Living Like A Vampire

by Jacky Dahlhaus

  I decided to go back to the town square. My skinny jeans hid little, so I needed pants with more pockets that could hold more food in them. And, I had to find a mirror to be able to put on my fake fangs. I didn’t want to look like a circus attraction with fangs sticking out at odd angles.

  First I went to the fashion shop but found no pants wide enough to contain even the smallest of pockets. With my head hung low, I walked out of the store. When I looked up to seek help from the heavens, my eyes fell on the thrift shop on the opposite side of the square. A grin crept on my face, and my eyes rolled to the sky before focusing on the shop again. Surely they would have some less-fashionable choices with bigger pockets. Sue had always said that she’d rather be dead than seen going in there. A lump blocked my throat, and my grin disappeared. I took a deep breath and walked to the shop.

  When I reached the front door, my hand halted before reaching the doorknob. The lock had been forced and the door was ajar. Slowly I pushed it open further.

  “Anyone here?” I called out.

  No reply. People probably had looted the shop earlier.

  Why would suckers want to go in here if they didn’t want to come here during their previous life?

  I invited luck to stay with me and entered the shop. There was a funny smell, but I couldn’t pin down what it was. Browsing through a rack with women’s pants, I found a pair of camo ones. They were one size too big for me, but they were the only ones suitable I could find. Seeing nobody in the square, I quickly stripped out of my jeans and hoisted myself into the camo pants. My hips weren’t wide enough to make them stay up, so I took a belt from a mannequin. As I was threading it through the loops, I thought I heard something. My whole body stiffened. I didn’t even breathe.

  “Kate!”

  There it was again. A whisper, but definitely there.

  I turned around in slow-motion. It was against all common sense, but I couldn’t help myself. I had to find out who was calling me. My eyes searched the dark of the store. I still didn’t dare to move freely.

  “Kate, down here.” The whisper came from in front of me. I looked down and saw them; a pair of eyes looking straight at me from the inside of the double-story round rack with men’s shirts. They scared the hell out of me.

  “Smile at me,” the ‘eyes’ commanded.

  What an odd question. Not something you’d expect in this tense situation.

  Then it dawned on me. The voice was Charlie’s.

  “Charlie! Am I glad to see you,” and I beamed my biggest smile, showing off my lack of fangs.

  The shirts parted and Charlie stepped out. I put my arms out to give him a big hug. I thought of the possibility that he’d been turned, but my gut instinct told me he wouldn’t have been in hiding if he had been.

  “Yeah, happy to see you too,” he said, “but you have no idea what I’ve been through.” He grabbed my hands and pushed me away.

  “What you have been through? What about what I have been through?” I asked miffed, lowering my arms.

  “No, Kate, you haven’t been through what I’ve been through…” and he put his hands up in apology to stop me from saying something again. “I’ve been crawling through the sewers…”

  I looked at him, stunned. Then the smell hit my nostrils.

  “Oh yuck, you stink! You’re the funny smell in here.” I pinched my nose.

  “Yeah, don’t I know it,” he said, hands on his hips.

  “And you touched me.” I flapped my hands around in disgust.

  Charlie’s hands went up in an apology again. “Sorry, I tried to warn you. I didn’t want you to make it any worse.”

  I wiped my hands on a nearby clothing item and nodded.

  “True. Does it help against them?”

  “No idea, I didn’t hang around long enough to ask,” was his reply. “I came here to get a change of clothes before they could follow the stench trail.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “I wanted clothing with lots of pockets to stuff food in.” I showed off my new pants.

  “Yes, I know.”

  It hit me that he must have seen me getting changed before he called out to me. I wasn’t sure how this made me feel. I couldn’t help but notice Charlie’s sly smile while he avoided eye contact.

  The cheeky bugger.

  The angel and devil on my shoulders began a heated argument about what was right and wrong. In the end, I thought it was rather arousing that he had liked watching me undress, but he should have made his presence known earlier. I then dismissed my inner thoughts as there were more pressing matters to attend to.

  Ignoring Charlie’s remark, I picked up my jeans and transferred all the items from the pockets to my new pants. While we searched the store for clothing that could fit Charlie, he told me how he had been chased away from me in the schoolyard and how escaping through a storm drain and crawling through the sewers had saved him from his chasers, although they had been very persistent for a long time. Only when he crawled through the smallest of waste drains did they leave him alone.

  While Charlie changed into his new, clean clothes behind the curtain of a changing booth that was hiding in the corner of the store, I took the molten chocolate bars from my bra and put them in my new pants’ pockets. I also told Charlie what happened to me as I browsed the shop. I told him about Mr. Ugly Sweater, Sasha, and Caleb. I didn’t tell him about my feelings for Caleb but mentioned that he almost turned me. My story ended with me meeting my sister and how I was living like a vampire in her pack now.

  “Wow, you’ve got some guts,” I heard him say in awe from behind the curtain.

  I know. Not that I had much choice, though.

  I kept quiet as I didn’t want to seem cocky.

