Sharif Covington pulled into the parking garage across from Terminal 2 in JFK International Airport as he had every Monday but two for the past eleven years. One of those missed Mondays had been due to the passing of his mother in 2002. The other had come shortly after the death of his previous life only a year and a half ago. His mother probably would have said he was being melodramatic, that he should just accept his new reality and overcome whatever adversity accompanied it, but her only son being bitten by a vampire might have been too much for her to handle with typical stoicism.
Sharif parked, grabbed his briefcase, and got out. As he turned to lock the vehicle, the sight of it sent him into yet another emotional tailspin. Could he have gotten something other than a four-door in drab gray? They’d had plenty of others on the used lot: different colors, coupes, even ones with sunroofs. Geez, he hadn’t even had the guts to get a new car, though he made more than enough in sales commissions to easily pay for one without financing. Shying away from going after what he wanted was a hallmark of his life, pathetically even now.
He wrenched himself away from the car and plodded toward the terminal. He was such a failure as a man that it carried over to his new existence. Sure, plenty of bitten refused to kill a human, and as such Sharif considered himself morally solid. Full conversion didn’t require biting a human, though, only a living being, yet Sharif still couldn’t do it. The thought of putting into his mouth any being that wasn’t cooked, or in the case of sushi at least dead, made him gag. He’d never have the courage, thus he’d always be as anemic as he was since he’d been bitten, but then physical passivity was much like emotional passivity, and he was long used to that.
Sharif crossed the main road at the intersection and entered the terminal. He made his way to the automated kiosk and began to retrieve his ticket. He had just printed it when a scream from the check-in lines caught his attention.
“Sir, can we please look inside your mouth?” a security guard just past the metal detectors said to the man at the front of the line.
“You want to see my mouth? Fine,” said the man, who promptly bared three-inch fangs and hissed liked a snake just as two more guards arrived. The woman behind him on line screamed in the voice Sharif had heard. Two NYPD officers and three National Guardsmen arrived seconds later.
“Sir, let’s end this safely,” said one of the cops, his hand on his holstered weapon as his partner backed him up from the side. The Guard ushered people away to a safe distance, not that they needed to; there had been enough dangerous incidents with vampires to convert the “wow” factor into a general public fear.
“Safety at the expense of liberty,” the vampire said. “When will it end?”
“That’s not my call,” the officer said. “I just enforce the laws.”
“Show me a law that calls for probing orifices.”
“I can show you one for mandatory identification of your kind.”
“And what is my kind?” the vampire asked with only partial sarcasm; the rest of his tone was genuine frustration and sorrow. “Math professor? Hospital volunteer? Husband and father?”
“Look,” said the cop, “we live in a new world. First terrorists, now vampires.”
“The two are not synonymous,” the vampire said. He rolled up a sleeve and held out his arm.
“Not here,” the cop said.
“Thank you,” the vampire replied. He collected his belongings and followed the cops away.
“Never thought I’d see it again,” said someone at the kiosk to Sharif’s left. It was an old man.
“See what?” Sharif asked.
“This,” the old man answered. He rolled up his own sleeve to reveal a seven-digit tattoo. He was a Holocaust survivor. “They hunted us, too, made us register before they killed us. And don’t think that’s not what the government has in store for them. Forget all the talk about a sovereign vampire nation and dual citizenship. Nobody wants them around.”
“But they’re human beings,” Sharif said with horror.
“So were we,” the old man said before leaving.
“Hey, are you finished?” came a voice from behind Sharif. He touched “no receipt” on the screen and walked away from the kiosk. Unlike normal, though, he found himself heading back toward the exit instead of to check-in.
Sharif stopped walking and considered his situation. If he went ahead on the business trip, he’d be identified as a vampire, something he had so far purposely avoided. Being black, he’d experienced the prejudice the old man had hinted at, though clearly not to the same degree; as a vampire, the hatred would only grow. Sharif just wanted to be left alone to earn his keep and dream his dreams.
He looked back at the metal detectors with regret, knowing he’d have to change jobs to one that did not require registered travel. He locked eyes with one of the Guardsmen, who’d remained as a calming presence. Something about him must not have sat right with her, for she tugged at a colleague’s arm and pointed over at Sharif. Sharif instinctively headed for the exit again, and before he fully turned forward he saw all three Guardsmen follow him.
