One Foot in the Grave - The Halflife Trilogy Book I

by Wm. Mark Simmons

  “What do you think?” I asked the cat. Surprisingly, there was no difficulty or discomfort in talking beyond my already sore throat.

  The cat merrowed approvingly.

  As I turned to lay the box and envelope on the nightstand I remembered the Bible that now lay in my lap. I hesitated, feeling fatigue drag at my eyelids with leaden curtain-pulls, but curiosity won out for the moment.

  I opened it to the fourth gospel and began skimming the sixth chapter. I found the reference beginning with the fifty-third verse:

  Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you

  .

  Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up in the resurrection of the just at the last day.

  For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

  He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him.

  As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me.

  This is that bread which came down from heaven; not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead; he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.

  I closed the Bible slowly and pressed the control to lower the upper half of the bed, again. I was tired and confused—

  “Oh thyit!”

  And I had just bitten my tongue with my new teeth.

  Chapter Ten

  The interior of the barn is dark.

  Its only illumination comes from sniglets of sunlight shining through small gaps in the walls and roof, projecting galactic maps on the black, earthen floor. A fresh billow of smoke roils overhead and the galaxy at my feet dims as if swallowed by some vast, dark nebula.

  I hesitate on the threshold, my eyes straining to see into the unknown, my nostrils flaring at an unpleasant smell . . . an old smell.

  A dead smell—

  I came awake quickly for a change.

  My watch on the nightstand said that it was 10:53. a.m. or p.m.? It was one of those rare occasions that I regretted not switching to digital.

  I closed my eyes for a moment and, once again, some arcane sense kicked in, telling me that the sun was up: a.m. Most of the Doman’s “people” would be sleeping now with only a skeleton crew on duty.

  Now that conjured an interesting image. . . .

  I used the bedside control to fold me up to a sitting position. As the cat scrambled to safety, I considered my options. As in Henley’s Invictus, I had always aspired to be “the master of my fate, the captain of my soul.” Lately, I hadn’t done much better than “cabin boy.” It was time to make some changes.

  It was time to take matters into my own hands.

  It was time to go to the bathroom before I did anything else.

  I tossed the covers aside, swung my legs over the side of the mattress, and was confronted with my first major obstacle: unhooking the Texas-sized catheter.

  When it was done I pulled the ruined pillow from my teeth and spat out a mouthful of feathers. A wooden stake through the heart might mean certain death, but now I knew that there were worse things.

  I wobbled to my feet and lurched over to the tiny, standing closet for a robe and slippers. Then, more comfortably attired, feeling more alert and less drafty, I shuffled down the empty ward and out into the hallway in search of the bathroom.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t far and there was no one about to herd me back to bed.

  There was a single shower stall and I washed up after I was done. It felt good to be clean again. It felt even better to be up, out of bed, and doing something that wasn’t required and monitored by somebody else.

  Wiping the condensation from the mirror, I stared at my vague, ghostlike reflection. Concentrate! I thought. I am here! I exist! As I stood there, leaning over the sink and propping myself up with trembling arms, I force-fed the concept of my corporal reality into my resisting mind.

  Slowly, my mirror image took on greater solidity.

  I was thinner, now, and there were shadows beneath my eyes. My flesh had a pallid, almost transparent appearance: I looked half dead.

  But the scar that circled my throat was already fading. Maybe I was getting better. Or undeader.

  I’m ready for my close-up, now, Mr. DeMille.

  Another thought occurred.

  If the disappearance of my reflection was truly tied to psychological and psionic feedback, why had it started to fade back before I actually knew that I was becoming a vampire? Had my subconscious caught on several weeks before the truth was accepted by my conscious mind? I had a list of questions for Dr. Mooncloud when she got back.

  If I was still here. . . .

  A wave of vertigo rolled over me and I clutched at the countertop to steady myself. Time to be getting back in bed.

  My own bed, I decided.

  Except that bed and the suite that I occupied was just as much the Doman’s property as the hospital bed I had just vacated. It seemed there was nothing I could truly call my own anymore. Not even my life.

  Any question of escape was finally gone. I would be leaving. Soon. But first I needed to concentrate on getting well and learning as much as I could about the mutations that were changing me, body and brain. I rebelted my robe and opened the door, deciding that I was going to have to display a more complacent and cooperative attitude until I had what I needed and was ready to leave.

  “Ready to leave?” Suki was standing there, outside the bathroom door, with a wheelchair ready and waiting.

  “Um,” I said.

  She took my hand. “It’s time to get you back up and on your feet,” she said, paradoxically pushing me down into the seat. “Feet up.” She adjusted the footrests under my slippers. “Ready?”

  “For what?”

  “Here we go.” She started off down the hall. We went past the hospital area and on down to the elevator.

  The doors opened and its diminutive operator leaned forward on his high stool. “Fräulein Suki, Herr Csejthe; Grüsse.”

  “Guten Tag, Herr Hinzelmann,” Suki said.

  “Guten Morgen,” I muttered.

