October 16
Rick was back on his regular nightly schedule.
The era of five daily editions was long gone. The Banner still ran two print editions, Regional and Final, though the total circ had fallen to a dismal 68,000. The newsdesk, already shrunken, shriveled to a skeleton once the Final hit the presses, so Rick was usually able to escape by 3 am. That was when the bars had to close, and that was just as well.
After his days off he had resumed his routine of walking to work and then, after work, walking from the Banner Building on 10th Street down to the river to watch it roll, and think about things, before hoofing the nine blocks to his apartment. He was no athlete, but he’d always wanted to keep in some kind of shape. And now since the diagnosis he was determined to push back against the symptoms as they crept in. Keep out of the chair as long as he could. He was only 32.
So far he hadn’t been mugged. His route through a slice of downtown was well lighted, and the people he encountered seemed non-threatening, whether drunk or sober.
The riverwalk was darker, but that was not a problem. No one was ever there.
He kept telling himself to forget the blond girl’s “see you later.” It didn’t mean anything. He wouldn’t be seeing her again. Too young for him, anyway. If by some miracle she did have any interest, she could have reached out to him at the paper, right?
Tonight, though, he did see someone.
As always, Rick had headed out on the paved walk beside The Flow and through the park strip, ignoring the sign —
RIVERWALK CLOSED
9 PM TO 7 AM
Buckingham Parks Dept.
— and winding up at the riverwalk and its low stone wall. Little lights were spaced along the bottom of the wall, so as he got closer he could make out a shopping cart on the riverwalk heaped with clothing, sacks, cartons, and God knew what else. A baseball bat stuck up out of the jumble. A second later he saw a big lump lying on the grass. As he approached, the lump began to look person-shaped, covered with a ratty-looking blanket.
Preoccupied, Rick kicked an empty soup can that was lurking underfoot and it clattered and then it was too late to angle off toward another stretch of the overlook. He stopped as the shape moved, throwing off the blanket and staggering to its feet: white guy, thin, bearded, tangled dark hair down to the middle of his back, in a grimy-looking shirt and suit pants with holes at the knees. Rick wished he hadn’t approached so close.
The man’s mouth was hanging open, revealing a couple missing teeth. “Whoa, rando!” he said. “I’s just getting’ back to sleep, and here you come a-bangin’!” His voice was reedy, dry-sounding. “What’re you after? Some of us can defend what’s ours, despite all your nasty dreams! Damn bastard!”
The man lurched to the shopping cart and pulled out the baseball bat, brandishing it like a sword. “Some bastards could get head-bashed, creepin’ up in the devil’s chilly nighttime!”
Rick was backing away, showing his hands. “Didn’t mean to disturb you, man. I’ll go on over to the U drive, OK? I work nights. When I get off I just like to come and look at the river. Let me just —”
“There was a cop car parked this end of the U last I checked, Mister Rando Bastard. The piggish was sleepin’, so I bleeve, but we don’t know what is up this minute, do we, so the thought is, you don’t slide over that way and maybe stir up the shit. Dig?” The man waved the bat.
“OK, I’ll head downstream, then.” Rick started to sidle left, a careful step at a time, keeping his eyes on the man.
“Unless you was looking for her with complete goodness in your heart,” the man said. “Then Mister Rando, namely you, is OK numero uno and can stay, and score a candy bar if he wants one.” He nodded toward the cart. “Bag a peanuts, maybe.”
Rick stopped his slow fade. “Her. Who’s … who are you talking about?”
“Don’t know a name, but pretty beautiful is the way to say. Blond and beeeeyooteeeful. If you was lookin’ for her, I’m gonna pull a switcheroo here and name you Mister Late.”
He was late, given his normal schedule. Forty minutes late, thanks to breaking local news. Gangbangers shooting, six dead. Rick, doing a turn as slot editor, had to stay until the paper stopped updating.
He was speechless. She’d been here, but he’d missed her? Were they talking about the same person?
