Carl is not mine, but I'm borrowing him for this story. Please take a moment and comment on what you read.

Full House

by Spunsilk

"Gimme just one."

One card landed on the table in the small circle of harsh light. A single bulb glowed in its metal shade, hanging above the small circle of men. Sid picked it up thoughtfully and added it to his hand. He studied the five cards appraisingly, then glanced up to scan the other four men at the table. "I'm good."

"I'll stay with these here."

"I'll take three." More cards made their way across the table.

"Start the betting with three." A small pile of chips lay in the center of the table, casting no shadow in the light of the bulb.

"I'll call."

"Call," said Sid, "And raise. Six."

All eyes met his. "Sid, my friend. You're bluffing." the next man guessed.

"Think so, Tony? See my bid and find out."

"Hmm..." Tony's eyes crinkled with a sly smile as he calculated his chances. He glanced at the small pile of chips that lay in front of him. "Alright, call." He smirked at Sid, daring him to prove him wrong.

"I'll see your six," came the new voice, "and raise you ten."

Three men at the table tossed their cards down. "Too rich for my blood," Hugh commented.

Chips clinked onto the pile.

Sid gazed confidently at his opponent. "Call." His chips were added to the collection in the center. Sid was leaning forward in the circle of light, but leaning out of the light on the back legs of his chair, the new guy's eyes showed cocky between his cards and the brim of a straw hat. "What you got?"

"Four of a kind: nines" he came forward and laid his five cards out on the table with a smile.

"Same. Tens" Sid answered, laying his out as well. The loser swore quietly and slammed his hand flat against the table in frustration, much to the amusement of the four other men around the table. "Tony, I like the guy you found to sub for Henry! Ha ha! I never seen somebody with this guy's bad luck at poker." Sid chuckled and slid the chips to his side of the table.

Maynard chuckled as well, making the glowing cigarette in his mouth dance happily. "Cut the guy some slack. It's sad, really."

Carl Kolchak pushed his hat back on his head. "For your information, gentlemen, my luck is sterling," he said with dignity. "I don't seem to be squandering it away at this table, though." Then he added under his breath, "With my job, I must use up all my allotted ration just staying alive..."

Passing him a bowl of shell peanuts Hugh said, "I thought you were a reporter-type. Tony told us you work for him."

"He does, much to my discomfort," Vincenzo groused, gathering the deck and starting the shuffle. The delicate fwap-fwap of cards hitting cards mixed with the sound of peanut shells snapping.

"Working for Tony don't sound so dangerous." Maynard commented.

"Ha!" Sid answered, with a twinkle in his eye. "I wouldn't have a job working for Tony on a bet ! Trust me, Carl– you have the sympathy of every guy at the table." Maynard and Hugh chuckled. Kolchak grinned broadly.

Vincenzo grunted at the good-natured ribbing. "The job's not dangerous. That's all in his head. Just play cards."

"Ante up." Chips bounced to the center.

"What kind 'a reporter are you, then?" Maynard inquired.

"Crime desk."

Sid grunted. "That could be dangerous. Yeah. All them dead bodies are a real threat to a man, I guess." He grinned ironically.

"It's not the dead bodies, per se, that are the threat," Kolchak answered frowning at the cards he had been dealt. After a moment of reflection, he added as an afterthought "Well... most times."

"Why the chatter? Are we at a quilting bee?" Vincenzo complained, suddenly ill-at-ease. "Play."

More cards tossed out, more laughter, more growling, more smoke gathered in the sharp light of the single bulb. Empty beer bottles accumulated leisurely on the edge of the table. All five men sat with rolled-up shirt sleeves and loosened ties. Life was good.

Hugh looked at his most recent hand of cards. "Geez, Maynard, you deal a hand about as well as Tony could ballet dance."

"Second that." said Kolchak, examining his.

"Quit'cher belly-aching."

"I'll take four," Hugh answered, putting away the lion's share of his hand.

"One."

"Four for me, too,"

Poker Night. One of Tony's small number of vices. An evening spent in friendly competition, a relaxing brew, and maybe (if one were lucky) an extra ten bucks in one's pocket at the end of the night. There were worse ways to spend a Wednesday. This week, Kolchak had been invited along to fill in for one of the regulars who was in Philly for the week, against his will, for his wife's nephew's wedding.

"Come on, call or raise, Carl."

"Give me a raise, Boss, I can raise." He signed and lay down the hand. "Otherwise, I have to fold."

"I'll see you, Tony." Chips clinked musically in the center of the table. "What you got?"

"Flush. Queen's high."

Cards were disposed of unceremoniously on the table amid various groans and chuckles. Vincenzo beamed and gathered the chips like a mother hen gathering her chicks.

"Did you two meet at Tony's paper here in town, then?" Hugh asked conversationally.

Vincenzo took a quick breath and said nothing, but Kolchak answered matter-of-factly "No, Tony and I go wa-ay back. Right, Tony? Remember Vegas?"