  “Und wie befinden wir sich?” the hütchen asked me as he pulled the levers and we started up.

  “Well, Hinzie,” I groused, “judging by the way I feel and the way you look, I’d say that ‘we’ are both in trouble.”

  Suki leaned over and murmured, “Never let a good line go to waste, do you?” To the old house sprite she said: “Ignore him, Hinzie; he’s cranky when he hasn’t had enough.”

  “Enough?” I tried to twist my head to look at her. “Enough what?”

  “Er tut mir leid.”

  “Well, don’t be,” I said. “It may be true that I am a little—cranky—right now. But I am on the mend.” I slumped in the wheelchair. “Thank you for asking.”

  “Bitte sehr,” he said primly. “And you, Fräulein Suki,” he continued. “What has you up at this ungodly hour of the morning?”

  “Him,” she said as the elevator came to a stop. “The Doman said he’s taking too long to heal. So, we’ve decided to kick him out of the hospital, back into his own bed, and go to the next phase of treatment.”

  “Und wie steht es mit Deirdre?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, helping me maneuver the chair out of the antique lift. “Only time will tell.”

  “Christopher!” It didn’t sound like my name at first; it sounded more like an ancient door on rusty hinges. Then I saw the seamed and wart-riddled features of the house chamberlain. She smiled a terrible smile: while sharks have three rows of teeth, the aguane barely qualified as having one, yet the effect was similar.

  “Basa-Andrée,” I said, trying to smile back and desperately hoping that she wouldn’t try to hug me or wish me a speedy recovery through any other tactile means.

  “Good to see ye up and about, lad!” She came toward me, but her attention shifted to Suki. “ ’Tis a
ll done, milady; even as himself requested.”

  “Thank you, Basa,” she said. “Is the package in place?”

  “I understand that it is on its way.”

  “Good.”

  The aguane turned back to me. “Is there anything I can get for you, my boy?”

  “Yeah, hang a ‘do not disturb’ sign on my door for the next forty-eight hours.”

  “Ah, you’re a wonder, laddie-buck,” she cackled. “ ’tis already a done deal.”

  Suki wheeled me on down the hall until we came to my door. Basa-Andrée opened it with a key from a prodigious ring and Suki pushed me inside.

  Though the lights were off, she easily navigated the chair through the darkened apartment, bringing me into the bedroom. I waved off any assistance as I clambered out of the wheelchair and sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Is there anything I can get you?”

  I started to say no and send her on her way, but then I remembered my research. “As a matter of fact, there is.” I quickly explained my needs in terms of establishing a common database of information. “So, at this point I primarily need a good PC with plenty of hard disk space, a modem, and a good scanner with OCR software.”

  “I think we can provide you with something in those areas.” She sat on the bed, next to me. “Chris. . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “You—” she hesitated “—you have a lot of anger in you.”

  A flip response didn’t come readily to mind, so I just nodded.

  “Terrible things have happened to you. Terrible things have been done to you. You have a right to be angry.”

  No arguments here.

  “But you are not alone. Most of us under the Doman’s protection are here because terrible things have been done to us, too. We are all prisoners here. We are trapped by the nature of what we have become. And most of us did not ask to become what we are.”

  And what are we? I wondered.

  “We are victims,” she said. “Victims who are trying to survive as best we can, without producing more victims in that day-after-day process.”

  “Practically impossible, isn’t it?” I said.

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Nature is one vast food chain and life feeds upon life. Here, in the Northwest, the Doman insists that we take nothing except by invitation, use only what we need, and waste nothing. We practice a higher morality than most of the world at large.”

  “You shear the sheep and spare the lambs,” I said.

  “We are all sheep,” she said, rising, “and all flesh is grass.”

  “You’re mixing your metaphors.”

  She folded the wheelchair and left it by the doorway. “I know that you are angry. Your body has been violated by changes that you cannot reconcile with the life you knew, the life that society has taught and molded you to live. Now you must face new truths, new laws that the world hides from all but a handful of humanity.

  “We did not make you this way. We did not choose this path for you. We cannot help the fact that your body now requires blood for sustenance. But it is an implacable law that Nature assigns to your changed circumstances. Resist it, fight it if you will, but do not blame those of us that share the curse and seek to help you learn the new rules of survival.”

  I was suddenly ashamed.

  “I must sleep now.” She smiled from the doorway. “I will see you tonight if you have rested well. In the meantime, try to do those things which will help you to heal. Rest now. And later . . . drink deep.”

  And she was gone.

  I sat there for a while, thinking about what she had said. Constructive anger, properly focused was one thing. Throwing tantrums was something else, again. I would still leave when the opportunity came. But perhaps I did have friends here. Perhaps there were those who did not carry their own motives like a hidden dagger.

  But I wouldn’t think any more about it, right now.

  I untied the robe and dropped it on the floor.

  No. I’d think about it tomorrow. . . .

  I pulled back the covers and crawled under them.

  After all, tomorrow was another day. . . .

