by Ellen Datlow
Once again, she pulls the crumpled pack of cigarettes from her pocket. This time she cannot resist. She pulls one from the pack and straightens its bent form, then holds it between her lips for a long time before she begins the finalizing act of lighting it. She lets out the smoke in a long plume, pleased by the hominess of its smell. A familiar scent in this alien world.
“Can you spare one … please?” a soft voice calls from the next cell. “Please?” it asks again. The noise acts like a trigger as the tiny gospel singer starts in once more. A hand pokes through the bars in the corner of the cell. It is black and scarred and shaking with the strain of the reach. It is easily the largest hand she has ever seen. Large even for a man. Daria stares at the two cigarettes remaining in her pack. What the hell, she figures, they’ll be gone soon anyway. She removes one and places it in the hand. It squeezes her own gently and withdraws.
“So, it has happened again, Daria?” Dr. Wells asked. The child nodded, looking down at her feet. “After three years we had great hope that it wouldn’t happen again. But now that you are a little older, perhaps you can tell me what went on in your mind. What were you thinking when it happened? Do you have any idea why you did it?”
“I don’t remember thinking anything. I don’t even remember doing it. It was like a dream. They had us all lined up outside for gym. We were going to play field hockey. Tanya and Melinda were playing and Tanya hit her with her stick. I only wanted to help, but there was blood all over everything. I remember being afraid. I remember doing it, but it was almost more like watching television, when the camera’s supposed to be you. The next thing I knew, Mrs. Rollie was holding me down and there were people everywhere."There was a long pause. “None of the other girls will talk to me now. They called me …” The child burst into tears. “They called me a vampire,” she said.
“And how do you feel about that?” Dr. Wells goaded her. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s true. It must be true, else why would I do what I do?” Tears streamed down her cheeks and she blotted them with a tissue. “What do you know about vampires, Daria?”
“That they sleep in coffins and hate the sun … I know, but maybe it’s only partly true. I do hate the sunlight. It hurts my eyes. And garlic, too. It makes me sick. Even the smell of it. Maybe the legends aren’t quite right. Maybe I’m just a different kind of vampire. Why else would I do what I do?”
“Do you want to be a vampire, Daria?” Dr. Wells asked softly.
“No!” she shouted, the tears streaming down her face unimpeded, then again more softly, “no. Do you think I’m a vampire?” she asked.
“No, Daria. I don’t believe in vampires. I think you’re a young lady with a problem. And … I think if we work together, we can find out why you have this problem and what we can do about it.”
There is the jingle of keys and the crisp sound of heavy feet. The dying woman has begun her plea for help again and Daria wonders if they are finally coming to see what is wrong, but the footsteps stop in front of her own cell. She looks up and sees the policeman consulting a piece of paper. “Daria Stanton?” he asks. She nods. He makes her back up, away from the door of the cell before he opens it. He tells her to turn around and put her hands behind her back. He handcuffs her and makes her follow him.
She is surprised to see there is only one cell between hers and the main corridor, something that she hadn’t noticed on the way in. The cop she saw earlier is still sitting there, still eating, or perhaps eating again. She wants to ask him why he doesn’t at least check on the woman who is screaming, but he doesn’t look up at her as she passes. She is taken down an endless maze of corridors, all covered with the same green tile, except where they branch out into hallways full of cells. Eventually, she is taken to a room where her cuffs are removed and she is told to wait. He is careless shutting the door behind him and she can see that it isn’t locked, but she makes no move to go through it. What difference can it make. Her fate was decided long ago.
“Daria Stanton? Please sit down, I have some questions to ask you.”
Even after six months it still felt strange, coming to this new building, walking down a new corridor. She still missed Dr. Wells and hated him for dying that way, without any warning, as though it had been an act against her, personally. This new doctor didn’t feel like a doctor at all; letting her call him Mark. And there should be a law against anyone’s shrink being so cute, with all those newfangled ideas. She paused outside the door, pulled off her mirrored sunglasses, and adjusted her hair and makeup in the lenses.
“Morning, Mark,” she said as she seated herself in his green padded chair by the window. She couldn’t bring herself to lie down on the couch, because all she could think of was how much she wanted him lying there with her. Seated where she was, she could watch the street outside while they talked. Two boys were standing around the old slide-bolt gum machine that had stood outside Wexler’s Drug Store for as long as she could remember. It was easy to tell by their attitude that they were up to something. The dark-haired boy looked around furtively several times, then started sliding the bolt back and forth.
