Dawn Breaks

"I knew that movie was bullshit. Hell, everybody knows that movie is bullshit, but that angsty brunette is cute. Well. Shit, I guess that mopey dope with the perfect hair is a good looking guy, too. Surprisingly, he actually made a decent young Batman."

He works deftly, hands a blur while he rambles a mile a minute.

"Of course, the hero of the story really got shit on. That's the way of it, I guess. The heroes don't get the girls, they get discharge papers, a purple heart, and a partial pension for the rest of their miserable lives. At least Jacob didn't get shuffled off and forgotten by his country and comrades."

He pauses, looks down at his handiwork, and resumes his stream of consciousness.

"Come to think of it, I can't really remember what happened to old Jake. I just know he didn't get the girl, she picked the zombie over the real boy, that much I do know. And my pension aint half bad, honestly. It's not like I'm unable to work side jobs, like this one, yknow? Who woulda thought a nobody Eleven-Bravo like me would have marketable job skills?"

He stops talking long enough to wrap a heavy, rusted chain around the bare metal gurney that sits in the back of the parked ambulance. He makes several passes over his passenger, through the metalwork of the collapsible bed, and back again. He secures it with several padlocks. Everything has the patina of age, wear, and use, but the gear is less than a year old.

"Oh, that's infantry, in case you didn't know. I thought maybe I'd find work with a defense contractor, right? I mean, I did, sorta, but this aint exactly providing security for diplomats or oil executives. Hell, did you even know some of the big boys actually run ops stateside?"

He pauses, checks his passenger, and notices there are still no signs of consciousness.

"Well. Now you do, I guess." He slaps the secured "patient" none-too-gently. "Hey. Wake up, Chocula. Rise and shine."

There is a gasp, a roar, and a tremendous shaking. The man on the gurney comes to consciousness, fully aware and enraged. He flexes, he screams, he hurls curses mixed with wordless fury, but he is bound tightly by thick rope and thicker chains.

"Yeah, I don't know why I bothered with the rope. Practicing for a weekend with the girl, I guess. She said she might be into the whole shibari thing, so I figure, fuck it? Why not, right? What's the worst than can happen? She gets pissed at me for sticking it in the no-no or spinning her around a few times too many? I mean, that's what rope dudes do, amiright?"

The person in chains realizes he can't see. He's wearing a sleeping mask over his eyes, and he tries to rub his face on his shoulders to dislodge it.

"Oh, hey, no. Stop that." There's a sharp pop and continuous crackle of a Taser, cartridge removed, as it is applied to a restrained thigh. The almost-a-man howls in pain. "Yeah, shit hurts, huh? I get it. Hell, you should try riding the lightning with the probes in you. Man, that sucks. But you need to leave the blindfold in place. I'm not down for that glamour trick you fucks do, and, if you see me I can't exactly let you go, right?"

This has an immediate calming effect on the supine detainee.

Rage abated, breathing under control, pain subsiding, the restrained person finally speaks in coherent words. "What is this?"

"My job, slick."

"Work for me, I'll pay you double."

"Yeah? Tell me about your benefits package."

"Good pay, excellent health plan."

"You don't say? Vacation time?"

"Life will be a vacation."

"Now that's a funny word, right there."

"Vacation?"

"Life."

The chatty former soldier opens up the double doors of the ambulance, and with a grunt, he shoves the gurney out onto the pavement. This early in the morning, there's no one else on the open-air top floor of the parking deck. Dawn sunshine bathes both men in the warmth of a new day.

The stainless steel gurney has no mattress because it was burned away dozens of jobs ago; the shibari ropework acts as tinder for the instant bonfire that fills the air with the smell of pork roast and burning hair. The vampire's scream lasts only seconds before vocal chords blister, burst, bloom in flame, and scatter on the wind as ash.

The whole spectacle lasts less than a minute, and rusty, charcoal-covered chains sag and clang to the rolling metal frame and concrete.

He sits on the floor of the ambulance, watching the sun continue its rise while he waits for the metal pieces to cool. A light breeze lifts his spirits and carries away the trash from another day's work.

"God, that movie is such bullshit. Fuckin sparkly vampires and idiots who want to fuck a corpse. Jacob dodged a bullet, that's for sure. Sullen corpse-humpin emo trashchick, goddamn."