The Night Cyclist
By Stephen Graham Jones, first published in Tor.com
A chef is bicycling home when he discovers two dead bodies. When he discovers a clue that the police miss, he decides to conduct his own investigation.
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Plot Summary
A chef bicycles home each night from his restaurant to relive the glory days when he was a competitive biker in college. One night, on his daily route, he discovers two dead bodies—men who had been trying to move a log into the path of incoming bikers. Shocked and speeding by quickly, the chef doesn't report the discovery but watches the news surrounding the double homicide. In the background of the shots, he spots a clue none of the police notice—a pair of biking goggles hanging from a tree.
Determined to investigate, he returns the following night and retrieves the goggles. As he lifts them, a night cyclist appears, dressed in an all-black wetsuit and noticeably missing his goggles. The cyclist leads the chef on a chase through the hills until the chef gives up and grows overwhelmingly fatigued.
That night, the chef awakes to discover the night cyclist in his apartment. The cyclist retrieves his goggles and the chef, frightened yet intrigued, offers the cyclist his own goggles as a replacement for the older pair.
A few nights later, he hits a set of logs riding down the road. Nearly thrown from his bike, he discovers the night cyclist nearby, impaled by his broken bicycle. Two young men, likely friends of the victims, emerge from the shadows and attack with a hatchet. The night cyclist and chef fend them off together, and the night cyclist begins to drink their blood. The chef realizes the night cyclist is a vampire. After disabling their foes, the cyclist offers to bite the chef and transform him, but the chef refuses.
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