by Joe Humphrey
She supposed it didn’t matter. Anything was better than what she’d left. Abandoned and alone, wounded and traumatized. Her mother had given her up, just as she’d forced her to keep the baby that had spent nine months living in her belly. The baby that had so recently been literally ripped out of her and taken away. The baby she both hated and loved, and now only wanted to forget. Desperately wanted to forget.
“Yes, I’ll go with you. Anywhere,” Charlie whispered. A wave of fear rose inside her. The kind of rush she felt when she and Patrick shoplifted from the convenience store they bought comics and candy from. That feeling of crossing a line that can’t be uncrossed. The thought went through her mind that Caroline might be a lesbian, and for a moment she considered whether this should concern her. She decided that she didn’t care. While it wasn’t exactly a sexual feeling, she found Caroline intoxicating and absolutely fascinating. Perhaps a kind of attraction, if that was possible. It was as though she were surrounded by a cloud of comfort and happiness that couldn’t be understood or explained. Riding in her car was like floating through a wonderful dream. A dream that smelled like vanilla and popcorn. Always vanilla and popcorn.
That was Caroline’s smell and it was wonderful. The very best smell in the world. If a little queerness was the price of being able to live in that happy place, it was a fee she was willing to pay. Something about accepting that allowed her to relax, and even enjoy the feeling of walking away.
Besides, she never understood her mother’s nearly pathological disdain for homosexuality. While Charlie wasn't overly impressed with Rose’s religious ideology, she understood the purpose of it. It just didn’t mean anything to her personally. It was mythology and affirmations that she neither needed nor wanted. When it flew in the face of basic logic or was laced with the dark threads of paranoia and superiority (which it often was in Rose's case), Charlie rejected it. She also got that, biologically, human beings are designed to reproduce. That’s nature. Tab A, slot B, and so on. Yet people do all sorts of things that go against nature. People drive cars and build skyscrapers and rocket ships and fly through the air in jets. Human beings constantly strive to fight nature and rise above it. That seems to be one of our defining characteristics. Why should she care if two people are happier living outside of the framework of the supposed natural order? While she didn’t understand what drew someone to go that particular way, she also didn’t understand the majority of things people are compelled to do. Much of human behavior was a mystery to Charlie, and she suspected it was to most other people as well. Regardless, what willing adults do with their private parts seemed like a pretty minor concern in the bigger picture. Besides, holding Caroline's hands and looking up into her eyes, maybe she did understand it a little more than she was ready to admit.
If Caroline wanted something like that from her, it couldn’t be any worse than the sad fumbling in her shirt Patrick attempted so long ago. Caroline was beautiful. Not just pretty or cute, but absolutely stunning, like a fashion model or a princess in a Disney cartoon. In a way, she actually kind of reminded Charlie of the aforementioned late Sharon Tate. She could do worse than kissing a beautiful woman who was able to fill her with joy simply by existing in her vicinity.
Looking up at her face, her grubby little hands encased in Caroline’s pristine white gloves, she closed her eyes, leaned forward, and placed a soft kiss on Caroline’s lips. When she let her tongue touch them, they were freezing, but plump and moist and instantly opened up a flood of flavor into her mouth. It was like licking the most wonderful popsicle. Her mouth tasted like a carnival. Cotton candy and popcorn and cherry snow cones and caramel apples, the flavors spilled across her tongue, one after another. It should have scared her because it was so unusual and unexpected, but it filled her with such amazement and joy that she could barely put a thought together, much less try to make sense of what was happening.
She broke away and as soon as the contact was gone, the flavors faded and she was left standing there, wondering what exactly had just happened. The kiss lasted only a few short seconds, a peck really, but it felt like hours of wading through those sensations. Caroline looked at her, one eyebrow raised slightly, a half-cocked smile that Charlie would come to truly love one day.
“Okay then,” she said simply, with a slight nod. Maybe she wasn’t a lesbian. Charlie’s eyes widened as she realized just how inappropriate that may have been if she misread the situation.
