Thirsty

by M. T. Anderson

  Through the loose branches of pine, I can see the reservoir. Out in the center, the light bobs from the sacrificial boat. Beyond it, little isles rise, then the blinking radio towers and the dark hills beneath the moon.

  “Pick it up. There’s not a moment to spare,” Chet says.

  We run silently through the woods. I have to run to keep up with him. His strides have gained in urgency. He bangs boughs out of his way with unfeeling arms. Tramples through brambles. Scampers over boulders. And I run to follow him.

  He holds out his hand and guides me down a wall of rock.

  We stand on the banks of the Wompanoag Reservoir. The clouds are dense and draining across the sky. The crickets sing as if in fever.

  “Here, so you can follow the action, let me galvanize something. You’ll be able to hear our vampiric counterstrike,” says Chet, taking a nickel out of his pocket. He rubs it twice with his thumb, and it starts to speak.

  It blares: “. . . give us the cue, we’ll continue with the ritual as scheduled. We must not panic.”

  And: “No, certainly not, Mayor. We’re ready to continue here.”

  “A-OK, Father Bread?”

  “Lay your hand upon this wilderness that the wicked and untoward may not stalk within it. Smother us with peace, O guardians of Light.”

  “Soon,” mutters Chet. “Soon.”

  “Bless us in this time of trial. Place your seal upon the waters of Wompanoag and the valley where once our ancestors roamed. Place the ancient seal of holding upon those hills and forests, that Darkness may not —”

  And then there is a burst of static.

  Nonsense voices keening and screaming.

  The squealing of wind instruments untuned and blown without rhyme or reason.

  People screaming in Latin; screaming in Greek; screaming profanity.

  “. . . seem to have some static on your line . . .”

  And ripples start to shoot across the lake.

  Vampire voices scream blasphemy and blood.

  Chet is licking his lips. His eyes fly from one point to the other, absorbed.

  “The spell of interruption,” he says. “I’d give it one more minute.” Slowly, statically, like a statue unfolding, he lays his arms out straight on either side. And as he does so, there is a low hum of power. I hear him whispering beneath his breath, “Lord, make me an instrument of your discord.” His fingers begin to twitch with blue fire. On either hand, his slim fingers wheel like the branches that thrash around us.

  “No!” I scream as the wind starts to howl. “No!” And I throw myself at Chet, and pass through his body, and slam to the ground on the other side of him.

  His head is back, his mouth thrown open, his eyes rolling uncontrollably. His skull rocks as if his neck is broken. A bulb of blue flame smokes on each outspread hand. His body pops and flares, sections blurring and fading and snapping back into focus.

  The lake is in turmoil. The waters boil and rock.

  Lines of light have started to burn from point to point, stretching to the unseen sites where, in the town forest and the White Hen Pantry, the people chant old rites.

  On the water flickers a triangle of red.

  Chet flashes; is there; is not; is.

  His body is burning with blue fire.

  “Kneel!” he roars. “Kneel before the power of the Melancholy One! Tch’muchgar, Vampire Lord, we welcome you!”

  The nickel lies on the ground, searing the leaves, howling with voices, with cries, with screams of fear. Blasts of static crack through the night.

  Chet screams weird words — his throat pops and spatters with power —

  And in the midst of the triangle, thrashing above the lake, I see the Vampire Lord.

  A dim maw — vast — outlined — the huge motion of something so massive that the mountains ripple — howling.

  With a cry that courses through the heavens — knocks stars spinning — wallops leagues of hills — the Dark Lord leaps.

  And there is a burst of energy.

  A crack of thunder.

  The sky turns to day.

  The lake smashes with fire.

  I scream.

  And then he is gone.

  My eyes are fixed for a while on the ground. Princess pines cluster around the base of a tree. The crickets have gone silent. The wind has dropped, exhausted to nothing. When I look up, Chet is sitting on the ground, resting his elbows on his knees, looking out at the lake. The lake is quiet; dead. Fish bob belly-up in the reeds.

  “Where is he?” I ask.

