Disclaimer: The character Angel belongs to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Original characters and story belong to the author.

The Hobo

by Cas

Central Oregon, 1934

Chapter One

The railroad ran from the centre of town before heading south west to Prineville Junction where it joined the main Union Pacific track between The Dalles and Bend. Less than twenty years old, it didn't see much business these days. It hadn't seen much business in a long time. Of course when it had been built, they had hoped it would eventually loop up to Madras, but it had never happened. It stayed a twenty odd mile spur line that only the logging from Ochoco kept going. Even the Union Pacific line saw less traffic these days. Most of the business there was went through the Willamette Valley to the west. The track was better and there were more people. Here, what was there here? Just the dried up dust of a thousand hopes and dreams and a few leather faced ranchers, eyes narrowed in the glare, pausing every now and then to watch a gob of spit puff in the dust as they walked along the shaded sidewalk. They were usually on their way to the hardware store on East First to beg for more credit or to the bank to plead against foreclosure. Staying out of the shimmering, hundred degree heat for as long as they could - as any sensible person would.

There was always the occasional train of course. The Ochoco lumber company was still in business. Every week there was still enough for the sawmill to keep going and a long string of boxcars and empty cattle trucks clunked in from The Dalles or from Bend and the south to clunk back out again the next day. Off the beaten track for everyone, even hobos. So much so they hardly bothered to check for them any more.

Until Maxwell Duffy was transferred in from Eugene that is. Had been something in the army during the war, they figured, but passed over for promotion. He was that sort of age. Army clerk or something, he was all prissy about regulations and paperwork and stuff . But he had them checking all the trucks and boxcars, inside, underneath, on top. The prospect that someone would try and ride for free seemed to send the man apoplectic with rage. It was something he had in common with Mac another one left twisted and bitter by disappointment. Bowmore had started a book going on who would be the first to drop dead from a stroke or a heart attack.

One week the train was real late. When it finally arrived, late in the afternoon, it was obvious why. It was twice as long as usual. Not, of course, because there was more business, just the railroad company shifting trucks around, but it meant twice as much work for the men.

About half way down the train, Mac noticed one of the boxcar doors was open an inch or so. It had probably been pulled properly closed but with nothing to hold it shut the jolting of the boxcar over the track had moved it open again. "Hey!" he shouted to the others. "Think we might have something here." He pulled out his cosh as the others came running up. He indicated the broken padlock. "Someone's jemmied this."

They heaved the boxcar door open and looked in. "God awful stink!" muttered Jones. There was nothing much inside, motes of straw dust floated in the still air, thrown up from the scattered wisps of straw on the floor of the boxcar. There were a couple of old crates in one corner in front of a pile of rags, no doubt the source of the stink, strong enough to drown out the creosote boxcars usually smelt of.

"Wait a minute," said Mac, pointing. An old boot was sticking out from under the pile of rags. He motioned the others to be quiet, and jumped up into the boxcar, although Bowmore theatrically raised his eyebrows as if to say, hadn't they already made enough noise to wake the dead?

Cautiously, Mac peered behind the packing crates and grinned when he saw the huddled figure curled up. "Gotcha," he said.

On hearing this the others jumped up into the boxcar after him, coshes out, ready. Mac kicked the figure and it moved. This was the bit he always liked. The bit that made all the searching worthwhile. But they'd had twice the search today, so he figured, this scum deserved twice the pain.

**********

Angel was lost in a century old memory, a nightmare that wound its tortuous way to its inevitable, creatively sadistic conclusion, where he remembered the feel of his teeth in the woman's neck, the thick, warm gush of her blood into his mouth, remembered how he had enjoyed it, lingered over it, to make her suffer just that little bit more before finally ending it and she lay limp in his arms as if in a post coital haze. There was nothing he could do to change any of it, ever. Nothing he could do would ever make any difference…

And then he was kicked awake, hands grabbed his arms, exclaiming in disgust as they pulled him out into the main body of the boxcar. They held him on his knees, arms twisted behind him as he blinked, shaking off the last shreds of the dream. This had happened before he remembered. They always started with a speech, they always needed to justify themselves, to tell him he was a worthless heap of shit that barely deserved they should leave him alive. But he knew that, he wasn't likely to forget. He looked at the grain of the wood in the floor, how it was worn in places, where hooves had continually rubbed against it, waiting for the droning voice to finish and for them to get on with it.

Someone grabbed his hair and pulled his head up so he was forced to look up at the man. "Are you listening to me, scumbag?" a tall, angry man with mean eyes demanded.

Angel said nothing, he didn't really think they wanted an answer. The man was speaking again. "I don't get it with you people. You think the world owes you? Well I got news for you, pal. Here's where you pay for the ride." The man let his head fall and then hit him on the temple with his stick.

It got blurred after that, but he didn't try and stop them, he had learned the hard way that usually only made it worse and he did deserve it after all. This time though he thought they were never going to stop, and the fact that he didn't try and fight back only made them madder. Then he blacked out and it didn't matter any more.

Bowmore put a restraining hand on Mac's arm. "Hey, c'mon what's with you, man?"

Mac gave the bum a final, vicious kick to the kidneys before turning, muttering, "Can't stand freeloaders."

Jones was bending over the hobo. "Hey guys, I think we went and killed him."

Mac, the red rage retreating, said, "Damn! Didn't mean to do that." He sighed. "Do the same as last time? Dump him out by the old Baker place tonight?" The other two nodded. "OK, c'mon, we're done here." He jumped down out of the boxcar.

"You know, one day he's gonna do that to someone who matters, and there's gonna be hell to pay," remarked Bowmore as they followed Mac.

Jones shrugged. "So long's we're not with him when he does it, who cares?"

******

Three hours later they were back, with Mac's pick up. Old Gabe the night watchman, knew the score, and waved them through back into the yard. The train wouldn't be leaving until the next morning once the logs were all loaded.

Angel was lying where they had left him. He had come to and wished he hadn't. It was just as well he didn't need to breathe as he was sure most of his ribs were broken or cracked, probably puncturing his lungs. He couldn't move two of his fingers - they must have been broken when he was trying to protect his head and they hit his hands with their coshes instead. His head throbbed anyway, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. He knew he had to move - get away from the rail yard - they were probably going to come back, but he couldn't leave until it was dark. Then he heard them, and realised it was too late.

"Bowmore, you grab his legs," the voice of the tall angry one instructed. "Jones see if he had any stuff there and clear it out, we can burn it later. I don't want any sign there was ever anyone here."

"Sure, Mac," another voice answered.

He felt himself lifted, by the arms and legs, and the tall, angry one said, "Huh, you'd expect one this size to be heavier."

"Well I didn't exactly notice a restaurant car on the train," a third voice commented sarcastically.

And then he felt himself flung like a sack of potatoes, the pain of the landing making him black out again.

It was later, and he was lying where he had landed in a heap in the back of a truck. The jolting movement proclaimed the state of the road they were driving along. He realised they had covered him with an old tarpaulin. It smelt of dog piss and gasoline. Every jolt in the road made his eyes water as the edges of his broken bones rubbed against each other. He hadn't been this badly hurt in a long time. It was going to take days to heal up, longer if he didn't manage to drink soon.

Eventually just as he felt he would start screaming with the pain, punctured lungs or no punctured lungs, the pick up stopped.

"Sure this is far enough, Mac?" a voice asked. "We're only a couple of miles from the Woodward's here. Hell, I bet they saw us coming."

"Help me dump him in the gully, Jones and shut up. We're at least five miles from the Woodward's," the voice of the tall, angry man said. "Some dinner for the mountain lion Ma Woodward was saying she'd seen last week."

Angel felt the tarpaulin thrown back, and they grabbed his arms and legs again. There was a slight scuffling noise as the men shuffled backwards, dragging him and then a moment that could have lasted a second or a lifetime before everything went black again.

********

First he heard the rippling noise. He listened to it for a while before he realised it was the noise of water, flowing fast over rocks. The sound was soothing, relaxing. It helped drown out the roar of pain that surrounded him.

