Available Darkness Season 1

continued until the man was no longer on fire, but rather a charred corpse, not unlike the corpses his killer had been leaving behind. The photos that followed showed several military and scientist types examining the charred body. The photos closed out with extreme close-ups of the damage.
    “Look familiar?” Bob asked.
    Caleb then noticed a second similarity between his victims and the corpse in the photographs. Neither the chair or restraints displayed much fire damage at all.
    “Christ,” Caleb said, “what is this?”
    “We call them feeders, though some of the agents call them vampires.”
    “Vampires?” Caleb said, incredulously, wondering if Bob was fucking with him.
    “Well, I prefer feeders. And not vampires like you see on TV and shit,” Bob said. “But they do burn like the TV ones.”
    Caleb tried to digest the new information and figure how the pieces fit into his case. “So are you telling me that the victims in my cases are feeders? ”
    Just saying the word “feeder” sounded like some kind of bad B-movie reference.
    “No,” Bob said, “but they were killed by one. These things feed via touch. Just like in the video all over the fucking TV channels. They drain you until you’re nothing but a burnt husk.”
    Caleb cycled through the photos again, then started to rifle through the attached paperwork, none of it written in a language he recognized.
    “What is this shit?” he asked.
    Bob laughed, “It’s encrypted.”
    Caleb suddenly remembered something that happened in his department eight years ago to a rookie named Eddie Rienhart. The team decided to haze him by planting a folder with “alien autopsy” photos. They had Eddie convinced, too, for a while. For a moment, he wondered if Bob was having one on him, but that was before remembering that Bob was a humorless prick.
    Still, Caleb had to ask. “You aren’t pulling a fast one on me, are you, Bob? Because it’s late and I’m tired as hell.”
    “No, they’re quite real, Caleb.”
    “So, you’re saying that my killer is one of these feeder things?”
    “Well,” Bob said with a deep sigh, “technically, I can’t tell you any more right now. I’m afraid you don’t have security clearance…”
    Caleb would have wondered “what the hell” out loud, but Bob just kept on going.
    “Unless… we promoted you to the Omega unit.”
    Caleb didn’t even need to say yes. “I’ll take that drink, now, Bob.”

    * * * *

CHAPTER 7 — John

    John stared at the dingy motel, framed in front of the old van like a perfectly preserved artifact from an abandoned Hollywood set. Though all the rooms’ windows and doors were boarded up, John was sure he sensed movement from somewhere inside the motel.
    He wasn’t sure how he knew someone was in the room, but figured it wasn’t much different from how he was able to sense and connect with Abigail.
    They were parked across the street, in front of a run down strip mall whose only remaining tenant still barely in business was a lone stalwart of a dying grocery store chain. A dead motel across from a dead shopping plaza — John could think of fewer ominous signs to warn him from pursuing his past any further. He couldn’t help but feel he might be walking into a trap of some sort, or at least danger.
    “I want you to wait here,” he told Abigail.
    “No way,” Abigail shook her head.
    John stared at her for maybe a second, “Listen,” he said, “I don’t know what’s waiting for me in there and I couldn’t live with myself if something bad happened to you because of me.”
    “I don’t…” she began.
    “You take these keys,” he interrupted, “if I don’t come out or you hear something awful, drive away. Just keep driving until you find a cop or a busy place where you can call for cops. Just tell them everything that happened, no lies. You will be safe. They can’t do anything to you because a) you didn’t do anything and b) you’re just a child.”
    She began to protest, but stopped just before his finger hit his lips.
    “Do you trust me?” he asked.
    She nodded with a pout.
    Rather than saying anything, he opened the car door and stepped into the night.

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Caleb Baldwin

    Caleb was having difficulty parsing the information Bob had just thrown into his lap. Prior to the evening’s events, before seeing the folder with the old photos, Caleb wouldn’t have bought any of this. Despite his team’s role in the agency, investigating the