After Midnight is a collection of 21 stories, written by the terrifyingly good horror writer, Joseph Rubas. Enjoy this first story and a link at the bottom will take you to our website where you can purchase the book.
My City
Las Vegas: a twinkling gem lost in the vast, arid badlands, an electric oasis rising from hardpan plains, paradise in the wilderness, a playground for the rich and famous, a city of vacations. All play and no work. It's always summer.
As dusk draws on, I stroll the Strip, caught up in the flow of humanity, pushed past grand hotels and shimmering casinos, sidewalk cafes and nightclubs where the drinks are cold, the women are hot, and admission is high. I occasionally stop and drink in the sights. From North Vegas to The Palms, the gutters and the penthouses, the most palatial vacation home to the dingiest crack den, no one knows this city or loves it better than I.
I break from the majestic avenue and step into the lobby of the MGM Grand, arched and breathtaking, alive with activity. Even at the latest hour it's never empty and never quiet. There's a small, pleasant bar near the golden double doors. I enter, take a booth in the shadows, and watch as a businessman tenderly coos to a big-breasted blond on a stool next to him, the smell of quiet desperation pouring off him. The blonde herself HIV positive. The stench of it is almost overpowering.
A waitress approaches and smiles, a young girl with red hair and bright green eyes. I order a rum and Coke, and she rushes off to fetch it, her buttocks wiggling under her tight black uniform pants. Fucking whore. I couldn’t smell her clearly over the blonde and the businessman, but as she stood over me, I caught the wet, lurid scent of her. Looking into her eyes, I saw her soul, her thoughts, and her memories. Once she let a man cuff her hands behind her back and take her in the Greek style. She enjoyed it, still masturbates to the fading memory.
People. What is there to say about mankind? Dirty, filthy, ugly, ignorant, pitiful, trifling. The waitress returns with my drink, and I hand her a paltry tip. She smiles, thanks me profusely, and goes off to serve a couple who's just entered, a short Mexican man and his pregnant white girlfriend. The baby, I can sense, has little more than six hours until it dies in the womb.
I sip my drink and watch the businessman. He's in his mid-forties, pot-bellied, balding, and wearing large glasses the likes of which the modern world has no use for. His forehead glimmers with a sheen of perspiration, and when he speaks his voice is husky. The blond giggles at something he says. She tilts her head, hair falling away from her slender throat; a pang of lust ripples in my stomach; my mouth goes dry as I imagine her warm, coppery blood flowing into me. I take a swallow of my drink, which does absolutely nothing to quench my thirst.
The Mexican laughs at something his girlfriend says. His hair is black and oil, his flesh dirty. He's a hard worker, an upstanding man by human standards, but apparently he's never heard of bathing. I study his filthy neck, imagining the rancid taste of his odorous blood, and my bloodlust slowly subsides.
Think about baseball...
Calm, I take another long sip of my drink. The waitress glides back over and asks if I'd like another. She's thinking of what I would feel like on top of her, thrusting myself deep into her. My stomach turns and I tell her no, I'm fine. She leaves again, and I follow shortly, emerging back into the lobby. A few women in pink dresses pass by like cheerful nuns, followed by a few rowdy young men in tuxes.
Out on the sidewalk, I pause and look up and down my beloved strip. The sun has gone down, the dark sky hazy with neon.
Several blocks later, I come across a young black youth standing agitatedly on the corner. He whips around as if he heard me approach. His smell is different, cold and stale.
