by Greg Krojac
“Cheers, Arnie. That was intense. You can come again – well, I can. I don’t know if zombie vampires can orgasm.”
That was a mystery that Arnold doubted he’d ever resolve.
As Tracey finished off taking Harold’s blood, Hilda entered the room with a plate of biscuits and six mugs of tea.
“When Harold and I used to give blood to the health service, they always made us drink a cup of tea and eat a few biscuits to get our strength back.”
Trevor and Tracey gratefully accepted the hot beverage but Arnold held his hand up.
“Sorry Hilda, but I don’t eat or drink.”
She looked shocked.
“What? Not even brains?”
“No. Not even brains.”
“Well, I never. You’re a strange zombie, aren’t you? I’ve never met a zombie that didn’t eat brains.”
Harold interjected.
“You’ve never met a zombie, Hilda.”
His wife had to acknowledge that her husband was right. The only so-called monsters she had met were the two vampires – and they were a lovely young couple.
Arnold watched as the others drank their tea.
“How often do we have to feed, Trevor?”
The vampire spoke through a mouthful of biscuit, inadvertently spitting a few crumbs onto the floor.
“About every two weeks.”
“And how come we all got the thirst at the same time?”
“That is a strange one, yes. It appears to be a phenomenon like when women are constantly in each other’s company. Sometimes their menstrual cycles coincide. When two or more vampires get together, their thirsts align with each other.”
Adrienne, now fully recovered, studied Arnold’s face.
“You know, Arnie, I reckon I can do something about your face.”
Arnold didn’t understand.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I can make up your face so that you look almost human again.”
“Almost human?”
“Well, almost. You’ll still look a little bit odd to people on the street, but nobody will take you for a zombie. The worst they’ll probably think is that you had an industrial accident.”
Arnold wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of being thought of as an industrial accident victim, but it had to be better than looking like a zombie. And it would be good to go outside again.
Adrienne was quite excited by the challenge.
“Well, Arnie? Are you up for it?”
“I suppose it couldn’t do any harm.”
Adrienne skipped over to the zombie and took his hand.
“Come on then. Let’s go upstairs and put your face on.”
Adrienne’s bedroom was a shrine to Goth subculture. The walls of the room were a rich purple colour but where Arnold’s daughter Keira would have had soft toys that she’d grown up with – Care Bears, ragdolls, and the like – Adrienne’s shelves were full of Goth ornaments such as skulls, staffs, candles, tombstones, and bones. Where Keira would have had posters of the latest boy band, Adrienne had posters of Robert Smith, lead singer of The Cure, and – of course – Siouxsie Sioux. She didn’t have a wardrobe, but a clothes rack held a number of different outfits hanging up, each protected by its own transparent plastic cover.
Arnold was impressed as he looked at the plethora of black velvets, lace, fishnets and leather, tightly laced corsets, and gloves. Adrienne certainly was passionate about her chosen lifestyle. He called over to the Goth, who had pulled a large make-up box from the bottom drawer of her dressing table.
“I hope you’ve got some colours that aren’t black.”
Adrienne laughed.
“Don’t worry. I do amateur dramatics and I double up as a make-up artist. I’m not going to turn you into a Goth Zombie. Although that’d be pretty cool.”
She pulled out a chair that matched the purple dressing table.
“Sit here, Arnie, and I’ll sort you out.”
She truly was a magician with a make-up brush, deftly mixing and applying tints of white, cream, pink, and shadow to the zombie’s face until he almost looked alive. She stood back from her client and looked in the dressing table mirror to get the full effect of the transformation.
“What do you think, Arnie? Will it do?”
Arnold was astounded. In less than half an hour she’d brought him back to life – metaphorically speaking. But there was one thing that let down the final result. Arnold’s smile turned to one tinged with sadness.
“What about my eye? It’s a dead giveaway that I’m a zombie.”
Adrienne rummaged in a dressing table drawer and resurfaced with a ping-pong ball. Arnold looked at her.
“You’re not seriously thinking of putting that in my eye socket, are you?”
Adrienne beamed at him.
“Not as it is, of course not. I’ll draw an eye on it first.”
Taking several small bottles of nail varnish of varying colours and shades from another drawer, she set to work customizing the table tennis ball. She leaned over and stared at Arnold’s remaining eye.
“Better make the colours match. We don’t want you to look odd.”
After a couple of minutes, it was ready. She hadn’t done a bad job at all and was quite the artist. Was there any limit to her talents?
Arnold was intrigued to see what he looked like with two eyes again, but he had to wait until the nail polish had dried.
Adrienne placed the ping-pong ball against the eye socket and gently applied enough pressure to force the ball into position without bursting it in the process. Truth be known, it was a little too large but that would probably help hold it in place.
“Take a look in the mirror, Arnie. What do you think?”
If he were to be honest, he’d have to say that the difference in size between the two eyes was noticeable, but Adrienne had taken so much trouble to help him he didn’t want to appear ungrateful.
“It’s good. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, of course, but I think it’ll do the trick for the moment. Thank you.”
