Owen read and reread those passages, and the whole book; then dove deep into Dr. Corbiel-Newton’s other works, her magazine articles in both inscrutable trade journals and mass market magazines. Looking for himself. Looking for what he was.
He made one more discovery that startled him, and ultimately changed the direction of his life. The good doctor was married to another writer, Willard Fowler Newton, author of less scholarly and more sensational books about vampires. His nonfiction book, Hellnight: The Truth Behind the Destruction of Pine Deep, was made into a movie that Owen watched a dozen times. It was about vampires and werewolves attacking a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. Although the movie was an over-the-top horror film with lots of CGI, the book it was based on was published as nonfiction. Much like that voodoo film, The Serpent and the Rainbow, with the guy who played the president in Independence Day, was a fictionalized version of a serious scientific study.
Owen bought a copy of Newton’s book and rewatched the movie. Both were scary as hell. But now there was something whispering to him as he read and watched. He began to believe they were true. He began to believe that vampires were totally real. He marked a passage in Newton’s book:
Why did all of this happen in a town as small as Pine Deep, Pennsylvania? There are a lot of theories. There are always a lot of theories. My guess aligns with the oldest of these … a belief that was common to the original residents of that area, the Leni Lenape people, now a nearly extinct Native people. The stories passed down generationally speak of the region that is now almost entirely within the boundaries of the farming town of Pine Deep, and the tellers of those tales marked the area as bad. Not merely the negative charge that seems to linger in some old buildings in folktales, but an area they believed had always been evil. A place where darkness is exalted, and where the personal darkness in each human soul is fed and made stronger. It is a place of unquiet ghosts; a place that calls to people who are already wrestling with their own corruption and makes them stronger.
That sounded like home to Owen Minor.
When he finished that semester he gave his landlord notice, packed up his car, and moved east.
73
Alexa Clare was collecting scalps. That’s how she thought of it. Not clumps of skin and hair, but virginity. Since ninth grade she had popped the cherries—so to speak—of eleven boys. Now, in eleventh grade, a day after her eighteenth birthday, she was going for an even dozen. She loved watching their faces when they went inside of her for the first time. Hell, she loved their faces when she put the condoms on, fitting them over the heads of their trembling cocks and then rolling them down with long, slow strokes. One boy back in tenth grade was so turned on he came before she could finish adjusting the Trojan. He was not one of the eleven, and Alexa had no idea where, or even if, he had another go at the whole lovemaking thing. It wasn’t with her, that was for sure.
She hadn’t mocked that boy. Alexa was not cruel and did not consider herself any kind of tease. She simply loved sex, and loved first sex.
Her own first had been with Will Hamblin, whom she’d loved since second grade. He was the first boy she’d ever held hands with. They’d shared a first kiss in fifth grade. He gave Alexa her first-ever orgasm in sixth grade, just by kissing her breasts. That orgasm had been so big it scared them both—and then they’d laughed about it. All through seventh and eighth grade they got together as often as they could, and they learned how to kiss—really kiss, with subtlety and style and generosity—and experimented with oral sex until they were able to make each other come. They always kissed after, because she’d read in a book that sharing a kiss with her wetness on his lips and his semen on hers was what the French called “lovers’ wine.” That was beautiful and sophisticated and it felt real. The first time they shared that exotic taste was when Will told her that he loved her. She broke down into uncontrollable sobs and Will held her. On the night before eighth grade started they lost their virginity together in his bedroom while his parents were at the movies.
Nothing had ever been so sweet. Will had been so gentle, so careful. He later admitted that he’d read up on it. On what to really expect. He’d watched some porn, but that had told him more about what not to do, and how not to treat a girl.
He’d bought a pack of Trojans and they put one on him together, her hand over his. When he entered her there was only a little pain and discomfort. No blood—her hymen had been lost to his fingers months before. He was not particularly large, at least not by Internet porn standards, but bigger than his fingers. It took a while, but it was nice. And then it was more than nice. It was beautiful. She came first, and it was a big, sudden, clawing, screaming thing that scared them both. Will nearly stopped, but she clung to him, nails threatening to rend him if he pulled out. Her intensity, and the genuineness of it, toppled him over the edge. They bucked and gasped and shrieked as the tidal wave crashed down on them.
How many times in life can it be like that?
Alexa wondered that then, and so many times since then.
That night they’d marked the moment with tattoos. Not good ones. Not professional, because they were both too young to be allowed to get those. Instead they’d looked it up on the Net and then scrounged for the items needed for a stick-and-poke kit. One of Will’s father’s diabetes needles, ink from a Bic ballpoint, antiseptic, Saran Wrap to use as a medical surface cover, and the rest. They traced the design—a simple circle—over each other’s hearts. Circle for completeness, totality, wholeness, original perfection, the infinite Self, the infinite, eternity, and the timelessness of their love. She joked that it looked like an O. For orgasm. They laughed and kissed and sunk the ink.