He reminded himself that he didn’t really care.
Though if he didn’t care, why did he feel as though something had just been scraped out of him with a dull spade?
“I got a idea, Mister Late,” the man said. “You can call me Mister Early.”
“Right. Mr. Early. How long ago did she leave?”
“Well, Mister Late might coulda noticed that I been sleepin’, in terms of the recent history? And I don’t have a watch. Or a phone, since it was stole.”
Rick checked his phone. “It’s three fifty-five now.”
The man shrugged. “Well, I don’t know, but my safe guess is, time has passed. It’s some colder now, I bleeve. She woke me up, was here maybe two minutes, and then, click, just gone. Back to heaven, I bet.”
“Heaven?”
The man began blinking, and Rick saw that he was tearing up. Wiping his eyes, the man said, “I bleeve she is an angel. An angel from heaven.”
“OK, uh, Mister Early. But what all did she say? Was she looking for someone?”
“Could be so. She asked did any other body come through. And I told her no, at least they didn’t wake me up, and then lookee here, Mister Late.” He dropped the bat and pulled out a tattery wallet. Thumbing out a sheaf of twenties, and a fifty, he said, “She dropped all this greenery on me. Two hundred and ten dollars. I’m gonna buy me a coat from the Goodwill. It’s gettin’ dang cold already.”
Rick was dizzy. Flushed. “Did you mug her? Did you rob her?” Shouting now: “Where is she?”
Early backed up and held out a hand to fend him off. “Wait! Rob her? Are you a Bible-readin’ man, Mister Late?”
“Don’t change the subject! Answer me, damn it!”
“OK, OK, OK. I did not touch the gal. What do the angels say when they show? ‘Fear not,’ that’s what. Angels are holy but they are also fearsome. And she was. Her eyes were like blue fire and I sank down on my old knees, Mister L.”
Rick had already started to wonder how much of the man’s story was molded by controlled substances. “She actually said ‘Fear not’?”
“No, man. She said, ‘Jeez, get up, dude.’ And then she give me the bread.”
“Then what?”
“Then what is, she took off. I dunno, it’s hard to explain. She was here, and then the next beat, gone.”
“You never saw her before. Previous nights.”
“No, Mr. L, this is my first time at the river. The piggish element cast all us unfortunates out of Bishop Park yesterday, so here I wind up. The Ladies with a Truck — you heard a them?”
“Yeah.” A controversial group, unpopular with property owners seeing homeless people being dropped off.
“They brought me over with a few other poor souls. But them folks up and wandered off. So it was only me left to witness. I think I’ll be wanderin’, too. I thought it’d be quieter here.”
“Maybe she’ll come back another night.” Rick was thinking aloud.
“Maybe. She said she’d been out here before. That she liked the river. But how many times does any one fella see an angel? Before goin’ up to the hereafter, I mean.” The homeless man looked up at the thick glowing city sky. “I hope you get to see her, Mr. L. She had a nice little blue dress on. Sky-blue. Beeeeyooteeeful legs. Angels don’t get chilly, I suppose. Shitfire, I’m about froze. I got three different kinds of candy bars. You can pick.”
Rick took a Snickers to be polite. The walk to his apartment was taxing this time. His legs were stiffer than usual — what had become usual. He needed to find the blond girl with the eyes and the grin, but the more he felt the need, the more he seemed destined to fail.
He knew he’d seen her face somewhere before. In a newspaper. Or maybe on TV. Since he’d been at the Banner? Or before, when he was with the Enquirer in Cincinnati? He could search for her in the Banner’s online photo morgue … but using what search terms? Beeeeyooteeeful blue-eyed blonde?
One thing he could do was keep going back to the riverfront in the early mornings. As long as he was able.
