by Joe Humphrey
Waking up that evening had been odd. Her sleep was dreamless and had that missing time quality of anesthesia. What seemed like only seconds earlier, she’d been on the mattress in the dark, with Caroline beside her. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, the light was on and she was alone. She felt rested, but she hadn’t been particularly tired when they’d gone to bed, so it was hard to get a handle on the fact that she’d slept at all. There had been a fuzzy second when she felt herself growing sleepy, so she’d let her eyes fall shut, but that was it. She had no concept of whether she’d slept for an hour or the entire day.
Standing up, dropping the single sheet that had covered them, Charlie looked around the room. Her dress hung on a wooden hanger from a nail on the wall. She had been wearing it when she left the hospital but remembered it being a wrinkled, dirty mess. The dress on the hook was clean and ironed. Charlie pulled it off of the hanger and slipped it over her head. It felt baggy and shapeless, but it was good to wear clean, ordinary clothes. For the last few weeks, she’d been in the hospital, and before that, she’d been pregnant and wearing the hideous frocks her mother had made to accommodate her giant belly. It was comforting to wear something that looked normal, if somewhat ill-fitting.
Charlie stepped through the door, through the wardrobe that hid the secret room, and into Caroline’s bedroom. As she walked barefoot across the hardwood floor, she could feel the activity in the air. Things were happening. There was a smell of earth and dust mixed with the acidic bite of Pine-Sol, and somewhere under it all, she could smell blood.
Stepping into the hallway, she stopped for a moment. She could feel herself getting nervous about what she might find in the kitchen. The hall was dark, save for the absurd little green cactus-shaped nightlight poking out of the wall. Charlie’s mind went back to her teenage crush, Jim Morrison, and his Oedipal journey down the hallway in The End. Jim found murder and incest at the end of his hall. Charlie had no idea what to expect when she turned that last corner into the kitchen. The night before, they’d left the old man’s corpse tied to a chair in Caroline’s kitchen, a bleeding knife wound in his neck. Was he still there? She didn’t want to deal with the reality of his lifeless body. She didn’t want to see it or touch it or smell it. She remembered the reek of urine that had wafted off of him when he was alive, and just the thought of his dead old man stink and the empty stare of his yellowed eyes was horrible. As she approached the end of the hall she paused, gathering her strength. It was one turn around the corner and she’d be in the kitchen.
“Charlie? Are you awake?” Caroline’s voice rang through the house like the twanging chime of a music box, and almost without thinking, Charlie smiled and nodded in the dark hallway.
“I’m coming!” Charlie called as she forced herself around the corner to face the remains of Reginald, the toucher of little girls and pisser of pants.
Caroline stood in the kitchen, wearing dark blue slacks, a pink blouse, and yellow rubber kitchen gloves. A red bandana was tied across the top of her head, pulling her bangs back and keeping her hair in place. To Charlie, she looked quite a lot like Rosie the Riveter. The old man was gone. The chair was back in its place at the table, the floor was wet and sparkling, and Caroline stood with her hands on her hips. At her feet was a large plastic Igloo ice-chest.
“You found your dress,” Caroline said, and Charlie looked down at herself. She was suddenly aware of the fact that she’d gone to sleep with wet hair, and she desperately wanted to brush it.
“Yes. Did you wash it?” Charlie asked, knowing that she had but still struggling with her sense of time. Caroline smiled and nodded.
“Yes, I did. There was also a tear just under the collar that I repaired. I hope you don’t mind.”
Charlie felt for the hole, which she’d known about and hadn’t gotten around to fixing, and found it neatly stitched. She nervously pushed her hair back with her hands and tried to tame it. Caroline was looking at her and she didn’t know what to say.
“Did you… is he… in there?” Charlie asked, looking at the cooler. Caroline nodded, still smiling. The cooler seemed far too small to hold a grown man.
“Will you give me a hand carrying this out to the car?” Caroline asked, tapping the ice-chest with her toe. Staring at the plastic box, the last thing Charlie wanted to do was touch it, but she smiled and nodded.