“I have some news for you this morning,” Dr. Bremner told her. “Good news, I hope.” The blond child kicked the machine and tried the bolt again. “The reports of your blood workup are back and I’ve gone over them with Dr. Walinski. Your blood showed a marked anemia of a type known as iron-deficiency porphyria. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn’t be telling a patient that it was good news that she was sick, but in your case, it could mean that your symptoms are purely physical.” A woman walked down the street. The two boys stopped tampering with the machine, turned and stared into the drugstore window until she had passed. “… a very rare disease. It is even more unusual for it to evince the symptoms that you have, but … it has been known to happen. Your body craves the iron porphyrins that it can’t produce, and somehow, it knows what you don’t … that whole blood is a source.”The boys went back to the machine. One of them pulled a wire from his pocket and inserted it into the coin slot. “I’ve also talked with Dr. Ruth Tracey at the Eilman Clinic for Blood Disorders. She says your sensitivity to light and to garlic are all tied up in this too. For one thing, garlic breaks down old red blood cells. Just what a person with your condition can’t afford to have happen.” Once again the boys were interrupted and once again they removed themselves to the drugstore window. “Do you understand what all this means?”
Daria nodded morosely.
“How does it feel to know that there is a physiological cause for your problem?”
“I don’t see what difference it makes,” she said, brushing a wisp of straight black hair back from her forehead in irritation. “Insanity, vampirism, porphyria? What difference does it make what name you put on it? Even my family barely speaks to me any more. Besides, it’s getting worse. I can’t even stand to go out during the day anymore, and look at this.” She pulled the sunglasses from her face to show him the dark circles under her eyes.
“Yes, I know, but Dr. Tracey can help you. With the right medications your symptoms should disappear. Imagine a time when you can see someone cut themself without being afraid of what you’ll do. You’ll be able to go to the beach and get a suntan for Chrissake.”
Daria looked back out the window, but the boys were gone. She wasn’t sure whether the half-empty globe had been full of gumballs a moment ago.
Hours—weeks—years later they bring her back to her cell. Though she has only been there since early evening, already it is like coming home. The chorus has changed. Two drunken, giggling voices have been added and someone is drumming on the bars with ringed fingers. The taunter still goads the gospel singer even though she has stopped singing and the dying woman is still dying, with a tough new voice telling her to do it already and shut up. Daria slumps back on her slab of metal, her back against the wall with her straight skirt hiked up so that her legs can be folded in front of her. She no longer cares what anybody sees. She has been questioned, photographed, and given
one phone call. Mark will be there for the arraignment. He will see about getting her a lawyer. She has been told not to worry, that everything will be all right—but she is not worried … she knows that nothing will ever be all right for her again.
She stares at the dim and dirty green light that is always on and wonders if prison will be worse. From what she has read about penal institutions, she will not last very long once they send her away. A vampire in prison. She laughs at the thought and wonders what Dracula would do.
The fire was warmth seeping into her body, making her feel alive for the first time in years. She inched herself a little closer to the hearth. Mark came into the room holding a pair of cocktail glasses. He placed one by her elbow and joined her on the rug.
“Daria, there are things I wanted to tell you. So many things that I just couldn’t say while you were my patient. You do understand why I couldn’t go on treating you? Not the way I felt.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand, reluctant to turn her face away from the fire for even the time it would have taken to look at him. He stroked her hair. Why did it make her feel like purring? She wanted him to take her in his arms, but she was afraid. Unlike most twenty-year-old women, she had no idea what to do; how to react. The boys that she met had often told her that she was beautiful, flirted, made passes or asked her out, but the moment they found out anything about her, they always became frightened and backed off. Mark was different. He already knew everything, even though he didn’t choose to believe it all.
He took her face in his hands and kissed her. At first she wanted to pull away, but soon a burning started inside of her that made the fireplace unnecessary.
Daria can no longer stand the boredom. She climbs on the bars of her cell just for something to do. It is morning. She can tell by the shuffling of feet and slamming of doors that comes from the main corridor. She can tell by the food trays being brought down the hall, though none comes to her, and by the fact that the man in the chair has been replaced by a sloppy matron. She wonders if Mark is in the building yet. Probably. He has been in love with her since the first day she walked into his office, though she is convinced it is her condition and not herself that he loves. She would like to love him back, but though she needs him and wants him, truly enjoys his intimacy, she is sure that love is just another emotion that she cannot feel.
A different policeman stops outside her cell. He is carrying handcuffs, but he does not take them from his belt as he opens her cell door. “Time for your arraignment,” he says cheerfully. Docile, she follows him down the same, and then a different, set of corridors. They take a long ride in a rickety elevator and when the doors open they are standing in a paneled hall. Spears of morning light stab through the windows making Daria cover her eyes. In the distance she can see a courtroom packed with people. Mark is there. He is standing by the double doors that lead inside. Someone is with him. Even on such short notice, he has found a lawyer—a friend of a friend. Mark takes her hand and they go through the double doors together. There are several cases to wait through before her name is called and he whispers reassurances to her while they sit there.
Finally, it is her turn, but the lawyer and Mark have taken that burden from her and she has no need to speak. Instead, she watches the judge. His face is puffy from sleep as he reads down the list of charges, aggravated assault, assault and battery … the list is long and Daria is surprised that they haven’t thrown in witchcraft. The judge has probably slept through many such arraignments, but Daria knows that he will not sleep through this one. Indeed, she sees his eyes grow wide as the details of her crime are discussed. Interfering at the scene of an accident, obstructing the paramedics … there is no mercy in that face for her.