“Was that weird?” Charlie asked. Caroline's smile broadened and she shook her head.
“No. It was fine. Just fine. Let’s get out of here before someone calls for the fire brigade.”
Charlie nodded and followed Caroline back to the Cadillac, still holding one hand like a childhood friend. The fire brigade? What century was she from?
- 2 -
Caroline explained what would happen next in plain and simple terms. Charlie accepted it all without question. Cutting through the dark Utah desert in the soft white and red glow of the Cadillac's dash was like gliding through a fantasy world. She grew up in the desert and saw it as a vast, empty place full of dust and rocks and gnarled, unhappy plants and dirty animals scuttling across and under the ground. For the first time, slipping through the blackness, she felt the mystery of it. Anything could be out there stomping around in the darkness. She imagined great, skeletal, bat-like creatures circling in the sky and swooping down at them, screeching and snatching with ancient claws. In her mind's eye, she could see a huge crack in the ground, splitting through the desolate wastes and horrible, twisted creatures crawling out of it. Gollum-like mutants with long, gangly arms, clouded gray unseeing eyes, and black, dripping jaws.
Where was all this coming from? The window glass was cold against her forehead and when she blinked and tried to clear the fog from her head, she could see that there was nothing out there. Yet these images wandered back into her mind. Massive trolls the size of buildings, ambling across the plains, dragging truck-sized burlap sacks of screaming, writhing, naked people back to some cave to skin and cook over a fire like rabbits.
She turned and looked at Caroline. Caroline, who looked like she stepped out of an advertisement for vacuum cleaners from 1960. Caroline with her perfect hair, flowing like liquid gold, a blue band across the top of her head, her precisely balanced bangs landing at immaculate eyebrows. The dress was like something June Cleaver would wear, sky blue with white accents, thin straps with lace trim across her milky, smooth shoulders, like porcelain.
What was wrong with her? She felt stoned. Perhaps it was exhaustion or maybe residual medication. She’d only left the hospital a couple of hours ago after all and they were still giving her morphine right up until her abrupt exit. That’s what it was. That’s why she was hallucinating and spacing out. Though there was no getting around that the situation she was in was peculiar. She didn’t care. It wouldn’t be accurate to say she felt happy. She actually felt nothing, which was better than the agony of the last year. Feeling nothing was a vacation. It was the caring that had made life so difficult. Needing to be loved and acknowledged as something other than a failure and disappointment. To be good enough for her mother, for her school, for her town, for Patrick, and failing.
Caroline didn’t make her feel good enough, Caroline made her feel like it didn’t matter. She didn't feel like she had to be good enough, she just had to be whatever she was. Stranded alone in the hospital with her stomach a burning furnace of pain, she had nothing. No options, nowhere to go, no one to lean on. It was worse than being in jail. At least in jail, you knew where you were supposed to be and what was expected of you. Laying in the dark hospital room with no one coming to get her and no home to go to, she felt dead. Dead and buried and forgotten. As though the world moved on without her and she was somehow trapped in a painting of the past, unable to step forward and fall in sync with time. A ghost.
Riding in the car with Caroline, staring out into the inky black night, she could sense that she was on the verge of a new life w
ith every possibility available to her. She didn’t have to be Charlotte Lukin, daughter of a mother that didn’t want her and a father she never met. She could be anything she wanted. She was sixteen and the world was changing faster than anyone could keep track of. In the middle of the desert, she was aware of just how massive the world was and how small she was in it. She could go ten, twenty, a thousand miles away and simply choose to be another person. Caroline was an angel. She reached down into the black water and dragged Charlie to the shore and was about to breathe new life into her. She knew it.
The Cadillac rumbled as Caroline eased it over to the side of the road. Charlie looked at her as she killed the engine and shut off the lights.
“Come stand outside with me and look at the stars. We need to talk about where we’re going and what we’re going to do with you,” she said. Charlie nodded and got out of the car.
