UPDATE: This is (loosely) the transcript for the podcast. More accurately, the podcast is the first draft of the story, and this is the second draft. Heavily revamped third draft coming late 2024!

UPDATE 2: First revamped chapter here (link in the comments, since Wattpad links don't work): https://www.wattpad.com/1386342880-keen%27s-turn-descent-depravation-revamped-chapter-1   (Note the bold puns conceit has been removed. You must now find all the wordplay yourself.)

✶✝ Like it? Feed it some star votes. It helps the story grow. Don't like it? Talk to me. How can it be improved? It's still in the draft stage (though it should be free of glaring errors), so open to feedback. ✶✝

The full moon rode high in a murky mauve before Jared Stern turned his steps toward a subway station, on the evening a star-crossed meeting would turn his world upside down.

Confined between the closeness of the muggy air and the pressure of the dinner helpings he'd been too polite to refuse, his pace was slow. But it being a Friday, he was in no hurry to get home, and the longer his walk the shorter his stay in the sweltering subway below. Tonight, however, he strayed from his usual course, plodding beneath the starless sky, fingers tugging at his scratchy cuffs and collar, his mind dipping in and out of an idle fantasy.

The story playing through his head was born of the workday's most outrageous article—a piece on a homeless man who'd claimed to have seen the aftermath of a vampire attack—the publication of which had resulted in yet another uncomfortable episode at the office. An irate customer, who'd picked up the week's issue only to find the headline story quite serious, had barged in demanding a refund. The woman had put it to him that there were no such things as vampires and that she shouldn't have to pay for news that wasn't news. Jared had wholeheartedly agreed with her and had been prepared to reimburse her out of pocket, when his boss had gotten back from his coffee run and thrown the woman out for disrespecting his publication.

The unpleasantness of the encounter, though suppressed under talk at dinner, had bubbled up again upon setting out for home. Heat built in his cheeks at the memory of the woman's scorn, and the knot reformed in his stomach at replaying his failure to get a word in to help her. Over and over it played, but each time a little differently—the office backdrop now that of the latest detective novel he'd been reading, the woman now there about her missing brother, the brutal story of the vampire's victim now headline news across the city. Familiar faces shifted through shadowy scenes, accompanying him toward the section of town where a monster allegedly lurked.

Nothing like prowling Manhattan at night to help hard-boiled fictions along, and soon he imagined another murder behind a blank window high above. An intrepid private eye was set on the case. Tense conversations staged on the same crowded sidewalks he was jostled down. A chase begun inside a cab squealing past him. Detective and partner placed beneath the glare of a neon sign as he walked by. By the time the noise and bustle of Midtown faded to the darker streets of Hudson Yards, his actors were in position for the climax.

...she takes a drag from her cigarette and blows smoke out bloodred lips. Arranging her gams she goes on, her tone as loaded as a souse on a Friday night. "I am afraid you will find, Mr. Starr, that my girls...bleed their clients dry."

The moonlight filtering through the blinds catches on her pointed smile.

"You don't have to tell me, darling," I sigh. "I'm well aware the lot of you are vamps."

"Ahh," Miss Moon replies, her smile widening into an upended picket fence, "but I do not think you are."

Her coworkers appear, creeping over couches and up brocaded curtains onto the walls.

I break out my stake gun. "I was afraid it'd come to this."

"Well, well, a hunter? Looks like we were the ones...in the dark."

"I don't care if you've all pledged your souls to Satan," I say. "That's a personal choice. But punning? That's a public offense!"

They dive at me, and I open fire. We battle across the parlor floor. I skewer 'em left and right, but I'm running outta ammo. One of 'em clocks my head, and I reel, ears ringing like it's time for dinner. Just not mine.

She appears in front of me, all teeth. I raise the gun, about to stick it to the broad once and for all, when outta the darkness above one pounces on me. The horde overpowers me, pinning me to the ground.

"Disarm him."

Her lackeys exchange glances and start to go out on a limb.

"No-no-no-stop!" Miss Moon touches a pale hand to her brow. "You have no idea what it is like working with these idiots."

