The Forgotten: A Vampire Story

by Clary, Michael

  A shadow moved in front of the main outside light.

  I turned to look, but nothing was out of place. I would have thought it was merely my imagination playing tricks on me, but there was an almost primal warning in my chest that told me to run.

  The water turned cold and unpleasant. I no longer wanted to be in the pool. I only wanted my bedroom, and especially my warm bed with all the pillows and the great big comforter.

  I left the water quickly and entered the house without drying. Once I was in my room, I managed to dry off my body and turn on all the lights practically simultaneously. The feeling of danger passed quickly, and I was left feeling just a little bit embarrassed.

  And then I looked out the window.

  The pale boy was standing at the edge of my yard. He was watching me, and even though I couldn’t see him very clearly, I knew that he’d allowed himself to be seen solely for my benefit.

  I approached the window.

  The pale boy was at a distance away, and the darkness and shadows seemed to bend almost to his will. Suddenly I wanted to talk to the boy. I wanted to see him in the stark light of reality. I wanted to know what he looked like out of the shadows.

  I turned away from the window for the briefest of moments. I only wanted to grab a hoodie, but the pale boy was gone when my gaze returned.

  “No,” I muttered. “That’s not fair.”

  I opened the window and felt only a warm breeze. I sat there for a moment, wondering if my mind was only playing tricks on me. I went to the bathroom and changed into my pajamas. I was suddenly very tired.

  After leaving my bathroom, I once again passed the open window, but this time I screamed out loud. The pale boy was clinging to the windowsill and hanging two-stories off the ground.

  I dropped the towel I was still using on my hair and stumbled towards my bedroom door as if my body wanted to run away before my brain even grasped what exactly was happing. The pale boy was still wrapped in darkness. I could only see pieces of his face. I saw his black eyes. I saw an ear, but most of all, I only saw the shape of him.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hello,” the pale boy said in that low, scratchy voice of his.

  “My name is Selma,” I said.

  “Derry,” the pale boy said after a brief pause.

  “Are you going to hurt me?” I asked.

  “No,” Derry answered.

  “I went by your house,” I said.

  “I know,” Derry answered.

  “I didn’t mean to intrude,” I explained. “I only wanted to see you again.”

  Derry didn’t say anything, but I could see his black eyes reflecting the light of my room, and it made me shudder noticeably.

  “You’re uncomfortable,” Derry said. “That wasn’t my intention. I’ll leave immediately.”

  “No!” I all but shouted. “Don’t leave! I’ve been waiting for you to visit me. Can we talk? I’d like to speak with you. You saved my life. Please, come inside. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about anything. I’m your friend.”

  The bulb fizzled out on the lamp above my head, and I startled at the noise. I looked back towards the window and realized that Derry was no longer there. Without missing a beat, I used my lighter on a few candles and brought up a soft glow.

  Derry was directly behind me the moment I turned around. Once again, I startled, but I didn’t run, and I didn’t turn away. Instead, I brought up my hand to touch the side of his face. Derry allowed this. His black eyes fixed on me, but he allowed me to touch his dry, ice-cold skin.

  “Vampires are real,” I said to myself. “Vampires are real, and one of them is standing in my bedroom. Why is it so hard to get a good look at you?”

  “Camouflage,” Derry answered. “You wouldn’t like to see me in the light. The shadows make us beautiful. The darkness hides the death.”

  “Well, you don’t seem very scary to me,” I said with my hand still caressing his face. “You saved me. Nothing you could do will make me fear you.”

  Derry was beautiful despite his worn and dirty clothes. His dark hair was almost black, and he was handsome to a fault even if I couldn’t see all of his face at once. He reached out with a hand like ice and very tenderly touched my hair. I noticed that his fingertips were somewhat puffy and bulbous, and that made me curious.