A breath of air fluttered across the gully he was lying in. He could smell the dawn coming. It would be so much easier to just lie there and wait for the sun and oblivion, but if he did that, how could he suffer? Where was the punishment in that? He was supposed to be punished. It was the purpose of his existence. So with more strength than he thought he had left, he pulled himself up onto his knees and looked around. They had flung him down a steep scree-filled slope from the track fifty feet or so above, and he had landed beside a fast flowing creek. On the other side of the creek, the gully was flatter, dotted with the occasional scrubby pine tree. Everywhere it was bone dry. In the distance the gully opened out as the track wound its way towards the wreck of a farmhouse. Shelter.

He forced the screaming muscles in his legs to propel him down the creek towards the farmhouse. As he got closer he realised that the roof was gone and the building a shell. But the barn, the barn was solid. They built well to protect their animals through the long cold of the winter. Strength giving out, he collapsed in a heap beside one of the stalls.

The Hobo: Chapter Two

For Jimmy Woodward, summer was always the best time of year. Sure it was sweltering, but at least you didn't get chilblains and you didn't have to ride through ten foot snow drifts to get to school. You didn't have to ride to school at all. Three whole months without his teacher droning on. The best time. Some days he would spend hours roaming the high ponderosa with his dog, Skipper. Other times he would head into the Ochoco, but his Mom didn't like him doing that. She said there were bears and mountain lions, although he'd never seen any. Mostly though he hung around the old Baker place - the creek was good for swimming and fishing and it was the nearest one to where he lived. And he could pretend to defend the ruined farmhouse from marauding redskins like in the Saturday morning movie shows he sometimes went to at the movie theatre in Prineville. It was harder to pretend he was Flash Gordon saving the world from Ming the Merciless, the scenery wasn't quite right. But although he had to pretend real hard for it to be spooky enough, his favourite was pretending to be the heroic Van Helsing saving the cowering peasants of Transylvania from the evil Count Dracula. Of course he hadn't been allowed to see that movie, but his imagination was fired by the pile of Weird Tales magazines he had stashed under his bed that he was sure his Mom didn't know about.

And then for a while that summer, he didn't have to pretend at all. It was real.

*******

Angel felt something licking his face. He could smell its hot breath and feel its tongue rasp the stubble on his cheeks, as it licked at the cut where his cheekbone had been split open. He pulled back, the pain still roaring and glared at the dog with his good eye. At the small dog.

The dog gave a yelp of surprise and stood back, tongue hanging out, wagging its tail. He looked at it, some kind of terrier cross, short, white dust covered coat. It grinned at him. He could smell its blood, could see it pulsing through its body. He was very hungry. So hungry that rather than wait for it to come to him, as it probably would have done, he lunged at it, letting the Change take him. Even enhanced by the Change, his reflexes weren't fast enough, he was in too bad shape. The dog danced back and taking one look at his teeth gave another yelp and fled.

"Damn!" he muttered forcing the Change down. Oh God that hurt; the thump as he landed on his stomach had scraped the edges of his broken ribs together. He groaned and that hurt as well so he rolled onto his back to take the pressure off. He lay there for a few minutes, focussing on the pain, using it to force the hunger away. Then he nearly lost it completely.

"Hey mister, you all right?" Jimmy asked. The guy didn't look all right. Apart from being just about the filthiest human being Jimmy had ever seen, and that included Ole Catshit Johnson, his face was a mess, and one side of his head was matted with dried blood. The backs of his hands were all split along the knuckles as if he had been fighting, and there was a large, still-damp bloodstain on his shirt. He didn't look that old, younger than Jimmy's Pa for sure.

The man whirled onto his knees faster than you would have thought possible, blinking at him from under ragged hair. For a second there Jimmy thought his eyes glowed yellow in the dark, but that must have been his imagination.

"Get away from me," he croaked, "please….. go away."

However, Jimmy knew his Christian duty. His Mom reminded him of it often enough. He left the man, and went out to where he had left his water bottle, by the creek. Refilling it, he brought it back. He paused, puzzled. The man wasn't there.

At the back of one the stalls Angel huddled in a foetal position, oblivious now to the pain from the beating, aware only now of the greater pain of what he might do if the boy wouldn't go away: oh God, not a child, not while I'm like this, please no. He wasn't aware he was moaning out loud until he smelt the boy nearby again.

"Hey mister," he said, "I brung you some water, an if you're hungry you could have the bread and cheese I've by me."

Angel latched on to what the boy had said. Water sometimes helped. "Leave the water," he said in a strangled voice. he sensed the boy waiting for him to say something else. "I don't eat bread," he added. He kept his hands clutched to his head. They were shaking. If he looked at the boy again he was lost. Inspiration struck. "You could get me a rat though." He thought he had heard them rustling in the darkness.

"A rat? Are you sure?" The boy's voice was tinged with disgust.

"Yes… please…" Just go away before I kill you, he finished silently.

"We-ll OK. One rat coming right up. Skipper's a champ at ketchin 'em."

He felt rather than heard the boy move away, and after a moment risked sitting up. The barn was empty. There was an old water bottle lying on the ground in front of him. He picked it up and drained it. The water didn't help much. He leaned back against the rough boarding of the barn wall, hugging his knees to his chest, trying to keep it together.

It couldn't have been long before the boy was back. "Hey, I got you your rat, it was fun."

"Just leave it," he said quickly trying not to listen to the siren voice in his head urging him to do it, reminding him of how sweet young blood tasted.

"Will I get you another? There's loads of 'em round here."

"Please..." he moaned to the boy, or was it to himself? He wasn't sure, but the boy left anyway.

The rat's blood was foul, it always was, but it worked. With a shuddering sigh he was able to thrust the demon out of his mind for the time being, regain a measure of control. He rested his head against the barn wall, and watched the open doorway. He could see the sunlight outside, the quality of the light telling him it was still early. He was stuck here for the rest of the day then. He watched through half closed eyelids as the boy came back. He looked about eleven or twelve, hard to tell. He had sandy hair and freckles, a real Tom Sawyer type.

He was swinging another rat by the tail. He saw Angel was sitting up and waved it at him saying, " See, gotcha, 'nuther one, told you it weren't hard." He threw it at Angel's feet and put his head on one side, considering. "You look better, mister, but you still look a mess."

"I've felt better."

"I can believe that," the boy assured him, then asked, "What's your name?"

Angel couldn't remember the last time someone had asked him that, in a friendly way, not the harsh, uninterested way the cops or the railroad detectives demanded.

"Mister will do," he said eventually. The boy looked at him, clearly dissatisfied with this. The expression on his face said that he had been about to make some rude comment, but had remembered it wasn't polite. Muscles in Angel's face that had almost forgotten how to smile twitched. "What's yours?"

In a tone that clearly communicated I don't mind sharing my name, the boy said, "I'm Jimmy Woodward - my Pa's ranch is over that aways, before you get to the Ochoco." The boy waved vaguely behind him. "Hey, I'm sure he'd give you a job for a while if you wanted."

Angel shook his head. "That's OK, I'm not looking for a job. Just gimme a couple of days and I'll be gone."

"Well if you're sure - it wouldn't be any bother to ask."

Angel shook his head again. A thought struck him. "Best if you don't mention to anyone that I'm here."

The boy's eye's widened. "Are you a Fugitive From A Chain Gang or something?" Another movie he hadn't been allowed to see, but his Pa had endless arguments with Doc Ramsay about the Immorality of Treating Men Like Beasts. It always sounded as if it had capitals.

Angel couldn't stop himself, and gave a great wheezing croak of laughter. "Oh God that hurt," he gasped clutching his side. "Or something," he assured the boy."

Jimmy was disappointed. "That would have been neat, helping someone escape from Wrongful Imprisonment."

Angel's lips twitched again. "Sorry."

"'Guess." The boy looked downcast for a moment. Then brightened up as a thought struck him. "Hey I'm fishing. Wanna help?"

Angel waved his hands at himself and said, "I need to rest. Sorry."

The boy flushed. "Oh and I guess you want to eat your rats huh? Well I'll be out front by the creek if you need anything. C'mon Skipper!" and with a wave, he ran out back to the creek.

Angel's eyes followed as the boy ran out of the barn. He had to get away. The boy shouldn't be helping him, it wasn't right, he didn't deserve it. But he was trapped for the rest of the day, and he was weak-willed. The casual kindness of the boy's conversation had left him desperate for more, like a moth fluttering round a naked flame, he knew it would only hurt more in the end - but he deserved that too didn't he?