  “Gone,” says Chet softly.

  I wait. I look suspiciously out at the shapeless hills and the inane blinking of the radio towers. Out in the middle of the lake, the town selectmen splash near their overturned boat. Their tiny mewling voices drift over the water. “Where is —” “Help! Help!” “Is that thing in here? Is it in here? Get me — I thought I saw —” The water tinkles as they scrabble with the boat, way out in the vast center of the reservoir.

  Finally I say, “Gone where?”

  “Nowhere. Dead. Tch’muchgar doesn’t exist. The Arm of Moriator destroyed him. Remember, you placed it there yourself, Christopher.” Chet softly taps his knees with his fingers. “When Tch’muchgar tried to escape, the Arm kicked in. It displaced his prison world; he leaped out and slipped into the crack between worlds. He no longer exists. Gone.”

  Slowly, I look straight at Chet’s face. There is a look of serene triumph, a kind of hidden sweet glee there. All the sarcasm and cruelty has gone out him. I feel a kind of shuddering hope move throughout my body, starting with my chest.

  Chet is still tapping on his knees. What he’s tapping sounds like “I’ve got rhythm, I’ve got music, I’ve got my girl, who could ask for anything more?”

  I can’t believe it. I’m almost laughing. “He’s really gone?” I insist.

  “Yes, he really is. Forever.” Chet smiles at me. “Congratulations to both of us.”

  I laugh. It is a ragged little laugh, a little hoarse cough-y thing that would not get much on the open market — but it is a laugh nonetheless. A human laugh. “I, um. You know? I thought you were working for the vampires.”

  “No,” says Chet. “I had the appearance of that, but I would never work for vampires. Not seriously. I needed them to interrupt the spells of warding so that Tch’muchgar would be freed up for just one crucial moment. Just long enough for him to jump and be destroyed. I guess I’m a double agent. Christopher, I might even be a triple agent.”

  He rises, clapping his hands together to shake out the kinks in his muscles.

  “So, you were just using the vampires? I mean, Bat and everyone?”

  “Mmmm, yes. Poor, poor Bat. For a strapping thing of a hundred and seventy-two, that boy certainly doesn’t act his age.”

  I do my ragged laugh again. Then I say, “Do you know how relieved I am?”

  “No, Christopher. How relieved are you?”

  “I am more relieved than a very relieved thing from Planet Phew.”

  He nods. “I’m happy to hear you’re that relieved,” he says. “It does my old heart good.”

  “I thought you were a servant of the Forces of Darkness,” I explain.

  “You didn’t!” replies Chet.

  “I did.”

  “Well, I’m not,” says Chet, shaking his head.

  “See, and that’s why I’m relieved.”

  “Well might you be relieved,” he agrees. “And you can lay your fears to rest. I have never been and never will be a servant of the Forces of Darkness. I’m a mercenary, of course. I work for them freelance, on a job-by-job basis.”

  At this, my head shoots up. He’s not facing me. His grin has changed a little bit. Now I can see his teeth. They are gray.

  A few lone crickets start wheezing hoarsely.

  “What?” I say.

  “I said I work for them freelance. On a job-by-job basis.”

  I scramble to get to my feet. He’s looking proudly out across
the lake, as if he has just finished gluing all the trees and islands there. The crickets are picking up, more and more of them chittering.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think I’ve just explained this. I work for the Forces of Darkness, Christopher, but on a freelance basis. Meaning, I’m employed by Tch’muchgar.”

  “Tch’muchgar? But you just killed him. Do you mean, Tch’muchgar — the Vampire Lord?”

  “Christopher, it’s not a common name.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Chet turns and finally looks at me. “Would you like me to explain?” he asks me.

  The crickets are calling to one another in gasping choirs.

  “I think it would be obvious to you by now, Christopher. Locked up like that with nothing to think about, nothing to do but hate his captors, hate himself for his failure, hate life — the only escape he wanted in the end was escape from his own tedious, circular, dream-starved thoughts. There’s nothing Tch’muchgar wanted to do more than die. But of course, he couldn’t. Completely powerless. That was the hell of it. Couldn’t even move, figuratively speaking, to slit his own wrists.” Chet stops for a moment. Broods on his tale. Rubs his hand over his face. “God he was depressing.” He sighs.