Halloween I
Coming to the party, the man had decided not to park in the Always Park. He’d tucked his car in an alley six blocks from the building where the party was and eight blocks from the garage. A little risky but less so than parking in the garage would be if he decided to look for a little after-party action. Good call …
He’d easily snuck past the attendant’s booth, and was now working his way up, level by level, using the ramps and avoiding the cameras at the elevators, staying in the shadows, which wasn’t hard in the poorly lit garage. He was carrying his Dracula mask, which had represented his only attempt at a costume at the lame-ass party. The guy he knew there turned him down for a loan, but it wasn’t a total waste of time, since he was able to lift some molly from a fool in a zombie costume who was both stoned and drunk.
Prowling the garage, he was starting to think it was too late for any action. There were only a few vehicles still parked. Could be hours before any likely schmo came in.
Wrong. He had just walked up the ramp to the third level when he heard a car coming in down below. He hurried to hide behind a pillar but soon realized the car wasn’t coming up. The driver was parking on the ground level, which was all reserved spaces. He swallowed another cap of molly — he was thinking this stuff had been heavily cut with meth — good deal, then — and reversed his course, trotting down the ramp.
Twenty feet away, a nifty young blond girl was getting out of a long low-slung green sports car. Foreign ride … Italian, maybe. That meant rich bitch.
Outstanding. He might be able to rip off some significant coin here. She was carrying a tiny purse. If she was short on cash, that was no big deal. He took credit cards.
What little the girl was wearing was for summer, not fall. Crazy. But great tits. Great legs. Movie-star face.
She was small. Arms thin as twigs. This’d be easy.
Donning the Dracula mask, he started slidin’ and glidin’ toward her. She was humming something, completely spaced out, apparently, looking the other way and letting him get up close and personal. She smelled good. He said, “Hold up, there, little honey. Let’s see what’s in that handbag.”
She had some moves, like a dancer, whirling around the way she did. Man, look at those blue eyes. A guy could get distracted. She said, “Count Dracula? C’mon, man, I’ve got places I’ve gotta be. Let’s you go your way and I’ll —”
“Don’t want to hurt you, sweet pie, but I am gonna take whatever you got.”
“Seriously?”
She wasn’t scared enough. He might have to slap her around a little, knock her down, but for now, he just reached for the purse.
She dropped it and in a blur shoved him on his breastbone with her white little hand, slamming him backward onto the cold concrete.
Yanking him into the shadow beside her car as if he were a bag of air, she muttered, “Sie Vollidiot” — You utter idiot — but he didn’t hear that. He was unconscious now and remained so for a while, which was a mercy, and then he was dead and in the trunk of her car.
Still wearing the Dracula mask. It didn’t cover his neck, so why remove it? It lent a touch of irony.
The small young-looking blond woman made a call, giving a five-digit number to whoever answered and introducing her request with, “Cleanup on aisle seven!”
It was important to find the humor in life.
Halloween II
Nighttime temperatures were dropping into the 40s, and Rick was wearing a heavier coat over his sweater. He would walk right through the coming winter, as usual, barring blizzards or ice storms, as he had during the previous two winters. Assuming he was still able. The trek was becoming more difficult.
His walking future aside, he wanted to see the blond girl one more time. Talk to her for more than thirty seconds. Get her story. His life would be a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces if he didn’t manage that.
For some reason Rick had the crazy idea now that if he were ever to encounter her again, it would be on Halloween. He knew his reasoning was thin — just that there was something mysterious about her. Of course she wasn’t an angel. There were no angels. None who went around handing out cash, anyway.
As he approached the stone wall, in the third hour of Halloween, one technical question occurred to him. It didn’t feel as though Halloween had started yet. But if he waited until the small hours tomorrow, it wouldn’t still be Halloween. Technically.
Madness, yeah.
The only strategy was to show up now and — if she failed to appear — come back tomorrow at the same time.
Insanity.
“Mr. Early” had departed, as planned. Rick leaned on the wall and watched a 195-foot DeWayne River Transport grain barge slide by, pushed down the river by its following tow-boat. It had loaded at MetroPort three miles up river, no doubt. Rick knew that autumn was prime time for moving grain.
