Later that evening, we traverse to the shop where the 3 men are. Time is currently 6:38pm. Some stragglers who are friends come in here and there to watch the game, catch up, and hang out. The time is currently 7:21pm, everyone has left, and the boys are cleaning up the last bits of trash. Marquis is looking out the open door. The sun is half way descending in the distance, then looking down at his watch, 8:05pm. He looks back up, “He's late...” As he says this, a silhouetted figure appears from afar, walking towards them. Marquis squints his eyes to make sure it's their guy, then scoffs, “Pfft, a trench coat?”

  As Daniel gets closer and closer, his appearance becomes more and more prevalent. This time he's wearing his trench coat with rolled-up sleeves, open and flapping in the wind. Black T-shirt and sweat pants paired with black runners. The same wide-brimmed fedora and black shades, with the same large silver cross and long flowing midnight hair. The only other “color” on Daniel is his unsettling, ghastly white skin. Marquis walks over to his main chair and glances over at the door as Daniel is seemingly moving in slow motion. Boys are in the back of the shop, and it's just Daniel, Marquis, and this feeling. This feeling of evil, an all-consuming evil. Like a black unending void came and sucked the light out of everything that lived. This horrible and ill-sickening feeling that’s intruding from the doorway where Daniel stands, the sun fully setting behind him. The shop lights flicker going dark and wind rushes about, as Daniel is silhouetted by street lamps. And lowering his shades with one hand and relieving his bold, bright blood red eyes, he asks, “Mister Isiah Doglus Marquis. Yes?"

  Marquis, at this point, can feel chunks of vomit climbing and clumping up the back of his throat, sweat running down his face, and swamping his armpits. He stumbles over his words, “Y-Yes that’s me. You-u must be Dan- and, you can h-hang up yo jacket. I'll be right back!” Then, rushing to the storage room in the back where the boys were talking, slamming the door behind him, hands pressed against it, huffing for air. “Geez, pops, what’s with all the sweat on your back? And why are all the lights off?-” Marquis turns around and snaps, eyes bulging and deathly afraid, “Quit your wise talk boy!” He continues, whispering and bringing both of them closer, “Now the two of you listen to me. Stay in here and don’t leave until I tell you.” Kevin asks, “And how long will that take?!” Marquis immediately slaps him over the head aggressively and whispers, “Shut the hell up! As long as I say so too! And if you hear anything happening to me just don’t come out, OK?!” Kevin also whispers back, holding his throbbing head, “Sir.. Urgh, what the hell are you so afraid of?”

  Until this moment… It never occurred to Mister Marquis as to why he was so afraid. A customer simply walked through the door and asked for his name. What the hell was so scary about that? Marquis begins to chuckle and wipe the sweat from his forehead, talking in a more relaxed tone with a smile. “Hehehe, boy, that’s why I keep you around. You don’t look it, but you're smart. Just give me a sec-” he turns around and puts his hand on the handle. He is immediately reminded why. He opens the door very slowly with cold rushing in, as to only peep into the hallway.. And with one eye, he sees Daniel sitting in darkness alone. One leg crossed over the other, only faintly lit by the street lamps from outside. His hanged-up hat and trench coat looked more like another person standing in the corner. The room is pin drop silent, the front door still open and swaying. He says to the kids behind him without turning. “I’ll be back.”

  He closes the door behind him and begins to shuffle over to the light switch, not daring to take his eyes off Daniel. The air from outside makes the whole room chilly. Marquis' breath starts to become visible as he shivers, inch by inch, getting closer to the switch. Although.. Daniel's breath is seemingly absent, as if he weren't breathing at all. From this, Marquis' heart begins to beat in his chest. A couple of steps away from the lights, Daniel opens his glowing eyes, faintly illuminating what's in front of him. Marquis stops and holds his breath as Daniel’s eyes sharply turn to look at him, their glow shifting in his direction. Marquis panics, making a dash to the switch and slapping the lights on!