  “Enter: me. I was drifting without direction, disembodied, between worlds, looking for work, when, lo, I heard a voice from on high, saying to me, ‘Blessed are the dead, for they rest from their labors.’ It was Tch’muchgar — completely suicidal, unable to move, only barely able to cry out.

  “An agreement was made; we settled on a price. I reentered your time-stream about twenty years ago and began to make arrangements. I prodded the vampires into action, promised them a Golden Age, another reign of the Vampire Lord. About a year ago, I made a sweep through the area, disembodied, and settled on you as the most likely of several local vampire cubs. You were obviously going to ripen at just the right time. I needed someone who could slip past the vampires, but who would be willing to activate the Arm of Moriator by invoking Light. A vampire would have suspected something. But you? It was all a masterstroke on my part, Christopher. I’m sorry to gloat; it’s just that I’m rather wonderful.”

  The crickets’ crazed fluting shimmers around us like music for a wild, nervous dance. The goat dark woods are full of it. I’m wary; frightened; we are alone on the bank, and the forest is wide. He’s still smiling at me like an uncle with a five-dollar bill hidden in one of his hands.

  “What have you done to me?” I say. “What have you done?”

  “Nothing. You were doomed before I saw you.” He folds his hands primly in front of him.

  “No, you’ve got to tell me. What about me now?” I try to sound strong. I’m hysterical. He can hear I’m afraid. He can hear I’m almost whimpering.

  “What? Now?”

  “My vampirism.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You lied about that. You lied about being able to help me.”

  He laughs kindly. “Of course I lied, Christopher,” he says. “What did I just say I am? I’m a freelance agent of the Forces of Darkness. I’m supposed to lie. I lie, cheat, kill, make people unhappy, and draw an enormous wage.”

  “I helped you! I did everything you asked!”

  “Christopher, Christopher, Christopher! It’s not within my power! I can’t change what you are. You are what you are. I could remold the matter you’re made of to make you human, like a wizard turning a shepherdess into a frog, but you wouldn’t be yourself. Everything about you is vampiric. Your jaws are vampire jaws. Your teeth are retractable vampire teeth. Your heart is a vampire heart with little wicked tendrils strapped around your ribs, strangling your other organs. Your mind — cold, distant, hungry — everything — you’re a vampire, Christopher. An honest-to-gosh bloodsucking son of the damned.”

  “What can I do?” I demand, snapping my arms out straight. “What?”

  Chet shrugs. “Not much. You’re going to die soon, Christopher. Unnatural causes, one way or another. Try to enjoy what little time you have left. You could go on a killing spree, draw the blood you need, but without guidance you’ll soon get caught and lynched. It’s a shame your little friend Lolli didn’t survive,” he says with a leer. “That girl was sufficiently acrobatic to liven up the final months of any young man worth his salt.”

  “I’ll turn myself in,” I threaten him. “I’ll tell them what’s happened.”

  Chet shakes his head. “Is that wise, Christopher? Is that really wise? Don’t forget that you’re guilty of first-degree deicide. Killing a god. The Forces of Light will demand to try you. Tch’muchgar was their prisoner. They wanted him to live. They’ll find you guilty and commence torture. Believe me, they’ll take advantage of the fact that you can’t die of normal causes. Do you really want to spend all of eternity that way, Christopher? Being tortured slowly by white faceless glowing beings?

  “Of course, you won’t be much better off at home. You’re going to go insane soon. You’re going to kill someone. If for some reason you don’t, you’re going to fall into a coma, starved. Either way, you’re bound to have a stake driven through your heart. This is a diverting little problem, isn’t it, Christopher?”

  I wait for him to go on. His face brightens and he says, “Here, let’s think about this idea.”

  “What?” I grunt.

  “You could go join the vampire band. They’d teach you the rudiments of killing and concealment. Offer emotional support. That might be the only place you’d be safe . . .”