The night was warm and the sky was cloudless and full of stars. The moon was a gleaming slice of silver pinned on black velvet that gave enough light that they could see each other. Charlie felt hideous. Before leaving the hospital she'd slipped on her dress, but it was a wrinkled mess. She knew her hair was awful and greasy, and her face was puffy and sickly and slack with exhaustion. She felt like she hadn’t showered in weeks and probably stank like sickness and sweaty sleep. Especially standing next to Caroline, who was so immaculately put together, and smelled amazing.
They leaned against the side of the Cadillac and looked out into the desert. The quiet was massive, and every tiny sound seemed to crash in: the slow ticking of the engine as it cooled, the rustle of bushes as some animal went about its business, the soft sound of the wind rolling across the uneven terrain.
“The life I can offer you is completely different from anything you've ever imagined. It will mean abandoning everything you’ve ever known and completely reinventing yourself as not only another person but as another being entirely.”
“Okay,” Charlie said, unsure what else to say. She didn't know if she was expected to respond or just listen. She would agree to anything Caroline asked her to do. She could be a lesbian if she needed to be. She could smuggle drugs. She could prostitute herself or assassinate world leaders or disappear into the jungle. Whatever Caroline asked her to be, she would be. Anything would be a step up from nothing.
“I’ve been on this earth for a hundred and thirty-odd years. I was born in Pennsylvania in 1839. After the war, my husband Alfred sent me and our two boys, James and Alfie, out west — ”
“The war,” Charlie said, unable to hide her confusion.
“Yes,” Caroline answered without a hint of modesty or pretense.
“The Civil War.”
Caroline nodded and Charlie nodded back. She accepted this because Caroline said it was so. Standing next to a long white Cadillac in the middle of the Utah desert at 3 in the morning, it’s easy to believe almost anything is possible.
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
“We almost made it to Sacramento. We were on a wagon train with around thirty other travelers. Myself and the boys, plus Alfred’s brother Oscar and his family. A few land prospectors and businessmen. A couple of other families. We were crossing over the Sierra Nevada Mountains, near the area they call Donner Pass now, and we were attacked. A group of six managed to kill or capture the entire party over the course of three days. My boys, Oscar, and his family were all killed. I was captured, along with eight other women.”
“Jesus,” Charlie muttered. Somehow she believed everything she was told, even though it was absolute lunacy. “Indians?”
Caroline shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment, as though she were remembering something too painful to describe.
“The leader of this group, the group that attacked us, was a man by the name of Salazar. They took us up into the mountains and they changed us. Well, three of us. The others were — ”
She paused for a moment and seemed to need to collect herself. She chose her next words carefully.
“Listen, Charlie, because this is important,” Caroline turned and looked at her. For the first time, Charlie saw real pain in her face. It was heartbreaking.
“I’ve put a lot of time and consideration into choosing you for this gift. For nearly a year I’ve followed you and watched you and thought hard on whether this is something that would be of value to you. Because it’s only a gift if you chose it. There’s a difference between choosing a new life and having your old life ripped from you. Your life, Charlie, was ripped from you. So I decided to offer you this gift.”
“What is it? I don’t understand,” Charlie said, trying not to sound stupid but genuinely confused. Some kind of animal cried out in the distance, either in pain or celebration.
“I can make you like me. What I can give you is the choice to live forever and to never have to rely on another person for your happiness. Immortality. There are sacrifices, many of them, but there are rewards as well. Amazing rewards.”
“What sort of sacrifices?” Charlie asked.
“Unfortunately, that’s something you have to discover as you go. It can’t be properly explained without experiencing it yourself,” Caroline said, looking off into the night. They stood there for a long moment in silence.
“I will tell you that you will lose the sun. We live only at night, and it’s a substantial cost. More than my life, more than my children, I miss the sun most of all,” Caroline said, looking up at the stars.
“Will it hurt?” Charlie asked in a small, shaking voice. Caroline smiled and looked at her. She nodded.
“Yes. But in the span of the years ahead of you, it’s practically nothing.”