Four days later Will was in his side yard, using a heavy jack to raise the corner of his uncle Nick’s farm truck. He had earbuds in, listening to Bauhaus. His uncle stooped to pick up the spare while Will worked the flat tire off the bolts when Nick saw his nephew lurch forward and smash his face against the fender. Will dropped to his knees and then fell sideways. Nick stood there, frozen by the kind of stupid incomprehension that true astonishment creates. He later said that he thought he heard a bee or fly buzz past his ear. Investigators speculated that this was the passage of the bullet that killed Will.
The cops figured it out: an out-of-season hunter considerably more than a mile away, using rounds too hot for taking down a deer. Forensics and ballistics sorted out the details and did the math. The bullet had been a reload of a .458 Winchester Magnum, fired from more than a mile away, almost certainly by someone illegally hunting on protected lands with way too much gun for the available game. The fact that the bullet had not hit a tree in all that distance was considered a fluke.
“These things happen,” said one detective, as if that made it somehow okay.
Someone else said, “Stranger things have happened round here, and going way back.”
Will’s death destroyed Alexa.
Absolutely destroyed her.
There was that black period of time where she could not remember anything. Nothing at all. All she knew was that her throat was torn raw by screaming, and it had never entirely recovered. She spoke in a whisper. Guys found it sexy.
Then there was another space of time where all Alexa could do was sit and stare out the window. For days.
That was when they started giving her pills. And shots. It was when they made her go to therapy. Sometimes she talked. Sometimes she didn’t. They gave her more pills.
Days passed. Weeks. She lost weight. She lost friends who couldn’t carry the weight of her grief. She lost herself.
Then Will came to her in a dream. Alive. Whole. Beautiful.
She felt his presence while she was deep in a nightmare, running from ugly things she could not name, fleeing through a maze of cornfields that were laid out like that labyrinth in Knossos in that old story. She ran and ran and ran, stumbling, weeping, lost and helpless, and then she rounded another of the endless series of corners, and …
Will w
as there.
His face was as bright as if it was lit from within. One hand was placed flat on his chest over his heart and the other was stretched out toward her.
In her dream, Alexa screamed his name. Even to her own ears it sounded like the cry of a lost seagull. Will smiled a smile that brightened the entire world and took her into his arms.
He kissed her and undressed her and they made love right there, nestled down in the sweet grass, his cool hips between her sweaty thighs. He entered her without a condom and moved inside of her with a slow, inexorable, timeless rhythm. He felt bigger than before, but his skin was so cold. Even his lips were cold. But that was okay, because she was overheated from running.
“I love you,” he whispered, his lips brushing the outside of her ear. “I love you forever.”
Then he came inside of her, filling Alexa with a cold darkness. When she looked at him, though, she saw that the circle tattoo was gone from his chest, leaving only a faintness like a scar. But not a scar.
When she woke the next morning her thighs were slick with wetness. It smelled of seawater and damp earth. Alexa lay there, daubing the wetness with her fingertips and then licking it off. Over and over and over again.
And when she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she barely noticed that her own tattoo was gone. It was so completely gone that its absence did not register with her senses. She never dreamed of Will again after that night.
A week later she coaxed sixteen-year-old Howard Reston into her car. Howard lived in Newtown, miles away. He went to a different school. They met online and this was the first time they’d ever met in the flesh.
They went to a movie and had pizza and then drove out to a spot along the Delaware where huge oak trees draped everything in dense shadows. Alexa had to do a lot of the work to even get Howard to kiss her. She was his guide in everything. Schooling him on how to kiss. Showing him the easiest way to undo a front-closure bra. Teaching him about giving and receiving oral sex. And then putting the condom on him. Helping him do it, really.
The sex was awkward for him, and he was earnest but clumsy. And he came too fast. But she held him after and told him it would be better the next time. It was. He had been the first since Will. Her first scalp, as she came to think of it.
* * *
Tonight she was with Gary Felton. A thin, tall boy with a kind face and poet’s eyes. He had kissed before, and gotten blowjobs before, but was still a virgin. He’d explained all this during long hours of texting. She’d driven down to meet him at a burger joint in Feasterville, and then they drove around until they found a big industrial parking lot where they could hide her car in the shadows between two silent semis.
Gary was less awkward now with most things, but there was always a learning curve when it came to intercourse. Alexa knew how to guide without appearing to take charge too much. She used encouragement and gasps to let him know he was doing things right. He was able to hold out for a while before he came, and she faked an orgasm so they would have that golden moment of togetherness.
They lay together for a long time, gently kissing, feeling their sweat and juices dry.
“That was really beautiful,” he said softly. “You’re beautiful, Lindsey.”
Alexa smiled. Lindsey was the name she used with him. Last time it was Kaitlyn, and before that it was Jessie. Going all the way back to Alice. Next time she would be Molly. Orderly, following the alphabet.
“You were good,” she lied. “You were really good.”
“You’re amazing, Lindsey,” said Gary.
“With you, I guess I am,” she said and smiled.
