American Vampire

by Jennifer Armintrout

  The stink of It still hung in the air, thick like the smell off an open manhole on a hot day. Graf had never been a fan of barnyard smell, but it would be a welcome change.

  Chickens scattered and clucked nervously at his intrusion. He hadn’t really seen one up close before. Now that he had, he was glad that he wasn’t human anymore and didn’t have to eat them. Graf had no idea what the inside of a barn was supposed to look like, but he had expected more hay, maybe a tractor. All he saw were ugly chickens, some rope, some yard tools, and, pushed against the wall, a workbench and a tall, red cabinet that would most certainly hold tools.

  The job took less time than he thought it would. Once he came up with a plan, he went back to the kitchen, tapped the bowed, splintered ends of the support beam back together with a rubber mallet, then braced it on either side with smaller pieces of wood that he screwed together. Like metal plates on a broken leg, he thought, feeling pretty good about himself.

  Another look around the barn yielded a big canvas car cover and some blue waterproof tarp, which he used to cover the hole where the kitchen used to be, fixing it in place with a staple gun. It took more time collecting up the crap from the yard than it took fixing the house. By the time the sun rose, he’d done all he could do, and he pulled the curtains in the living room and sank onto the couch, tired, but too wired to sleep.

  He made a list of all the problems facing him, and it looked something like this in his head.

  Trapped in Deliverance.

  Missing Sophia’s party/possible sex with Sophia.

  It.

  Need blood.

  Obnoxious baggage.

  None of these problems could be solved on his own steam. He was going to have to enlist help. Which meant convincing Jessa not to rat him out to the townies. They seemed like the pitchforks-and-torches types.

  When Jessa stumbled down the stairs, holding her head, he sprang to his feet to help her. “Hey, you okay?” he asked, in his best sensitive-guy voice. “I was worried about you.”

  She pulled back, bleary eyes uncertain. “Stay back!”

  “What?” He injected a little laugh into his statement. “Jessa, what’s the matter?”

  “What do you mean, ‘what’s the matter?’ You should be dead! I saw It attack you last night. I saw what happened to you.” She retreated up a couple of steps. “What are you?”

  He reached out a hand to soothe her, but she jerked violently away. Okay, so she wasn’t buying the concerned, nice-guy act. “You’re confused. You hit your head last night. I tried to get you help, but I couldn’t remember how to get back to that bar. And I was worried It would return.”

  “No—you’re some kind of freak. I remember.” She glared at him, her anger overcoming her fear. “What are you?” she repeated.

  He conjured up an image in his head of Sophia, what she would do when caught in a lie. The result was an imperious declaration of “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “What are you?” Jessa shrieked, flying at him with fingers bent like talons. “What are you?”

  He could either get his face scratched off by a demented hellcat, or do something that could potentially hurt her. He chose hurting her. He gripped her by her arms and tossed her from the landing to the floor at the bottom of the stairs. She writhed where she fell, gasping for the air that had been knocked out of her lungs. “Okay,” he said, dusting his hands off on each other as he leaned over her. “You want to know what I am? I’m a vampire. And I’m not in a very good mood.”

  Her eyes widened and she struggled to her feet. He lunged for her, but she was surprisingly fast, and he came up with empty arms as she threw open the front door and flooded the living room with sunlight.

  The brightness and heat hit him like a special-effects explosion. He recoiled with a shout. Jessa crossed the porch, her tennis shoes the last thing he could see as she jumped from the top step and fled into the burning white.

  He had to stop her. The sun—his most feared enemy—stood between him and her escape. If she told anyone, he would be in deep shit. If he went out there…

  It was best not to think about it. He plunged headfirst through the door, trying to shield his burning eyes and still keep a bead on her as she raced across the lawn. She went for his car, not bothering to open the door—smart girl—but he got her as the top half of her body disappeared through the window. He grabbed her by one ankle and pulled her, fighting and screaming, onto the lawn. His skin blistered and charred, stiffening his movements, and he screamed as his exposed parts burst into flame. With as much strength as he could muster, he pulled her up the porch steps and into the house, slamming the door behind them.

  He sank down, pain arcing like a 120-volt charge through every square inch of his body. His head lolled to the side. His eyelids, baked to his eyeballs, tried to close, but stuck open. Jessa scrambled forward on her hands and knees, and started to climb to her feet. “If you take one more step I will not hesitate to kill you,” Graf wheezed, and she stopped, trembling, to face him.

  “Vampires can’t go out in sunlight,” she whispered.

  His natural inclination was to respond with “No shit, Sherlock,” but he restrained himself. She was in shock, and at this point, sarcasm would be lost on her. “No. We can’t.”

  “Are you going to die?” There was something hard and hopeful in her voice that would have killed him if he were one of those sparkly movie vampires who gave a shit about what humans thought of him.

  He tried to shake his head, but it hurt too much. It would be hard for her to believe, faced with some one who looked like a campfire-roasted hot dog, but he would be fine in a half hour. “No. Sorry to disappoint.”

  Tension started at her feet and worked its way up. The muscles of her calves tensed; her fists clenched. The dumbfounded expression on her face tightened to cold fury. “You’re a part of It, aren’t you? You’re here because of It.”