  “Did they have more of those fake fangs in the dollar shop?” he asked when he shoved the curtain aside and stepped out of the cubicle in his new outfit.

  “I think so. I was in a hurry, but I think there were.”

  We both looked out the shop window, across the town square. Even though the square was deserted, the thought of crossing it was scary all of a sudden. I had crossed it before, but Charlie wasn’t recognized as a sucker yet and being out in the open could be dangerous. When I turned my head toward him, my nose automatically crinkled up.

  “You still stink, you know. I think it’s in your hair.”

  Charlie looked up from under those heavy eyebrows. “Thanks for letting me know, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “There’s a small kitchen at the back. You could try and wash your hair there,” I suggested.

  Charlie raised an eyebrow and turned to check it out.

  ***

  They even had soap. Charlie stood on a chair while I washed his hair as good as I could under the tap. I had to stand quite close to him and now and again I was very aware of my breast touching him.

  After I rinsed the soap out of his hair, I found a large flannel shirt to dry his hair with. Automatically I began doing this. I realized he may not like this, and as I continued to rub his hair, I checked his expression to find out his thoughts about me drying his hair. His eyes followed my every move which made me even more self-conscious than I had been before.

  To my relief, a smile crept on his face. I’m sure I started blushing, so I quickly finished the drying. I smiled back at him, and his smile became even broader. Together with his twinkling eyes, it was the sweetest face I’d ever seen. A moment passed.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I didn’t know what to say back, so instead, I thought I’d throw the shirt I’d dried his hair with into the sink. My movement was awkward, like the moment, and the shirt didn’t quite make it. Instead, it fell onto the edge of the sink and began sliding down the cabinet. Charlie and I both reached down to grab it and bumped our heads. I laughed as my hand went to my head. Charlie laughed as well as he picked up the shirt and threw it in the sink.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said embarrassed
and walked away.

  Charlie joined me standing at the shop door, looking out across the town square.

  “Come on,” I said, remembering I was one of ‘them’ now and shouldn’t be afraid. I stepped out into the open.

  Town Square

  We were halfway down the town square and everything seemed fine when a sucker stepped from behind the war memorial. Of course, lo and behold, of all the suckers on the planet, it had to be Mr. Ugly Sweater.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, swaggering toward us. “Look what coincidence brought back to me.” His eyes shifted to Charlie and back to me again, accompanied by a sneer. “No Caleb to hold your hand this time, eh?”

  The man almost made me puke. Charlie and I looked at each other. I knew we had the same question on our minds.

  Does this creep know I hadn’t been turned?

  Mr. Ugly Sweater stepped inside my personal bubble. With one hand he squeezed my face, nearly lifting me off the ground.

  “Time to catch up on that kiss I missed,” he said, and his face moved closer to mine. I didn’t know if his halitosis was worse than the sewer smell I had smelled on Charlie or not. So, this was what Sasha had meant with, ‘he won’t bother us anymore’. They had thrown him out of Caleb’s pack, and now he ran with Duncan’s.

  Mr. Ugly Sweater’s lips were close to mine when his face turned from pleasure to pain.

  “Let her go or I’ll break your hand,” I heard Charlie say.

  Mr. Ugly Sweater uttered a groan of anger and frustration, but he let go of my face.

  Charlie had a slight delay in releasing his hand. “Now piss off before I’ll tell Caleb and Sasha of your little stunt.”

  I’m sure my grin was from one ear to the other as I watched the offender whimper off, muttering apologies.

  “Wow, I can’t believe you actually listened to me back there,” I said in awe as I savored the sight of Mr. Ugly Sweater disappearing. “What did you do to him?” I asked, still smiling.

  Charlie chuckled.

  “It’s one of the perks of being a silversmith, you get really strong hands.”

  Charlie had told me about his jewelry making past that first day we met at school. He had explained how he had made that woven Celtic ring he wore. It had impressed me.

  I’m impressed again.

  “No turning back, Smudge. From now on you’re a sucker too,” I said. “That was so brave.”

  Charlie’s face beamed, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d called him brave or because I’d called him Smudge.

  Preparations

  In the store, we fitted each other’s fangs with the super-glue. The color match was amazing. At first I thought they’d be too yellow, but apparently, the average person’s teeth were not sparkling white. I found some scissors and carefully made puncture wounds in Charlie’s neck, covering them up with Band-Aids. Charlie also ate his share of lollies and energy bars and filled his pockets with them. As he was doing this, I wandered through the store, my mood plummeting.

  “What’s the matter?” Charlie asked when he found me sitting in a far corner.

  I didn’t want to worry him, but I decided to share my thoughts anyway.

  A shared pain is half the pain after all.

  “We have to go back to the gathering now. I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can go up to a person and scare the living daylights out of them.” My eyes brimmed with tears and I looked at every direction but Charlie’s.

  He sat down next to me. We fell quiet.

  Suddenly he punched me in the arm.

  “Ouch!” I rubbed my arm, and when I frowned at him, I saw the spark in his eyes.