“Okay, sure,” she said, an unexpected feeling of responsibility stirred inside of her. Yes, she was fighting the urge to scream at the idea of lugging a plastic box containing a corpse through the house, but at the same time, she also felt like there was no other option. Perhaps it was years of browbeating from her mother or even a sense of ownership for what she’d done. Either way, she was already walking toward the woman and her ice-chest full of death as though it was nothing.
Charlie took hold of one of the handles and lifted, she nearly dropped the cooler.
“Careful there!” Caroline said, steadying the cooler.
“It’s empty!” Charlie said. Caroline was grinning at her.
“It isn’t. You’re stronger.”
Charlie shook her end of the box, her face scrunched up in a confused scowl. She could feel something in there shifting back and forth, but it was like holding an empty cardboard box. Awkward, but light.
Suddenly the task didn’t seem nearly as grim. The fact that the load was virtually nothing somehow lessened the emotional burden. It wasn’t that she no longer believed she was carrying a body — it was that having the physical strength to carry it gave her the emotional fortitude to get through the task.
Caroline backed through the garage door and they hauled the ice-chest to the trunk of the Cadillac. Caroline shifted the cooler to one hip while she dug the keys to the car from her pocket. Charlie felt the weight inside the plastic box shift, and for a brief second her stomach knotted up, but when she compensated and righted the box herself, practically holding the whole thing against her chest, she relaxed. Caroline opened the trunk and they dropped the cooler in. It made the appropriate heavy thunk sound when it hit the carpeted floor of the trunk. Charlie saw that there was a bundle of tools, wrapped in a green wool Army blanket, in the trunk. A shovel and pickaxe were the most obvious. Charlie could figure out what was going to happen and desperately hoped she wouldn’t be asked to participate.
“Hey,” Caroline said, her yellow-gloved hands back on her hips. Charlie looked up at her, realizing that she’d been staring at the bundle of tools. Caroline was grinning, showing a row of gleaming white teeth. At one time, Charlie had believed those teeth to be almost supernaturally straight and perfect, but looking at Caroline now, she could see that while they were certainly white, the teeth along the bottom were hardly even. It wasn’t a mess, but they weren’t perfect either. The top row, however, was immaculate. It occurred to Charlie that the top row may be dentures. Charlie tried to crack a smile but couldn’t muster more than a worried grimace.
“You okay?” Caroline asked, pulling at the fingers of her rubber kitchen gloves and dropping them into the trunk.
“Yes. I’m fine,” Charlie muttered. Caroline reached down and took her hand. She wasn’t wearing the white leather gloves she was so fond of, and Charlie was immediately aware of how fragile her hands felt. For such a seemingly strong woman, she had surprisingly delicate fingers. Charlie felt as though she could crush them, cracking her twig bones, with or without her newfound strength.
“I shouldn’t be gone for much longer than an hour, maybe two. Then we’ll sit down and have a serious conversation about what all of this means, okay? I know you’re confused and probably scared, and that’s okay. For now, make yourself at home, and I’ll be back before you know it.”
Charlie nodded and Caroline let go of her hand and pulled her white gloves from her back pocket and slipped them on. Charlie followed her out of the garage and into the living room as Caroline gathered her things. Purse, keys, sunglasses (which she perched on top of her head), and a pack
of Chesterfield cigarettes. Without the rubber cleaning gloves, her outfit seemed far more put together. The high-waisted blue slacks and pink blouse with its black Peter Pan collar looked suddenly (almost) fashionable if it hadn’t looked so dated. Ten years ago, it would have been slick or boffo or swell. It still looked nice and suited Caroline well.
She lowered the sunglasses over her eyes and peered at Charlie over the top. Charlie laughed.
“How do you see with those on?” Charlie asked.
“I see everything just fine, puddin’. And you will too, eventually. It takes a while for some of those extra talents to kick in,” she said, grabbing Charlie by the shoulders and looking her over. Again, Charlie felt self-conscious about her shapeless dress. “It’s a good thing too,” Caroline continued “because if everything hit you at once, you’d go crazy. We don’t want anyone going crazy, do we?”