He exited the terminal and walked the fastest he felt he could go without drawing even more attention to himself. He was soon back in the parking garage, and as he turned into his car’s aisle he looked toward the terminal. One of the Guardsmen flanked to his left, one to the right, and the one who’d spotted him came straight in.
Sharif ducked between two cars, his heart pumping like crazy. He hugged the ground and scanned between tires for signs of the Guards. He saw a pair of black boots slowly go step over step as the one who had flanked to his right methodically searched for his prey.
Prey? Was that how Sharif saw the world now? If so, it was because he was the hunted, as the old man had said. But unlike Jews, vampires were stalked because they had killed first. Humans were out to kill his kind because they feared for their own lives.
As well they should, Sharif suddenly decided. He’d avoided conflict for thirty-six years, knowing he’d fail under the pressure. He’d been wrong. Dead wrong.
The scrape of a boot brought his head around to the other side. The left-flanker was two aisles over and moving up the aisle in his direction. Another ten cars and he’d see Sharif, except Sharif would show himself before then.
Covington rose to a crouch and walked with a hunch to the aisle between him and the left-flanker. Not that he was afraid, as a blood-rush peeled away decades of trepidation like layers of an onion, but he’d heard tales of special anti-vampire weapons. They might be myths, and such weapons if they did exist would more likely be given to cops than Guardsmen, but Sharif wasn’t taking any chances.
The aisle was clear, so Sharif hunch-walked to the next one and crouched even lower. The Guard was about six cars down the aisle now and getting closer. Sharif waited until he was two cars away and, when the man’s head was turned to scan between cars across the aisle, Sharif hurled his briefcase. It landed with a thud between two cars, and the Guardsman turned toward the noise. With the man’s back turned, Sharif pounced.
With superhuman ability, Sharif went higher and farther than he had ever thought possible. He landed on the Guard’s back, knocking him to the ground and sending his rifle skittering across the pavement. The man screamed, and Sharif heard boots come their way from two different directions. He dragged the Guard to his feet, stood behind him, and held fangs at his neck.
The other two Guardsmen thrust into the aisle, one in front of Sharif and one behind him. Sharif quickly turned to the side and backed between cars for protection, taking the first Guard with him.
“Let him go,” said the female Guard who had first seen him. The tag on her uniform read Torres, and her voice had a slight Spanish accent.
“Not gonna happen,” Sharif said through his fangs. He could have a career as a ventriloquist.
“Brother, you won’t get hurt,” said the other Guard. His name was Jones and he was black just like Sharif.
“I’m not your brother,” Sharif spat, pissed at the presumption and getting vampire spit on the first Guard’s neck. He wondered if it were poisonous.
“No offense,” Torres said. “Just let our man go.”
Oh, Sharif would let him go, but not without inflicting a measure of justice. Sharif bit the Guardsman on the neck but hesitated at going completely in. Should he go for the kill or merely for conversion? Conversion would spare his life, but what kind of life would it be? Had Sharif the right to force it, as the previous vampire – Mario, he remembered – done to him? Plus, leaving him alive meant he could kill Sharif in revenge.
In the end it came down to neither fairness nor ethics but to hunger and thirst. Sharif bit down on the carotid artery, drinking heavily of the man’s blood. When he’d had his fill, he ripped off huge chunks of flesh and swallowed them without chewing. Completely sated, he let the dead man fall and turned to his partners. The Guards came in with rifles blazing. A bullet nicked Sharif’s left elbow as he leaped over and between cars to gain a better position.
Sharif came to a crouching stop and saw the abandoned rifle nearby. He dove for it, brought it to bear on his attackers, and emptied the full clip into both of them. Torres and Jones fell with no hope of survival. Sharif went over and took their ammo belts; he had no need for their guns, but their bullets might come in handy, for Sharif had decided to run. There was no way he could go back to his normal life, not with the law enforcement that would surely identify him and not with the beast that had been unleashed inside him.
Sharif found his car, hid the gun and ammo under his suit jacket on the floor behind the driver’s seat, and started the car. He forced himself to drive calmly out of the garage even as he knew speed had never been so important.
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