Adrienne let out a squeal of delight that belied her Gothic appearance.
“Come on, Arnie. Let’s go downstairs and show the others.”
12
Arnold was enjoying his newfound freedom, even though it was limited. He started taking walks in the park and enjoying the fresh air. He took care to keep his distance from the other people in the park – just to be on the safe side – but at least he wasn’t trapped in the house by embarrassment about his appearance any longer. Adrienne had done a marvellous job. Trevor and Tracey were great hosts, but they needed some alone time together now and again, so he was glad that he could now give it to them. Of course, he could only go out if there was no hint of rain in the forecast – he didn’t want his make-up to run and create panic among the living – but the winter was quite mild that year and allowed him to leave the house more often than not.
Adrienne would visit every other day to touch up his make-up. He really enjoyed her company and it was good to have a normal human friend, but they could never be more than just friends – his heart still belonged to Gillian.
He found himself actually looking forward to his next thirst. Now that he knew that he wouldn’t hurt her, he wondered if it would be ok for Adrienne to donate exclusively to him. He decided to talk to Trevor about it.
“Trevor?”
“Yes, mate.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Of course.”
“You know how we need to satiate the thirst every two weeks?”
“Yep.”
“Does the donor have to be a different person each time or can it be the same person?”
“It should be a different person, really, but that’s for vampires – vampires that aren’t zombies too. You’re different, so I don’t know. Maybe it’s different for you.”
“It’s just that I was thinking…”
“You were thinking that perhaps Adrienne could
be a regular donor for you? We can see you have the hots for her.”
If he could have, Arnold would have blushed.
“Yes, I do like her. I like her a lot.”
“It’s not normal procedure, but we can ask her, I suppose. But we don’t want to risk her life – these friends of ours are donors, not prey.”
As sure as the sun rises and sets, the next thirst arrived right on cue. This time, the trio went to Tom and Edna Clancy’s house, in Poplar Grove. Tom and Edna had recently retired from the local health service where they had met, fallen in love, and worked until retirement. They were also Trevor and Tracey’s currently longest-serving donors, having commenced donating in their late teens, over forty-five years earlier. Tom was a cardiologist and Edna was a senior theatre nurse, and their expertise as ex-medical professionals would be critical for this particular donation session.
Adrienne was up for the idea – she’d taken quite a shine to Arnold herself – but she understood that she’d be venturing into unchartered territory. That was where Tom and Edna came in. With their combined experience, they would hopefully be able to anticipate any health problems that might affect Adrienne and deal with them appropriately.
Obviously it would have been better for the feed to have taken place at a hospital, but that wasn’t an option, so the retirees had epinephrine injectors at the ready in case of an allergic reaction or a need to improve breathing, stimulate Adrienne’s heart, or raise her blood pressure if it dropped dangerously. A defibrillator was also on hand in case of heart failure. All possible contingencies were accounted for but, in a worst-case scenario, Trevor would call in the paramedics. It was decided that Trevor would feed first, followed by Arnold, and Tracey would only feed when she was sure that Adrienne was in no danger.
Trevor’s feed went without a hitch. Forty-five years of donorship brings with it a sense of security and Tom continued doing his crossword puzzle as if nothing unusual was happening. Once Trevor was satisfied, it was Arnold’s turn.
Adrienne knelt down on the floor and placed Arnold’s hands on her buttocks. Once again, Arnold found this a little strange but assumed that this somewhat intimate physical contact was just part of her ritual.
No longer a feeding virgin, he began to draw the blood from Adrienne’s neck whilst she, in turn, was rewarded with yet another strong orgasm. As before, the intensity caused her to faint, but Tom checked her vitals and found nothing untoward. In fact, when she came round, she looked even healthier than the first time she’d donated to Arnold.
The session over, Trevor, Tracey, and Arnold were almost ready to leave when Adrienne announced that she had a gift for the zombie.
“Arnie, I’ve only just met you but I know you’ve had to go through some severely crappy shit since you died. You deserve something nice to happen to you. So, I bought you a little present.”
Arnold was speechless. This was totally out of the blue.
The Goth took a small box out of her fake black leather Gucci clutch bag and handed it to Arnold.
“It’s not much, but it’s something you need.”
He carefully took the lid off the box, unsure of what was inside and not wishing to damage it. He looked inside.
“Wow!”
Inside was a prosthetic eye. Adrienne’s face lit up as she could see the joy on Arnold’s face.
Trevor was curious.
“What is it, mate?”
Arnold showed the contents of the box to the rest of the group.
“It’s a glass eye.”
Adrienne corrected him.
“It’s acrylic actually. It’s not the same colour as your right eye – it’s brown, and your real eye is blue, and it’s second hand – but it’s got to be better than a ping-pong ball.”
Arnold was overwhelmed.
“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for me. Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Adrienne took it out of its box and held it up alongside Arnold’s ping-pong ball eye.
“Shall we put it in now?”
Arnold couldn’t wait.
“Anyone got a penknife?”
Tom took a Swiss Army knife from his desk door.