  His eyes didn’t blink as he got closer and closer to me. Within moments I was also wrapped in shadow. The weed was making it hard to focus, and I found myself getting light-headed when I looked into his eyes for too long. Something came over me, I leaned forward and placed my mouth over Derry’s, but he didn’t kiss me back.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t apologize,” Derry said. “I didn’t mind.”

  “You didn’t kiss me back,” I said.

  “This is all very new to me,” Derry said.

  “I understand,” I said.

  “You don’t understand,” Derry said. “You think you understand what I am, but you most certainly do not. I need to show you. I need to stop hiding and be brave, but there’s a chance you’ll never want to see me again.”

  “I doubt that very seriously,” I said.

  Derry moved away from me, deeper into the shadows of my room until he made his way into the absolute darkness of the bathroom.

  “I’m going to turn on the light,” Derry said. “You’ll probably be alarmed, but I promise that I won’t hurt you.”

  I nodded my understanding, and the light switch clicked on.

  I was right when I said that Derry was beautiful. He was. Derry was the most beautiful dead boy that I’d ever seen, but make no mistake, Derry was dead. The body before me had no life at all. The skin wasn’t living. The poor boy was a corpse after a good thirty-six hours in a morgue freezer. He wasn’t decaying, but he simply wasn’t alive.

  I gasped out loud as I took in the details of his face. His dark eyebrows were fine and delicate. His dark hair brushed lazily away from his face appeared thick and lustrous, but the blood pooled darkly in the wells of Derry’s eyes, creating a hollow-eyed sort of malevolent look. His soft lips appeared bruised and swollen with blood.

  I took a step backward.

  Derry turned his head as if he were ashamed.

  “I’m not afraid,” I said. “You’re just different.”

  “I’m not alive,” Derry said. “I’ve been dead for a very long time.”

  Derry’s face was slack as he spoke, and I realized that he didn’t have much control over his facial muscles. This was one of the more alarming aspects of a vampire, the realization that they actually can’t fit into modern society. They’d be discovered rather easily if one only spent a few moments in their presence.

  I was listening to him, but more importantly, I was studying him. I wanted to understand what I was looking at. I wanted to find a certain peace with what I was looking at. I didn’t want to recoil. Derry still made me feel safe and protected.

  The light switched off, and in the darkness, I felt Derry relax. He gently placed his cold hands over my arms and pulled me in close. For a moment, I was afraid that he was going to bite me, but instead, he began sniffing at my hair and skin.

  “My summer girl,” Derry whispered. “You smell like sunshine.”

  I giggled again and wrapped my hands slowly around his neck. Derry allowed me to do this, and he also allowed me to pull him in close. I kissed him. I kissed his slack mouth, and even though he was unable to respond, he never once pulled away. His mouth tasted like blood, but instead of being repelled, I wanted to kiss him even more. Was I tasting vampire blood? Was I tasting a victim’s blood?

  Could I be turned by tasting this blood?

  I didn’t want to be a vampire, but I didn’t mind being a girl that knew a vampire. I wanted to kiss him some more. I wanted to taste more of the blood, but Derry suddenly stiffened and moved his head away from me.

  “Your father is almost home,” Derry said. “I shouldn’t be here when he arrives.”

>   “No,” I agreed. “You shouldn’t…but I need to ask. Dad has a wound on his back that isn’t healing…”

  “Holy water,” Derry said. “Clean the wound with holy water.”

  There was a flurry of movement, and Derry was gone as if he’d never been in my room. All that was left of him was that slightly musty smell of his clothes.

  Derry

  I was excited as I moved from the bathroom to the backyard. My summer girl had taken a good long look at me, and she didn’t run out of the room screaming. I touched down briefly in the backyard, and once again looked up at her window.

  Selma saw me as she passed by and waved.

  I waved back at her just as her father pulled into the driveway, and then I was truly gone. At about twenty feet into the air, I felt my body dissolving into mist. I allowed the change. I wanted to move quickly. I had an idea.

  There was still a police officer on Bret’s street, but he wasn’t sleeping when I landed a few houses away. I took a moment to search the neighborhood thoroughly. I didn’t want any vampire hunters to attack while I was enacting my plan.

