The sunset over the Nebraskan sandhills was the color of fire. The clouds, high and wispy, illuminated from below by the bright oranges. It faded to greens and then the pale blue of the wide open plains. The grasses of the plains wave in the gentle breeze, filling the air with their smell, and at the very back of the smell is a hint of salt, a tribute to the area’s history millions of years ago.
But today and now the lights of Jim’s Gas glow with neon and fluorescent lights. Josh stands alone next to pump number 3. On the machine next to him is a red slushy. “Now that is a view,” he whispers. A chill runs up his spine as the temperature starts to drop without the warmth of the sun. He screams at a sudden touch. He spins around to be face-to-face with Trish.
“You’re jumpy tonight,” she says, touching his chest, feeling his heart beat under her hand, and smelling him through his skin. She bites her tongue, the black, acrid blood ruining her sense of smell. She lets go of him. “He will be here?”
Josh, gasping and praying he didn’t pee himself, feels his crotch. “Yeah, he said he would.” The pants are dry.
Trish laughs and leans on the gas pump. The light from the setting sun hit the man in front of her. This noble human is a relic of an age that no longer exists. A delicacy to be savored and not drunk all at once. She bites her tongue again. “I am not a slave to the hunger,” she cries in her mind.
Josh watches Trish struggle with her emotions. At times her face is tinged with hunger, and at others it’s with lust. He shivers again, but not from the cold. “He will be here.”
Trish hears it first: a van moving down the highway. She can hear the driver grumbling to himself. She watches him put it in park and leave it running. It is quietly purring as it idles.
“Mr. Finder,” Josh nods his head to the vampire. Examining his birdshot-hole-filled greatcoat, “This is Trish,” he points, “and you know my name.”
“I know your name, Josh Gas, of the Gas family,” the finder says in an even tone. “And she knows me quite well.”
Josh turns and looks at Trish. “How does he know you?” He watches her expressions, and she smirks and then frowns.
“We met in France the first time; it didn’t go well,” Trish says, running a hand down the side of the gas pump.
“It was Paris, and it went well at first. Till you do what you always do,” the finder smirks, “that time you fell in love and then killed.”
Trish glares at him. “I was a different person in the 1820s,” she says in defense.
The finder runs his hands over his clothes. “And when we met in the 1840s?” He says with a smile, “That time you killed and then fell in love.”
“We are not here to talk about my past or your past.” Trish slides her feet apart and puts one forward, taking a traditional fencing stance.
“Did you tell loverboy? About your problem?” The finder smirks, enjoying the little needles he is shoving under Trish’s thick skin. “About the bodies?”
Josh gas puts a hand between the two vampires. ‘I can feel the heat of their gaze on my hand,’ he whispers in his head. “What can we do to get you to leave the door alone?”
The finder laughs, then laughs harder. “Oh, that’s rich. You think you can bribe me off from getting the door?”
“What can I give you that is of greater value than the door, Mr. Finder?” Josh Gas says to the vampire.
The vampire laughs again, his teeth showing, looking red with the light of the lowering sun. “Immortality is what I am willing to trade for the door. Is that something you sell, Josh? In your gas station in the middle of nowhere?” he mocks the human.
“You’re already immortal.” Trish’s eyebrows wrinkle in confusion.
“Am I?” The finder opens his trench coat and lifts his shirt to reveal the bright red rashes of the silver embedded in him.
Trish covers her face in disgust. “What happened? You should be healing.”
“Berlin happened… A cursed city,” he says through gritted teeth. “And that door is my ticket to a cure.”
Trish looks at the wounds. “What can do that to a vampire?” she asks, stepping away 2 steps.
“Silver, Trisha. Powered silver and ridiculous Nazis.” He lowers his shirt. “Now give me the door, or we keep playing this game till one of us dies, and I take it anyway. I am dying, but not as quickly as you, Josh Gas.”
Trish looks at the man she loved twice before the age of steam. “There has to be a cure.”
“You’re not as brilliant as I remember if you don’t think I have looked. There is a cure, and the door gets me to it. You want me to leave the door alone? This is what you’re up against.” The vampire laughs. “So tell me, got any elixir of life? Or unlike, just to be safe?” The vampire has the look of a hurt animal cornered, “because if not, I need that door, and I will stop at nothing to get it.”
“I will ask the ranch to see what they can do. They have technology that doesn’t belong to this world,” Josh states, but he doubts there is anything at the ranch that this vampire hasn’t already tried.
“24 hours, Josh, or I will end this one way or the other. See you around, Trish. Let me know when you want to dance next.” She covers her mouth as he walks away, climbing back into the truck and driving off.
Josh feels a hand in his; he looks down, then up at her face.
“24 hours.” Trish kisses his cheek; her lips tingle with electricity. “We best get asking for help again.”
“The Ranch won’t help unless we give them the door.” Josh says, playing with his hair, “And I am not convinced they won’t tear it apart looking for the child.”
Trish, the vampire with a trail of bodies behind her and an insatiable addiction, smiles with all of the humanity she has left. “We try anyway.”