And slid the blade of the oyster knife between his ribs and into his heart so quickly he was dead before he knew he was dying.
Alexa—for now she was herself again—held Gary’s body for a long time. Feeling his muscles slacken and relax. Then she wormed her way out of the back seat, reached back to find her clothes, dressed, took a blanket from the trunk to cover him, and then drove back to Pine Deep. There was already a grave waiting. She’d dug it that afternoon, in a neat line with the others. The barn was on a farm that had been abandoned during the Trouble but never bought since. No one ever came out there that she was aware of. No one had in all this time.
It took hours to drag him out of the car, roll him in the plastic Tyvek sheeting, coat him with powdered lime, drag him into the barn, topple him into the grave, and fill it. The extra dirt was removed by wheelbarrow and scattered in the overgrown fields. Back inside, she patted the ground flat. Then she used a rake and broom to smooth away all traces.
Alexa went home, took a shower, and climbed into bed. All through what was left of the night she lay awake and listened to the night wind. It had an odd buzzing quality. It sounded like the frenzied wings of thousands of blowflies.
74
It was a very good kiss.
It did not stop the world.
It did not transport Gayle into a realm of orgasmic bliss.
It was not a kiss for the ages.
They were, after all, both half drunk and kissing in the bathroom of a bar. Given that, though, it was a very, very good kiss.
Dianna’s lips were full and soft. And she cupped the back of Gayle’s neck without too much force. Her other hand grazed Gayle’s cheek in the moment before she probed gently with her tongue.
At first Gayle had no idea what to do with her hands, and it felt like she had too many of them and that each one weighed fifty pounds. She finally anchored them on Dianna’s upper arms. Not as a caress, but for lack of any other plan that seemed to fit the moment.
She was aware of so many things during that kiss.
She and Dianna were almost the same height.
They both had large breasts, and those breasts were pressed together.
Dianna was very curvy and had broad shoulders, but she was much smaller than Scott, who was a big man. The difference in size was a little jarring.
Dianna’s lips were softer than any man’s Gayle had ever kissed. And her tongue was much less insistent.
There was no groping. Scott, and virtually every man before her, had groped. Usually hands went straight to her breasts. Not now.
Dianna kissed with her eyes open, though her lips were almost closed. A sleepy, dreamy expression. Gayle shut hers because she didn’t want to make eye contact. The moment was already strange enough.
Dianna’s breath smelled of gin and dirty olives and a little bit of mint.
The kiss probably lasted twenty seconds. A long time for a first kiss. Very long. Though it felt both shorter and much longer.
Dianna ended the kiss but did not move away. Gayle opened her eyes and they stood there very close, still holding each other, both of them breathing hard. Gayle, perhaps, nearly panting.
“You are very sweet,” murmured Dianna.
“Th-thank you,” said Gayle, tripping on it. Meaning it on several different levels.
There was a knock on the door, but neither of them responded to it.
Dianna stepped back and it was as if she was deliberately withdrawing her energy from the moment. She moved over to the sink and checked her hair. Her smile was constant. Small and amused.
Thunder boomed hard enough to rattle the whole building and then came the barrage of heavier rain hitting the roof.
“It’s going to rain like this for hours,” said Dianna. “Maybe all night.” She unslung her purse, dug into it, and removed her phone. She looked up, one eyebrow raised. “May I have your number?”
“Um … yes…” said Gayle, and gave it.
Dianna tapped the keys. She came over and kissed Gayle on the cheek, and left the bathroom without saying another word.
A blond woman, looking annoyed at having found the door locked, brushed past and went into one of the stalls. It took Gayle quite a while to compose herself enough to go back out to the bar, but was dismayed to find Dianna gone. She lifted her coaster in hopes of finding a note, but there was nothing.
&
nbsp; She sank down on the chair and stared at her drink, feeling more heavily disappointed than she would have imagined. She’d kissed a woman. A beautiful woman. And it was lovely.
What, she wondered, would have made it perfect?
Every bit of the answer to that question involved her. It was nerves and surprise and insecurity that were responsible for any flaws, of that she was certain.
Her phone pinged with the chime for an instant message. It would be Scott, of course.
Except it wasn’t.
It was a phone number she did not recognize. And an address three miles outside of town. No other note.
Nothing else was needed.
Gayle settled her bill with Juana and was driving through the rain in less than two minutes.
75
Mike Sweeney turned in his cruiser and climbed onto his bike, a 1953 Indian Chief, one of the very last such machines ever made. It was beautiful and despite its power the engine purred rather than growled, and it devoured the road. The bike had been a gift from Crow and Val to celebrate Mike’s graduation from the police academy.
Its name, WarMachine, was painted on the fuel tank. It made Mike smile, though faintly. When he was a kid he’d had a bicycle of that name. Childhood had been a horror show for him, but the WarMachine always made him feel free.
Then and now.
He fired it up and drove out of the department lot, but paused at the first intersection. He didn’t care much about the rain, even liked it, cold and angry as it was.
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