As the barge moved out of sight, Rick returned to speculating about her. Why did she come to the river in the early morning? None of his business, right, but he still might press her on that subject. Politely. If she showed …
If she didn’t get assaulted, wandering the dark corners of the city in the zero hours. It amazed him how self-obsessed he’d been, how long it had taken him to start worrying about her. Did she carry a gun? Could she stop a robber, a rapist, a murderer from taking it away from her?
Two and a half hours later Rick was cold, tired, and gloomy. Either this wasn’t one of her nights, or she didn’t want to be seen. By him. Or something bad had happened to her.
He’d attempt no heroic walk to his apartment this morning. He called an Uber and plodded in to River Street to meet it.
The next night, Rick arrived riverside earlier than usual — about 2 am — since Saturday was one of the nights he had off. He was confident that this would merely draw out the pointless vigil, but that was all right because tonight would end it. He’d decided to start walking elsewhere in the night. The river had become a drain of hope, emptying him out.
He leaned on the wall, his elbows on the rough stone, and shivered. A cold breeze was strafing him from across the water.
He murmured, “Why do I do this?”
“Beats me, man. Maybe you’re obsessed.”
Rick tottered a little as he spun to his left. She was standing five feet from him, elbows on the wall, but almost before he could register that, her right hand was on his upper arm, steadying him. A hard grip, and how could anyone move so —
“Sorry, Richard! I’m an idiot. You OK?” She peered at him in concern.
“Yeah. Yeah. I just, I didn’t see you there. I didn’t even think … But I’m glad. To see you.” He swallowed, hard, trying to keep his voice steady.
“Back at you. Happy All Saints’ Day.”
Recovering from his shock, Rick realized she was dressed for summer, in a short-sleeved white blouse and short white skirt. That was nuts. “You’ve got to be freezing! Take my coat.” He unzipped it.
She held up her hand. “Na. Leave it on. I’m comfortable, believe it or not.”
How could she be? This must mean that their encounter was going to be brief.
He’d noticed something. He pointed. “Is that blood? On the back of your hand?”
She looked. “Oh. Yeah. I hadn’t noticed.”
“I’ve been worrying about you out here all alone. What happened?”
“Worry not, kind gent. It’s not my blood. You don’t have a wet wipe or anything, do you? Kleenex? I don’t want to ruin a hanky.”
“No, but what happened?” Not her blood?
“Just a little accident.”
He was mystified, but he could tell he wouldn’t be getting a straight answer.
She asked, “Do you really come here every night?”
“Yeah, I try to, unless there’s a blizzard or downpour or something. I know you were here a couple weeks ago. According to the homeless guy …?”
“Oh, you saw him? Poor devil. He thought I was an angel. Which I’m very much not.”
What are you, then, Rick wondered.
“I’m Amelia, by the way. Amy for short.”
“I’m Rick. For short.” He had to get bolder. “Do you live here … Amy?”
“Na. I used to, though. Up in Bienville.”
It was a wealthy northern suburb.
She went on, “Moved here in 2012, left in ’21. But I come back to old Bucky for a few weeks every year. I’ve got a bunch of friends in town, and I still own property here.” She paused, and then said, “I’ve had a couple meetings with certain folks out here by the river, guys who need to keep their business private. The surveillance nowadays is outrageous, isn’t it?”
Surveillance?
What was she, 22? A property owner? Meeting with businessmen who feared being spied on?
“You a native, Rick? Of Buckingham?”
“No, I moved here in 2023. From Cincinnati.”
“OK, that would explain why you didn’t recognize me. My picture was in the paper more times than I wanted in ’20 and ’21. In both the Banner and the P-Chron.” The Pioneer-Chronicle was the city’s other dying newspaper.
