Blood Thirst

by Lena Hillbrand

  “Is that your real name?”

  “Of course it is. Isn’t Byron Kingsley yours?”

  “Yes, of course. My apologies for being so forward.”

  “Please. It’s understandable. People are often surprised to see someone so young living independently. I’m quite capable of caring for myself, I assure you.”

  “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Don’t worry, you haven’t done any such thing. Please, sit down. Can I offer you a beverage?”

  “I’m only here for a few minutes, to ask you some questions about your sapien that escaped.”

  “Oh, has there been some news?” Meyer looked more interested now.

  “Not yet. But I’ve been assigned to the case of the missing persons and also tracking the missing sapiens, if it’s related. I’m just connecting the dots at this point.”

  “Are you the only one working on it?”

  “No, there are three of us. And local authorities, of course.”

  “Of course. Well, I’ll tell you what I know and remember. Is there anything in particular you’re interested in?”

  “Do you live here all year, by yourself?”

  “Oh, no,” the boy said, smiling. “Please. This is just a winter place where I ski a bit. My main homes are in the great city of Texas, and in Moines. But this is where I was when I lost Herman.”

  “You lost Herman? Is that your sapien?”

  “Yes, of course. Are you sure I can’t get you something while you’re here? I hate to see a guest not at his most comfortable. Please. I have every new flavor available. Coca-Cola sap?”

  “If you’d like, I’ll take whatever you’re having,” Byron said. He missed sap from a can.

  “Would you like it warm? I myself prefer it chilled if I can’t drink directly, but I know I’m the exception to the rule.”

  “Actually, I’m a fan of a cold drink myself,” Byron said, smiling. He found it difficult not to treat the child like a child. He waited for the boy to return, reminding himself not to patronize. The boy seemed sensitive about it.

  Meyer had a way of moving that was stiff but somehow laced with grace. He wore his hair slicked back in an old-fashioned way, and he dressed in crisp, almost formal attire. He returned carrying a tray with two frosted glasses of sap and handed one to Byron.

  Meyer settled into a chair and rested the sole of one shiny black shoe on the edge of the sitting-room table. “Yes, Herman was my favorite sapien,” he said. “I took him everywhere with me. I know lots of Superiors who frown upon such extravagances, but I say, if you have the means, why not use them to your end, eh?” He smiled and sipped from his glass. “I always did love Coca-Cola.”

  “Yes, I used to drink it myself. So, tell me the circumstances surrounding the disappearance, and what was done to recover him.”

  “Ah, yes.” Meyer patted his gelled hair as if making sure it held its perfectly gelled place. His face, still childlike, was pure white with a few freckles dotting his nose. Byron found himself wondering again how old the boy had been at the Evolution, and why he evolved if he didn’t have parents, and if he did, where were they? But these were not Byron’s concerns, so he made himself focus despite the oddity of the boy’s situation.

  “You see, I come up here to the mountains to ski every winter. There really aren’t many nice places around or I’d have something more to my taste,” Meyer said, glancing around at the sparsely furnished room. It was plain, undecorated, and vaguely sterile. “Anyhow, there are separate quarters for a sapien, so I rent this apartment every year. Would you like to see it?”

  “Sure, that would be fine,” Byron said. He followed Meyer to the sapien quarters, which looked exactly like the one Byron kept his own sapiens in. In fact, the whole place had an identical layout. “I see. And your sapien was in this area when it escaped?”

  “I always had a favorite sap, like a pet and a meal at the same time, see?” The boy smiled in a most charming way. The child fascinated Byron. Part of him wanted to take the boy home and take care of him, and another part sensed the boy was secretly laughing at him.

  “Well, that’s irrelevant,” Meyer said when Byron didn’t answer. “I do that, anyhow. It’s a privilege I allow myself, and who’s to stop me? So I brought Herman with me up here every year for maybe four or five years. Sometimes I get tired of my pets and get new ones, but Herman was particularly tasty and well-trained.” The boy raised an eyebrow at Byron. “Do you own livestock, Enforcer?”