  “What's wrong, old man?! You afraid of the dark or something?!” Daniel exictingly with a hardy giggle as the room has seemingly become absent of this all appending, doomish feeling. The coat and hat stopped looking like a person, and the room wasn’t so chilly anymore. Letting out a laugh, “Come on, I don't have all night!” This is probably the first time Daniel has had a laugh or has been light hearted and joking in days. Marquis wipes more sweat off his face as tension unravels itself away, “Huh- yeah, I just went and uhh. Had to check the boiler room, that's all. Oh- let me get that.” Marquis walks over to the door and closes it, before looking over to the coat hanger, “Boy, it's the middle of summer, why are you about wearing such a heavy jacket?” Daniel shrugs, “I have my reasons, wouldn't believe me if I told you, but. I am extremely susceptible to sunburn.” “Hmm, so you still wear it at night?” “Duh, in case of mornings!” Marquis then looks over at Daniel to see his unnerving appearance. A tad frightened, Daniel reassures him gleefully. “Come on, don’t be like that. Did the eyes throw you off? It's just a recent medical condition. And the skin is just, again, the sun isn't a big fan of me.” Marquis cautiously walked over to the chair, “Oh well, please forgive me. It's just that you don't look that healthy...”

  Daniel was bummed out a little by the comment, “Yeah, I've been getting that a lot recently.” After having so much fun messing around with the geezer for not knowing what he is, the mundane reality of being a vampire settles in. “I worked as a waiter in a restaurant, but… It’s gotten so bad that they moved me to the back of prep. Then they went and hired some other good-looking guy, which I mean, can you blame them? Turns out shades, long hair, and pale skin aren’t necessarily things that make customers feel comfortable.” Marquis, hearing this, walks over to pick up his tools, consulting with a genuine empathy, “Well, I'm sorry to hear that. Doesn’t sound like life's been too good to you. eh?” Daniel, being thankful, “Agh, well, I’m pretty sure they're going to fire me too, but it’s ok, I trust in Him.” Marquis then puts on the cape, endeared by his faith, “Mhmm, well there you go, ain’t it? Okay, how do you want it?”

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  Daniel takes a moment to decide what he wants, then points to the lower half of his neck, “Here.” Marquis, “Ahh, just below the midline, okay. Personally, I would have gone shorter, but it's your hair!" The old man turns to pick up scissors and begins snipping a way. After a while, the blues lover asks, “So your eyes.. not a very usual color these days.” Daniel answered, “To my knowledge. A very rare medical condition, just extra blood flow to the iris, that's all.” Marquis scoffed, raising his eyebrow, “Extra blood flow makes them things glow in the dark?” Daniel, understanding that he has been caught lying, attempts to make up a shaky explanation. “Well, I uh.. I guess the light outside reflected off them?” Marquis begins to feel a sense of annoyance against him for the excuse, and finally confronts him head-on. “Boy quit playing. You telling me the damn streetlights made your eyes glow like LED’s? Who are you trying to kid right now? Do I look like some cross eyed fool to yo stupid ass?!” He stops cutting his hair, “You make me stay out late. You come into my shop, scare the shit out of me with yo freaky tall pale ass, coming up in here like you're the damn undertaker, yo eyes turn into flashlights as you sat in here! Alone! By yoself! Waiting and meditating and shit in complete darkness!!” At this point, the two kids in the back peek through the crack of the door to see what all the commotion is about. Daniel, at this point, glances through the mirror to see that his haircut is just about done as it needs to be. Marquis shouts, “Stop playing with me! Tell me who you are! Or what you are, I don't care anymore!”

  Daniel, being agitated from the outburst, grunts at the man, “Really…? You want to know what I am…? And you're sure of this??” Marquis, almost as if he’s become confused or conflicted, hesitates from answering as a drop of sweat runs down his face, “Well.. yes of course I do, why wouldn't I want the truth? And the whole truth, damn it!” He regains his sense of furious conviction, “And I only did this damn thing, staying up this late-keeping my shop open-missing time with my family, because Sergei Agafonov is a damn good man! And an honest one at that; way more honest than how you've been with me! Wishy washy and dodging my questions, you're rather dishonest for a man of God!…” A silence then takes hold of the room. In the pause, Kevin mutters to himself, kissing his teeth, “Dumb old man..”