  The coast was clear.

  I pulled up my hood and took a nice casual walk towards Bret’s house. I couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary except for the policeman, and he wasn’t all that much of a bother.

  I snuck into Bret’s back yard and entered his home without making a sound. One invite is all a vampire needs.

  The house was asleep.

  I could hear all the human inhabitants breathing in and out. Bret’s father was snoring softly. His mother was on something for her nerves; I could smell it on her breath every time she exhaled.

  Moving into Bret’s room, I ignored his sleeping form, and instead focused on his closet. I wanted clean clothes, but it was hard to ignore Bret. My teeth started pushing out through my gums, but I did my best to ignore them as I stuffed a backpack with just about everything I could find.

  I almost lost control as I was leaving his room, but I managed to keep my cool right up until I heard Bret’s father cough once, and then sit up in bed.

  It was the moment I had been waiting for.

  It was the real reason I had come.

  I pulled the backpack over my shoulders and crept towards the living room. Bret’s father turned on the hallway light and made his way over to Bret’s room. I watched him peek in on his sleeping son, and then head over towards the kitchen.

  The refrigerator door opened, and I felt the blast of cold air. By the time the door closed, I was standing right behind it. Bret’s father jumped about a foot into the air, and I grabbed him immediately.

  I appreciated the look of fear in the man’s eyes. I also enjoyed the realization that his son wasn’t crazy washing over his face. The two of us were in shadows, but he could still see my reflecting eyes clearly.

  “What is your name?” I asked.

  “Bob,” the man answered. “My name is Bob. My son was right. You are a demon. All he could talk about were demons and ghosts before he went silent. I thought he had some sort of breakdown.”

  I just stared at the man until he calmed down enough to look me in the eyes. When that happened, I had him.

  “You live for me now, Bob,” I said. “Your family no longer matters. Your job no longer matters. Starting tomorrow you’ll have a new job. You’ll be the care-taker of my home. You’ll be our daytime protector.”

  Bob didn’t respond.

  Bob didn’t do anything except listen to my instructions.

  I was back in the air within minutes, and there was plenty of time left to hunt. Unfortunately, we were still trying to lay low. Despite how great the thirst had become, I could only prey on the less desirables.

  The thought of vagrant blood made me grumpy. I wanted something fresh and young. I wanted my summer girl’s blood. I wanted to guzzle her down and drop her body like a candy bar wrapper when I finished.

  I wouldn’t do that, though.

  My summer girl was special. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Not even the chlorine from her pool could wash the summer out of her hair.

  To hell with vagrant blood.

  I wanted something better. I was inflamed, and because I was so bothered, I searched up and down on the beaches until I found a more secluded area that held a few darkened tents. Most of the beaches didn’t allow people to spend the evening. Some of them did, but the privilege was expensive.

  The couple I settled on seemed to have money. There was a half-empty bottle of champagne outside their tent, and a pair of nice beach chairs as well. I unzipped their tent and crawled inside.

  The confined human smell was wonderful. The blood pumping inside their veins was thunderous in my ears. I stretched out my dead limbs from the far side of the tent, keeping the twenty-something young lady trapped between her boyfriend and me.

  My teeth began popping through my gum-line, causing an almost itchy sensation. The young lady was beautiful. Her dark hair was soft, and it curled nicely around my fingers as I bit deeply into her neck.

  The poor girl opened her eyes, moaned, realized what was happening, and panicked. I clamped a hand over her mouth and crawled on top of her. The boyfriend woke up, panicked as well, but I was able to hold him down without a problem while I finished draining the young lady.

  The boyfriend managed a quick scream as I left his girlfriend and started feeding on him. Listening intently, I realized that his scream had awakened one of the nearby tents.

  I had to act fast to avoid a massacre.

  Grabbing both victims by the ankle, I rushed out of the tent and down the beach. Their bodies bounced and flopped as I dragged them through the sand towards the water, and then we were airborne.