“Okay,” Charlie said, taking Caroline's hand. “Honestly, I don’t understand a lot of what you’re saying. Most of it. I don’t understand how you're a hundred and thirty years old. I don’t understand what you mean by immortality. What I do understand is that I want to stay with you, and I will do anything you ask me to. If that means that you have to do something to me, change me, make me however you are, then do it. I just know that I can’t move forward from where I was, and I know that being with you is the only thing in my life that has felt right in a very long time.”
Tears were standing at the edge of Charlie’s eyes. Caroline squeezed her hand and nodded, smiling.
“This will be frightening, but I promise I will take care of you and it will be over soon,” Caroline said, looking into Charlie’s eyes. She leaned forward and pressed her forehead against Charlie’s and closed her eyes. Charlie shut her own eyes and they stood there for a moment, holding hands, their heads together. Caroline let go of Charlie’s hands and pulled at the fingers of her gloves, slipping them off and tucking them neatly under the band across her waist.
When she touched Charlie’s cheeks, her hands were startlingly cold. Charlie tried not to react but still pulled away slightly. When she relaxed, Caroline slid her hand behind Charlie’s neck and pulled her forward and kissed her on the mouth.
Charlie’s eyes rolled under their lids as that flood of carnival flavors exploded across her tongue. She felt herself drifting off, as though she’d been injected with a sedative. Caroline’s hand-gathered in her hair and pressed her face closer, joining their mouths together. Their lips parted and Charlie felt something enter her mouth. At first, she thought it was Caroline’s tongue, but it was too large. Long and slithering, it wormed into her mouth and pushed its way toward the back of her throat. Fight or flight kicked in and she jerked to pull away as she felt herself first gag and then choke. Caroline’s other hand grabbed her wrist and held her in place. She was impossibly strong.
Charlie tried to scream but her mouth was full of whatever was sliding down her throat. She opened her eyes and for a brief second, she saw Caroline’s face. Her eyes were dry and still, the off-white color of spoiled milk, staring off into space at nothing at all. The eyes of a poorly crafted wax figure. The eyes of a corpse.
Charlie fainted.
&nb
sp; - 3 -
It wasn’t exactly sleeping, but she wasn’t awake either. What could have been days or merely hours stumbled along in an unbalanced series of rolling lights and sounds, as though she were trying to sleep on a carousel. It was not unlike the medically induced sleep she’d been put under after her emergency cesarean section. Not sleep or wakefulness and certainly not rest.
Sometimes she was alone in the back of the ambulance, feeling the rolling jostle of the ride, her stomach a bloody, open cavity with nothing in it. Sometimes Caroline stood at her feet staring down at her with milky dead eyes. Sometimes it was her mother.
At one point she was sure that she was in the Volkswagen from her dreams. The one driven by a ranting Charles Manson. She would look over and find that Manson was gone and it was Mike Nesmith from The Monkees for some absurd reason, Last Train to Clarksville playing on the radio. In her vision he was screaming at her, the light from the dashboard making his wild eyes glow red.
Her body felt hot like she was running a terrible fever. She tried to feel her face but couldn’t seem to get her arms to obey her commands. They were dead weight. Her entire body was limp and refused to do anything she told it to. She could feel herself lying in a bed, blankets covering her, but she couldn’t get a sense of the space around it, or her position on it.
The smell of vanilla lingered in the air and she was aware of the fact that someone was sitting on the bed next to her, stroking her hair. Caroline, certainly. She couldn’t see her, but she could smell her and feel her touch. It gave her something to hold on to in the swirling chaos inside her head. She was dizzy and hot and hungry. Starving.
At some point, Caroline put a cool cloth on her forehead and her body relaxed. There was a painful twisting in her stomach, like menstrual cramps but more intense. Violent spasms wrenched her guts. If she concentrated, she could almost get them to calm down, but not quite. Her head rolled to the side and that's when she realized that she could move somewhat if she focused hard enough. Christ, she was hungry. It was as though she hadn’t eaten in days. The cramping in her belly was agony, a rodent chewing through her insides. She hadn’t had much of an appetite in the hospital, and this insatiable need to eat felt healthy, even while it was driving her nuts.