When he woke, although it was only mid-afternoon, the sun was just disappearing behind the hills on the other side of the creek. The crackle of dry wood and the smell of wood-smoke told him the boy was still there. Angel pulled himself slowly to his feet, clutching his side where it hurt the most, and walked outside.

On a narrow strip of sand at the edge of the water, Jimmy had built a fire and was roasting a fish on a skewer. This was the third one, and he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't go and check on the guy again. He had been awful still the last time he had looked. Then he saw him shuffling out of the barn. He walked like an old man with rheumatism as if every step was a painful effort. Maybe that was because it was.

"Want some fish?" he asked him waving the skewer at him as the man sank to his knees beside the water.

The man shook his head. "I'm not hungry." his voice sounded as if he hardly ever used it. He waved at the creek. "I need to get cleaned up."

I'll say, thought Jimmy, glad the guy was squatting downwind.

He watched as the guy slowly peeled off his filthy jacket and flung it on the ground. Underneath, he was wearing a collarless shirt that might once have been white but which now had faded to a horrible dirty grey colour, except where it was rust coloured from the blood on his side. He undid the buttons, and with a slight gasp pulled it off his shoulders. Jimmy could see his arms were mottled purple with bruising. Finally he pulled his dirty grey undershirt over his head. Jimmy's eyes widened. Where the bloodstain had been there was an open gash. Like his arms, every stretch of his skin seemed to be mottled with bruising, especially round his kidneys.

"Mister, you need to see a doctor," the boy told him.

Again the man shook his head. "No, I'll be all right, please, it doesn't matter."

Jimmy was going to protest but then the thought struck him that the guy probably was a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and wouldn't want to go near anyone official, so he didn't insist. That would explain the rats as well. Probably got used to living off them, the food in jail being that bad an' all. He looked furtively at the guy's wrists to see if there were shackle scars but couldn't see any.

He watched as the guy cleaned up the wound on his side and then poured water over his head, washing the blood out of his matted hair, and that seemed to be it.

"You should wash properly," Jimmy told him, and was then struck by a thought. "But that's the idea isn't it? People won't come near you if you're too disgusting."

Angel flashed a glance at the boy. He was too perceptive by far. He might see other things. Changing the subject he asked, "How far is it to the railroad?"

"Well it's in town and it's a good ten miles into town," the boy said and then added as Angel began to relax, an easy walk, "But you won't get a train for a week at least. Is that why they beat you up, because you took a ride on the train?"

"Yeah. I deserved it - they don't like it when people don't pay for the ride."

The boy was indignant now. "Nobody deserves to get beaten up like that. And everyone knows the railroad guys enjoy kicking hobos around."

Angel picked up on the rest of what the boy had said. "You said there wouldn't be another train for a week? Why not?"

"Hey Mister, where do you think this is? Grand Central Station? But you can always walk the twenty five miles from town to the Union Pacific tracks. I heard they have trains."

Oh God, washed up like jetsam at the back end of nowhere, with no way to leave. But at least it would be safer to stay here rather than hanging around the small town for a week.

The boy stood up. "Hey I gotta go. But don't worry, I'll be back tomorrow. See yah. C'mon Skipper!" And with a whistle at the dog he turned and left Angel kneeling by the river, the fire slowly dying away to embers.

The Hobo: Chapter Three

Maxwell Duffy was not a happy man. This was especially true today. He stared angrily at the three men standing before his desk. "Procedures, procedures," he said in that prissy voice of his, tapping the desk with a pencil. "You know what you are supposed to do if you catch someone on the train. There has to be a report so we can monitor how many vagrants are using our facilities. Then you are supposed to hand the vagrant over to the county sheriff where the law will deal with him." He paused and pushed his glasses up his nose. "So, I'm asking you again, what did you do with him?"

Mac glanced at the other two. Someone had blabbed, and it hadn't been him. He was fairly sure no-one would throw his ass in jail for ridding the world of some scum of a hobo. More likely to happen because he hadn't written a report about it. Bowmore and Jones were staring at a point about a foot above Duffy's head, leaving it up to him.

"Well?" Tap, tap, tap went the pencil.

Mac sighed. "Dumped him out at the old Baker place on Allen Creek. Probably dead."

"You mean you didn't make sure? This is most irregular, MacDonald. I will not have this sort of thing going on in my rail-yard. Messes up the paperwork."

"We-ll, he had a stick an all, and struggled a lot so I guess we were just defending ourselves," Mac lied. "Weren't we, guys?" The other two muttered their agreement.

"Humph!" snorted Duffy. "You had better go back to the, er Baker place and make sure he's dead. If he is bury him - I don't suppose you did?" They shook their heads. "And we'll work something out with the paperwork. If he's not, come straight back here and I'll go to the sheriff. The law should deal with dangerous criminals like that."

As they stepped out of the office into the glare of the day, Bowmore remarked, "He's more concerned about his goddam paperwork than anything else."

Jones grumbled, "Why didn't you just come right out and say he was dead, 'cause he was, wasn't he? Would've saved us a ride out there again."

"Jones, Jones, don't you know never to admit to anything like that?" Mac slapped him on the shoulders and grinned. "We'll go tomorrow, right after we have a lil' talk with Old Gabe."

However, Old Gabe proved elusive and when they eventually ran him to ground in a bar out on the Madras Highway he strenuously denied having spoken to Duffy about the hobo. "Probably saw you himself," the old man said. "You know he's a sneaky bastard."

So it wasn't until early afternoon that they got out to the old Baker place, and when they did there was no sign of the hobo's body where they had dumped him.

"Reckon that mountain lion got him?" asked Jones anxiously.

Mac considered. "There'd be signs, blood n' stuff. You'd think. Best go down and have a look, see if there's any tracks."

The three of them clambered down the scree, taking care not to slide on the loose stones. Bowmore was the first to find the tracks. "Weren't no lion," he told the others as they came up. He spat on the ground. "Bastard got up and walked hisself."

"What?" demanded Mac in disbelief.

But there, clear as day were the tracks of someone walking towards the ruin of the farmhouse in the distance. Someone who fell over occasionally, but who nevertheless had walked.

"Well I'll be damned!" said Jones. "I could have swore he was dead, couldn't you?"

"Sure looked like it," muttered Mac.

Bowmore spat on the ground again and looked at the tall man. "So, Mac, do we do like the bossman said and report this to the sheriff?"

"Hell no, that lardass wouldn't thank us for the extra work. Let's finish what we started." He set off following the tracks. The others stood for a moment watching him. He realised they weren't coming and turned and looked at them. "You boys coming?"

Jones shrugged and followed him. Only Bowmore was left, he sighed and called out after them, "I'll get the pick up."

***********
During the night Angel had caught several more rats and although the taste of their blood just about made him gag, it helped him heal. So much so that by the end of the night, bruises that had been a livid purple only that morning had faded to yellow, and his broken ribs were well on the way to mending.

But the boy didn't come back.

He was woken by the sound of a pick up truck pulling up. Doors slammed and then voices. "Fire says someone's been here for sure. Looks fresh too." It was one of the railroad guards. "Think he's still here?" the man added.

Footsteps came over to the open doorway of the barn. "Yup, still here," the voice of the tall, angry man said.

"How do'you know that, Mac?" a third voice asked.

"I can smell him."

**********

Jimmy had hardly been able to sleep for excitement. He had convinced himself he was helping someone escape injustice, and he couldn't wait to do more for the guy. So he was up early, and shovelling his breakfast down his throat in double quick time so he could get all his chores done and head off down to the Baker place. His Pa had other ideas. "You can help me today," he told him.

His Mom was amused at his dismayed reaction.

"Got some big secret going on down there, Jimmy?" she asked

Jimmy blanched. How did she know? Then he realised she was only joking. "It's just that I've got to go and save the peasants from the evil Count Dracula," he assured her as his Pa snorted in derision.

"Oh, like last week?" Mom asked.

"No, of course not. Different peasants."

"Well they can wait until you're done helping me," Pa snapped. "Come on!"

