The content of the e-mail was simply this: after sundown, any night this week.

The digital clock in the corner of the computer screen’s display read 5:00 p.m. After sundown.

I didn’t have to go to work for six more hours.

I only had to get in my car and drive.

But it seemed a dicey proposition. Curiosity had nearly killed this cat already. The sender could be a deranged groupie or vampire fanatic. Sure, he or she might be perfectly harmless and just having a bit of fun, but I didn’t relish the thought of spending another month in the hospital.

How could I go to an unknown address at the advice of an anonymous e-mail? Well, it wasn’t exactly anonymous. [email protected] wasn’t exactly the most common e-mail address I’d ever seen. I logged on to usmail.com in hopes of finding a user profile, a Web page, something to give me a line on who had sent the message to me. I came up with nothing.

That sparked another, more terrifying proposition. What if the sender was John Doe himself, quietly monitoring my activities? Though it seemed a long shot that the creature of my nightmares would give himself such a ridiculous online moniker, I didn’t exactly know what he was. He could have been cleverly crafting a trap for me, finding out where I lived, how to contact me and lull me into a false sense of security.

“Fuck it.” I vigorously stubbed out my cigarette in the ashtray beside the keyboard before entering the address into the search engine.

The Crypt: Occult Books and Supplies.

There was a phone number and driving directions.

Nothing could happen to me in a public place, in a busy neighborhood. I used that line of reasoning as I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

Though it was an hour after sunset, the sky was still bright enough to make my skin feel tight and itchy. I wore a baseball cap as a disguise. If John Doe was waiting when I got there, I wanted to see him before he spotted me. I popped a painkiller and one of the pills prescribed for my light sensitivity, then wrapped up in my wool trench coat to guard against the December cold.

The 1300 block was only about five miles from my home. It was in the middle of three crisscrossed streets and housed a cluster of eclectic storefronts and trendy restaurants. There were women in broomstick skirts and crocheted coats scurrying through the snow next to men in Rastafarian hats and corduroy pants. Most of the footprints on the sidewalk were made by Doc Martens.

I found a place to park in front of a crowded coffeehouse. With my jeans, cap and ponytail, I felt rather conspicuous. I stepped onto the sidewalk and tried to ignore the stares of the ultrahip art majors huddled behind the steamy windows. I must have looked like a mascot for the capitalist culture they all gathered to complain about.