Then Mark begins to talk. Lovingly, he tells of her condition, of the work that Dr. Tracey is doing, of the hope for an imminent cure. He is so eloquent that for the very first time she is almost willing to believe that she is merely “sick."The judge’s face softens. Illness is another matter. Daria has been so resigned to her fate that she is surprised to find that she has been freed. Released on her own recognizance until her trial. No bail. Mark throws his arms around her, but she is too stunned to hug him back.
“I love you,” Mark tells her as he leads her out of the courtroom. He has brought glasses to shield her eyes from the sun.
A vein in his neck is throbbing.
“I love you too,” she answers automatically. She tries not to stare at the throbbing vein. This is a compulsion caused by illness, she tells herself, a chemical imbalance in the blood. It can be cured.
“Daria, we’re going to fight this. First we’ll get you off on those ridiculous charges, and then Dr. Tracey is going to make you well. You’ll see. Everything’s going to be all right.” He puts his arm around her shoulders, but something inside makes her stiffen and pull away.
Once again she looks at the throbbing vein and wonders what it will be like not to feel this hunger. All it will take is just the right compound stabbed into her arm with a little glass needle. A second of pain.
No, she thinks to herself in the crowded aloneness of the jailhouse steps. She finds inside herself a well of resolve, of acceptance, that she has never tapped before. She will no longer be put off by bottles of drugs, by diets that don’t work, by hours of laborious talk. She will be what she is, the thing that makes her different, the thing that makes her herself. She is not just a young woman with a rare blood disease; she is a vampire, a child of darkness, and she had been fighting it for way too long.
Allowing her expression to soften to a smile, she turns to Mark and places her hand gently on his neck, feeling the pulse of the vein under her thumb. “Yes, Mark, you’re right,” she says softly. “You will have to get me off on these charges.” So many little blue veins in so many necks. She will have to stay free if she is to feed.
This story stems, in part, from personal experience. (It was a bum rap, honest!) I remember reading an article in one of the science magazines which discussed porphyria as a medical rationale for vampirism. The article stated that this disease could very well explain an aversion to sunlight and garlic as well as a desire to drink blood. For a long time I had been thinking about doing a story about a girl who thought she was a vampire when it was actually more reasonable to believe that she was not. I thought of the seductive pull of vampires as they are expressed in pop culture and the appeal that they might have on a sensitive person who was ostracized because she was different. The prison experience seemed like a good hook to hang it all on.
Susan Casper
NOCTURNE
Steve Rasnic Tem
I wanted to use Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy” but was stymied by the unrealistic demands of the Plath estate. So, on Ed Bryant’s recommendation, I asked his fellow Coloradan Steve Rasnic Tem for a poem on the psychology of some arrested male-female relationships. “Nocturne” is his response.
under neon patina,
her eyes shift toward yellow.
The city enfolds them,
electric hum depleting
the rations of love.
“Do you even care?”
she asks, and still he’s speechless,
seething because she cannot believe his rage,
because he cannot love
however much he makes love,
because one woman is never enough,
because he needs the dead visions
of women in pornographic prayerbooks,
raging because he needs.
She closes her eyes,
so he can stand inside her skin.
She feels him inside her,
his fingertips greeting
each inner wall.
kissing her unseen flesh.
He fills her outline completely,
like a balloon,
forcing out her own breath,
pressing out any sense.
She’s emptied trying to fill him,
and still he won’t be filled
.
If she were dead she could not resist.
If she were dead she might fill.
A child, he’d played with dead mice.
He’s sick for her smell.
He’s sick for her life,
all his potency gone
into rusted etchings of consumed cars,
the slow-motion collapse of abandoned homes,
the sure specters of his childhood play,
the glossy feel of dead women.
Raging at the absence of love,
he burns over the wife he’s made his mother,
whom he cannot repay with love,
whom he can only consume.
Her eyes shift toward red,
the taste of her like roasted seed.
He’s drained her of sleep;
he’s sapped her dreams.
Teeth and tongue to nape,
“You’re so sweet,” he says,
in hungry infant’s voice,
“I could just eat you up,”
imitating mama.
He gives her lines to say.
She’s slow to sleep
as pale and lazy as the sheets.
Tasting her like a baby,
using tongue for eyes,
his life becomes so still,
his life becomes so dark.
His breath rank with desire.
His aquiline face, lean nose,
his heavy eyebrows.
Ruddy lips and anemic ears.
He could become a wolf,
if he wanted to;
he could pass beneath a door.
He might speak with waxen beasts
and other neighbors of the night.
If she’d just let him feed.
One of the things poetry does best is to explore the gray areas: the ill-defined regions between genre expectations, those thematic realms which disturb while leaving us inarticulate about exactly what it is that disturbs us. Poetry is a form permitting us to grapple head-on with that inarticulateness, encouraging work about that very grasping after meaning. An ideal form for darker sorts of fantasy, I think.