  I flew a few miles out over the ocean before I dropped the young lady. The boyfriend was still alive. I could even feel him struggling against me, so I fed on him some more.

  When I finished I dropped his body into the black water and watched him slowly sink beneath the waves. I hovered there for a few minutes before rushing back to an empty spot of beach.

  I landed gently, and then I stretched out in the sand. The blood was circulating through my body, causing me to feel warm all over. My head swam with delight as I looked up past the pollution to the stars above me.

  I knew the names of many stars, but I didn’t bother trying to recollect them. I didn’t want to spend any more time with my thoughts. I only wanted to look. Daytime wasn’t too far off.

  Selma

  I dreamt of dead boys and dripping blood. I didn’t want to wake up. I imagined myself kissing Derry. I could even taste the blood in his mouth once again.

  Dad hadn’t left for work yet. I could hear him moving about in the kitchen, and he wasn’t alone. Tyler knocked on my door.

  “Come in,” I mumbled, not wanting to wake up.

  “Selma,” Tyler said as he rubbed his eyes. “Will you take me swimming?”

  “What about school?” I asked.

  “It’s Saturday!” Tyler said with glee.

  I watched as my little brother climbed up into my bed and did his absolute best to squish me underneath his little eight-year-old body. I laughed with delight and hugged him close.

  “Go get your swimsuit on,” I said.

  Tyler rushed out of my room, and I slowly made my way downstairs. Dad was in the living room with his shirt off. There was a doctor busily looking at the wound on his back and a couple of security guards that I’d never seen before.

  Dad was in pain.

  “I can’t figure this out,” the doctor said.

  “Then give me a referral to somebody who can,” Dad said testily.

  I walked up and looked at the wound. The torn tissue smelled foul and looked infected.

  “You don’t need to see this, Selma,” Dad said.

  “You should put holy water on that,” I said.

  Dad looked confused.

  “I’ve just been reading,” I said.

  “Have you seen that boy again?” D
ad asked with wide eyes.

  “No,” I answered.

  My father looked at me long and hard, and then he shrugged.

  “You think holy water will work?” Dad asked.

  “I think it’s worth a try,” I answered. “Did you get more security?"

  “Can’t have enough,” Dad answered. “I’m even thinking about assigning a security detail to you and your brother.”

  “Please don’t do that,” I said. “We aren’t in any kind of danger. I haven’t seen anything weird, and I’ve stayed away from all your properties.”

  “Well,” Dad mused. “If anything changes, you come to me immediately.”

  “I will,” I answered.

  Dad put his shirt back on, gathered up his briefcase, and went to work. Tyler and I were all by ourselves. I smiled at my little brother as he ran out of his room, wearing his favorite swimsuit.

  We spent the morning in the pool. By late afternoon Betty and Jake arrived, and the three of us smoked weed in the Jacuzzi while Tyler watched cartoons.

  I listened to my friends discuss some sort of serial killer on the loose in Glendale, but I wasn’t really interested in the topic. I was sick of the sun. I was even getting sick of having company. I wanted the cool darkness of night and what the cool darkness brought with it.

  “You guys up for a drive?” I asked.

  “Where to?” Betty asked.

  “One of my dad’s properties,” I answered. “I heard him speaking with his people. There might be a movie star hiding out in one of the houses.”

  “Which movie star?” Jake asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I answered.

  “It’s a little hot to go stalking, isn’t it?” Betty asked.

  “It might be,” I said, “but I’m still curious. Would you guys mind sitting with Tyler for a couple hours?”

  “Not if you have more weed,” Jake giggled.

  “I have a ton of weed,” I said. “Feel free to help yourself. Just don’t let Tyler anywhere near the smoke.”

  I made my way back over to the Riverside property. The house was nestled in a nice neighborhood confusingly named, Horsethief Canyon Ranch. There were still cats in the front lawn, and now there was also a car.