Bad

Company

Somewhere in the Texas Panhandle, June 8, 1935

"…and then, jaws agape and slobbering blood, the vicious child-monster rose from ground, the stake still lodged in her heart stomach. The hunter's aim had been off but a hair, but to this devilish darling it made all the difference. As Conroy fumbled in his pocket for the cross the priest had given him, the fiend leapt for him, knocking him to the ground, her tiny jaws gnashing at his throat. Conroy screamed, a pitiful choking cry, while blood and gore splattered in the moonlight as the vampire drank her fill…"

Twenty year old James "Jimmy" Hyerdal, a payroll guard for the T&I Farming and Agriculture Company out of Lubbock, Texas sat in the back of the small armored truck he was paid $3.00 an hour to guard, along with the two older, more experienced guards, Mike Inglewood, thirty-nine, and Bill Fawkes, fifty-two. Inglewood drove, the inky yellow headlights carving twin tunnels through the pitch black of the northwest Texas night. Fawkes rode shotgun, and was currently chowing down on a cold cheeseburger, the last of the dinner the trio had purchased in Quanah. They were on their way back to Lubbock, carrying $100,000 in greenbacks for the fifty-two mechanics that comprised T&I's work force. Hyerdal had bought the Tales of the Weird and Gruesome Magazine at the same greasy spoon they had purchased their supper. He had been reading it aloud to his older co-workers for the last hour and a half, and after ninety minutes of mummies, werewolves, and vampires, both were ready to make the youngster walk the remaining forty miles to Lubbock.

"Will you cut that shit out?" Fawkes asked around a mouthful of cheeseburger.

"If you can think of a better way to pass the time, please…"

"If ya' had to buy anything, why couldn't ya' grab a Western? Billy the Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, anythin's better'n this hogwash 'bout…werewolves and little kid blood-suckers."

"Yeah," Inglewood agreed, shifting in his seat to allow circulation back to his left buttock. These seats, damn. "Or a True Crime. Ya'll been readin' about the Bishop Gang?"

"Hell yeah," Fawkes said. "Knocked over a bank over in Arizona, 'week ago tomorrow mornin'. Killed some people, didn't they?

"Shit, that's a grand understatement if I ever heard one," Inglewood chuckled.

"A which?"

"Understatement. Like, ya' didn't say enough about what happened?"

"Hell, Mike, I's just askin' a question…"

Hyderal rolled his eyes.

"Someone just say what happened?"

"Yeah," Inglewood said. "Way I heard tell, that fella, Jesse Bishop, well, him, them Sykes brothers Clyde and Tyrell, and this Mexican fella walk into the First National Bank of Contention, guns drawn, start tellin' the employees to empty out the safe, then tells the customers to hand over any watches, valuables they might'a had."

"Hell, Dillinger's more exciting than that, 'least he used to leap over the counter with two Tommy guns in each hand…," Jimmy said.

"Why don't ya' let me finish tellin' the damn story?"

Jimmy sat back, simpering.

"Anyway, so 'round about five minutes in, Bishop decides the tellers're takin' too long, so he up and shoots one of the customers. Says for every minute the money isn't handed over to him, he's gonna kill a passenger. Tells his gang not to fire a shot, he's the only one gonna do any killin' today, he says. Well now, I guess them bankers were havin' trouble gettin' the safe open, 'cause in five minutes, five more customers are dead."

Fawkes whistled.

"So the inside of the bank is covered in blood and dead folks by the time the bankers finally hand over the money. Jesse throws the money on over Clyde Sykes, on account of he's kinda his right hand man and whatnot, tells 'em to run on outside to the car, he'll catch up later. Rest of the gang leaves. Jesse turns and tells the teller what handed him the moneybag that six people are dead, but it took him seven minutes to hand over the money. This teller's gotta die. Teller says somethin' like, you only got one gun, and it's a six shooter. You done used all your bullets. And that's when Bishop smiles, and..."