  “Yes, four of them, currently.”

  “Ah, so you know the value of a well-trained sap. They are priceless. But, I’m afraid I may have let mine have a little too much freedom in the end,” the boy said, sighing. “I kept him in his area during the day, but at night when I went out, I let him roam in the apartment if he wanted. He cleaned for me, did little chores while I was away. I even let him go get his own food at the store when he asked for a pass. Well, one night I came in and he was gone. I thought he’d gone out later than usual to get his things. Saps need all kinds of things we no longer find necessary. Of course you know this, though,” Meyer said, resettling himself on the chair that sat perpendicular to the couch.

  “And you reported him missing, when?”

  “The next night. I went to sleep, and I thought it was odd that Herman hadn’t returned, but mostly I was irritated by his thoughtlessness. He knew I liked to eat before going to bed.” The boy looked petulant as he recounted the indignity.

  “What time was this?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, it’s in the report. Late morning. I got tired of waiting and went to bed, and when I woke, he was still gone. So I called the Enforcement office, and they came down and asked a few questions and said they’d send out a tracker. I called a few times, but there was never any news.” Meyer shrugged. “There still isn’t any news.”

  “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you are a Superior of means, why didn’t you send out your own trackers until you found him, if he was so valuable to you?”

  Meyer’s eyes narrowed. “Would you go to that much expense to recover a sap?”

  “I might,” Byron said. “If it was important to me. It’s not as expensive as buying another sap.”

  “That’s true,” Meyer said slowly. “I guess I should have done that. Sometimes I have too much faith in Enforcers’ ability to do their jobs.”

  Byron glared for a long moment. Maybe Meyer had learned how to live on his own, but that didn’t mean he should. But Byron was a guest, so he swallowed the insult without reaction and went on.

  “So, you left without your sapien that year? You didn’t wait for news?”

  “I’m a very important man, Enforcer. I can’t let my schedule be dictated by saps. Yes, I left as usual and went back to my business.”

  “Should I know what that is?”

  “You’ve never heard of me?” Meyer said, looking slightly surprised.

  “No, I don’t believe I have.”

  “I’m one of the founders of Furr-Bines.”

  “Really? That’s…lucrative, I imagine.” Actually, Byron had never stopped to imagine what person came up with such an idiotic idea as fancy-looking wind turbines. It was not something that he’d ever considered in personal terms. Like the inventor of the silly rubber decorations people used to put on the top of car antennae.

  “Oh yes, tremendously.”

  “That’s all my questions for today. We may be in touch again later. Thank you for the Coca-Cola sap. I hadn’t had that flavor in a while.”

  “It’s my favorite.” The boy stood and offered Byron his hand. “If there’s anything else, do let me know. Or if you find my poor Herman’s…remains.” Meyer made a face like he’d eaten something distasteful.

  “We’ll let you know.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  When they’d reached the door, Byron stopped and turned to the child. “I do have one more question. Have you heard anything about him since then, among others or even saps?
Have you heard about other saps disappearing?”

  Meyer shrugged, his hands in the pockets of his slacks. “No. But then, I don’t live here most of the year. You might ask a resident of the town.”

  “Of course. Thank you for your time.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Byron walked back to the car slowly, glancing at the bars around the outdoor area for the sap. He couldn’t get the boy out of his mind for the rest of the night. Something about Meyer just didn’t seem right, but Byron didn’t know if it was the disconcerting effect of meeting such a young Superior or if Meyer had something to hide. Byron had always been able to detect deceit better than his fellow Enforcers. He hadn’t noticed anything specific that indicated the boy had lied. Just a general feeling that didn’t sit right with him.

  He could have shrugged it off, attributed it to the surprise of meeting a man-child, and the boy’s manner that swung between courtly and childish. But Byron didn’t typically disregard the hunches he developed. He would keep an eye on the boy, and if his suspicions proved groundless, he’d shrug it off then. Until he knew for sure, he’d find more reasons to drop in on the boy, even if he had to invent them.