When Jimmy finally got down to the old Baker place he knew something was wrong as soon as he saw the pick up truck, of course. It wasn't the sheriff, so that was good, but nobody ever came out here. He motioned the dog to stay, and then crept down the hill. The board walls of the barn were warped in places so he could see in without being seen himself. Even before he looked though he didn't like the sounds he could hear. Someone was getting beaten up. Badly.

Three of the guys who worked at the railroad yard were there. The tall, rangy one, Mac, that everyone avoided on account of he was so mean, and two others. They had long handled shovels and were using them to beat up on the Chain Gang Fugitive. He was just letting them, he wasn't fighting back at all. Why not? Jimmy wondered, the railroad guys looked as if they were going to kill him.

And then something happened that had Jimmy's eye's widening in excitement. One of the railroad guards struck the guy with the edge of his shovel and it was sharp enough to cut him. Jimmy could see the thin line of red along his chest. The man looked down and froze, then with a feral growl raised his head. Jimmy stared. Yellow eyes glared from under heavy brow ridges and long, sharp canines were clearly visible as the man? pulled back his lips in a snarl. And then he sprang at the tall, rangy railroad guard, the one who'd been beating on him the hardest. One of the others tried to pull him off, but with one arm, the guy flung him back so hard he seemed to fly through the air and crashed into one of the stalls. Suddenly Mac looked real scared. Jimmy had never seen a grown man look as if he was going to crap in his pants with fear, but knew he was seeing one now. The monster the Chain Gang Fugitive guy had turned into was completely focussed on him, sizing him up the way a mountain lion sizes up its prey. They slammed into the ground, and then, oh yeuch,! He bit him; on the neck. Jimmy felt sick. Then the other guard, the one that hadn't been knocked half unconscious was sneaking up behind and hit the monster on the back of the head with the flat of his shovel. This seemed to momentarily stun him for long enough for the guard to drag Mac out from under him.

"C'mon, Jones!" he shrieked at the other guard. "Let's get outta here!"

The one called Jones staggered to his feet, and throwing a terrified glance at the monster, who was on his knees shaking his head as if shaking away stars, ran over to where the other one was dragging Mac out into the sunlight.

Jimmy ducked down behind a clump of sagebrush, but he needn't have bothered - they were too busy trying to get the pick up started to see him.

"C'mon, c'mon damn you!" moaned the one trying to start it up. The engine flared into life.

"Jesus, Bowmore what was that thing?" shrieked the other.

"How the hell should I know? Let the sheriff deal with it."

Jimmy waited until they had gone before he risked a look inside the barn. He was in a quandary. The Chain Gang Fugitive guy wasn't a chain gang fugitive at all, he was a vampire. But everyone knew vampires were evil sons of bitches that lived in castles and slept in coffins, not hobos. This guy hadn't seemed evil at all. And the three railroad guards were hardly what he would describe as good guys.

The guy hadn't followed them out of the barn, and Jimmy remembered he hadn't come outside at all the previous day until the sun had gone down behind the hills. Well, of course; he couldn't. Which meant Jimmy was safe, for now. But then it occurred to him that if the guy had wanted to he could have taken him yesterday and he hadn't. Jimmy wished he knew what to do. Saving the world by staking the evil vampire (because that was what he should do, he knew) wasn't as simple in real life.

When he looked, the guy was sitting at the edge of the patch of sunlight, clutching his legs to his chest, his head buried in his knees, rocking backwards and forwards, muttering. He didn't look threatening and Jimmy made up his mind. However, there were plenty of sticks lying around so he chose one that looked as if it would make a good stake - just in case.

Jimmy stood in the patch of sunlight looking at the guy. He could hear what he was muttering now, it sounded like, "no, no, no, oh God no, please." over and over again as he rocked backwards and forwards.

"Hey mister!"

The head came up. Brown eyes looked at Jimmy filled with such horror that he took a step backwards. There was still a trickle of blood coming out one side of the man's mouth. Mac's blood. Jimmy swallowed.

"Mister, you gotta go, they've gone to get the sheriff."

Angel struggled to make sense of what the boy was saying. He was almost overwhelmed by self loathing, he'd lost control, if they hadn't managed to stop him he would have killed them all, drank them all dry.

"Go away," he croaked

The boy wouldn't listen. He came up and shook Angel by the arm. "C'mon, mister, they'll kill you if you don't go."

"Doesn't matter. My fault. Deserve it." Why couldn't the boy just leave him alone?

But he didn't give up, kept pushing him. "Mister, you gotta move, or the sun'll get you."

This got through. Suicide was not part of it. He looked up again. The boy was right, he would have to move. The sun was creeping over the toes of his boots. He shuffled back a little.

The boy wasn't satisfied with this. "C'mon, further, we gotta leave. If they don't kill you they'll lock you up forever."

That really got through. Locked up, confined, caged. That would be far worse, but, "I killed him, they'd be right to kill me, or lock me up."

The boy seemed exasperated. "No you didn't! He was still moaning in the back of the pick up when they left."

Angel looked up in surprise. "You're sure?"

"Yes! Now come on!" The boy shook his arm again.

Angel narrowed his eyes. "You saw? The fight I mean, everything."

The boy stepped back and nodded, looking embarrassed, twisting the stick he had in his hands. No it was a stake.

"And you're not afraid?" Angel was amazed.

"We-ll not much. I sorta figured you must be OK 'cause you never, you know, ate me when you could've.."

Angel closed his eyes briefly before looking at the boy again. "I'm not OK. Don't ever think that. You should be afraid. Please just go." He lowered his head back on his knees. He waited for the boy's footsteps to go away, but heard nothing. He could still smell him. He hadn't been lying when he said he wasn't afraid, he would have smelt it. He looked up again. The boy was still standing there, twisting his stake in his hands, blinking back tears. And that was almost worse, as Angel realised the boy cared. Cared what happened to something as worthless as himself. He swallowed convulsively, blinking back tears of his own.

"Look," he said after a moment. "I can't leave. Not now. Not until sundown. And even if I could, where would I go? You said there won't be another train out of here until next week. It's too far to walk to the main line in a night at this time of year."

For a moment the boy looked crestfallen. Then he perked up. "You could always hide out in the old mine workings. They're not that far from here."

The boy was determined he'd give him that.

The Hobo: Chapter Four

Bowmore drove like a man possessed, not caring how much he jolted Mac around in the back of the truck. He didn't say anything, and neither did Jones until they got back into town and pulled up outside Doc Ramsay's.

Jones jerked his head towards the Doc's house. "We gonna tell him what really happened?"

"Are you nuts?" Bowmore snapped. "He'd have us locked up in the nearest Asylum faster'n you can blink."

"So what happened then?"

Bowmore took a deep breath. "Rabid wolf."

Jones chuckled. "Werewolves, vampires pretty much the same thing, huh?"

"That what you think that thing was? A vampire?" Bowmore was still struggling not to freak out.

"Well, if it weren't, it were doing a pretty darn good impression of one."

They got out of the pick up, and managed to get Mac down and into the Doc's surgery.

The Doc quickly cleaned up Mac's neck saying as he did so, "Most unusual wolf bite I've ever seen. The bite pattern is all wrong. Are you sure it was a wolf?" They nodded. "And you're sure it was rabid - you did kill it I take it?"

Bowmore and Jones looked at one another. "We think it was rabid, you know the way it was behaving." Bowmore admitted, "But it got away."

"Hmm. Well just to be on the safe side, I'm going to have to give him the anti rabies injections. He's not going to like it, it's real painful, through his belly and all, but it will probably save his life. In the meantime I suggest you go and speak to the sheriff."

********

There was another truck pulled up outside the sheriff's office when they got there. Emblazoned on the side in big curly letters was the inscription, 'Day & Cook's Amazing Travelling Carnival'. The two men barely glanced at it as they walked up the steps into the building.

Estelle, the girl at the desk, told them they would have to wait. "He's busy," she said in an uninterested voice, as she carried on filing her nails.

Through the glass panel of the office they could hear someone loudly declaiming, and that was the only word for it, "Sheriff, I can personally guarantee that this year Day & Cook's Amazing Travelling Carnival will present the most genuine, yet still unbelievable, show the good folks of this town have ever seen."

The sheriff said something too low for them to hear.

"I know, but let me assure you, sir that the unfortunate, tawdry business of last year will not be repeated."