“Nope,” Charlie said, not entirely sure what Caroline was talking about.
“We’re gonna have to get you some more clothes. Can you sew?”
A warm feeling of excitement at an opportunity for approval rushed up inside of Charlie.
“Yes! I can actually!” Charlie said, smiling proudly.
“Well good! We’ll have something fun to do together! I’ve got patterns and fabric out the wazzoo!” Caroline said as they walked back to the garage, keys jangling. This bit of validation made butterflies flutter around in Charlie’s stomach. Caroline climbed behind the wheel.
“How long will you be gone for?” Charlie asked, already knowing the answer but needing to be reassured anyway.
“No more than two hours, I promise.”
“What should I do?”
Caroline shrugged.
“Whatever you want. Watch TV. Puzzles. Read. I’ve got a lot of magazines and books. Plenty to do. Just stay inside for now. I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay. See you soon,” Charlie said, closing the car door. Caroline smiled up at her.
“Get the door for me, doll?” she asked, pointing at a square white button on the wall next to the door into the house. Charlie pushed it and the electric garage door opener rumbled to life, drawing the door up. Caroline waggled her fingers at Charlie as she backed out of the garage and into the night. Charlie pushed the button again and went inside.
- 9 -
Being alone in the house was surreal. Sitting on the sofa in that god-awful cheesy living room, Charlie was able to fight the temptation to snoop for roughly ten minutes. She hopped up and went into the kitchen. There was no sign at all that a gruesome murder happened there the night before. No blood anywhere. Even the chair, which had been covered in gore, was pristine. Charlie ran her fingers along the plastic-covered seat and listened to it squeak. She opened the cabinets and was surprised to find cooking utensils. Pots and pans and silverware and all the usual stuff you’d find in a kitchen. It was all organized immaculately, perhaps even obsessively so. She spied the knife she’d used to kill Reggie back in its place in the knife block on the counter. She pulled it out and gave it a look, wondering if it was ever actually used for its intended purpose. The weight of it was familiar and somehow comfortable. It was also perfectly clean.
Standing in the spot where she’d stabbed Reggie in the neck, Charlie held the knife out in front of her, examining the way it looked in her hand. The reality of what she’d done still hadn’t completely settled in.
The fact was, she had to do what she’d done. There was no drug or brainwashing or religious fervor that could give her the transportive experience she had drinking that old man’s blood. That feeling of being pulled out of her body and into some kind of rush of consciousness bigger and infinitely older than her own. Whether it was simply a connection to his memories or his thoughts or perhaps something more spiritual, Charlie didn’t know. What she did know was that there was nothing that could talk her out of having that experience again. If that meant people had to die, then so be it.
Caroline was right: she could feel it in every cell in her body. They were operating on a new level. If it was a biological evolution or metaphysical or supernatural, it didn’t matter. It was a fact. She was above that old man.
The memory of the little girl, with her stuffed giraffe tucked under her arm, popped up in her mind and she clenched the handle of the knife tighter and closed her eyes, remembering the feeling of pushing the blade into his neck.
Shaking her head, as though she could somehow shed the memories like clipped hair, she slipped the knife back into the block. In the freezer, she found only two full ice cube trays, placed neatly in the center of the rack. The fridge was nearly as empty. A bowl of lemons and limes sat on the top shelf and she wondered what they were for. A plastic thermos rolled in the vegetable crisper when Charlie opened the drawer.
Charlie wandered down the hall to the bathroom where they’d taken their shower the night before. The cabinet held some bandages and tape and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, but that was it. The closet had towels and linens and a half-empty case of Dove soap. The vampire business must be dirty.