  “I’m here because I couldn’t get my fucking GPS to work.” The healing had started, deep in his muscles, working toward the burned surfaces like pieces of barbed shrapnel from an old war wound. “Whatever It is, I’ve never seen anything like it. And I’ve never heard of a town being trapped for all eternity, either.”

  “We’re not trapped for all eternity,” she snapped. “We’re going to get through this and get out of here. But I thought vampires knew about stuff like this. Aren’t you linked up with the rest of the oogie-boogie stuff in the world?”

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug, the pull of his burned skin making the movement harder. “Not that I’m aware of. I know other vampires. I’ve never met anything like your It out there.”

  “You’re lying.” She folded her arms over her chest and took a deep breath. “So, what do you eat, blood?”

  “Yes.” No getting around that. If she knew about the sunlight, she’d know that vampires drank blood.

  “Were you going to eat me?” She tapped her fingers on her arm, waiting.

  “Yes,” he answered honestly. “But I can’t, now. Everyone has seen us together.”

  Her eyes flared in anger, and she turned, as if she’d leave.

  “Don’t do that,” he called after her. “I can still chase you. And I’m giving you this one chance.”

  She turned again, stomped up to him, but didn’t touch him. Instead, she glared down at him, and he had no doubt that if he had cared, the hatred in her eyes would have burned him far worse than the sun had. “You think I’m afraid of you? After you saw what I’ve been running from night after night? You think I’m afraid to die? I live in a tomb. If you think you’re going to intimidate me by threatening to kill me, go ahead. Kill me.”

  “Point taken.” He was able to close his eyes again, so he did, to appear defeated and tired. She walked to the kitchen, and he gave her just enough time to reach the spot where the back door had been before calling after her. “After I kill you, though, who’s to stop me from killing someone else? Someone like Derek?”

  She came b
ack. He knew she would.

  “So, here’s the plan.” He got to his feet, painfully, the skin sliding off his toes inside his shoes. “You and me, we’re going to have a little chat. We’re going to figure out how you can help me, and how I can help you, and how we’re going to get out of this mess.”

  “Why would I want to talk to you? You’re a disgusting…thing.” She spat the word out as though it were the most bitter insult she’d ever tasted.

  “You haven’t even thanked me for fixing your kitchen.” He put a hand on the back of the couch to steady himself as he walked toward her. “Or saving you from the monster.”

  “Which you probably summoned,” she insisted.

  “Summoned?” What the hell was this, Dungeons and Dragons? “No, I don’t know how to ‘summon’ anything. If I did, I could have gotten him to leave a lot easier. You don’t seem to remember that I got torn up real bad distracting that thing from killing you.”

  “Yeah, but you could have been doing that to make yourself look good.” She didn’t sound as certain now of his involvement with the beast. “It could have been part of your plan, if you knew you weren’t going to get hurt or anything.”

  “I did get hurt,” he pointed out again. “What you’re saying is that I somehow captured this town, which has absolutely nothing interesting in it, full of people I don’t know and probably won’t like, five years ago. During that five-year span, I was never once seen, but I decided to show up spontaneously just the other night for some reason. I control the creature, but I let it kick my ass, and I send it out to kill townspeople, who would be my food source if they weren’t ripped apart by a monster. That make a lot of sense to you?”

  “Everyone says that once it draws blood, it gives up. It kept fighting you,” she accused.

  He sighed, feeling more and more tired of the argument. “I guess I’m just likeable.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “So, what, you’re here because of a coincidence?”

  “That’s all I can figure.” A thought occurred to him, one that made him a little sick. “Maybe it’s because I’m a vampire. Maybe that’s why I was able to stop here.”

  “Then why can’t you leave?” She probably didn’t believe his innocence yet, but at least she was done with her line of absurd accusations. “If being a vampire got you in, how come it hasn’t got you out?”

  “It just might!” If he hadn’t just had a painful reminder of what the sun could do to him, he would have bolted out the door right away to check.

  Jessa scoffed at him. “You think you can leave.”

  He nodded. “I think so. I’m going to try again as soon as the sun goes down.”

  “Well.” She looked him over, burns and all, and her face screwed up like she couldn’t tell if she hoped he would succeed or hoped he would fail. “If you’re right, I look forward to never seeing you again.”

  “You and me both,” he snarled.

  Seven

  Nightfall could not come fast enough. Jessa gave Graf a wide berth. She was still afraid of him. Probably because when she’d all but ordered him to let her lock him in the basement again, he’d threatened to kill her, again. Now, he really had to get out of there.

  “Getting dark,” she called from the kitchen, where she cleaned the dishes. “You can go at any time.”

  He pushed aside the curtain over the front window and leaned back cautiously. His burns might have healed, but he got a new respect for the light every time he disrespected it. “You’re not going to miss me?”

  She turned and tossed her dishrag into the sink. “No. Because I assume you’ll be coming back.”

  “What, you don’t think I can make it?” He made a face at her and peered out the window again. The sun just had to sink behind the tree line, and he would make a run for the car.