The sheriff's voice was louder now. "Mr Cook, last year you charged folks a nickel they could ill afford to see a collection of pieces of carved rubber in jars masquerading as freaks of nature, displayed Ali Shazam the Incredible Indian Snake Man who had never been further east than St Louis, and showed a bearded lady that even three year old Elly Tyson could see was fake," the sheriff said flatly, "Do I need to go on?"

"That was last year, sir. I admit there have been mistakes in the past, but once again I assure you every act in my carnival is one hundred percent genuine."

"Humph!" the sheriff sounded unconvinced but he said, "Well, all right, here's your permit, two days, Friday, Saturday, end of the month. I suppose folks do need some entertainment, but remember if your acts are all obvious fakes like last time they'll entertain themselves by running you out of town again."

Jones cocked an eyebrow at Bowmore as a large, florid man in a dreadful striped vest, left.

You can go in now, boys," Estelle told them.

"Oh, hey that's OK, Estelle, we'll come back later," said Jones.

Estelle shrugged, as if she cared what they did.

Jones pulled Bowmore out of the office after the florid man. He tucked his thumbs in his belt and sauntered up to where the showman was standing by his truck, lighting a cigar.

Cook sighed. What did this rube want?

"Hey, you the carny guy?"

"If you mean am I Josephus Cook of Day and Cook's Amazing Travelling Carnival then the answer is yes," he said, still declaiming.

Jones pushed his hat back slightly so he could take in the full splendour of Cook's outfit. "We was just in the office there, and couldn't help hearing what you said to the sheriff."

"And?"

"We wondered if you were on the look out for new acts, you know, genuine ones."

Cook sighed theatrically. "Look mister, I think you're too old to be running off to join the carny."

Bowmore put a hand on Jones' arm. "I don't think this is such a good idea."

Jones turned back to him. "Look we either kill him or make some money out him. I know what I'd rather do."

"I think Mac would say to hell with any money, let's just kill him," muttered Bowmore.

This exchange was not lost on the showman. He wondered what they were up to. They surely hadn't set him up as their mark. He'd been in this game a long time, and knew a set up when he saw one. This didn't smell like one. "OK," he said, "I'm biting. What have you got?"

"How's about a vampire? I mean, a real vampire," said Jones looking at the showman slyly.

"Oh please! Stop wasting my time with fairy tales."

Jones shook his head. "This ain't no fairy tale. If you like we can take you to a guy who near had his throat ripped out by it, less'n an hour ago."

"Oh so you're not pretending that I can go and meet this vampire?"

Jones shrugged. "Not yet," he said. "We're gonna have to ketch him first."

The showman was impressed. They were good. Hell, he might even take them on. He was nearly believing this stupid vampire story himself. He wondered how far they'd go with it so he said, "OK, let's go meet your friend, the one with no throat."

They drove back round to Doc Ramsay's place on East Third. Mac was lying in the Doc's recovery room with a bandage round his throat. He did not look happy.

The Doc took them aside and said, "I've given him the first injection, and you can take him home. But he needs to come back for the rest. The neck wound should heal up in a day or so. It's not serious."

"Sure thing Doc," said Jones.

As Jones and Bowmore helped Mac stand up, Cook pulled the doctor aside. "So what bit him?" he asked. Then added as the doctor looked as if he was about to tell him to get lost. "They have engaged me to assist them catch the, er creature. I need as much information as I can get about it."

"They said it was a wolf," the doctor said after a pause.

"But you don't think so?" prompted Cook.

"Darndest wolf bite I ever saw," was all he would say.

Cook followed the others out into the street, lips pursed, thinking.

"Who's your new friend, Jones?" croaked Mac, glaring.

"Well, you know, Mac we got to thinking, Bowmore and me," Jones began.

Bowmore raised his hands, "Hey leave me out of it."

Mac ignored him. "What did you think?" he said to Jones.

"That er thing that attacked you…could be worth quite a bit of money, you know, and he wants to buy it." He indicated the florid showman.

"I want it dead," the tall man said flatly.

"If it's a vampire it's already dead," pointed out Bowmore.

"Whatever. You know what I mean. It's unnatural, evil, a monster. We should kill it." Jones and Bowmore had never seen Mac look so determined, or obsessed. They looked at one another.

"Sure thing, Mac," said Jones eventually. As Mac turned to climb into the truck, he looked at Bowmore and made a small circular motion against the side of his head. "Nuts," he mouthed. Aloud he said, "I'll take you home, Mac, and I'll see you guys in Ma Riley's diner."

When Jones arrived at the diner, Bowmore had filled the showman in on what had happened. He was almost starting to believe.

Jones sat down. "So," he said, "You buying?"

********

The boy was right, the old mine workings were only a mile or so from the ruined farm house. "I guess they figured why build further away than they had to," he said.

"What are they like inside?" Angel asked, staring into the long tunnel, hearing the drip, drip of water.

"Um, well, I've never actually been inside. My Pa won't allow me, he said it's not safe, could fall down at any time, and there's probably bears as well."

Angel sniffed. "No bears," he said. Then he glanced at the boy before adding, "You did what your Pa told you?"

The boy grinned. "Well, I had figured it was just talk you know, but he took me up to where there was a cave in at one of the other mines, made me look at it, told me how it happened, then brung me up here and showed me where all the props are cracked and all. He really doesn't want me to go down here, so…but you'll be OK won't you, Mister?"

There he went again, sounding as if he cared. "I'll be OK," Angel told him. "Er, thanks."

He watched as the boy bounded off into the light, heard him get on his horse, then turned and walked up the tunnel into the darkness.

********

"Aw, ain't it nice having a lil' helper like that," snorted Jones to Bowmore as they crouched in the rocks above the mine entrance, watching the boy leave. They waited until the boy was gone before Jones clambered back down the rocks to where the showman and his men were waiting.

"He's all yours. I want my money."

Cook sighed. "Look, Jones, you get your money when we catch him, and he's real, like we agreed. I'm not paying you two hundred dollars for a guy in a mask." He turned to his men, "OK boys, let's go." he looked at Jones, "You coming?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. I want to see that bastard get his ass kicked."

They followed the showman down to the mine entrance, picking up Bowmore on the way. Cook looked dubiously into the tunnel. "Is it safe?" he asked.

Bowmore looked askance at him. "It's an old mine, of course it's not safe. But he's in there, so if you want him you're going to have to go in and get him."

Angel didn't like the mine. It was too confined, and he was walking away from the only way out. He stopped at an intersection where the tunnel branched in two. It was slightly larger so it felt slightly better. He raised the small lantern the boy had left him - even his night vision couldn't see in the pitch dark of a mine. Water lapped against a fallen pit prop twenty feet or so down the tunnel. No going that way. He looked down the other tunnel at the pile of earth from a roof fall. End of the line. He hunkered down against one of the walls, feeling the trickle of moisture down his back. He ignored it and closed his eyes listening to the sounds of the mine.

A minute or so later they flashed open. He could hear men coming, ten, eleven, twelve, hard to tell. He smelt their fear and uncertainty. And their purpose, not death, something else. He looked round wildly again, no way out, trapped.

The men advanced, cautiously. They had torches, nets, crosses and holy water -Father Gilhooley had been real puzzled as to why they wanted so much. Just in case, they had stakes and coshes too. Jones and Bowmore had tried to impress on them how fast the guy was and how strong, but they could see the carny guys didn't really believe.

"In for a shock I guess," whispered Bowmore, as they followed up the rear.

One of the men, Meyer muttered to the guy beside him, "I can't believe we're doing this. We're never going to be able to come back to this town."

"Maybe that's the idea," the guy replied.

They stopped and peered into the gloom as they heard the sound of someone splashing through water up ahead. Well at least it meant there was someone there.

Angel was close to panic. He tried the tunnel with water again, but it still quickly angled steeply down and the water still lapped against the tunnel roof. He waded back to the intersection. He would have to get through them. He could see them now, the light from their torches flickering on the damp walls of the tunnel.

Then they saw him, standing against one wall of a tunnel intersection, crouched as if to spring at them. He looked normal enough to them. Young guy, scared. They could see that. His eyes flicked backwards and forwards looking for a way through. And then he dove straight at them.

