From her vantage point atop the Mother Lode Theater on West Park, Sister Kilia “Toots Roll” Tosh could clearly see the dumpsters in the alley across the way, behind the Mongolian grill – which had of course been closed for hours. It was almost four in the morning, and just about everything had been closed for hours. But this was the time when Sister Kilia Toots liked to prowl. It was a time when regular folks were less likely to be out and about; less likely to witness a dark-skinned nun dressed in full habit and with long white dreadlocks slithering down her back – less likely to see her scaling the sheer walls of old brick buildings and bounding fifteen or twenty feet into the air with a single leap.
This was the time for the Unblessed Vampire Sister of the Jamaican Catholic Apocalypse to do her hunting.
Sister K.T.’s eyesight in the dark was impeccable. So was her hearing, even though she was wearing an ear bud that was playing an endless loop of her favorite singer – Nancy Sinatra. Few people knew that Ms. Sinatra was also a vampire, and Sister K.T. really related to her message. She obviously had the upper hand on every other creature that she encountered, particularly the males of the species – the blood sucking was only vaguely hinted at in a few of the numbers but to Kilia it was clear as night. She figured the dusky-voiced starlet was probably feeding on her musical partner Lee Hazlewood throughout the 1960s.
Sister Kilia Toots tuned into some rustling noises in the area of the dumpsters. Someone or something was scrounging around down there – and whatever it was that was hunting for decaying food in the garbage bins, was about to be transformed from the hunter to the hunted. The Sister smiled and her fangs dripped bloody saliva onto the front of her scapular. She was more or less under a self-imposed vow of silence and tried to rarely let out so much as a peep. But when she noticed the slobber stains on her tunic she uttered a single word in response:
“Shit.”
Being one of the Unholy Undead, it wasn’t really practical for Sister K.T. to wear a crucifix or a rosary, such as most living nuns would have chosen to adorn themselves with. The smell of her own seared and burning flesh would have been a distraction to say the least. Instead Kilia Toots had a Volkswagen hood ornament around her neck on a chain that was rather too thick and clumsy, but necessary to hold the cumbersome emblem. She had removed it from the fresh corpse of some hip-hop or gangsta rap poser after she was finished draining him of both his blood and his bad musical taste. Adding the essence of the beat of his heart and his music to her already uneasy mix of Bob Marley and Nancy Sinatra was yet another distraction, but so be it. This was but one of the adjustments she was forced to make to remain a Bride of Jesus in spite of the fact that she was a full-fanged blood sucking hellspawn most of the time.
Her existence these days was a conflicted one, but the Sister endeavored to persevere.
As she gazed closer across the alley, her shoulders slumped a bit. Her unnatural vision penetrated the darkness and enabled her to get a clear view of the being invading the dumpster. She was disappointed. This was not a creature that possessed either life, or blood, or even much of a brain. She knew this thing. However, there was something else at play here. She could feel some other mystical element attached to the aura of this dim-witted undead stooge that was busily decaying in the alley across the way. She was going to have to get a closer look to get spiritual clarification.
With a disgusted grunt she leapt from the top of the theater. Her VW bling flipped up and hit her in the eye as she eerily descended to the alley just behind the dumpster, which was being loudly invaded by none other than Cracky, that stupid zombie creature that was always staggering through the streets like an inebriated copper miner after a St. Patrick’s Day parade.
Cracky sensed her presence. He pulled most of his left arm out of the dumpster (the hand had come loose and was still in the garbage container clutched around a half-eaten noodle bowl), and turned to see Sister Toots. He didn’t currently have any of the pieces of gray matter necessary to actually recognize her, though they did in fact know each other and had even dated once or twice many years ago, before either had attained their current state of evil piety and/or Undeadness. But this was another story, and as noted, one which the clumsy corpse was not currently privy to and which the vampire nun would have given almost anything to forget. So Cracky just stood there staring, and as he started to lose his balance his knees began to noisily knock together.
Sister Kilia Toots stood and stared back at the rickety dead thing for a long moment. She was reading the aura which surrounded him, and there was definitely some other mystical element which he had recently been in contact with – and not something that was commonly encountered on the streets of Butte. It was not currently present, but Kilia could sense that it was still somehow connected to this idiot. Her glowing red eyes smoldered menacingly in her skull. Moonlight danced off the wet fangs that protruded over her bottom lip. There was no sound.
Cracky finally found his voice. “Do you have any Jughead comic books to sell or trade?” he asked rather timidly.
Sister K.T. slowly closed her thin white lids over the glowing red orbs. Her body language mimicked a deep sigh, even though she did not breathe.
“Balls,” she said, and with a nearly silent swoosh she lifted off the ground and was gone. Cracky’s knees gave a final hard knock and some bone chips clattered onto the pavement.
By this time Sister Kilia Toots was already two blocks south. She shook her head in disgust. She was going to have to listen to some inspiring tunes, like maybe “You Only Live Twice”, in order to sort out and identify this interesting but unknown spiritual element.
Maybe there would be a stray dog or something hanging out behind Butte Central High on Galena. Her hunger was going to have to be assuaged one way or another before she could muster the necessary concentration to figure this thing out. Pickings were so slim in this town these days it was almost enough to make you pack it in. If only the mines were still open. The tangy aftertaste of copper dust that she used to feel dancing across her tongue after drinking from a miner was a delicacy that was sorely missed around here these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment