I pressed my hand against my chest. My heart was still beating—if you wanted to call it that. I had counted its beats per minute during the drive from the woods to the police station.
Eight. My heart beat only eight times per minute, its only job to pump sick sustenance through my body, not to feel or hope or love.
“I can tell you’re going to have issues,” Laumer said, laying a paternal hand on my shoulder. “Besides the fact that you can no longer lead a normal life, what’s wrong, Andy? Isn’t this all you ever wanted?”
I shrugged away from his grip and he looked a little wounded. “Look at me, Laumer. I’m still human. I can still lead a normal life!”
He led me out of the station’s parking lot and we headed down a paved road no wider than my sidewalk at home in California. My former home, I supposed, because I couldn’t see ever going back.
“Old habits die hard,” Laumer said. “Like you, I once clung to the illusion that I could blend in, that it was even desirable to walk with the crowd, even if the crowd was mundane.”
“Believe me, I have hardly begun thinking as a vampire. Believe me again, this immortality crap ain’t sinking in.”
“It might never, but I believe it will. Denial only causes pain. Look at the conflict Dial experienced until he surrendered to his true nature. With time, from your acts and thoughts, you will realize you are no longer human and never will be again.”
“Can’t you see how shitty that sounds?”
The vampire looked at me and I realized that he did not blink. Shit. There went another bodily function. I couldn’t help but glance down beneath my waist and wonder.
“How old are you, Andy?”
“Twenty-one.”
We came upon a feed store, then a drug store. The restaurant was next to it, which made me wonder if I could sit down to a big plateful of eggs like in the good old days. Yesterday. I realized the good old days had been yesterday.
“A hundred years from now, two hundred, you will have forgotten what it is like to be human,” Laumer said. “I have. Yet now you are bringing up the memories from the abyss of my thoughts—perhaps not memories, but reminders of what it must have been like knowing that death and pain and sickness would be waiting for me. To know that my body would someday perish and decompose. I intellectually grasp that I used to fear that.”
“Fear. Yeah, fear is awesome.”
“Andy, did you fear death?”
I noticed he’d used past tense. “I’ve been curious about it, but I didn’t expect to have to worry about it for a long, long time. Death is for old farts. I’ve got college to finish, a career to start, a marriage to enjoy, kids to raise, retirement to plan. Normal stuff, you know?”
We entered the restaurant, quite a pair. A couple of truckers gave us the once-over, but I guess we weren’t as weird as all those camouflaged Mayan statues that had been wandering through town.
The battle-ax waitress met us just inside the door. “Table for two?”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Laumer politely and with considerable charm. I noticed he smiled by lifting his upper lip slightly, showing just a little teeth. Just a little. His eyes also sparkled with a red tinge.
She fluffed up and beamed and led us brightly to a table in the middle of the floor, which was fine with me. The sun was doing something strange to my skin, and I didn’t want to discover what would happen if stayed too long in it.
“You guys ain’t from around here?” she said, eyeing our clothes.
“We’re travelers in your fair land,” Laumer said.
“Beautiful accent. It sounds so romantic and old.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Can I get you gentlemen anything?”
“Water for the two us, and don’t worry, we won’t forget you on the way out.”
She frowned, but I guess Laumer gave her the old eye-glare thing, because she nodded and went to get it.
“Always drink water when you can,” he said.
I leaned forward, sniffing for eggs. “Why?”
“We can’t digest anything but blood. Anything we eat passes straight through us. The simpler the food and drink, the simpler the passage.”
“Great. And that’s the only thing I get to use my penis for?”
“There are certain...advantages,” he said.
“At least there’s some good news.”
“You are one of the privileged, Andy. You have learned of our ways because you worship them. And in worshipping, you become the thing you worship.”
“Wait a sec. Vampires are gods?”
He lifted a filthy fingernail. For all his manners, the man’s hygiene was still two centuries behind. “Don’t complicate things by trying to give them names.”
“Cool. I’m not a vampire, then. I’m a squirrel. Squeaky squeak squeak.”
“Those who seek true knowledge find it, and then they become it.”
Where was the professor when you needed him?
“So what’s with the soul thing?” I said. “When you were feasting on me—”
“Sharing, Andy. We were sharing a great gift.” He almost blushed, which would have been something, given how pale he was.
“Anyway, when I left my body and then was pulled back down, it was almost like I was born backward. Unborn, in a way.”
“The soul is forever. But a soul is not one single entity in one single time. It evolves just like anything else in nature.”
“Christ. So now you’re saying this is natural.” I zapped into real time, ran over and plucked a bit of apple pie from the end of a fat man’s fork, and sat back down. The man shoved the empty fork in his mouth and then looked at it in surprise.
“How come you didn’t die when all your blood leaked out?” I asked.
“A vampire will never be completely without his blood. Some remains, even if the human eye cannot see it.”
“Microscopic?”
“Huh?”
“Sorry. Twentieth century terminology.”
The ground beneath me began to rumble and shake. I looked out a dirty window and saw a Bronco battle cruiser easing into a couple of spots. Dial was the first one in. He slammed through the glass door, followed by the others.
I waved at Janice and she pretended to study the menu on the wall behind the counter. Dial slid into the seat next to me. Juan sat right next to him.
“They’re gone, all right,” Dial said. “Everything. All the files, maps, everything.”
“And guess what?” blurted Buddy, right behind, not quite daring to sit next to the Vampire Laumer, perhaps out of both respect and fear. “The bodies are gone, too. Every one of them. There isn’t a trace of them anywhere. It looks like a peaceful old house in the middle of a nature preserve.”
“They’ll be back,” Laumer said. “The VVV will never rest after this.”
The professor, bringing up the rear, nodded grimly.
Janice finally came over to the table and looked at me, but she somehow avoided meeting my eyes. “Can we talk?”
Chapter Fifty-eight
Leaving the group to their orders of eggs, bacon, beefsteaks, and waffles, Janice and I walked quietly into the woods across the street. I noticed she was breathing quick and hard, and somehow I knew it wasn’t out of uncontrollable passion for Andy Barthamoo.
She reached out and touched my arm, tentatively at first, and finally she wrapped her small hand around my wrist. I couldn’t tell if she was embracing it or testing it for consistency the way you would a slab of market cheese.
“So how does it feel?” she asked.
“Good, but you can try wrapping it around something else if you want.”
“No, you pervert. I mean, how does it feel to be a vampire?”
“It’s okay.” I wanted to shout out how cool and sexy it was, but I was still a little depressed. It’s hard to hit on your best sweetie when you’re in the dumps. Being undead didn’t help, either.
“Is it like we always imagined?”
“You’ve learned all this in just a night?”
“In just a night I became immortal. As you know—”
I wanted to choke up, because I knew I should be sad about it. But I only knew it intellectually. I didn’t feel it deep inside. “I was killed last night—by my own sacrifice and choice, yes, but nonetheless killed. I saw myself leave my physical body. I was confused yet refreshed somehow. But my soul was sucked down, pulled by an unholy force back into my body. It did not go willingly, Janice, and believe me, my soul is restless. I have no center, no foundation, nothing but time and thirst.”
“Hey, small price to pay—”
“Janice, this isn’t a game anymore. I am no longer one of you. I’m beginning to notice that I no longer think in mortal terms. In my head, in my thoughts, death is not a factor in anything I do, in either the long run or short run. So life has lost its meaning.”
“Yes, Andy. I can tell you’ve changed. You’ve changed into an asshole!”
“What?”
“You’re a fucking vampire, dammit. This is what we’ve wanted to be. I wanted to be. Still do.”
“What’s your problem?”
“You’re...making it sound like shit. It’s not shit. It’s the most beautiful gift given to mankind, and you’re so incredibly lucky to discover it.”
What could I say to her? I myself used to think in those exact terms. A beautiful gift?
I thought of killing Grandmaster, of a grown man squirming under my lips, his life leaking away to slake my need. I thought of his soul eternally haunting me. Of my troubled ghost of a soul, never at ease, writhing in its eternal prison of waxy flesh.
“It’s not a gift,” I whispered.
“Bastard.”
Her arms were crossed and she was staring off to the side. A tear filled the small hollow between her right eye and the ridge of her nose. A thick strand of hair was caught on her sticky cheek. Damn, she was beautiful. But I just knew it. I didn’t feel it.
“What did you talk about?” I asked. “With Dial?”
“Oh, I knew he was sweet on Juan. Every girl needs a gay best bud. I was just messing around, trying to make you jealous, because it seemed like you were keeping me from discovering a vampire for myself. And you still are!”
What else, I realized, did she have to live for? Sure, she would graduate and teach somewhere or pursue bigger and better things. But that wasn’t the ultimate dream. Anyone could graduate and get a job and settle down in the suburbs. But not everyone pursued vampirism.
Immortality. Christ, it had been so appealing, so addictive searching for our vampires. She still felt the push, the drive, and nothing I would say would talk her out of her faith, her one and only saving grace from this shitty world.
And I, in my pathetic human lust and yearning, had carried this image of us on a lifelong search, side by side, looking for vampires that I probably had never really believed in. Driven by the fantasy that we’d be Mr. and Mrs. Vampire forever, locked in immortal embrace, hopefully with our clothes off, bedding down for the day in a cramped coffin together.
Silly, silly boy.
“Andy, I have one question for you.”
She still wasn’t looking at me. I would have spared her the red-eyed glare, because I no longer cared about seducing her. Not that way. “Shoot.”
“Are you going to make the rest of us vampires?”
My heart beat nine times that minute, as I pondered the implications. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know damn well what I’m asking. I’m asking for eternal life, and you can give it to me.”
Never. Never would I wish this on another human being. She’d been staring in wonder at my fangs, but she saw me shaking my head and stepped forward.
“You selfish son-of-a-bitch. We had an agreement. If one of us became a vampire, he or she would make the rest vampires! ‘All for one’ and all that crap. It’s in the club charter!”
“It was wrong, Janice. We didn’t know what we were talking about. It’s wrong to be a vampire.”
