SVU Scares: “Suburbia After Dark”

Submission by Markee Jones

“Dude, come on!” Drake hissed, dropping the stale bread and putting his hand under the running water of the faucet. He had just gotten home from a long night shift at the hospital and all he wanted was a peaceful evening where he wasn’t reminded of his curse.

He grabbed the tongs from a drawer and used them to toss the old slices of garlic bread into the garbage. He would need to talk to Lyle (yet again!) about leaving his Italian leftovers on the counter.

The last thing he wanted was for them to get into another fight that would lead to them losing control and having to pack up and leave the neighborhood.

This would make 13 times just this year!

He had never had this problem with his last roommate, but Lyle at least provided somewhat interesting conversations, unlike the grunts that Frank would contribute. Drake wiped the counter clean of the garlic before pulling a red pack from the freezer and leaving the kitchen. He tore it open with his teeth and sucked it dry. The weariness that had weighed him down immediately lifted.

He stalked down the dark hall to the door end of the hallway. He used his shoulder to shove the door open. How in the world could Lyle’s room be a disaster already? They had only moved in last week.

“Hey!”

Lyle snorted and rolled over.

“You lazy dog,” Drake grumbled and stomped further into his roommate’s den to his heavily curtained windows. He threw the curtains open, allowing the moonlight to shine into the dark room.

The lump on the bed growled.

“What gives man,” Lyle barked. “Close the curtains!”

“Doesn’t feel great, hm?”

Lyle flung his sheets aside and his heavy paws hit the floor. He bared his fangs at Drake and his golden eyes flashed with anger.

“You left garlic bread on the counter, again.”

Lyle’s face softened and he dropped his head into his clawed, furry hands. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought that I got everything.”

Drake pulled the curtains back into place and picked his way back to the door with Lyle following behind him.

“You’ve got to clean up in here,” Drake said after tripping over a pair of beat-up sneakers. “What if we had company? This mess would be enough to scare anybody away and get the Office of Environmental Health and Safety called on us.”

Lyle shrugged his massive shoulders. “I like it messy. Makes me feel like I have a permanent home, y’know?”

Drake did know. He had been chased out of every town he tried to settle in since 1437, and when he had found Lyle living behind a dumpster in Lexington, Virginia, he took him in. Having Lyle with him made him feel like he had something permanent in his immortal life, even though it was only a matter of time before he would be alone again.

“Now that I’m up, want to go out for a run?” Lyle asked. “It’s been a while since I’ve been able to stretch out my beast legs, and I know you haven’t transformed for a while. You’re getting antsy.”

Drake stilled his tapping foot and nodded. He had been depending on the nourishment that he stole from the blood bank. He hated the stale blood from the banks though — it always left a nasty taste in his mouth that would stick there until the next time he could find fresh blood. “Yeah, sure.”

Lyle and Drake walked to the back sliding door and Lyle pulled aside the heavy black-out curtains. His transformation was quick with the full force of the moonlight, but from the way he grunted and grimaced, Drake could tell that it wasn’t any less painful. It made him glad that his own transformation was essentially painless.

“Every time I think it’s going to get easier and it never does,” Lyle growled. “Let’s go!” He slid the door open. Lyle’s massive werewolf frame filled the door and he had to duck and turn to the side to get through, although his head still scraped the top of the frame. He ran outside and rolled his head, shoulders, and arms to loosen his muscles.

He readied himself for his own transformation. It took a great deal of concentration. He closed his eyes and went into the dark world of his mind. He took a breath in, and as he breathed out he opened his eyes. Instead of seeing Lyle in front of him, he felt the heat of the werewolf’s hot blood pulsing in his veins.

Lyle took off on all fours and jumped over the fence that separated their yard from their neighbor’s with ease. He was blur sprinting to the other side and vaulting over the fence on the other side. It wasn’t long before he disappeared into the forest on the other side. Drake fluttered overhead, but something stopped him above their neighbor’s yard.

Vibrations. He sent out a series of clicks toward the house, but nothing came back.

Not wanting to fall further behind, he beat his wings rapidly and followed Lyle into the forest. He pushed the doubts out of his mind — living on the run for 583 years would make anyone jumpy, but he had to remind himself that there was nothing to be suspicious of. Their neighbor, Vance Helbing had warmly welcomed them into the neighborhood with a hot home-cooked meal and the lowdown on the other neighbors. He was also an old man, so there was no way that he would be up and about at midnight to see Lyle lumbering through his backyard. Still, they would have to be more careful in their beast forms.

Drake and Lyle spent the night in the trees hunting whatever game they could find and feeling free in their beast forms. It was a remarkable feeling to not have to worry about hunters chasing them with wooden stakes and guns full of silver bullets. Drake was finally able to breathe and have fun!

The sky was just beginning to lighten when the two returned home and transformed back into their human forms. Lyle went to his room to get ready for his job at the local animal hospital and Drake stumbled to his own room. It was late and it was the first time he had been in his beast form for a long while. The concentration had been exhausting.

Drake settled onto his bed with his hands crossed on his chest. He closed his eyes and quickly fell into the standard dreamless sleep.

Only a half hour later a pounding at the front door woke him up. He tried to close his eyes and ignore the knocking but after another persistent series of knocking, Drake rolled out of bed, shuffled to the door, and pulled it open.

“Good morning, Drake,” Vance Helbing said with a wide smile. “Do anything interesting last night?”

“Morning Mr. Helbing,” Drake said and stepped aside to make way for the man to come into the house. There was something about that smile that he didn’t like. He would have to watch what he said. “I just played some games with my roommate.”

“Ah yes, and how is Lyle?”

Mr. Helbing went to the sliding back door and pulled back the heavy curtains. He looked around the frame through narrowed eyes.

“Fine.”

“Yeah? Didn’t have any issues last night?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you are referring to.” Drake folded his arms across his chest and backed away from the stream of sunlight that reached into the room so that it barely came to an inch from his toes.

“Did you happen to see anything last night?”

“No.”

“Really? Well, let me tell you what I saw.” Mr. Helbing turned to face Drake. “I saw a giant dog running through my backyard. It jumped right over the fence and escaped into the forest. Did you see anything?”

The look that Mr. Helbing pierced him with burned like Holy Water. Somehow this elderly man knew exactly who had run through his backyard last night and he also knew that he was also involved.

There was only one way that he would know: Vance Helbing was a Hunter. Drake’s entire world shattered.

Mr. Helbing left the door with the curtains opened with the sun burning a line through the house and cutting Drake off from half of the house. He walked to the front door, but as he passed Drake he paused.

“I might as well tell you that people move to the suburbs to avoid strangeness and we like it that way,” he said. “We find anything that doesn’t fit our image and we stamp it out.” Mr. Helbing went to the door and pulled it open, but before he left he turned around and flashed Drake a smile.

“Have a good day, Drake,” he said. “Steaks at my house tonight?”