He had Inglewood and Hyerdal on the edge of their seats.

"What? Goddamn it Mike…", Fawkes urged.

Inglewood chuckled. "And. He rips the poor bastards throat."

Hyderal stared at Inglewood, unbelieving. "You're shittin' me?"

"Damn straight, accordin' to one of the customers managed to live through it. Said he hit the teller, fella name of Winthrop, across the throat. Blood gushed everywhere. Head 'bout came clean off. Then he just turned and walked on out."

Jimmy and Bill were silent. Inglewood could tell they were both trying to picture the scene; bodies everywhere, blood, chaos, followed by something that shouldn't even be possible for a human man to do with his bare hands.

"That ain't even the worse part though," Inglewood continued.

"Jesus Christ on rubber crutches, it gets worse?" Fawkes asked.

"Yep. Same witness? Said that as Bishop was walkin' out of the bank, he was lickin' that fella Winthrop's blood off his fingers. Enjoyin' it too. Like fried chicken."

Inglewood caught Hyerdal's wide eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Now that's a vampire story for ya' right there, Jimmy-my-boy. Goddamn true, too."

Jimmy shook his head and sat back in his seat.

"Hear tell some of these're true too," he said, raising his Tales of the Weird. Take this one I been readin' to ya'll, "The Child Blood Fiend of the Bayou." Back in the early 1800's, somethin' like this, this little girl was supposed to have gone around and killed a bunch of folks over in Louisiana. Drank their blood. Bullets and knives couldn't kill her, and she only came out at night. They got historical stuff, interviews and the like, backin' it up."

"Aww hell, that kinda' stuff's bullshit," Fawkes said. "Ain't no such thing as vampires. Jesse Bishop sure as hell ain't one, he's just out of his goddamn mind. Probably thought it'd get people even more scared of him than they already are, watchin' him lick blood off his fingers like that. 'Sides, like ya' say, vampires can only came out at night. What time that robbery happen, Mike?"

"'Bout, two or three in the afternoon."

"See. In Arizona, of all places. Ain't no place sunnier'n Arizona. Bishop was some sort'a Dracula, he'd be one crispy critter right now, I'll tell ya' that."

"JESUS CHRIST, MIKE!"

Inglewood saw it at the exact time that Hyerdal did. The glow of the headlights fell upon the prone form, and Inglewood hit the brake as hard as he could without jackknifing the truck. The vehicle came to a screeching halt just merely three feet away.

It was a little girl, wearing a loose-fitting, worn gingham dress, her head haloed in grimy blonde hair.

The three guards took a moment to catch their breath.

"Mother Mary," Fawkes said. "What in the hell you reckon she's doin' out here?"

"Shit, I dunno," Inglewood said. "There's a hobo camp 'bout five miles east'a here. Maybe she wandered off from there."

"Poor little thing," Fawkes said. He opened the passenger's side door.

"Wait! Where the hell you goin'?" Hyerdal asked.

"To take a shit. Where the hell you think I'm goin', we gotta help her."

"Yeah kid, hell's your problem?" Inglewood asked.

"I just…" Hyerdal looked down at the magazine still in his hand. The illustration on the front showed an otherwise angelic looking girl leaping with razor sharp teeth, demonic eyes, and hands of claws toward a horrified teenage couple. Hyerdal could not see the little girl's face, but he believed it probably looked a lot like the picture on the front of his magazine.

Fawkes realized the connection Hyerdal had made, and shook his head in disgust.

"Goddamn kid, need to grow up. And stop readin' them damn spook books."

Fawkes approached the little girl. He was the father of two daughters, one twenty-three and the other seventeen. His oldest, Margaret, was married, and Colleen, the youngest, was the apple of many a country boy's eye. At around age twelve or thirteen, Colleen had looked a lot like this little girl. He squatted down next to her, tentatively touching her shoulder.

She groaned pitifully. Fawkes

"Shhh, shhh, darlin', it's alright. My name's Bill, I'm not gonna hurt ya'. Looks like you've had your fill of that tonight."

