Events from “Milk Cartons”

Notes by Anthony

Zachary clicked off the recorder and rubbed the hard plastic casing against his temple. He’d been so scared for this part. Seeing those kids down there, terrified, and all alone in the black basement, was up there with the worst of his visions. At least, in his visions, Zachary was usually the only one in danger. Now the monster was in the real world, and all these four girls had was an undead overweight radio host to protect them. But talking about how scared he was wouldn’t be good radio. Zachary always tried to keep things light for the listeners. Even the dreams he shared on the radio, as gory and sinister as some had been, were just meant to be scary stories. A taste of the mystical and strange to banish the doldrums of an overnight shift or distract an insomniac from their own spiraling anxieties. Zachary had to turn this horror show into a heroic narrative for the listeners and for himself. Something he could cope with. Something worthy of the Prophet Zachariah, time traveling once-and-future savior of the world.

“Just as that Fat Man started singing his creepy little nursery rhyme, I’d found the right key and unlocked the cage of the girl closest to the staircase. I pulled her out and tried to reassure her. I told her that I was here to help, and she needed to be quiet. It didn’t really work, obviously. She was a traumatized little girl trapped in a pitch black basement. Anything new to her would be scary. But I couldn’t risk her alerting the Fat Man upstairs. I used the Voice, Dominate, and told her to be quiet and hide. I told her that she didn’t have to be afraid, and I was going to keep her safe. I prayed to whatever God still listened to Jewish vampires that I wasn’t lying to her. Just then, the Fat Man opened the basement door and started walking down the stairs. I was still hidden by the wall blocking the staircase, so I Obfuscated myself to buy time and think.”

“The thing moved slowly. It must not have seen George or realized there were intruders yet. It moved like an octopus – tentacles slapping lazily along the walls and steps, heedless of the broken glass and upturned nails. They made awful, fleshy, wet sounds that echoed in the tiny space. My initial plan to impale the thing on its own Home Alone traps evaporated instantly. I couldn’t fight something like this. Even so, I remembered how George told me that the Blood could be used to make me faster and stronger, just as it could heal me. I wrestled with the Beast inside me. It was sated, but selfish. Childish. The fat, bloated fucker inside me wanted to keep the Blood all to itself. But ol’ DJ Prophet was the one calling the shots here. I pushed the blood into my muscles and found that I could move faster, practically think faster. If my second plan failed as well, maybe I could convince this thing to chase me out of the basement and away from the kids.

“The Fat Man made its way to the bottom of the stairs. It said ‘Hello, Keisha’ and smiled at the girl in the cage closest to him. It asked her what she saw, but she just whimpered and cried. Then it moved further into the basement and saw the girl I’d freed trying to hide along the wall behind her cage. It taunted the girl, Alyssa. It kept asking her how she got out and why she wasn’t afraid. But she didn’t react. She just bumped along the walls, trying to find a place to hide with no emotion on her face. Following my instructions. It was strange, listeners. The Fat Man’s face reminded me of walking to the diner with Ben after our shift at the station when we’d forgotten to get dinner beforehand. The imagined smell of burgers and fries in the air making us salivate. The driving need of hunger and expectation that it would soon be sated. But the lights in the diner were off and all the waitstaff was gone. Happy anticipation curdled into frustration and rage on this monster’s face. Whatever intangible thing he fed off from these girls was gone from Alyssa. I had to make my move before he tried to eat something more tangible.

“I moved to the bottom of the staircase and dropped Obfuscation. Dear listeners, I know radio is an audio-only media, but I’d like to imagine you can hear the smile in my voice when I tell my stories. And as the creature wheeled on me, I made sure I had the biggest, smuggest, most shit-eating grin on my face as I twirled the basement keys in my hand. I told it that the one who had freed the little girl was me. It’s actions in this world had been sloppy, and they had been noticed. I told it that I was the one who was here to hunt it down. I was the one it was most afraid of. And, listeners, I used that new-fangled power of Inner Image to call that entity it was most afraid of to its mind and make myself look like it. There was no word in the English language for it. It was hard for my human, or vampire, mind to even comprehend. All I recall were a mass of dark, writhing tentacles. The Fat Man looked afraid, and started talking to me in a freaky monster language I could not understand. I tried to bluff my way out of it. I told it that now wasn’t the time for talking. Now was the time for the little bunny to hop along, and for me to give chase. And, in my infinite generosity, I’d even give it a head start.