  “You think I should?”

  “But, of course, you have unfortunately just murdered their god and sole hope of victory. Soon they’ll figure it out; then they’ll bite your throat out. So I guess that isn’t such a good idea after all.” He shrugs. “You know what, Christopher? You’re screwed. Well, I’m going now.”

  “You bastard,” I say, stunned. “You are a complete bastard.”

  “Not so far off the truth,” he agrees blandly. “Hypostatic parthenogenesis.”

  “You can’t just leave me.”

  “Of course I can. I’ll take a lot of pleasure in it, too.”

  “You can’t leave!”

  “Not without slapping you first,” he agrees and slaps me for no reason.

  I stagger back against a tree.

  “It takes so little,” he muses, “to cause biological beings pain.” His leg swipes upward and catapults into my shin. I topple on the ground, swearing and clutching. “Very strange.” He titters. “I’ve been given so much power, Christopher, so much in payment for this little gig. I feel almost young again. Do you understand? I’m seeing new things! I’ll be like a god soon! Despoiling worlds! A reign of terror! Ha!” He performs a quick dance upon the summer moss.

  I’m rising to my feet as he hops in his jig. I’m careful, slow, ready to attack.

  Above him, the horrified moon looks down through the black branches of pine. He trots and skips, chuckling and hopping, clapping and laughing beneath the night sky.

  My teeth are now moving, they’re sliding and pointing, they’re ready for battle and blood in my veins.

  He’s tapping and spinning and whirling and laughing; he’s hooting great names in the still of the night.

  I take a step forward.

  I scowl.

  And I pounce.

  Whack! His fist flies out, and I go careening backward, my nose splattering blood down my face.

  I’m on all fours again, kneeling in the moss.

  Blood in my mouth.

  I’m thirsty now. I lick at it quickly.

  His shoes move across the moss toward me.

  I’m hungry for the attack. I tense my muscles.

  “It’s bad manners to kick a man when he’s down,” Chet says, “but it’s just Too! Much! Damn! Fun!” and with each word, he delivers a savage kick in my side or my arm or my head.

  I roll.

  I can’t tell which way is up. I feel the weight of my body, but can’t tell how it’s
falling. My lips are sticky. Sticky. I lick them. I want his blood.

  “Why me?” I gasp. I want his blood.

  “Why did I choose you, Christopher? Because you threw the Forces of Light off my trail,” he says. “They thought that because you were a child, you were innocent, working for them. It took them months to figure out the truth. And by the time they did, you were marked as mine; there was nothing they could do.” His voice is ringing in my head — all around me, like a halo of feedback in burning red. “But do you know the other reason I chose you, Christopher? Because I knew you were an incompetent: self-pitying; self-absorbed; self-centered. The perfect teen. I knew you wouldn’t ask the right questions at the right time. In other words,” he says, leaning down and placing his hand kindly on my crippled shoulder, “I chose you because, to quote Tom, your best friend in this world, you are a complete peckerhead.”

  He stands upright.

  I lunge for his feet.

  I pass through them, and he stands with his foot on my head.

  He rocks the heel against my forehead. “No, Christopher. You won’t win this one.”

  I am thinking wildly in my head, under his foot. What I realize is he must take me with him. I must become his assistant. I will help him in his evil; then one day, I will turn. I will betray him.

  “You’ve got to take me with you. I’ll help you.”

  “Good-bye, Christopher.”

  “You’ve got to! You made me what I am!”

  “No, I didn’t. Good-bye.”

  “Chet! Pleathe! I can help you. We can work together.”

  “No, we can’t, Christopher. I can read your thoughts now, and they’re stupid.”

  “Chet!”

  “That’s not my name. You don’t even know my name.”

  The foot lifts off me.

  I lunge again.

  Again I fall through him.

  He steps back.

  “You can’t —”

  “I can.”

  “No, Chet!”

  “That’s not my name.”

  “Pleathe!”

  “No.”

  “God, pleathe!”

  “Good-bye.”