She pulled the shower curtain aside and looked in the tub. It was sparkling and smelled like Ajax and bleach. Her mother had been tidy, but it was becoming clear to Charlie that Caroline was pathologically clean. The light in the shower was tinged green from the colorful shower curtain. Charlie remembered standing under the spray of water and being held by Caroline and she felt suddenly dizzy. Out of habit, she sucked air in through her teeth and blew it out in a slow stream, trying to calm herself. Of all the lines that had been crossed the previous night, it was the memory of showering with Caroline that was filling her chest with anxiety and making her feel faint. While it hadn’t felt particularly wrong or insidious, imagining herself doing it now made her realize just how close to a homosexual act it was.
When Charlie considered Caroline’s offer of immortality, it occurred to her that this particular issue might come up. She decided that whatever might happen would happen and she hadn’t worried about it at the time. Now, leaning against the wall and remembering Caroline hugging her in the shower, her woman’s body, curvy and solid, with its full breasts squished against Charlie’s little frame, pale and boney, with her mosquito bite tits and knobby, bicycle riding knees, Charlie couldn’t think of that as anything but totally lesbo.
She imagined the expression on her mother’s face as she walked in on that and was filled with both the satisfaction of proper teenage rebellion and an unshakable sense of regret at having disappointed her mother yet again. The most confusing part about it was that at no point had she felt either aroused or repulsed by any of it. It felt completely natural. This woman was taking care of her, and Charlie had desperately needed taking care of. They weren’t kissing. They weren’t groping. It didn’t feel like anything she should feel ashamed of. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t imagine herself doing that with Valleri, her best friend in Utah. She certainly couldn’t picture herself doing that with Patrick, her sometimes boyfriend, without it being entirely sexual.
Charlie straightened up, smoothed out her dress, and decided that whatever it was she was doing with Caroline was beyond anything so mundane as sex. The spinning in her chest calmed and her mother’s face faded from her mind. That was the answer. They were better than sex.
She smiled and went to the mirror to look at herself. As she suspected, her hair was a mess, but not as bad as she feared. After running her fingers through her hair and getting it into something close to respectable, she leaned forward and looked into her eyes. Shadows were forming in the hollows beneath, and when she pulled her eyelids open and peered into her irises, she found them lacking some of the vibrancy of color she was used to seeing there. She blinked, squeezing her eyes shut for a long moment, and looked again. They were fine. It was just the light in the bathroom. Or at least that’s what she told herself. Charlie left the bathroom and stepped into the dark hallway.
The strange bedroom she’d woken up in on the first night still
gave her the creeps. It was the room she’d transitioned in, sweating and puking her way through the process (if that’s what you could even call it) of becoming what they were. ‘A vampire,’ Charlie thought and had to laugh. It was so stupid, yet there it was. Charlie shook her head and tried not to think about it. Looking around the room, her laughter died in her throat. Suddenly the idea of vampires didn’t seem so funny.
Even with the lights on, there was something about that room that felt wrong. Too many questions pinged off the walls, everywhere you looked. Perhaps it was the fact that it was so clearly a child’s room, but no child lived in the house. Where did all this stuff come from? Was it like this when Caroline moved in? For that matter, how did Caroline get this house? She can’t come out in the day time. Who dealt with the realtor? Was it even her house? The aesthetic certainly seemed to suit her, but Charlie couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of a real estate agent showing the house at eleven at night. She knew that the answer was probably mundane and boring, but it was hard not to wonder and imagine all sorts of disturbing scenarios.
There was so much about Caroline and this strange, dark world she existed in that Charlie didn’t understand. Most of it she was content to assume she would figure out as she went. Whatever was wrong with that room though... that was something Charlie just couldn’t get comfortable with. She opened the closet door and found the sorts of things you’d expect to find in a child’s closet. Shelves with child-sized clothes. Boy's clothes. A couple of pairs of little shoes. The size of the clothes and shoes led Charlie to believe that whoever they once belonged to was around four or five. On the floor of the closet was a wooden box with a lid, painted bright orange. A toy box. Charlie leaned over and lifted the lid. For a brief, horrifying moment she expected to see a stuffed giraffe sitting on top of a pile of toys. Nothing surprising or inherently unnerving inside. Plastic cars and Lincoln Logs and blocks. Little green army men scattered throughout.