“What?”
“Look at me. Look at my skin. It’s dead. Dead! The only thing that’s keeping me alive is the creepy stolen blood coursing through me. It’s repulsive. I feel like I just walked in from the cold. It will always feel like that.”
“Believe me, a small price to pay—”
“It’s not a small price. It’s the only price. It’s your soul.”
“Why should I give a shit about my soul when I can be a vampire?”
“Why? So you can live forever? What do you expect to do forever? Roam the back woods like a vagrant? Live the good life forever? Hitting the night scene in all the major party capitals around the world, plucking the most beautiful necks from the crowd? There’s one problem with all this, Janice. I’m dead. My body knows it, my spirit knows it. I’m being forced to exist, forced to exist forever, but I’m not alive. And it’s not natural. It feels evil, no matter what Laumer says. I feel evil.”
She swept forward and wrapped her arms around me, her luscious breasts tight and soft against my chest. She wiggled slightly, making sure I noticed, not that it took much doing. Her mouth was near my ear. “Forget the others. Just do me.”
“Janice. I have liked you since I first saw you.” I was a little disturbed, because this was all I’d ever prayed for, besides being a vampire. But I’d seen how that prayer turned out.
“We can jaunt about the world forever.” She gave a little thrust of her hips against me. “You can have it all. We can have it together.”
I tried to feel my pulse, but it had stayed at nine beats per minute, and I was scared to try to drum up other increases in pressure. Truth was, I couldn’t feel a whole lot. “I can’t. It really does suck being a vampire. And I love you so much, I could never do that to you, even if it means being without you.”
She drew away so suddenly that I realized how well our bodies had fit together, as if they’d been made for each other. But that was only flesh and blood, not the rest of it. The all-important rest of it.
“I will tell you right now, Andy Barthamoo,” she grunted through clenched teeth. “I have never—never—hated another human being as much as I do now.”
“Maybe that’s the problem, Janice. I’m no longer a human being.”
Her face was bright red, rich with blood, and if I had loved her less, I would have taken her then, drained her. But I stayed strong, the only willpower left in my pathetic shell of a body.
She turned and stalked away only to suddenly stop. “You will never be welcomed again into the Vampire Club. Never. You are hated Andy Barthamoo. And it won’t just be by me. Your best friends, Andy, by your only friends. How does it feel to be completely friendless forever?”
If a stake could kill a vampire, her words might have done the job, because they sure nailed me in the heart.
But she wasn’t done. “I had hopes for you, Andy. But you were never the man I needed you to be. And now you can’t even be the vampire I want you to be.”
With that she left me, and I sat down and noticed I could not cry.
Chapter Fifty-nine
I sat alone in the forest.
I rubbed at my fingernails, over and over, noticing the dark gray underneath. I sat in the shade of an ancient oak, realizing Laumer had been lurking around when that oak was just a sapling and that I’d still be around when it was termite shit.
Janice didn’t understand. I had to be in this revolting body all the time, and the only natural part of it was a will to survive. I knew that I would do whatever it took to remain “alive,” or whatever mockery of that word I was existing under.
As I sat there alone, I was already calculating how to
move with the crowd, to go unnoticed, to blend with my prey. I’d need daily rituals, like make-up, conditioner, clothing that wouldn’t expose too much skin. I’d probably have to wear sunglasses—
Someone touched my shoulder. Christ, I couldn’t even feel it at first. My skin just didn’t register kinesthetic touch as quickly and sharply as it used to—even Janice had left me deflated.
“How are you, Andy?” the professor said.
My angry voice, one I wish I could’ve stopped, erupted: “You mean ‘What are you, Andy?’”
“You, my young friend, are a vampire with fresh memories of mortality.” This was Laumer speaking, apparently having become a good friend of the professor’s over the space of a day and a few dozen deaths. “Mortality is the curse of the weak, the unwilling, the unquestioning.”
“I did not ask for this.”
“But you did not refuse it, either.”
“It’s evil.”
“‘Evil’ is a moral judgment, and you’ve moved beyond that now,” the professor said.
“What are you going to do, young man?” Laumer asked.
Damn good question. “It’s obvious I’m no longer wanted in the club.”
The professor looked at me over his glasses. “You committed the ultimate betrayal to them, Andy. They will never forgive you for as long as you...well, they live.”
“What do you think, Professor L? Should I have done what they asked?”
“I cannot possibly answer that question. You made a decision that was agonizing and one for which no one can be prepared. You must live with your choice. You haven’t answered my question, however.”
“I don’t know, professor. I could go to some other school, but mortal life seems seriously pointless to me now. Why do I care if I make a ‘C’ in Biology? And who’s going to honor a college diploma that’s a hundred and fifty years old?”
“You’re on the right track, my friend,” said Laumer, putting an arm around my slumped shoulders. He was big on the paternal thing, apparently. It must have been ages since he’d turned an eager young buck into a bleak creature of the night. “It’s a difficult, confusing, often adventurous life. You told me you dreamed of the ultimate adventure; well, you’re going to get it.
Scott Nicholson Library Vol 2 Page 46