"It must be murder," I pant.

"Hypocrite."

Jared paused. Something had pulled him from his reverie. At first, he thought it was the scent of salt on the air. It was so easy to forget, gridlocked in the smoggy streets, that New York was a port city.

But no, that hadn't been it. There had been a sound, distinct amid the usual rumble of traffic.

A cry.

He looked around. He stood in the shadow of a viaduct, long abandoned by the railroad. The street about was quiet. A graffiti-spackled construction fence bordered the sidewalk he was on, but an access gate stood ajar to his left. As he turned toward it, he could hear a muffled noise coming from the alley it revealed.

Jared stepped around the gate into the space beyond. Two rows of rusted metal columns supported the tracks overhead, blocking out the light of the surrounding street. He could make out two figures midway down the alley. One was bent over the other, who seemed to be sprawled on the ground. At Jared's appearance, the crouching figure raised its head. Despite the warmth of the evening, the hood of a long coat was drawn down over its face.

Sensing his trespass, he muttered, "Oh, uh, sorry..." He trailed off, his heart thumping in his chest. The impression he'd just gotten was very, very wrong.

No, that's...not what...

One form bent over another, but...one moving, one still.

A mugging?

He took a few steps toward them, into the darkness. "Everything alright?" He swallowed and took another step. "Hey, you okay?"

The figure rose and turned to face him. It beckoned urgently, pointing to the form on the ground. Jared hurried closer.

At his approach, the figure recoiled into the shadows. The antique lamps that hung from the girders above were broken, but as he drew nearer, the form resolved into that of a tall man, and the light of the street behind caught on something wet at the chin. The man was shaking now, and as Jared stopped short, a chill just beginning to creep down his spine, he could see that it was from silent laughter. His eyes, adjusting to the dark, now assigned a color to the wet on the man's face—a dark, sticky red.

Jared took a step back, a formless dread choking him, tensing his muscles to run. But before he could move, the figure in front of him jumped sideways, hitting a steel support column on all fours and sticking there like a spider. It crawled straight up the vertical surface onto the girders above, then over his head toward the street, and dropped with a heavy thud behind him, blocking his exit.

Jared shrank back, heart thundering in his ears. The figure was already upon him. With a forward lunge it clamped its hand about his jaw, muffling his cry. He was propelled backward—his skull struck the bricks behind him. Cold fingers squeezed his cheeks in a crushing grasp, forcing his chin upward and sideways, baring his throat. Each sharp breath sucked in through his nose carried a metallic tang.

Paralyzed, Jared raised his eyes to his assailant's.

The face that looked down at him, chin slick with blood, was that of a handsome, human man. But even as he watched, it was changing. The vampire, for such it could only be, rolled back its head, its eyes dilating impossibly, flooding with black. Its mouth opening, a pair of sharp, glistening fangs descending. It ran its tongue along its teeth, lingering on the points, and on the face now biting back a smile was a look of rapturous anticipation.

Jared had seen enough. He squeezed his eyes shut...and waited.

And...waited.

He opened his eyes.

The strangest thing was happening. It was like watching a magnet pressed against another's like pole. The vampire thrust its head toward his neck, fangs bared, but met with some invisible resistance, head sliding past its mark, teeth snapping in frustration. His features moved to mirror his attacker's stunned expression, but as they brushed against the hand, he found the grip had loosened.

Slipping free of the slackened grasp, Jared dropped to a crouch, palms hitting asphalt, and pushed off past its legs, darting for the gate. He bolted out into the main road, eyes raking the street—locked storage facilities, high fences along brick facades, a parking lot, the road to the piers.

Too exposed!

He ran in the opposite direction to the water, making for the parking lot. His hip banged against a parked car; he hit the hood and pushed off it. He wove between the headless trailers of trucks. Hit a wire fence and scaled it. Dropped into a deserted street and pounded on, the thumping sounds of his shoes on the pavement reverberating a little too long, as if they had attained an echo.