"Help me, please…"

Her voice. So sweet and gentle, like an angel. If she looked like Colleen, then her voice reminded him of Margaret at that age, tugging at his pant leg and begging him to tuck her in and tell her a story.

"It's okay, darlin', I'm gonna do exactly that. I got some friends of mine in the truck, we're gonna take ya' on down to the next gas station. You live very far from here?"

"I can't remember. Please, can you pick me up? I don't think I can walk."

Can't remember. Girl must be even worse off than he had originally though.

"'A'course, sweetheart." He gently gathered her in his arms. He stood with her. She was surprisingly light, almost painfully so. Probably hadn't eaten in a while. Had to be that hobo camp. "You just tell ol' Bill where it hurts…"

And then the girl changed. In his arms, she suddenly leapt into a sitting position and wrapped herself around him, smothering him with her chest. She gripped his shoulders with her arms (how strong she is) and wrapped her legs around his waist, a bastardization of the hugs his daughters used to give him when he returned home from work. Bill Fawkes was working on a scream when the girl sank her teeth into his throat, and in one quick jerk of her little head, ripped his throat out.

Fawkes gasped and fell to the pavement as a sickeningly loud sucking sound filled the air. It all took a matter of seconds.

"Oh my God!" Hyerdal screamed.

"Jesus Christ, no! Bill!" Inglewood sobbed. He jumped out of the car, drawing his guard issue .38 Colt revolver. Hyerdal shut the car door behind him, and curled his knees up to his chin.

The girl raised her face from the gory mess that was Fawkes' neck, and looked at Inglewood with a face that wasn't human. Her eyes were narrow slits, burning yellow in the night, her lips a feral grimace, and her teeth…Jesus Christ, her teeth…

"You little bitch!" Inglewood roared. His finger was squeezing the trigger, when he felt a hand grip his shoulder, tightly, painfully.

He turned to the face which had been in every newspaper, every movie house news report, and every Wanted poster for the last two months. Jesse Bishop.

He wore a wrinkle-free but dusty suit and a white fedora. His long blonde hair brushed his shoulders, and his face wore a three-days' stubble of beard. He grinned. Inglewood felt his bladder let go.

"If you think she's bad, friend. Wait'll you dance a time or two with me," he chuckled. Inglewood shot him in the chest. Bishop stumbled back, bending at the waist, grasping at his chest in agony. Inglewood lowered the smoking gun, waiting for Bishop to fall. Instead, the outlaw's groans of pain turned into low, evil laughter. He stood up, and his eyes glowed red as embers, and his teeth were rattlesnake sharp, much like the little girl behind him.

"Fuckin' rube," he snarled, and with one swipe of his razor-sharp hand, took Michael Inglewood's arm off at the elbow. Inglewood was screaming hopelessly in fear and pain when Bishop slashed stomach open, and then his throat. The guard fell to the pavement, a bleeding, quivering mass of flesh that used to be a man.

Abby watched the murder of the second guard with dispassion. It scared how she had so quickly gotten used to Skinner's brutality. She had met him in Reno, on her way to Las Vegas. In the Sin Belt of southern Nevada, she had bought a few skimpy outfits and was working her way through men of the area who liked them young and fresh. Skinner had been strutting down a street one night, smoking and humming softly to himself. Abby had walked out of the alley, doing her best to look sexy, but instead probably just looked awkward and scared.

"Hey, baby. Lookin' for a good time?" she had tried. She heard that line in a gangster movie in Boston. She couldn't remember which one.

"Fuck off, dolly. Call me when you're eighteen. I may be a lot of things but I ain't no baby-banger," he said, and kept walking. Abby hadn't eaten in three days. She was hungry and pissed off. As Skinner kept walking, she lunged for his back. He had turned and swatted her against a wall like she was nothing more than a common housefly. She snarled at him and made another attempt. He punched her in the face, and stood with his boot on her neck.