“I moved away from the door and waved my hand magnanimously for it to pass me up the stairs. I prayed that gesture worked, given I was apparently wielding tentacles. Fear apparently won out over its confusion, and it bolted up the stairs. I waited for what felt like hours for the door outside to slam shut and the Fat Man’s heavy footsteps to fade from my augmented hearing. I felt like I had run a marathon even though I’d only taken a few steps. I used the keys to open the door to Keisha’s cage. I forgot I was still wearing the Image of the monster, as she shrunk back from me and began to cry even harder. I dropped the façade and used Dominate to calm her down like I did Alyssa. It worked, but it felt wrong, somehow. I used it for all the right reasons. We couldn’t deal with her trauma here, and I had to get all four girls out and up the booby-trapped staircase before the Fat Man returned, and I couldn’t do that with them panicking. But it felt wrong to reach into her mind and turn off the parts of her that felt fear. To suppress the desperate need to curl up in her mother’s arms and cry and cry and cry. It was necessary. But it was wrong. 

“George came down then, from whatever the hell he was doing upstairs. Maybe preparing some kind of super-secret vampire trick to squash the monster for good? He tried to convince me to call Joan or Cedric and leave the girls for the authorities to find. I agreed with the former, but not the latter. What kind of monster would leave these girls trapped in the dark and stuffed into cages, just because it was convenient? I went upstairs while George calmed the last two girls and found a bathroom mirror to contact Cedric in. He told me the Malkavians had no power in Alexandria, and if we were to help the girls, we had to bring them to Gallaudet. He didn’t seem too pleased to have to deal with four walking Masquerade breaches, but he also seemed pretty disgusted with what the monster did in the first place. Thank God I’m the Prophet and he basically had to do what I said and help the girls, no matter if it was inconvenient. Or thank future me. 

“George left to find Ben and drive the car back from the Freddie’s gas station, and I carried the girls up the basement steps one by one. I admit, I was terrified of stepping on a nail or piece of glass and dropping one of them, but luck and the power of the blood was on my side. We piled into the car with Ben squeezing in next to the four girls and drove to Gallaudet. We got pulled over by the cops one time, but George used Dominate to convince Officer J. Brady that these were not the droids he was looking for. At Gallaudet, the rest stayed in the car while I went in to find Joan. She came out and asked the girls if they wanted to “come and play.” I’d gotten kind of used to her being an ageless, all-knowing vampire in a ten-year-old’s body. But, seeing her next to little girls that she could have gone to school just made me feel sad. What must she have gone through in the past, what, 1500 years? I couldn’t have coped as well as she is as a kid myself. 

“So, Joan used her group Obfuscation to move the girls into the library while the rest of us took a more mundane approach. Part of me was afraid of letting the kids out of my sight, but I trusted them with her. Maybe you listeners may think me naïve, and I look forward to your commentary on this, but I believe Joan will do what I say. At least, as long as it aligns with her idea of the Prophet. And for all I have heard about him, me, I think The Prophet Zachariah is still a good person who chooses to save people when he can. I’d like to believe that, at least. 

“We slept the day away in the crypt, and for the second time in a row I had no nightmares. No terrifying visions of the awful things to come. For those keeping track at home, it is now early evening on Tuesday, December 6th. George and I went out to the library and saw Joan sitting eerily still with the four girls. There was a buffet of cereals and other snacks for kids. Cedric or Theodore must have raided the Gallaudet dining hall. Then I was hit by something. A waking vision. I think Joan and Cedric were with me, and maybe others. We flew over lush grass and rolling hills up to this huge mansion. In one of the rooms, a young woman with black hair was drinking the blood of a young man, who was drinking blood from her wrist at the same time. But she was stronger and tore at his throat and chest. Blood pooled around him, and she used it to draw strange symbols slowly and methodically on the floor and walls of the room as his eyes went dead. I recognized them from the Night City and OTCAL. Something about the relationship between a sire and childe. Caine and the Curse of Auriel.

“Then the girl snapped out of it and started freaking out. I could tell that she was a Malkavian like me, but her mind was closed off. She tore at her wrist and pushed blood into the young man’s mouth. My heart was in my throat as she sobbed over his limp body. I could only imagine myself in her place, looking down at Ben’s limp form. Would I do what she did then? Condemn Ben to walk the night with me, just to keep him in my life? Is it already too late for him to leave, even if he stays human? The young man stirred, and I watched the girl clutch at him through his eyes until I returned to my body in the library. Joan informed us that we have a new brother, now, and we should welcome him. I looked over at Ben and felt overwhelmed with sorrow for the girl in the mansion. I hope she made the right decision. I hope she never regrets it.”