"Just forget Vegas–" he answered dismissively, affording his reporter a critical glance. "Let it go, Carl." He turned and said – with more intensity than he intended to – "Sid. Deal."

"Well, well! Something tells me there's a story in that." Hugh grinned in anticipation and ignored the cards that landed in front of him on the table, he instead leaned back in his chair to listen.

Kolchak obliged happily. "Years back, in Las Vegas, I was working at a paper for Mr. Vincenzo here, until a certain string of murders I was covering took an unexpected twist."

"Carl–"

"The victims had all been devoid of blood, gentlemen, and I do mean devoid."

"Bled to death?" asked Hugh gravely.

"No, no. Nothing so passive. They had been drained of their red life's-blood with suction."

Maynard made a face. "Say what?"

"They died as a food source. As it turned out in the end, the predator was none other than a vampire."

The room fell silent and a weary Vincenzo covered his eyes with one hand.

Sid finally broke the silence with a laugh. "This was Halloween, I take it?"

"It wasn't funny." Kolchak replied in all seriousness. "Five young women were dead. Dead, gentlemen. It was real."

"But...okay, but..." Maynard squirmed, "... not a real vampire. I mean, them's fairy tales!" He had a nervous grin, his cigarette had stopped dancing.

"Mama mia." Tony murmured quietly.

"No. I mean a real vampire." Kolchak said honestly, but got no response. "A real out-of-the-coffin-at-night, go-for-the-jugular type vampire!"

"Vampires ain't real." Maynard maintained, sounding bewildered.

"If that's what you want to believe, fine. You've got a lot of company." Kolchak studied them for a bit in silence, frowning. "I believed the same thing myself for decades, too. But experience has taught me otherwise; I was there for the capture..."

He became pensive and his eyes slowly unfocused as he talked. "When that ...creature touched me, his flesh was... so cold. Even though, by that point, I knew what he was – I was startled by the feel of him. Cold as a tombstone in March, he was..." He paused. "I saw his pale stinking corpse, close-up." His face held hate and disgust in equal measure as he re-lived that fateful morning. "Way too close-up. I... I manned the mallet myself..." his eyes took on a very haunted shadow.

He closed his eyes tight and suppressed a shutter, in-spite of all the intervening years. "Tony was my boss then, too. He saw the fall-out. He can tell you."

But Tony stared at the floor and said nothing.

The silence was long and uncomfortable. "Hold on. Are you serious?" Hugh asked in disbelief.

Kolchak's eyes opened on Hugh and re-focused. "I don't know why, but that story back in Las Vegas started a string of weird, disturbing stories that continues to this very day. Things most people relegate to horror fiction walk right across my path. In the flesh. ... And out of it." he smiled ruefully. "Vindictive ghosts, zombies, things English doesn't even have names for... the devil himself once... " he trailed off into his own thoughts.

"You can't be serious!" Sid cried.

Kolchak leaned back out of the bright circle of light, again sharply feeling the tremendous gap between himself and the rest of the world; those who didn't know and who enjoyed a deep, easy sleep at night because of it. "No? There's more 'out there' than you know about," he said quietly. "Those five young women know the truth, but they aren't talking."

"Okay, big joker," Sid grinned. "You got monsters under your bed? My grandson's got a verse for that;

From goulies and ghoasties,
And looong-leggity beasties,
And things that go bump! in the night–"

"–Good Lord, deliver us!" Kolchak finished it for him. "Yeah, yeah. Just count your blessings that that's nothing more than a childish rhyme to you." He hunched over his cards with a foreboding frown. "My world looks different."

The other men at the table turned questioningly to Vincenzo. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "Carl has... umm, a ... unique perspective on some things..." he said. His eyes locked for a flash with Kolchak's, but Vincenzo immediately looked away to the other three men. "But he's a top notch reporter, and he types good copy." He turned his attention to his cards and offered nothing more on the subject. Kolchak considered Vincenzo's comments for a bit, then smirked at his editor.

The game continued more sedately now, with laughter forgotten.

After a few more hands, where nothing more was spoken than just the most necessary of words, Hugh finally asked "What you reporting on just now, Carl?"

Tony wailed. "No-o!, Don't get him start–"

"I'm glad you asked..." Kolchak leaned forward. "Have you read about the accidents off the Kemper bridge?"

"Oh, yeah!" The three other men nodded in unison. "Three people drowned in as many months, and what a terrible way to die." Hugh shuddered.

"Wait a minute, drowning is worse than getting hit by another car?" Sid asked.

"It's not just the drowning–" Hugh countered. "they must have seen themselves falling before they even hit the water. Terrifying." He shook his head in repulsion. "Heights bother me anyways."

Maynard chimed in after lighting a fresh cigarette. "If they were awake they would 'a seen. I think they must 'a been dead-to-the-world asleep or drunk as a skunk to manage to leave the bridge at all. Serves them right, I say, you shouldn't drive a car that incapacitated in the first place!"