"Behave?" he said. She changed back, and he let her stand up.

"What's your name?"

She didn't say anything at first. He rolled his eyes, exasperate.d

"Tell you yours, I'll tell you mine. Sound fair?"

"Abby."

"Abby? Well I'm Skinner. You a nightcrawler?"

"What?"

"Put it to ya' this way; do you like sunlight?"

"Of course not. Neither should you."

"Takes all kinds, dolly. I'm different. Smoke?"

She shook her head. He slid a cigarette from a pack with his lips and lit it from a silver lighter in his jacket pocket.

"How old are you?"

"Don't know. Twelve, I guess."

"No, I mean how long you been like this?"

"It's hard to say. They hadn't celebrated the first 4th of July yet, if that helps."

Skinner whistled, genuinely impressed.

"You must got some kinda balls, kid. Tell ya' what. I was gonna kill ya', on general principle. See, I dunno if you heard, but me and your kind don't get along very well."

"I don't-you're the first one like me that I've met in a long time."

"You ain't nothin' like me, dolly. Few are. But, if you're interested, I might just have a job for you. I got a hobo drainin' in an apartment over on 5th Street. Make ya' a nice Type A cocktail. Sound good?"

He had introduced her to the rest of the gang, then. Mean-eyed Clyde, sweet-tempered Tyrell, and silent, stoic Mapache. Alice Tidwell, the driver and Skinner's lover/walking blood bank. She had been with them for a month now, and this was the third night-time job she had helped out on. It wasn't a bad deal. Skinner was crazy, and evil, she knew that. He had way too much fun with what he was. But he didn't hit her that often, and kept her fed regularly. He also kept his word regarding his age preference; he had not once tried anything gross, and kept Clyde, the one who did the most talking about her "pert little ass" and "fluffy mouth" away from her. All things considered, Abby had found herself in much worse situations over the years than running with Skinner and his gang.

She finished with Fawkes and walked toward Inglewood. The older guard had been nice to her. She knew she would cry about it later, couldn't right now. Skinner didn't like signs of weakness.

"You drink your fill?" he asked as the Sykes brothers and Mapache scrambled out of the ditch bordering the roadside toward the back of the truck, hefting shotguns and pistols.

"Yeah," she said.

"Ya' did good, kid. Gettin' better every time. Now you just relax, watch the big boys do their work, okay."

Clyde Sykes banged on the back of the armored car.

"Open up in there! We got fifteen men out here, ya' ain't got no chance in Hell!"

"O-okay. I'll open up, just don't hurt me."

"You do what we say son, ain't no reason why you can't walk away from this a living man," Clyde assured him.

There was a shifting around inside the car as the lock was thrown. The twin doors opened, and Hyerdal stood in the truck, shaking from fear.

"Okay. Now let me-"

Clyde cut him off with a shotgun blast to the chest which almost sliced the boy in two.

"Jesus, Clyde," said twenty-five year old Tyrell, his younger brother by three years.

Skinner stormed around to the back of the truck.

"God-DAMN IT, Clyde!"

"What?" the tall, chubby Okie shrugged, pumping another shell into his sawed-off. "You said no witnesses."

"I know, I did say that, didn't I Clyde. What did I say before that?"

Sykes stared at him blankly.

Skinner rubbed his forehead with his hand, grimacing in frustration.

"You said-", Tyrell Sykes began, but then quickly shut himself up.

"What? Got somethin' to say, Ty?"

Clyde stared his brother down. He didn't like it when Tyrell knew more than he did, or gained favor with Skinner. Clyde was the right hand, he was the number two man. Tyrell would still be shit-kicking around their parents' failing farm in Oklahoma if it wasn't for him.

"Okay, we'll put it to your kid brother, since he's obviously the only one who listens 'round here. C'mon, Ty. Speak up."

"You said-you said that you didn't want any witnesses, but that we needed to leave one of the guards alive long enough to open the safe."