  I fluffed my pillow with my fist.

  . . . or night. . .

  I closed my eyes.

  . . . and maybe I’d go back to Tara.

  “Oh, fiddle-de-dee,” I murmured. And fell asleep.

  Now the darkness of the barn is merciful.

  I can see the cow, lying on its side. See the great gash that has opened up its belly. Slats of dusty sunbeams bisect the spill of entrails, but most of the gore and details are still lost in the darkness.

  I hesitate at the edge of a red tidal pool that trickles toward my feet. A hand grasps my arm and I turn to see the silhouette of a man brandishing a bloody knife.

  I came awake, gasping for air, my stomach cramping me into a sitting position. In that long moment of leaving the dream behind, I was partially blind, partially deaf: I did not notice movement or sound until a voice spoke.

  “You were having a nightmare.”

  I didn’t jump or flinch: nothing was as frightening as that half-buried memory that crept closer and closer each time I closed my eyes.

  A woman sat at the edge of my bed. In the darkness I had only her voice and vague outline to serve for clues.

  Jennifer?

  I looked again, something subtle shifting at the back of my eyes. The bedroom’s topography was now evident in patterned greyscale, the furniture layout in dark blue and grey geometric shapes. The woman, herself, flickered like a bright flame: white surrounded by concentric layers of yellow then orange then red in a vague, humanoid shape. I shivered as I realized that my night vision was evolving into an infrared targeting system.

  “Who is it?” I asked carefully.

  “Deirdre.” She reached out and a warm hand caressed my cool, clammy forehead.

  Deirdre? “What are you doing here?”

  “I am here to take care of you. Think of me as your nurse.”

  “I don’t need a nurse.”

  “You’re still weak and your wound is not entirely healed. The Doman says that this a difficult and dangerous time for you. I want to help.”

  “I don’t need help. I need rest. Why don’t you run along and spend your time with—” I caught myself. I was about to say “with Damien” when I remembered that her vampire lover was dead, murdered by the same hitmen who had nearly killed me. “—I’m sorry.”

  She reached over and switched on the bedside lamp, bumping my vision back into normal mode.

  Most so-called redheads actually favor the orange spectrum. Here, hair, lips and nails were the color of blood, deep red and vibrant in hue. Alabaster skin with no visible flaws. China blue eyes, made bluer by the sheen of tears and the shadows of sleepless nights, looked back at me, through me, beyond me.

  “He loved me, you know,” she said. “He really loved me.”

  And who could blame him? I thought.

  “You’re probably thinking that I’m a beautiful woman—why wouldn’t he?” she said.

  All this and psychic abilities, too.

  “Beauty is overrated.” She laughed. It was a short, half-hearted thing. “Oh, I know that it’s just the sort of thing that beautiful people sometimes say and it sounds incredibly self-centered and boorish. But it is a wall between us. A mask. A façade.”

  She was rattling. It was obviously an old argument for her and I made no reply: she had an understandable need to talk.

  “Give me your foot,” she said.

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “I’m your nurse and this is phase one of your therapy. Besides, it gives me something to do.” She gave me a hard look. “I’ve had nothing to do for four days. I need to do something. Anything.” She blinked. “So give me your foot.”

  I extended my right foot and she took it into her warm grasp. I was reminded again of the widening difference in our body temperatures.

  “We live in a world that values beauty, rewards it
as if it were a virtue or the product of great labor and achievement. It can be, I suppose,” she said, sighing, working her thumbs up the sole of my foot. “But it’s mostly the result of good genes.”

  Her fingers worked their way around and over my instep, moving toward my ankle. There her thumb massaged the outer perimeter, the juncture of the talus and the end of the fibula: my attention began to slide a little.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” she continued, “I’m not whining about what a burden it is to be attractive. I’m just pointing out that a lot of people will treat you like meat or like art or like all their fondest fantasies or the embodiment of their own lack of self-esteem. When you find someone who treats you like a real person, it can be special.”

  “That’s how it was with Damien,” I said.

  Deirdre nodded. “Here.” She pushed on my leg. “Roll over and let me do your back.”

  “Therapy.” I sighed and complied. Maybe she would get to the other foot later.

  “He had lived long enough to have gotten past the value systems that most men apply when looking at a woman. He looked at me and saw . . . me. Not just a face or a body. He looked at me as a man and saw more than just sex or a trophy. And he looked at me as a vampire and saw more than just food and drink. He . . . saw . . . me!” Her voice was decidedly unsteady.

  A long silence ensued while she worked her hands up and down my spine.

  “So, how did you meet?”

  “At the library. Late one night, just before closing. I went there by chance that particular night. It turned out that he was there on a regular basis—three or four evenings a week. He said it was a sign: he was reading Keats and looked up and saw me.”

  “ ’Endymion’?” I asked, trying to visualize a vampire with a library card.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  " ’A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

  its loveliness increases; it will never

  pass into nothingness.’ ”

  I nodded into my pillow. “It was a sign.”