Nightfallen

The Underground

But that initial hesitation kept bothering me.

We were bad things. That was automatic as soon as you dug yourself out of the earth in which you'd been buried three nights before. You were a soulless monster.

That's not to say you instantly ran around pillaging and slaughtering—our evil was tempered by our self-interest in not being killed, which meant drawing as little attention as possible.

What self-interest was there in not using a girl who wouldn't remember? The only answer seemed to be Jackson had a lingering morality. As I thought about it during the nights afterward, even though he'd eventually played with her, it seemed like the actions of someone trying to blend in rather than really belonging.

Then there was the fight in the alley. The meathead's cross had blinded me, but Jackson had walked up to him easily. As if he hadn't even noticed it. Combine all that with the fact his saliva didn't have any healing effect . . .

On a smartphone bought with victims' money, I googled him. His obituary was from a month ago:

Sgt. Jackson J. Wheel died Wednesday at the Harrisburg Veterans Hospital from injuries suffered in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan's Helmand Province two months prior.

Born on Halloween night, 1983, "Wheeljack", as he was known in his unit, was a native son of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of three brothers that would all eventually join the military, Jackson enlisted in the Army after graduating high school. His family was enormously proud to see him graduate the U.S. Army Ranger School and join the 75th Rangers Regiment. His service to his country included 10 combat deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan . . .

Along with a list of his surviving relatives, the obit casually mentioned some of the courses and schools he'd graduated from. Their understated titles—things like "Pathfinder School" and "Joint Firepower Control Course"—sounded impressive, even if I had no idea what they were. Three combat ribbons and a Silver Star sounded like a lot too.

At least his story checked out. The obituary's reference to dying two months after being injured dovetailed with what Jackson had told me about becoming Nightfallen while in a hospital.

I could have left it at that. I liked him, after all. We began getting together every couple of nights. As non-Nightfallen as it may sound, it was nice having him to flirt with, a pleasant break from home life with Nathan and my sisters, where I was losing myself a little more each night, being reduced to a mindless plaything.

Luring food back to the house wasn't so bad, but constantly buying lingerie to replace what Gina, Cynthia, and I tore off one another was getting to be a bit much. Who knew a big part of what it meant to be a Le Femme Nosferatu was modeling fetish wear and having bisexual sex? Increasingly, it seemed like that's all there was.

But Jackson offered something more: a mystery. I wanted to solve him.

We'd hung out the night before, so it was going to be a few days before we met in Café Trios again. He'd be alone tonight—or at least doing whatever he normally did when I wasn't around.

He hadn't shown me his den, so I didn't know where he would be coming from. But when we'd met in the alley, he'd said that he'd seen me around town. I mostly kept to Dominion Street and the nearby Ramsgate upper quad. Given that it was the heart of the college, it followed he'd be in the area at some point.

I climbed a rickety fire escape to the roof of the same building where I'd taken Tracy, and waited.

The first night, I didn't seem him. The next night, I was on the roof again. By two in the morning, the Dominion Street bars were emptying out, undergrads milling around to get leads on parties or make a last-ditch effort to find someone to go home with. All that young life shined. In the middle of it, I spotted a piece of blackness.