...” But I could not speak my question. Not now, at least.

  “I am many things,” he said. “And so are you.”

  The End

  Return to the Table of Contents

  Book Burning

  First you take one evil book, find a quiet, preferably safe spot; and proceed to set fire. As of this writing, public bonfires are against the law, so take precautions. High-pitched screams of fury and anguish are expected, but they’re really quite harmless. It’s just the pissed-off demons sinking deeper into hell.

  ***

  Why I bought Necronomicon I do not know. The book looked interesting, I suppose. Conjuring old gods and demons into our world wasn’t high on my to-do list, but I’m game for anything. And besides, I write horror stories, and something like the Necronomicon would be great for research. I’m also still young enough (twenty-one) and naïve enough to believe that magic really does exist in our world.

  Anyway, the sales clerk at Barnes & Noble did a double take when he saw my book. He glanced up at me sharply. “Are you into this sort of thing?” he asked.

  “Into what sort of thing?”

  He touched the book lightly. “Conjuring demons and old gods and monsters into our world.”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  “Too bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind,” he said, and tucked the receipt into the bag. And as I left Barnes & Noble he stared at me the whole way out. I couldn’t help but notice the hair at the back of my neck was standing on end.

  I set off on my journey home, and after parking my bicycle in my parent’s garage, I was a dripping, sweating mess. God, I wished the mechanics would hurry with my car. I was given an old Camaro for my birthday, and it’s done nothing but break down. This “gift” has ended up costing me thousands of dollars.

  At any rate, I was soon immersed in the book. With my trusty dictionary at my side for some of the bigger words, I entered a world of black magic and dark sorcery. Good stuff. Time flew by and I was soon being summoned for dinner. One more paragraph. I heard my name again.

  “Just a minute!” I called out. Good book. Damn good book. Just one more page.

  Good page. Perhaps just one more paragraph.

  My mother called me again. And again. I turned another page, and another.

  Dinner came and went and still I read, far into the night, my hungry stomach ignored and all but forgotten.

  ***

  “Dude, she wanted me,” said H.T., my brother.

  “How could you tell?” I asked.

  It was twelve-thirty at night, and my brother had just gotten home from whatever he does at night, the vampire. Actually, I knew what he did. He dated. A lot. Me, not so much. I tended to stay home and work on my stories, even on week nights. I had just hit the sheets when my brother came home. He was buzzed and in a talkative mood. He would not be denied. I had reluctantly sat up in bed and turned on my bedside lamp.

  “Is grabbing my ass a strong enough indicator?” he said.

  “She really grabbed your ass?” I was twenty-one and still a virgin. Yes, laugh all you want. But girls really didn’t figure into my plans.