"Ya' hear that, Clyde? I wanted you to leave one of the guards alive long enough to open the safe, now…is that safe, open, Clyde?"

Clyde looked toward the ground. Skinner slapped him on his right cheek, snapped his fingers in front of his face.

"Cat got your tongue, peckerwood?"

"No, it ain't, boss."

"No, it fully fuckin' well ain't! Where's our money? Anyone? Anyone?"

Abby sat by the roadside, head on her hands, blood coating her frayed dress and the bottom of her face. So sick and tired of the whole thing.

"In the safe," she muttered.

"What's that, Miss Abigail?"

"In the safe," she said, louder this time.

"Exactly, now Clyde. Buddy. Pal. My, boon companion. How do you expect us, to get our money out of the safe…if you just killed the last man to know the combination?"

Clyde was silent.

"Jesus! Well, now. Clyde, go back to the car."

"But I-"

"No, no, no, shut up, and go back to the car!"

"The hell, Skinner?"

"You need to get out of my sight. You need to get out of my sight, otherwise, I'm gonna kill you. I'm gonna rip you the fuck apart, eat you, and give the leftovers to the kid. I'm gonna do that, and I don't wanna do that, because there just ain't enough shit-kickers around willin' to take orders from somethin' they don't even think exists, alright? Back to the car, tell Alice to pick us up, we'll wash our hands of this job, move on to somethin' else."

Muttering angrily, Clyde walked off into the night. Abby stood and walked toward the car.

"It's a puzzle, right?"

"What?" Skinner asked.

"The safe. The combination. It's like a puzzle."

"Yeah, I reckon. So why the hell should I give a flying fuck."

"I'm good with puzzles. Always have been. Got better, for some reason, when I became like…this."

"So…what? You're tellin' me you can open the safe?"

"I can try. Just need time."

"Which we don't have. Sun's up in three hours. This road gets its share during the daytime."

"Gimme twenty minutes. If I don't have it open by then, we'll leave."

Skinner thought for a moment, then smiled.

"Hell, dolly. By your leave."

Abby hopped in the back of the car. She stepped around the buckshot-riddled body of the young guard, and squatted down next to the big iron box that was the safe. Outside, she could hear Skinner feast upon the two older guards. The big Mexican, Mapache, reached in and grabbed the young guard's boots, dragging him out of the truck.

"Awww, desert," he heard Skinner hiss.

She fumbled with the lock, turning it every which way, trying every combination of numbers she could think of.

She heard someone climb into the truck with her. A match was lit, and held in front of her face.

"Thought you could use a light," Tyrell Sykes said. He smiled. Abby smiled back. She liked Tyrell. He wasn't above killing and robbing, but he was…nicer about it than the others. He sent some of the money they made on their robberies back home to his mother and father in Oklahoma. He had a girl he wanted to go back to, someday, he had told her. She felt a kinship with him. He did what he did because he had to. So did she.

"Thanks, but I can see pretty well in the dark already."

"Aww. Comes with the territory, eh?"

"I guess you could say that, yeah."

He blew out the match. Looked down sadly at the body of the young guard on the floor.

"Wonder if he had any family," he said.

"I try not to think about that anymore," she said.

"I know, I do too, but-I dunno."

She paused briefly from her work, turned and rested her hand on his.

"It never gets easier. I won't lie to you. But if you just keep reminding yourself that need to do it, you can get by."

"Get better?" he asked, hopefully. She smiled sadly.

"No, sweetie. But get by."

He nodded. "You're about the only friend I got in this outfit, Ab."

"Same here, Ty. Now go wait outside. You're being sweet, and its distracting me."

Tyrell chuckled and hopped out of the truck.

She fiddled with the safe for another fifteen minutes, until she heard it unlock. It swung free and opened in her hand. She couldn't help but feel some amount of satisfaction.

"Goddamn, dolly," she heard Skinner say from the open door behind her. "I knew we kept you around for somethin'."