Meyer shoved his cross against the guy's arm and he screamed as if it burned. Meyer nearly dropped the cross when the guy's face changed. One minute he looked a normal Joe, the next, he was some kind of ravening fiend, all teeth and yellow eyes.

The rubes were right, he was fast. It was just as well they had strung several nets across the tunnel. He crashed into them, the force tearing them from the wall. Then, of course, the more he struggled the more he got tangled up in them, snarling and growling like some kind of animal. Someone had the presence of mind to bash him on the head with a cosh and he lay still. A few seconds later his face relaxed into normality.

"Mother of God! I've never seen anything like it!" swore Meyer. The other carny guys were equally shocked.

"What did you expect? Bela Lugosi?" demanded Jones, giving the guy a vicious kick in the kidneys. He groaned. "Quick, get those 'cuffs on him, he's not going to be out for long, and those nets won't hold him," he ordered.

They quickly did as he said, handcuffing the guy's arms behind his back and shackling his ankles, before carrying him out to the tunnel entrance.

Cook was standing outside smoking a cigar. The expressions on his men's faces told him he had a new act, a genuine one - a first for him. "Well, Mr Jones," he said. "I guess you get your two hundred dollars."

Jones glanced down at the squirming figure on the ground. "How about an extra twenty for the kid, for showing us where to come?" he suggested. He always liked to twist the knife.

Cook shrugged, playing along. "Why not, reckon he deserves it."

The Hobo: Chapter 5

Angel didn't have to open his eyes to know he was confined - he could feel the bars all around him. Trying to sit up, he found he couldn't. His eyes flicked open. He was lying on his stomach with his arms cuffed above his head to an iron ring and his legs felt as if they were chained too. He tugged hard at the ring. It was fixed solid.

"Ah, I see we're awake. I must admit, I was beginning to worry."

Angel peered through the bars of the cage. The voice belonged to the florid man from the mine entrance: he smelt of hair pomade, cigars and self satisfaction.

He came over and stood looking down at Angel so he had to squint upwards at him. "OK, it's entirely up to you. We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way."

Do what, Angel wondered dully.

"The good folks who are going to pay to see you, will want to see you do the face thing. Now, you can either do it on your own, or we'll make you do it. Not entirely sure yet how to make you, but I'm certain we'll have fun finding out how." He smiled wolfishly. "Now, are you going to co-operate?"

Angel glared at him through his hair.

A theatrical sigh. "Guess not, huh? Oh well, don't say I never gave you the chance." He turned and shouted over his shoulder, "Boys! We can get started now."

Angel thought he knew what humiliation and degradation were - he'd inflicted enough of it himself after all. But he was wrong. They tried everything their creative minds could think of, and then some. When they found something that worked, they wrote it down and carried right on, to find something else.

******

Jimmy picked at his food without interest. His mother couldn't understand what was wrong, she thought he was sickening for something. How could he tell her? When he had gone back to the mine the next day, the guy had been gone. He waited up there every day for a week but he never came back. Jimmy felt bereft. Oh he knew the guy would have left eventually, but not without saying goodbye, surely, would he? He moved the heap of mashed potato round his plate.

"Carny's coming to town, Jimmy," his Pa said.

"Oh," he sighed.

His parents exchanged glances. "Come on, Jimmy, you know you love the Carny," his Mom said.

"I guess." He pushed the potato round a bit more before looking up and continued, "It's all fake anyway."

"Of course it is," his Pa agreed. "That's half the fun, seeing if you can spot how they do it," he went on, "It should be good this year. They say they have a real vampire!" He laughed.

Jimmy's head came up, eyes staring wide. "Thought that would get you," his Pa said, smiling. He pulled out a flyer and read from it, "Erasmus Day and Josephus Cook are proud to present, straight from Transylvania." Pa rolled his eyes, "I'll bet," he said then carried on, "For the first time in America, Homo Vampirens. Persons of a nervous disposition are advised not to view this dangerous creature,' and so on and so on." Pa winked at Jimmy. "Guess you can't come, Mom, us men'll just have to tell you all about it."

"When is it?" Jimmy breathed. It had to be him!

Pa glanced at the flyer. "Carny gets here Friday."

Two whole days away!

********

Meyer looked at the writhing figure in the cage, skin smoking from where they had splashed it with holy water again, trying not to listen to the guy whimpering.

"You really think we're going to get a family show out of this?" he remarked to Cook.

The showman finished what he was writing and looked at the other man. "All we have to do is get it trained, and we're nearly there," he laughed. "It's not as if it's a person you know. I made that mistake when we got it the other week. But I soon learned, I done some reading up. It's dead, it has no pulse, it doesn't breathe. It's a soulless monster. So don't worry, Meyer, we're gonna have a great show."

Meyer looked at his boss thinking, sure screams like a person.

********

The carny was mobbed when they got there. Half the town was there, some wanting to see if the events of the previous year would be repeated, itching to run the carny out of town again, the rest, well the rest just wanted to see the vampire. They had to wait, but Jimmy and his Pa got in eventually.

Woodward frowned when he saw the guy slumped in one corner of the cage in the centre of the stage. Chained by the wrists and ankles, wearing ordinary, if dirty pants, and a blood stained undershirt, he looked disturbing, not the thrilling, encoffined figure he had expected. He glanced at his son. "Jimmy, you all right?"

Jimmy was staring, tears welling up in his eyes. It was him. What had they done to him?

It seemed they had roped Doc Ramsay in to certify the guy as dead. Woodward wondered how much they were paying him. The Doc solemnly lifted the guy's right arm as far as the chain would allow and made like he was taking his pulse. He theatrically shook his head and declared, "No pulse."

"You see, Ladies and Gentlemen, the creature you see before you is unlike anything you have seen before. It has no pulse as the good doctor has certified for us. It doesn't even need to breathe," the showman declared. The crowd stared and the guy's chest was definitely not moving. The showman continued, "We tried drowning it, and it was fine, even after half an hour under water. But we figured that wouldn't make a very interesting demonstration for you folks, watching something float in a tank for twenty minutes. No, ladies and gentlemen, this creature is not living. It is in fact undead. All it needs to survive is blood." the crowd drew a collective intake of breath.

"Meyer, if you don't mind," the showman said to one of his men or was that keepers? The man produced a small glass jar of a red viscous fluid that certainly looked like blood. The showman smiled. "Not human blood I assure you. That would unethical. Pig's blood." As the showman made another sign to the keeper, he continued, "Of course we have to be careful how much we give it - if it gets too strong it might be able to rip its way out of the cage." The crowd pulled back.

"When did we last let it have some?"

"Two days ago," the keeper responded.

"Should be getting hungry then," said the showman and winked at the crowd.

The keeper pulled the stopper off the jar and attached it to a pole. He gingerly stuck the pole into the cage and waved it in front of the guy.

I won't move, I won't move, I won't move, Angel was chanting in his mind, but couldn't stop his head coming up. The smell of the blood was overpowering. He badly needed to drink. Beyond the cage, his eyes suddenly locked with the eyes of the boy sitting in the crowd. He didn't notice the tears streaming down the boy's face, just wanted to scream his betrayal at him, but knowing that the agony of this betrayal was nothing compared with all the thousands of betrayals he had committed himself.

Jimmy couldn't bear to watch any more. He tore his eyes away from that blazing, accusatory stare, and ran out of the tent, just as the showman was saying, "Well I guess it's time to see what you folks have paid to see."

Jimmy's Pa followed him out of the tent, just staying long enough to get an image of yellow eyes and fangs that were the most convincing he'd ever seen. Jimmy was hanging on one of the guy ropes at the side of the tent, being violently sick, and trying to cry with great hicupping sobs at the same time.

"Jimmy! It's all right, it's not real."

Jimmy whirled round and stared at his Pa. He had been that close to blurting it all out, but he knew his Pa would never believe him.

Pa said, "C'mon I think we'd better get you home. Your Mom said she thought you were sickening for something, and I guess she was right."

*******

Later, once all the people had gone, Meyer sat and watched the guy. He couldn't think of him as an 'it' the way Cook did. He was slumped in his corner of the cage, rocking backwards and forwards, banging his head against the bars and pulling at the iron ring his cuffs were attached to. Meyer sighed. They were going to have to do something about that. His wrists were rubbed raw again. If that wasn't stir crazy he didn't know what was. Personally he didn't think the guy was going to last long. He was either going to freak out big time and eat the lot of them the next time they fed him or go catatonic, and either way, where were Cook's big bucks then?

