Tiger Boy "Teaser" by Stacy Dooks Red Hart, a nice quiet piece of small-town America. Nestled in the heartland, it could easily double for the setting of a Capra film. You've got your general stores, you've got your quirky small-town theatres, the one Mega-Mart, the Mall, the cineplex and the art house theatre. You've got Red Hart College, the ice cream shop, the used bookstore, you've even got an all-night diner. Yeah, this is a great little slice of Americana, tucked just off the main roads, far enough between the big cities not to get too urbanized or "citified". A truly picturesque small town. The vampires love it. The Rack is the local dive, the biker bar where the shadier elements of Red Hart like to hang. Not really all that shady mainly; bikers, punks, drug dealers, mostly the usual crowd. But every now and then the vampires come. The biker lifestyle must appeal to them. Driving on your hog, taking out the odd all-night gas mart on the highway or motel six...it must be bliss. But vampires are nothing if not social creatures, and they occasionally like to play with their food in ways a late-night raid just doesn't have the time for. So they go for the next big thing...leaving their bikes at the bar, then staking out the few nightclubs Red Hart boasts for the college age crowd and sucking down a raver or two. Take this couple for example. Two girls, college age. One clearly a fish out of water, kinda conservative take on her clothes, glasses. Taken out by her friend, whose spiked hair, piercings, and clubbing attire clearly scream party girl. Maybe they're old friends, maybe they're dormmates who've decided to bond over a night of playful debauchery, maybe they're dating. Doesn't really matter, 'cause it's late, it's dark, and the alley adjacent to the club has a few pairs of glowing red eyes that surely aren't rats. Arms get grabbed, there's a struggle. The two girl's try to cry out, reach for mace, but it's to no avail. A kick to the junk by the raver girl elicits a dark laugh. Fangs gleam in the dim light, the flickering bulb of the street lamp making things strobe oddly. Red Hart isn't a bad town. The cops here are small-town, but good people who patrol regularly. Sometimes a vamp attack gets broken up by a passing patrol vehicle flashing the halogen down dark alleyways. Sometimes the vamps are too slow, they get caught out by someone and decide discretion is the better part of valor. Sometimes dumb luck saves lives. Sometimes I do too. I leap down from the perch on the roof of the brownstone, my feet slamming down hard on the left shoulder of the hindmost vamp, one who clearly likes to watch them squirm before he feeds. His shoulder breaks with a resounding snap as my bulk hits the ground. I don't waste time on words or banter, though I'm known for an occasional quip or two. The recognition flares in the eyes of the lead vamp, the one who'd been leaning in with bared fang moments before. I know these assholes all right. Their jackets read the same damn legend in bright red over bat's wings dripping blood: VLAD'S 'VENGERS. Vampires like to think they're funny. My fist smashes into the face of the third vamp, who'd started to feed from the raver chick, his mouth clamping down around the girl's neck. His head rocks back, but I've pulled the punch just enough to make sure his fangs pop free rather than take half the poor kid's throat with them. I'm a conscientious guy like that. I'm not interested in wasting time, I'm not interested in games. Part of me-a part I don't like to admit to myself-lives for this stuff. For the hunt, for testing myself against my enemies, for bringing them down and breaking them beneath my fists and claws. Don't worry, we'll get to that. Just let me be the mysterious silhouetted hero for just another couple minutes, okay? In the movies or on television, vampires only die via a stake through the heart, or possibly a stake through the heart, chopping the head off combo. On television, they poofle into piles of dust. The truth is a little more gruesome. Vampires need their hearts-focal point of all blood, etcetera-but when it's destroyed...they break down into what they really are. Animated corpses. My hands bursts through the rising watcher's chest, gripping and crushing his heart in a grip that'd leave an impression in steel. It explodes in a pulpy mess, the figure around my arm withering and fading into rotting flesh and bone. The other two sense the jig is up, but by then I'm on the leader, ripping into him the sound of our fight a mixture of blows, hisses, and snarls. I rip a storm drain from a wall, slamming it through his chest, into the brick, impaling him and destroying the heart. Ew. He's an old one. He dissolves into a puddle of blood. Older ones always do. The blood is the life after all. The third one bolts. Ordinarily, I'd leave him alive, let him tell all his friends in VLAD'S CHOSEN that Red Hart is not the town to come to for their warped version of a good time. Trouble is, I've done this dance with these idiots before. Guess I'll have to head to the Rack and clean out the whole damn lot of them. They usually ride in a pack of ten anyway. I move slowly-I'm a big guy-but when I want the speed, it's there. I'm on the last one before he can scream. Shame. His head comes off, the mind and body severed, and his form crumbles too, becoming a lifeless body. I destroy the heart in my palm, just to be sure. I head back to check on the girls. The raver chick is bleeding, but her friend tore a strip from her shirt and bound the neck wound. Good. I stick to the shadows, making sure they're all right, but she notices me. The shy one. The meek one. " Th...thank you." She manages, giving me a grateful smile. For a moment I could almost feel good...almost feel noble. But then the bus enters the intersection adjacent to the alley, it's headlights illuminating the shadows, the girl's look of relief at being saved, her surprised delight at the light from the bus turning to horror. And who can blame her? If you saw a six-foot, three inch tall muscular being with bands of orange and black over his arms, clad even in t-shirt and jeans, even with the jersey of the local hockey team on...if you saw that he had curved horns over his hed, fire-engine red hair, green eyes-slitted like a cat's, legs that belong more on a big cat than a man...if you saw that he had a tail, an honest-to-God tail that didn't really look like it belonged on a tiger...but on a stegosaur...maybe you'd take it a little hard too. I leap upward, catching the fire escape, a few quick hops and jumps and I'm on the rooftops, leaping from one to another, making my way toward the Rack, toward things I can deal with. Monsters and mayhem? Sure, I'm your go-to guy. Being a normal human being again? Sorry, but that ship sailed. Once I was a man. But now I'm not. Now I'm the faceless champion of the hapless human race. I'm some figment of imagination, some piece of forgotten lore. I'm a hero, at least I like to think I am. I'm Tiger Boy. This is my life. Yay. -Stacy Dooks 1/16/2005