  “You didn’t make it before. On some miracle chance that you do get out, you’ll come back to help us all get out. And bring supplies.” Her hands were on her hips. She was dead serious.

  Graf forced down a laugh. “Yeah, that’s going to happen.”

  “I’m not joking.” She stalked into the living room, her jaw clenched. She hissed through her teeth, “If you do get out, you will help us.”

  “I’m going to do exactly shit for you. I’m going to get in that car, put my foot to the floor, and roll into D.C. before sunup. Then, I’m going to party like the world is ending tomorrow and forget all about this hellhole.” Maybe it was the fact that he kept taunting Jessa with his surety that he would be leaving, but he was actually starting to believe it himself.

  “No, you won’t.” She shook her head. “No one could be that heartless.”

  “I could. I’m a vampire.” He flicked the curtain aside. “What do you know? Time for my exit.”

  She followed him onto the porch and stopped at the top step as he opened the trunk. He pulled a bag of blood from the cooler there—not cold, but pleasantly warm now—and bit off the corner with his back teeth. “I guess I should say it’s been a pleasure, but, you know. It hasn’t.”

  “I hope you die in a car wreck,” she spat.

  Graf chuckled to himself as he slipped behind the wheel and started the engine, gulping down the blood like it was the last he would ever taste. He was never so happy to see something in his rearview mirror as Jessa and her stupid house.

  He remembered the turns he’d taken to get there like something out of a nightmare, and soon he was on the same damned highway that had trapped him, passing the same damned gas station. This time, he kept his eye on the odometer, and punched the accelerator. If a DeLorean could travel through time going eighty-eight miles an hour, a Pantera could break out of this prison town at one-twenty. He shot past a figure on the side of the road and pumped his fist. He was actually going to make it! Ten miles, fifteen.

  A deer—the same goddamned deer!—lunged from the cornfield, and he hit his breaks, swerving to avoid it. The car fishtailed, then did a one-eighty in the center of the road. And there, in the edge of the glow of his headlights where it shouldn’t be, was the ruined shape of the busted-down gas station.

  Graf launched himself from the car and took off after the deer, whose hind end bobbed merrily over the stalks of corn as it ran. Deer were fast, but vampires were faster, and he was on the creature in five seconds. He pinned it by the neck and tore its throat with his teeth, spilling the animal’s blood all over the broken stalks around them. When it stopped struggling, its eyes frozen open in death, he let it go and punched it in the head.

  “Fuck you, deer.” He nudged the body aside with his toe and pushed his hair back with both his hands. Then, he stood, straightened his clothes, and came up with a new list.

  Still trapped.

  Still need blood.

  Homeless.

  There was no way Jessa would let him back into her house. He hadn’t just burned that bridge. He’d gone full River Kwai on it. And he wasn’t going to feed off the deer he’d just killed. He spat to clear his mouth of the taste. It would be like drinking piss out of a jug of spoiled milk.

  He trudged up the bank of the ditch and back to the road. His car waited patiently, like a horse in a cowboy movie. He patted the hood and got back inside. He should have just leaned out the door and punched the accelerator, running over his own head. He would rather do that than go back to that harpy and her house of decorating horrors.

  “Hey!” someone called, and he looked up to see a rail-thin woman in a pair of denim cutoffs and a too-tight shirt that read CLASSY in pink cursive across the chest.

  Does it rain white trash in this town? He motioned to her, and she strolled boldly to the passenger side and got in. She took one look at his bloodied shirt and paled. “What happened to you?”

  “I hit a deer.” It was kind of true.

  “Your car doesn’t look like you hit a deer,” she said doubtfully. “There’s not a scratch on it.”

  “Well, there’s a lot of lead on this car. Real durable,” he lied.

  She bou
ght it, but didn’t bother to ask if the blood was his or not. “You’re the new guy, huh?”

  “Word travels fast.” He frowned as she pulled a joint from her pocket and lit it. “You mind not smoking in here? Pot, I mean?”

  “I don’t have anything else to smoke,” she said, slipping her lighter into the V-neck of her shirt. If she’d had much cleavage there, it might have been a sexy move. “Do you?”

  He nodded toward his jacket. “In the pocket.”

  She kept her eyes on him as she pulled the garment up from the floor. “Leather. Nice.”

  “Well, that’s why I bought it.” God, could she be any more obvious? If he weren’t trapped in this town, and if she wouldn’t be missed, he would have opened her up two minutes ago.

  On second thought, maybe she wouldn’t be missed. “What’s your name?”

  “Becky.” She closed her eyes as she sniffed the open cigarette box.

  “Becky?” He chuckled. This was his lucky night. If he got any luckier, he’d trip down some stairs and break his neck. “Derek’s Becky?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah, I bet you’ve heard all about me. Staying out there with the wicked witch.”

  “No love lost there, huh?” No wonder. Not many women would be thrilled if their husbands were still sniffing around old girlfriends. But something about Becky didn’t exactly inspire his sympathy. Maybe it was the fact that she was sending out “I’m easy” signals like Morse code. Jessa couldn’t be the only one with a bad reputation in town.