Rick said, “I think I did, though. Recognize you. But I couldn’t remember …”
She took a deep breath. “I was Xena Carmina in those days. I change my name from time to time.”
“Change your …” He didn’t understand that, but part of the story was coming into focus, finally. “You were mixed up in that vampire panic here. Or mania, or whatever it was. National news for a while.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Friend Rick, fasten your seatbelt. When I sat down at the next table, at the Flow? That was truly accidental. I suppose the best word is fortuitous. Then when I was leaving, and I went by you and said whatever I said, I smelled something. Took me a minute to realize it.”
“Realize what?”
“That you’re sick. What have you got?”
Rick had heard that dogs could do that, detect certain illnesses, but not humans.
She was human, wasn’t she?
He said, “Parkinson’s disease. Rare for someone my age. But they’re almost sure.”
She was silent for a moment. “I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about whatever it was.”
His eyes narrowed. “Do? What could you do?” Buy him special treatment at the famed Mainz-Scholarian Clinic? What was she talking about?
“The question is what I should do. See, we worry about our security, Rick. Our tradition or culture, whatever, tells us to stay in the shadows. You’re a newspaperman. I didn’t know you. You weren’t one of our friends. So, I had to think. Lurk and think.”
Rick shook his head. “‘We … our …’ I don’t understand any of that, Amy.”
“You will … I’m guiding your mood to cushion the shock right now, but please grab ahold of the wall, there. I don’t want you to fall down.”
It was funny, Rick thought. He knew he was in some kind of trance state, but he was rolling with it. Fear not … He did as he was told and gripped the wall with his right hand.
Amy looked at him and then opened her mouth, and Rick saw her upper canines lengthen into fangs.
“Unnh! God!” He shuddered and backed away. Mood management only went so far. “You really are a vampire!”
Amy retracted her fangs and touched him with a hand that was gentle, though cold. She smiled. “That’s gotta be a line from some movie. Rick, I’ve decided to help you, if you want. Take your disease away. I can do that by giving you a little of my blood.”
He managed to say, “Amy … no ... I don’t want to be a vampire.”
“That’s what everyone says. But it’s not the plan, here. The only caution is, don’t exchange blood with a vampire.” She spoke softly, sounding sad, and looked out toward the river. “Ever.”
Rick asked, “Is that always voluntary? An exchange?”
Amy turned to face him. “What was your chance of ever meeting a vampire? Your chance of encountering a bad one is, like, a thousand times less.”
He didn’t find that to be a completely satisfactory answer.
Taking out her phone, she said, “I’ll call for the car. I keep an apartment at the top of the Emerald Spike for when I’m in town. We’re all set.” She cocked her head. “If it’s a yes.”
The Spike
The Emerald Spike stood 65 stories, and Amy’s apartment was on the 65th floor. In fact, it was the entire 65th floor.
Amy had mentioned that she owned the building.
They’d ridden over in a black Mercedes SUV, driven by a lean poker-faced chauffeur who never said a word. Amy had said she’d wanted to show him the Lambo she’d rented for her visit — “racing green, super-cool, man” — but non-explained that the car was temporarily unavailable.
After a fast ascent on the elevator, Rick and Amy entered the apartment, dimly lit and, as Rick had come to expect, luxurious. Modern-luxurious. He saw paintings that he thought represented modern impressionism.
He was pretty confident that this wasn’t a dream. But whatever it was, he had to see it through in case it was real. And because dream or not, he was spending time with Amy, the fanged angel.
After taking a moment to wash her hands, she escorted him into a room with three walls of full bookcases. A plainly dressed woman, probably in her early 40s, sat at a small table between two vinyl recliners of the sort Rick had seen in shows depicting chemotherapy. The woman rose, and Rick spotted an RN pin on her blouse. He assumed she was not a vampire.
“Rick, this is Penny,” Amy said. “She’ll be doing the transfusion. She’s a friend of ours. Go ahead and pick a chair.”