  20

  Sally stood in the solemn group in the white light of moon on snow. The group shuffled in the cold, same way horses moved around when they slept standing up.

  “Hey, Sally,” the man on her left said.

  “Hey, Herman.”

  “What will you vote on?”

  “Don’t know. It was up to me, I’d stake them on sight, I reckon.”

  “That’s brutal.”

  “Yeah? Well, you must not’ve been in there the other night, you think I’m brutal. My way is humane.”

  “But they’re not human.”

  “Yeah, so? Neither is dogs, and iffen one of them gets madness, we up and shoot it. Put it out of its misery.”

  “True.”

  “We call to order this meeting,” Uncle Tom said from the makeshift platform the men had erected. “Now all y’all get quiet so we can get to the good part.”

  “Okay, let’s get started,” Mr. Henson said. He stood on the platform with Tom and Mr. Conley, the three of them outlined by the moonlight and casting shadows that fell over the snow in the yard and reached clear to the woods. Sally thought about the man inside the shed, waiting to hear his sentence with the rest of them. He hadn’t moved or spoke since that first night. She wondered if in summertime flies would get in his wounds and lay eggs in there and he’d turn all to maggots.

  She shuddered. She sure was glad it would be over by then, and she knew the bloodsucker would like that, too. He’d already wanted to die, and she couldn’t rightly blame him. Weren’t nothing right about torturing a creature that way, be it live or dead. It seemed pretty much alive, far as she could see. She already knew a whole lot of what she’d heard about bloodsuckers weren’t true at all.

  They breathed, she’d seen that with her own eyes, seen the man’s breath coming out in bloody bubbles, heard the gluppy sound of it gurgling in his lungs. And them bloodsuckers felt pain, no matter what nobody said. She’d seen and heard the pain of that man—Draven? That sounded like a bloodsucker name—so maybe he weren’t dead, neither. Maybe people just said that so as they didn’t feel bad about killing them.

  “Let’s do this in an orderly manner,” Mr. Conley said. “If you have a suggestion, raise up your hand and call it out when we point to you. Then we’ll have a vote.”

  “Burn it!” one of the Henson boys yelled.

  “Chop off its head with an ax!” another called.

  “I think we should just stick with regular old staking,” Herman said, raising his hand. Sally looked at him, surprised. He smiled at her.

  “I think we should do some experiments and see what-all kills him,” Larry said. “I mean, we don’t never keep bloodsuckers around long enough to know if there’s other ways of killing them. What if there’s an easier way we ain’t tried yet?”

  “Such as?” Mr. Conley asked.

  “Such as, if he gets in the sunlight, will he explode into flame? ‘Cause that would be pretty cool to watch. And it might kill him.”

  “Does anyone else have a suggestion before we vote?”

  “I like Larry’s suggestion,” the oldest Henson boy said. “I mean, we know they can heal, but how much? Like, if we’s to grind it up in the grinder, would all his parts find their way back together, or would he just die like regular?”

  “That’s a vote, Neil,” Mr. Conley said. “Please wait until we call for a vote before agreeing with someone else. Anyone else have your own suggestion?”

  No hands went up, so Uncle Tom stepped forward. “Now, as y’all know, only those of marrying age can vote, but you can bring your kids to the extermination if you want. Please raise up your hand when you hear the option you like the best. On the table so far, we got burning, staking, de-cap-tation, and experimenting.”

  Sally watched the crowd as a few hands went up for burning, a handful for staking, and three for taking the head off. About ten hands went up for the last option. Sally felt a little sick. She looked at Herman, and he shrugged. They’d both voted for staking.

  “Sorry, Sally. I know you’re tenderhearted.”

  “I ain’t tenderhearted,” she said. “But I ain’t mean and heartless, neither. You was here for the viewing, right?”

  “Yup.”

  “Did you stake that man?”

  “Sally, he’s not a man. He’s a bloodthirsty killer.”