"The autopsies showed no blood-alcohol," Kolchak said.

"I say asleep," Tony contributed, sounding exhausted.

"Asleep through a 100 foot plunge and into cold water? I'd wake up." Hugh offered.

"None of the three should have drown; they were fit and athletic. They should have been able to get out before the cars sank. This last one, Nowakowski, was a top swimmer in his class." Kolchak said.

"How do you know that?" Maynard asked.

Kolchak turned to him. "I'm a reporter," he said simply. "I dig."

"Carl. They were asleep and were killed on impact with the river. End of story. No mystery." Tony said. "We've been over this! It was the middle of the night each time–"

"It seems the cars did more than just land in the water," Kolchak told the others. "The cops calculate they were pushed under, without any time floating at all, which otherwise would have given an agile victim a chance to escape."

"That's odd." said Hugh.

"Yeah, odd." Sid agreed.

"I still say asleep," Tony repeated.

Kolchak ignored him. "My theory is something is going on on that road that's confusing the drivers and causing them to loose control of their cars. Some sort of mind-thing. A driver with all his wits about him does not drive off the side of a 100 foot bridge. There's something in the air over that bridge. How else to explain how the cars got over the guardrails? Something over that bridge lifted those cars–" his enthusiasm with his story and his intensity were building.

"Stop it, Carl! Settle down! With enough speed, a car can–"

"In your head! There was not a scratch on any guardrail; only damage on the cars! I say they were lifted from above–"

"And I say they were normal accidents. Tragic, yes, but normal accid–"

"And the old accidents? What about them?"

"What?" Hugh squeezed a word in edge-wise between the increasingly loud repartee. "There were more than three?"

"Yeah! These things have happened before," Kolchak pulled out his ever-present note-pad. "The first version of that bridge was built in 1870. Starting right off in 1871, with a carriage and horse team mind you, the first––"

"Spare us!" Tony exploded. "I've hear that list too many times!"

"I'm sure there's something strange –and dangerous– going on over that bridge!"

"Basta! Basta Carl!"

Sid could hold his tongue no longer. and he was not taking Kolchak seriously. "Sounds to me like another one of my grandson's stories." he chuckled. "You may have a Billy Goats Gruff thing going on."

"A what?"

"You know: troll under the bridge." He dangled one hand down like a claw up over his head. "Who is tripping over my bridge?" his voice took on a mocking darkness. "It could just pluck them up with one long hairy yellow arm and lift then over!"

Kolchak stared at him, surprised by a thought. "Under the bridge?"

"If that's the case, and it's lifting cars," Sid chuckled again, and raised his beer to Kolchak, "you're going to need something pretty large to do battle with it! The third Billy Goat Gruff needed some mean horns, the book says."

Kolchak didn't answer. The wheels were set spinning in his head, and he didn't even seem to hear them talking. "Under?" he asked himself.

"Carl. Carl!"

He looked up at his boss, startled out of his train of thought.

"Don't you go planning on climbing up under that bridge."

"No, Tony, no. Of course not..." he waved his hand placatingly, his voice trailed off as the wheels in his head started spinning once more.

"I mean it, Carl! You listen to me! Leave the Kemper Bridge alone."

"Yeah, of course."

"Especially at night," Tony grated.

"Sure, Tony, sure. Um. You'll excuse me, gentlemen. I just remembered I have to check something."

"Kolchak!" With his straw hat pulled forward for business, the reporter in one motion grabbed his suit coat off the back of his chair, together with the camera and recorder that hung there, and was out the door without another word. Vincenzo rose, but to no avail. "Kolchak! Come back here!" There was no answer.

After a few moments of surprised silence, Sid leaned over to Tony. "I understand your discomfort. That guy's a piece of work–"

"Shut up, Sid." Vincenzo snapped, still glaring at the door.

"Tony, we've known you a lot of years. Listen to us– that one's a nut bag." Sid insisted.

"Yeah, Tony. Sid's right. What you got there is a good case of Looney Tunes." came Maynard's comment. All three men chuckled.

"Alright– enough!" he boomed as he returned to his seat. "Yes! Carl's... um... eccentric. But when it comes to being a bulldog on a story– well, I've never met his like. That's admired in my profession." He gabbed a finger accusingly at Sid. "And when he thinks he's right –which he does a lot– he's got more guts in his left pinkie than this whole room has! Including me." He gabbed a thumb back at himself. An uncomfortable silence followed. "You don't even know." he paused, and frowned around at the men at the table, "Here's some good advice for you: don't criticize what you don't even understand!" His jaw set stubbornly. "I won't hear another word against him here!"

"Fine, Tony. It's all cool." Hugh said calmingly. He glanced at the other two. They quickly took interest in the hands in front of them. Properly chastised, they returned to the game again.

Vincenzo glanced from his cards to the door, concerned. "Just hope his sterling luck holds out a little longer..."