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Someone else was watching. Jimmy, tears rolling silently down his cheeks, watched from where he had crawled under the edge of the tent. He had waited until he was sure his parents were asleep before sneaking down to the stables, saddling up his horse and heading straight back into town as fast as the dark night would let him. He didn't know how he was going to help the guy but he was sure he was going to help him.

He watched as the keeper turned down the lantern and left the tent. One obstacle gone. Now, how to get the guy out of the cage?

He snuck forwards and stood opposite the guy, but he had his eyes shut.

Angel was lost in his own private hell. And then something was different. A smell he knew, from before, a smell that said betrayal. A small hand grabbed his arm.

A voice whispered, "Mister, it's me, Jimmy."

Jimmy recoiled as the guy was suddenly the monster who had attacked the railroad guards. Then he stood his ground. "Mister, I …. please…I want to help."

The yellow eyes faded back to half crazed brown ones. "They said you told them where I was," he croaked. "When you went to get your horse. They said they paid you."

The boy's expression said it all really, even before his frantic denial. He really did care. That wasn't right. It was important that he shouldn't care. But Angel was like a singed moth that can't stop fluttering closer to the flame and despite himself he stretched out his arms as far as he could towards the boy.

Jimmy reached through the bars of the cage and clutched the guy's cold fingers. "Help me…..please," the man whispered.

That did it for Meyer. He didn't care what Cook said, this was not a soulless fiend. He went and got the jar of blood from the ice box. When he came back the guy was doing the clutching now. He must have heard him or something as his head came up just as the boy was saying, "What did they do to you?"

"You don't want to know, son," said Meyer walking forward. The guy jerked backwards as if he'd been shot and his eyes flared yellow for a moment, but he didn't complete the transformation.

"No. I won't," he said.

He watched, mesmerised as Meyer put the jar of blood down on the floor of the cage, just out of reach. Meyer said, "Well if I was being petty I would say you always have so far. But that's not why I'm here."

Puzzlement replaced the desperation in the guy's eyes.

"OK kid, here's the keys to his cuffs and the cage," Meyer said to the boy who was just standing there staring at him. "I would suggest you give him the blood before you let him out, you know, just in case." He turned to leave, and said as he did so, "You've got about half an hour before we come after you. I suggest you not be here."

"Why?" the guy whispered.

Meyer hid his feelings under a veneer of flippancy. "Well, apart from it not being right what we were doing to you, I reckon I can sell tickets to the posse. Now get outa here." And he left.

It was amazing, Jimmy thought, the difference such a small amount of blood could make. The cuts and burns on the guy's arms visibly began to heal almost as soon as he had drained the jar. "I guess you really don't need to see a doctor," he grinned.

The guy's lips twitched, which seemed to be as much of a smile as he could ever manage. He held up his wrists. "Oh, of course." Jimmy fumbled with the keys to get the right one.

When he was out of the cage, the guy just stood for a moment with his eyes closed, stretching his arms up as high and as wide as he could. Jimmy gave him a shake. "C'mon, we gotta leave, remember."

"You mean I've got to leave," Angel said.

"And just how far do you think you're going to get on foot before sunrise?" The boy pulled at Angel's arm. "C'mon I've got my horse, I'll take you down to the Union Pacific tracks. We should be able to make it."

The Hobo: Chapter Six

Meyer had not been serious when he said he would sell tickets to the posse. He wasn't going to tell Cook either. Unfortunately, Cook couldn't sleep and came for a gloat at his star attraction. To say he was not happy when he saw the empty cage was an understatement.

Meyer tried to pretend the guy had got away on his own, but Cook hadn't been spotting marks for years for nothing. "Do you realise how much money you've lost us, you fool."

Meyer gave up pretending. He was equally angry. "You don't get it do you? That rube Jones said it himself when we caught the guy. What did you expect, Bela Lugosi. Well, yeah, that is what people expect, a guy in a coffin in evening dress fur chrissakes, not some down and out bum who looks as if we've spent the last God knows how long torturing half to death. Didn't you watch the people as they came in and saw him? They weren't excited, they were disgusted and disturbed."

Cook broke in, "How many times do I have to tell you, what was in that cage wasn't a person. It doesn't matter what we did to it, it wasn't alive."

"No, but he looked as if he was, he sounded as if he was."

Cook laughed callously. "What happen Meyer, turn soft, the screaming get to you? Look you stupid bastard, lobsters scream when you stick em in the pot. Doesn't make lobsters people does it?"

"It's not the same thing at all and you know it."

"Well I don't care what you think. What I do care about is the money we've lost. And I suggest if you still want to have a job by tomorrow you get the rubes in this town rounded up so we can go after our meal-ticket and catch it. We don't catch it you had better get used to stacking logs in that rail yard."

*****

Bowmore was woken up by someone trying to batter the door down of the lodging house he roomed at. So was everyone else in the house. Along with everyone else, he got up and opened the window to see who it was.

Jones' pale face looked upwards. Bowmore thought he looked scared. "C'mon Bowmore, get your ass down here!" he tried to shriek in a whisper.

The other windows slammed shut.

"What's going on, it's the middle of the fucking night."

"Those stupid bastards at the carny went and let that monster get away. It could be coming after us."

"So you told it where you live? C'mon gimme a break."

Jones tried again. "They're putting a posse together to catch it."

"You mean a lynch mob?" Bowmore smirked, "Or should that be a stake mob." He laughed at his own wit.

"This is serious," hissed Jones. "They think the monster's got the kid."

"What, the Woodward kid?" Bowmore was puzzled. "How they figure that?"

"Jed Woodward rode into town about ten minutes ago saying his kid had run off. Figured there'd been something wrong with him for a while. Kid saw the show at the carny and was real upset."

"You think the kid let the monster go?" Bowmore was getting worried himself now.

"Could be. But whatever, we need to find it and fast."

A small crowd was gathering at the carny. Duffy was there, with the dogs from the railroad yard, a group of carny guys including the showman who still managed to look self important, the sheriff and Jed Woodward. Woodward was shouting at the showman.

"Whaddya mean my kid let the creature go?" He shook his head in disbelief. "Whaddya mean that guy was real?" he added faintly in the voice of someone who wants a negative reaction.

"Sir, it is the only possible explanation. When we caught the creature the other week, your son was in the process of assisting it."

"WHAT!" Woodward yelled. "You pompous asshole!" He swung his fist at the showman's face. The sheriff grabbed his arm.

"Calm down, Jed. This isn't getting us anywhere. We'll get to the bottom of what happened once we get Jimmy back." The sheriff glared at Bowmore and Jones, standing at the back of the crowd. "Mr Duffy, let's see if your dogs can catch a scent."

**********

Angel's night vision was better than the horse's, but it didn't like being pushed faster than it could see. They were following the tracks of the Prineville line. Angel pulled the horse up. "Jimmy," he said, addressing the boy by name for the first time. "What happens when we get to the main line? Do you know how often the trains run?"

Jimmy, who was sitting in front of him, twisted round and looked up at him. "I dunno, I just figured I had to get you away from the carny. I didn't think, I'm sorry."

An unfamiliar feeling twisted Angel in the guts as he wanted to scream his frustration at the boy and realised he couldn't. It wouldn't be fair. "Uh, that's OK," he said after a pause. "We'll think of something."

"Uh, Mister," Jimmy said, still looking up at him. "What is your name?"

The dark eyes stared down at the boy for a moment before he finally said simply, "Angel." and gee-ed up the horse.

********

The main line followed the course of the Deschutes River as it cut its way through the high plateau of central Oregon. In places there were still trees alongside, scrub Juniper, not worth the attention of the loggers, in others swathes of grassland where the land widened out. The Prineville branch line joined up with the main line at one such place; empty with no cover. So they left the tracks of the branch line some time before the junction, keeping to the hills and the trees. Angel pulled up the horse as he felt the first breath of air from the east. He had been feeling uncomfortable for some time. "Dawn wind," he said.

Jimmy twisted round looking behind them for the first glimmers of light in the sky. "You mean sun-up's coming?"