“Will this do?”
“Even better.”
Arnold dug the point of the corkscrew tool into the white celluloid ball and turned the knife handle, pulling it at the same time. Soon the makeshift eye was free and skewered on the corkscrew. Adrienne stepped forward and immediately popped the new eye into the zombie’s eye socket.
Arnold wanted to give her a thank-you kiss but didn’t yet have the confidence to do so, even though she had herself given him a little kiss at the first donation session. Luckily she kissed him instead.
“You do look almost human, Arnie.”
13
About a week later, Trevor, Tracey, and Arnold were in the living room half-watching TV when the programme was suddenly interrupted by breaking news.
We interrupt programming to advise everybody to stay indoors and close all your doors and windows. A number of domestic animals and household pets have been discovered torn apart –
A remote voice spoke into the reporter’s earpiece.
“You can’t say that. There might be kids watching.”
The presenter shook his head in irritation and then started over.
A number of animals have gone to Heaven. It looks like a larger animal, about the size of a big cat, may be responsible. Please keep pets and children indoors.
Tracey looked at her husband
“A big cat? Haven’t there been sightings of pumas recently? Perhaps one of them is in the area.”
Trevor googled Big Cats in the UK on his mobile phone.
“There’ve been seven reported sightings this year so far. But they’re in the West Country, Wales, and Scotland. I’d be surprised if they managed to travel this far without being seen and captured.”
Tracey went back to her sudoku puzzle and Trevor let his eyes close in the hope of snatching forty winks. Only Arnold felt compelled to continue watching the news report.
14
Things were going well for Arnold. Regular make-up adjustments and his new eye had improved his confidence. He was no longer afraid to go out in public, to places where there might be crowds. One Sunday, he even went down to the local shopping precinct for a stroll.
Arnold and Adrienne became kind of an item. She wasn’t a proper girlfriend – there were limits to what they could do together – but they were as close as two people could be without consummating their relationship. Passersby just thought they were an odd couple, she full-on Goth and he some kind of weird punk-looking guy.
The best day they shared was a picnic by the river. Of course, it wasn’t a regular picnic; how could a picnic between a Goth and a zombie be anything but abnormal? Adrienne made black pudding sandwiches and teacakes topped off with black icing. Even the jelly she brought along was black. Arnold sincerely thought it looked good enough to eat but, alas, he couldn’t join in the feast and could only enjoy the food by proxy, watching Adrienne eat.
The last four weeks had been positively wonderful. Maybe being a zombie vampire wasn’t so bad after all.
15
Ronnie Williams’s mother, Clarice, tucked him into bed that night just as she did every other night, as did hundreds of thousands of mothers of ten-year-old boys around the world.
Getting him to go to bed at a decent time was always a battle for her – Ronnie was quite a headstrong lad and always wanted an extra few minutes playing video games – but this particular night he’d been uncharacteristically pliant, hardly able to keep his eyes open. Clarice thanked her god for small mercies and requested that her son could feel sleepy a little earlier in future.
At around 2 am, Ronnie woke up with a start, and sat bolt upright in bed. He wasn’t prone to nightmares but that wasn’t the reason he awoke – he’d set the alarm on his phone to go off at that time so that he could meet up with his best friend, Jimmy Finnegan.
Together, the two boys were going to have an adventure.
Ronnie and Jimmy had everything planned. They’d meet by the Great Oak tree in the middle of the woods at 02:15. Then they’d see if they could spot any rabbits. The boys didn’t want to hurt them; they just wanted to take photos. They were learning about nocturnal animals at school and found it hard to believe that some creatures slept during the day and were awake at night. Jimmy had a pet rabbit called Sandy and that rabbit was awake during the day. So they wanted proof that wild rabbits were awake at night.
Ronnie hurriedly got dressed and grabbed his small backpack. He’d already put a few things inside, including two Mars Bars (one for him and one for Jimmy) and a torch. It was a full moon, but he knew that sometimes clouds could cover the moon, shutting off its light, so they needed backup illumination just in case.
The challenge now was to get out of the house without waking his mum. He was reasonably confident that the doors wouldn’t squeak and give the game away, as he’d oiled the hinges with 3-In-One the day before. He carried his shoes in his right hand and went as far as the front door, tiptoeing in his stockinged feet.
So far, so good. He could hear his mother snoring upstairs. Just the front door stood between him and the great adventure.
He cautiously slid the bolts that provided extra overnight security, turned the door handle, and the door silently eased open, just enough for him to pass through. Holding his breath, he took a step outside. The first part of his mission was almost over. He inserted the spare key that his mother kept in a kitchen drawer into the lock and pulled the door closed, turning the key slightly as he did so, so as not to let the latch click and alert his mother that something was amiss. He’d be back within the hour so she’d never know that he’d gone out unless she checked the bolts whilst he was out or went into his room to check on him. She was a deep sleeper, so he didn’t imagine she’d wake up until morning.
Once the door was safely closed, he put on his sneakers, tied the laces in a double bow, and trotted off in the direction of the Great Oak tree.