Across an intersection and there—an entrance to the subway. He dashed for it, reaching the stairwell and bounding down into the station, leaping the turnstiles and careening onto the platform. There were makeshift plywood walls up, directing foot traffic around construction. He dove into the maze, coming out at the deserted end of the station, where a train stood, doors open, waiting.

He barreled toward it, stealing a glance at the empty passage behind him as he entered the first car and didn't stop, wrenching open the doors through to the next carriage, finding that empty, running along its length toward the next doors—

C'mon, c'mon, c'mon!

Again he shot a glance back. All the cars were empty.

A barely intelligible voice crackled over the train's loudspeaker. "Stand clear of the closing doors, please."

He collapsed on a seat, shirt slicked to his spine. Heaving in breaths and clutching the stitch in his side, he let his head fall back against the window as the doors rattled shut, and the train started on its way.

Did that...seriously just...?

A vampire, bending over a body. Not unlike in the article he'd had to edit yesterday, only this time, there was no doubt that it was real.

Holy shit.

He stared sightlessly out the window, palms rubbing up and down his aching thighs as he tried to collect himself and his worldview.

But there can't be vampires! There's no such thing as vampires!

His own frightened reflection in the dark glass opposite spoke otherwise.

Is Dracula true...?

There was a dull thud, and the train car rocked.

Neither of these events would have been remarkable in a subway car clattering along with the usual array of grindings and screechings, except that the thud had come from above. The hairs on Jared's arms rose, and he looked up at the ceiling of the car, seeing nothing save the lights and advertisements. But he thought he could hear a new noise now, as of something scuffling along overhead. He rose, clenching clammy fists, looking to the doors on either side of him, and as his head returned to center, he froze.

There was something outside the window.

Tunnel lights flicking by outside outlined a shape attached to the outside of the car, and each strobing illumination showed Jared something that rooted him with terror.

The window was opening.

Long-nailed hands walked their way down the inner side of the window, the dark form unfolding, head rising, black eyes locking on Jared's.

Move, idiot!

The train took a sudden turn, and the wheels shrieked against the tracks, throwing up showers of sparks, like miniature fireworks in the dark tunnel outside. At the noise the creature keened, clamping clawed hands over its ears. The swerve knocked Jared off balance, and he went with the motion, lurching for the nearest exit. The vampire slithered to the floor and started after him, but he didn't look back, slamming one door behind him and bursting through the second into the next car. The train was slowing as a door squealed open behind him, and he was at the side doors, fingers between them, prying them open—the second door opened behind—then leaping out onto the platform just as talons swiped for his collar. He pelted for the turnstiles, vaulted them, and bolted up the stairs. Pushing past subway goers, shouts rising behind him as he ran, ran without turning, out into the night and the light of Times Square.

He careened into the groups of tourists taking pictures with costumed hustlers. A Statue of Liberty swore at him as he shoved his way through a family photo, looking over his shoulder, his eyes catching on a hooded head bobbing high in the sea behind. Keeping his own head ducked, he pressed into the press of humanity, weaving and swerving, losing himself in the crowd, until he could no longer see the form in pursuit. At the opposite corner he doubled back, taxis blaring at his disregard for traffic laws, running more blocks through the circles of light of lamppost after lamppost before descending into the subway again.

There he waited, panting and sweating, for the next southbound train. Onboard, and some fifty anxiety-ridden minutes later, he came out into the night a few blocks from his apartment, and sometime after that, out onto the fourth floor, all the while looking repeatedly over his shoulder. He stopped before his door and let himself in, locking and bolting it behind him. Skirting the hulking cabinet, he crept to the window and checked the street below, but it was empty.

Jared moved mechanically through his evening routine, resetting his alarm clocks while his mind rolled back over his escape like a film reel in reverse.

He'd gotten away.

He'd been able to slip from those claws.

But why?

Making for the mountain of decaying paperbacks in the corner, he sifted through them, coughing on dust and powdered pages, until he found the one he was looking for. With a last check out the window, he turned off the light, switched on the reading lamp, and huddled down in the blanket to reread Dracula.

https://youtu.be/opVEcU804sw