As Rick and Amy sat down, Penny took a syringe out of its case. Amy said, “This is the nicer way to do it, but it’s rare that we’re this well-organized. We usually just slice our arm open with a blade and press the wound to the person’s mouth. Effective, but it’s messy. And painful for the donor.”
Navigating this possible dream, Rick ventured to ask an intelligent question. “Well, but doing it this way, what about blood types?”
“Don’t worry. We night people are all blood-type V. Universal donors!” That evoked a smile from Penny and, a moment later, from Rick.
It only took a minute. Penny drew a full syringe of blood from Amy’s inner right arm as Amy winced and looked away, and, turning to Rick on her left, she immediately injected it into a vein in his left arm. She didn’t tape any cotton on the injection sites: the puncture in Amy’s arm vanished in a couple of seconds, and Rick’s puncture quickly followed.
Amy said, “So that’s that, my friend. You no longer have a disease, Parkinson’s or any other. If you have a scar anywhere, it’s gone, too. And — special bonus deal! — no colds or flu for you this season.”
He realized that his sense of smell was back. Amy was wearing a sweet scent.
The stiffness in his legs was gone.
He couldn’t think of what to say. Hey, thanks a lot? Tepid and ridiculous. Finally he looked straight at her and said, “I owe you my future, Amy. I’d ... frankly, I'd been thinking bad thoughts.”
“Only good thoughts from now on, I hope.” She paused. “Rick, I violated some rules tonight. I could possibly be expelled from my chapter if it became known. You’re not a friend. I mean, we’re friendly, but you’re not … associated with us. We have to be careful.”
Rick thought for a moment and said, “Do I — I mean, I don’t know what I should do as far as my doctors go.”
“Probably bite the bullet and get re-tested. The docs may be mystified, but miracle cures are part of medical folklore. Some docs and nurses suspect what’s up with a lot of those, and most of the others eventually shrug and move on. You will not offer any explanations, OK? You’ll act as surprised as they are.”
They were now finishing an early breakfast that Amy had arranged to be sent up from L’Écrin de Joyaux, the Michelin three-star restaurant down on the third floor. Or rather, Rick was finishing it, demolishing the best Eggs Benedict he’d ever had with the best appetite he’d had in ages. Amy had merely sipped tea and some clear chicken broth, saying, “Food doesn’t do anything for me, but I like to be sociable.”
Rick was settling into his strange new world. “I’ve got a million questions. Is it rude for me to ask how old you are?”
“Very rude, dude!” But she smiled. “On St. Nicholas Day — December sixth — I’ll be three hundred and ninety five.”
“Ordinarily I’d say that was unbelievable, but …” He sighed and shook his head. “Another question. Which maybe I should leave alone. But I won’t.” His heart was beating fast. “Where do we go from here?”
Amy had picked up the teapot to pour another cup but now set it down. “Well, Rick, I’m going home.”
“Where is that?”
“London.”
“London,” he murmured.
“I try not to spend a lot of time in the States these days. I’m planning to fly out this afternoon. I’ve got a plane, of course.”
Rick said, “I love you.”
Amy looked at him with those blue eyes. “My fault. All my fault. I have to pull away now, my friend.”
“No. Please don’t.”
“There’s no such thing as a romance that lasts between a vampire and a breather. It always ends badly.”
“Then turn me.”
She shook her head. “That would be wrong, and I won’t do it.”
“You don’t love me.” And why should she, Rick thought.
“I can’t.”
The silent chauffeur drove Rick to his apartment. The last thing Amy had said was that she might see him next year when she paid her annual visit. He’d struggled to say, “OK. I’ll look forward to that.” She had not offered a phone number or email address, and fearing her refusal he had not asked.
He should rejoice: she had intervened like an angel, restoring his health, changing his fate.
But then she broke his heart.
He would go on, but again as a lonely soul.
November 11, 2026
© 2026 Croatoan Books
S.V. Florian is the author of the novel Chaos and Old Night.
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