Angel nodded. "Maybe an hour." He was just about to click at the horse when he froze. Carried on the wind he could hear the baying of dogs. The boy heard them too.

"Are they after us?" he whispered.

Angel looked down at him. "No," he said. "They're after me." He took hold of the boy's arm. "Get off the horse. They won't hurt you."

"No, Angel!" Jimmy shrieked. "I won't leave you."

Anguish flickered in his eyes. "Jimmy, you don't know… I'm not worth it."

But the boy wouldn't budge. Short of physically throwing him off the horse, and possibly hurting him, Angel couldn't make him move.

Then they both heard it, from the north, the long drawn out wail of a siren as a train came up to the junction. Suddenly hope flared in Angel and without another word he clicked the horse and headed towards the line.

A couple of miles behind them the posse heard the siren too. Bowmore said in consternation,"Jesus, if he gets to the train he'll be gone for good."

Woodward, who had been riding in front of the railroad guy turned round and commented, "It's a lot harder to jump on a train than it looks. I would've thought you would know that."

"Hell, he's a hobo of course he can get on a train."

"And just how do you know that?" Woodward responded in a dangerous voice before answering himself, "He was on one of the logging trains wasn't he? And you and your pals figured you'd have a little fun beating up on him, but he turned out to be a bit more than you could handle, so you sold him to the carny and now he's gone and abducted my kid."

"Shut up Woodward!" snapped the sheriff. "We'll get your kid back, kill the vampire, then sort out these guys."

Cook heard this and was about to protest but was silenced by the look the sheriff gave him.

********

The river valley had narrowed and the bluffs grown until they were cliffs. They came to a spot where the railroad ran underneath a stretch of cliff, thirty or forty feet high. Too high for most folks to jump, but not Angel.

Jimmy peered dubiously over the edge into the gloom of the valley. "Reckon you can make that?"

"Sure." His lips twitched in that ghost of a smile he had.

The train was coming. It was still a mile or so away, having slowed down for the climb up to the narrow defile, but it was coming.

"Mister, uh, Angel, will you be all right?"

The concern in the boy's voice was like a knife twisting in Angel's guts. He hunkered down, so he could look the boy straight in the eyes and put his hands on his shoulders. "Yes, I'll be all right, but…, really, I'm not worth bothering about. You shouldn't…"

"Stop saying that! Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true."

"Is that why you let them do all those awful things to you, because you think you deserve it?"

Pain flickered in Angel's eyes. "Yes," he admitted in a strangled voice.

"Nobody deserves to be treated like that," said Jimmy and leaned forwards and hugged the startled vampire.

At that moment a horror-filled voice screamed out, "Get your filthy hands off my son!" Angel felt the shock of pain in his shoulder as something hit him, knocking him forwards.

The voice screamed again, "Stop shooting you idiot! You'll hit my boy!."

Angel landed on top of the boy, pulling back immediately. The bullet had gone straight through him and hit the boy in the chest. Jimmy had a look of faint surprise on his face, but he didn't move. Oh God. Not him, please, not him.

Angel whirled round to see a group of men, one staring in horror-struck disbelief, another lowering a rifle, others in various stages of shock. There was complete silence for what seemed like an eternity. Then a voice broke into the silence, calm and matter of fact, but still pompous. It was the showman. "Didn't I tell you bullets won't kill it? Shoot it again and I'll sue you for damaging my property. I want it back."

"I don't give a fuck what you want," Jed Woodward cried. "He was eating my son, he killed him. Oh my God." and he broke down sobbing.

Angel was shaking his head. "No, I wasn't…" but they weren't listening, all they could see was the blood on the boy. The showman held up a cross and stepped forward. Angel could see he wasn't afraid. All the man felt was contempt. That was a mistake. Angel leapt at the man, Changing as he did so, the force of the Change and the rage he felt giving him extra strength. Before the other men could grasp what was happening he had twisted the showman's neck and jumped off the cliff into the path of the oncoming train.

They watched as the train clanked past below them, unable to do anything to stop it. The guy wasn't there when it had passed of course. They stood on the edge of the cliff watching. All except Jed Woodward. He just collapsed beside his son, clutching the boy's cold hand in his.

Jimmy's hand twitched, "Pa?" he gasped.

Woodward pulled back in amazement. "Jimmy? Oh my God Jimmy!"

"Pa? It hurts."

Woodward realised all the blood was coming from a gunshot wound in the boy's chest. "Sheriff!" He yelled. "We gotta get my boy to the Doc. He's alive!"

The sheriff got two of the men to help Woodward get the boy back to town. He stood beside Meyer looking down at Cook's body. "We'll wire ahead to Bend, get them to search the train. They'll get him, it, whatever he is."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," responded Meyer. He prodded the showman's body with the toe of his boot. "Can't say's I blame him for this, would probably have done the same myself."

The sheriff looked at him, surprised. "You didn't see what he had us doing to the guy," the carny guy continued. "He insisted the guy was dead, wasn't a person." He paused and glanced at the sheriff. "But he was. And I'm gonna have to live with what we did to him."

And then Duffy, prissy, self important, have we checked out all the angles Duffy, came over and demanded, "Sheriff, are you sure the fugitive got on that train?"

The sheriff turned towards the rail yard manager, "What, you think he's still down there? That he passed up the chance to get away?"

"I have no idea," responded Duffy. "I was merely suggesting that we should check."

The sheriff made a face, but acknowledged the guy was right.

Quick as a flash, Meyer walked to the edge of the cliff and looking over said in a loud voice, "You think he's still there? I can't see nothin." He turned round to see Duffy and the sheriff glaring at him. "What I do?"

"You fool, man," snapped Duffy. "Are you trying to tell him we're coming?"

The sheriff gave the carny guy a sardonic glance but all he said was, "C'mon, Mr Duffy, let's get those dogs of yours down there."

******

Angel was crouched in the deep shadow at the foot of the cliff. The gully wouldn't get much sun so he knew he would be all right, and there would be another train along soon, the polished tracks told him that. But the pain in his shoulder from the bullet wound was nothing to the despair he felt inside. The boy was dead, and it was his fault. More deaths on the river of blood that was his existence. Would it never end?

And then he heard the carny guy's voice and knew his ruse hadn't worked. He was tempted to let them come, to let them end it, but as always though, he pushed himself on.

The valley floor would be in shadow for some time. About half a mile south of where he was the railroad crossed the river, in two great wooden spans. The river would be the best place to hide out until he was sure they had given up. The piles from the bridge would give him shadow to stay in and would also stop the current carrying him downstream out into the sunlight.

Angel stood up with a long sigh and started running along the tracks towards the bridge. If they were still watching they would see him eventually, so he kept as low as possible. The longer it was until they realised he had been down there the better.

The water was cloudy, full of sediment. It was hard to tell how deep it was. He waded into it a little upstream from the bridge and let himself float down.

********

Meyer followed Duffy and the Sheriff round the hill and back along the tracks to the bottom of the cliff. It didn't take the dogs long to find where the vampire had crouched.

"Good call, Mr Duffy," commented the Sheriff.

The dogs followed the trail along to the river and then nothing. They tried crossing the bridge but found nothing for some distance on either bank.

Duffy and the Sheriff were stumped. Meyer just looked at the water. Good place to hide if you don't need to breathe he thought, but said nothing. "Are we done here?" he asked in a bored voice.

The sheriff was getting bored too, and hungry. "Hell, yes! I could do with something to eat. How 'bout you Mr Duffy?"

Duffy screwed up his face in frustration. "He has to be here somewhere," he said.

The sheriff sighed. "No he doesn't, he could be miles downstream, by now - or upstream for that matter." He gave one last look at the river and said. "Yup, we're done."

At this, Duffy had no choice but to follow the other two.

Underneath the bridge, Angel could hear them as they clumped back over to the other side. The man with the dogs was grumbling while the other two were talking about food. They had given up. Angel almost smiled.

The train had left Bend earlier that morning. It was late because there had been some fuss about some fugitive the Crook county sheriff was after. The driver was annoyed, as it would be hard to make up time as they headed north. It would be well after dark by the time they got to the Dalles.

Well at least, heading north, he knew the guy couldn't be on his train.