  As this pause takes effect, that feeling begins to creep its way in slowly. Inch by inch with great patience. That nauseating and egregious feeling that once engulfed the room earlier, turning its ugly head around the corner. Daniel then giggles, a manic giggle, saying, “Then you wish for something that you would not believe, nor want to believe, nor would ever want to hear… please continue your work as I explain.” Slightly shivering with scissors in hand, trying to finish the job, Marquis stills himself, “I’m sorry, continue.” As the scissors begin to snip the final strands of hair Daniel begins to speak, “I’ll ask you, O’ wise man… What did Adam gain when he ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge? Wisdom? Glory? Power? Godliness?.. No, he didn't gain any of those things. Instead,” his face grows sorrow and empty of life. “He lost everything…” Marquis stops to look at him through the mirror as a heavy absence holds the room. “And.” Daniel continues, “Could you imagine the misery he felt when he saw his son kill his brother? Now, seeing the road ahead of what humanity will become because of his action. What a pain.” His expressionless stare at the floor sharpens into a menacing glare as he looks directly into the eyes of the barber. “As for you!”

  Getting caught off guard by the action, Daniel then abruptly gets out of his chair and snaps to face Marquis, “You're rather judgmental for a man of GOD!” He then rips the last remaining hair of his hair with a teeth-gritting grunt, exposing his fangs fully. Completing his cut with a rather rugged left side. “You want to know what I am?!” Yelling with a shaky voice and a wide, manic grin of uncanny and unusual excitement. Then he begins to walk over to Marquis at an off putting slow pace, each step echoing into the entirety, the lights that once upheld the room with a feeling of safety flicker and go dead, the room being cast by shadows. Marquis is frozen in place, unable to move, all of his muscles tensed, ceased, and clamped in a bind of horrified petrification. As Daniel slowly gets closer to him, his jaw makes a popping sound as he manually dislocates it, allowing his mouth to gape widely, revealing his long fanged canines, but also a much more frightening set of serrated teeth that were seemingly absent before, alongside a freakishly long tongue. Now just a few more steps away, his deep red eyes cutting through the darkness, sunken in and bulging with heavy bags to boot. As the old man mussels out a couple of steps back, Daniel then gets intimately close to him, their bodies almost touching, pressed on one another. Paired with his pale skin and rough hair, Daniel looks anything BUT human. And putting his hand behind his head like you would to a child, and pulling him in, raising his unhinged jaw, he hisses into his ear, “Undead Demoniac…”

  After this heart-dropping utterance, Daniel quickly pops his jaw back into its socket, moves back a little, and begins to let out an absolutely diabolical laugh, hysterical even, the type of laugh that makes people uncomfortable and put off in a public place. A disbelief unlike anything has Marquis in a hold of fear, and his expression was stuck in one of total shock and a mix of disdain staring out into nothingness. Then Daniel placed his hand on his shoulder, and with a more cheerful grin and happy tone, calmed down and wiped away a bit of a tear. “Man, you should look at your face right now! Hahaha!” All of Daniel's most fighting features, serrated teeth, bulging eyes, are all seemingly absent. He then walks over to the coat rack, picking up his hat and trench coat. Calling out to him at the front door threshold, “And always remember…” “?!” “There's no such thing as Monsters…” Walking out of the shop, the lights flicker back on as he laughs maniacally into the night, his trench coat kicking up air and flying in the wind.

  The boys run out from the back to check out if Marquis is ok, Dayshwan asking, “Pops! You ok?! What the hell was that all about?!” Marquis sheds a tear and the two back away after realizing that the old man has wet himself completely. He quivers in a shaky voice, “That lying son of a bitch.. ‘Monsters ain’t real,’ the crack of my ass. What I just saw wasn't human, no, not one bit. I don't know what I want to believe anymore.. Lord, have mercy.”