  “He ain’t never killed one of us. And you ain’t had to watch him every night since then. All he does is lay there moaning and crying-like. It’s just wrong to do that to anything, even a bloodsucker.” Sally turned and went on in the house.

  Sissy ran after her. “What’s exper-mentin’?”

  “It’s doing real bad stuff to hurt something and not putting it out of its misery,” Sally said. “I sure hope your Pappy don’t let you watch that.”

  “Why not? I want to watch. It sounds like fun.”

  “Well, it ain’t. It’s scary and wrong, and you shouldn’t get to watch.”

  “I done watched all the killings. They’re real gross,” Sissy said, wrinkling her nose.

  “I bet. Now, I’m gonna go on out to the shed and talk to the…bloodsucker. You coming?”

  “Why you talking to him?” Sissy asked with big eyes.

  “’Cause he thinks he’s gonna get to die, and he ain’t.”

  “Why’s he wanna die?” Sissy asked, following Sally out to the shed.

  “’Cause we’re so mean he don’t want to live no more.” Sally unlocked the shed and the two of them stepped inside. “We ain’t supposed to be here, so you can’t say nothing to your Pappy about it,” she said to Sissy. Then she turned to the cage. “I can’t turn on the light, but I just came to tell you ‘bout the vote.”

  “Hello, Sally,” the man said from the dark. “Hello, Sissy.”

  “How’d he know it was me?” Sissy whispered.

  “I caught your scent,” the bloodsucker said. Again Sally noticed the warmth of his voice, as soothing as a warm bath in the wintertime.

  “How you feeling?” she asked.

  “I’ve been better. Are you well tonight?”

  “Well, yeah. I’m fine. But I ain’t supposed to be out here yet, so I can’t turn on the light. I’ll just be a minute.”

  “And what is my sentence? In what manner will I face execution?”

  “Your…well, they ain’t gonna be one.”

  The bloodsucker didn’t answer right away. Then he said, “I imagine hope would be unwise on my part.”

  “What’s that mean?” Sissy whispered.

  “It means that your news only sounds promising,” the man said. “It means…what you’re planning is likely worse.”

  “They wanna experiment and find what’ll kill you fastest.”

  “I can tell you, if you’d like to know. Simply put a stake in my heart, or my mout
h, and push it until it comes out the other side.” He looked at her, his eyelid raising all the way this time so she could see a little glimmer of light shining in the dark pools of his eyes. “Please, Sally.”

  “I can’t. And if you keep asking, I ain’t gonna talk to you no more. I’ll tell you what they’re gonna do first, and that is put you out in the sun first thing tomorrow and see if you burn like a torch.”

  The man made a strange sound, and it took Sally a second to realize he’d made an attempt at laughter. Or a chuckle, anyway. It sounded warm, like his voice. It almost made Sally smile, but she bit it off even though it was dark and weren’t no one going to see her.

  “Why’s that funny?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid your party will be in for a disappointment.”

  “You don’t burn in the sun?” Sissy asked. “What’ll happen?”

  “What happens when you stay out in the sun too long? I’ll sunburn, that is all.”

  This time Sally laughed, and then Sissy, too, and the man laughed softly from inside his cage.

  “Thank you for telling me, Sally. Sissy. You should get back. I wouldn’t want you getting caught talking to me.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Sally stood for a moment, wanting to say something but not sure what. “Reckon I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Goodnight, humans.”

  Sally and Sissy left the shed and walked back to the house as quietly as they could. “That man talks funny,” Sissy said. “But he’s real polite.”

  “Yeah, he is that,” Sally said. “Now you best not tell anyone you talked to him or we’ll both get our butts whupped. And then I’ll whup yours again. Got that?”

  Just then Larry and Tom came in, both of them laughing. “We’re gonna watch that bastard fry in the sun like jerky,” Larry said, shrugging off his coat. “I can’t wait.”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens,” Sally said. She looked at Sissy and winked, and the little girl smiled at her. “Ain’t no way to know what sun does to them until we try it.”