  “Sorry about that, but hey, listen, we don’t have to go to the feeding. We can hide here and wait until they’re gone.”

  I smiled for a second, but my smile soon wore off. “No, we can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “My sister traveled half the county to get here. I don’t think she’s going to let go of me just like that. She’ll come looking for me.”

  Charlie’s smile disappeared as well.

  “Oh, that sucks. Not your sister caring, I mean, but… you know…”

  “Yeah, I know. It sucks.”

  We sat in silence again. After a few minutes, Charlie spoke.

  “What if… what if we said that we’ve already fed ourselves because we were so hungry?”

  This was, of course, true if you included the lollies and energy bars we just ate. I saw the light at the end of this part of the tunnel.

  “That’s a great idea. Let’s do that,” I said. “They’ll have to take our word for it. No, wait. Let’s put some fake blood on our shirts. That’ll make it look more real.”

  “I don’t want to dirty it,” Charlie pouted as he put his hand on his chest. “I just got this shirt.” He always was amazing at lightening the mood. I pretended to hit him on the arm after which I got up. I took a bag with fake blood from the shop, and we had a ball splattering each other with blood.

  “One more problem,” I said, once we were happy with our look of ‘just-fed suckers.’

  “What’s that?”

  Looking Charlie in the eye, I sighed.

  “Julie’s group only has girls in it.”

  As he processed the information, his brows furrowed.

  “Oh no, I’m not dressing up as a girl. If that’s what you are thinking, you’re dead wrong. Crawling through human excrement, fine, but I am not dressing up as a girl!” Charlie was clearly upset. He turned around and walked away from me.

  I went after him and put my hand on his shoulder.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant that we’ll have to take our chances whether she’ll let you join her pack. We’ll see where we go from there.”

  He stopped. I let my hand rest on his shoulder but didn’t force him to turn around.

  When he finally did, his eyes were teared up. “I…I can’t…I don’t want…to…” His hand touched my arm and his eyes were pleading this time, trying to tell me something.

  “You don’t have to dress up, Smudge.” I smiled and took his hand. “Like I said, we’ll just have to wait and see what she has to say about it.”

  Charlie took a deep breath.

  “O…okay, that’s fine then. I can do that,” he said.

  I hugged him, and he put his arms around me.

  My dear, dear friend. You are not alone.

  Decisions

  We postponed leaving the dollar shop for as long as we could, but we knew we’d had to go to Julie’s pack at some stage. Back at the area in front of the dance hall, we found the same eerie sight we’d seen the night Sue had been taken. It was a gathering of victims, like dishes for a meal, surrounded by hungry looking suckers. Only this was no cold smorgasbord. This was a warm buffet.

  Charlie and I kept to the edge, trying not to attract any attention. Through the melee, I noticed Julie scanning the crowd for me and, when she spotted me, came skipping toward us. I mentally braced myself for possibly flunking the teeth test and smiled a wide grin at her when she came near.

  “Great! Your fangs have finally dropped,” she said. “Bloody painful, isn’t it.” She turned to Charlie with a big smile on her face. “Who’s your buddy?”

  “Julie, this is my friend Charlie. Charlie, this is my sister Julie.”

  Julie shook Charlie’s hand, and I saw her eyes drop down to his grip after which they conveyed their approval in my direction. She cocked her head to one side, and I knew she was assuming things as she always did when it concerned relationships.

  “How did you meet Kate?” she asked, her eyes back on Charlie again. I had no time to let her know she was wrong as my breath stuck in my throat, taken aback by the question. Images of Charlie ogling me while I undressed in the thrift shop flashed in front of my eyes. Charlie probably struggled with a vision of the same moment as he didn’t reply instantly.

  “Um, we used to be colleagues at school,” Charlie said as he recovered from
the awkward moment faster than I did. “We just bumped into each other in the town square.” He was such a good liar.

  Julie chatted away and asked Charlie all sorts of questions, like where he came from, what he had taught, and how long it had been since he was turned. I could tell Julie liked him. Charlie put on a good show and answered her questions without blinking. Until she asked whether he liked being in Duncan’s pack.

  “Um, I’m not in Duncan’s pack,” Charlie said. “I used to run with Caleb’s, but I got separated from them after the gathering last night. I’m pack-less at the moment, so to speak,” and he elbowed me.

  “Ah, yes, can Charlie possibly join your pack?” I twisted the corners of my jacket out of nervousness, rolling my left foot on its side. I felt like a little girl asking the dentist for lollies. Julie’s face drained of blood. She blinked at Charlie and then looked back at me again. Her expression was too tense, so disproportionate to the simplicity of the question.

  “Can I have a word with you in private?” she said as she pulled me aside.

  “Sure,” I said. I followed her a few paces, but when I stopped, she did a few more steps away from Charlie. I was ill at ease and looked back at Charlie. His frown and clenched jaw told me he was as anxious as I was. As Julie didn’t step back to me, I walked over to where she was.

  “I realize you only have girls in your pack—” I started, but she cut me off.

  “It’s not that. Well, not all of it.” She scanned our surroundings. If I was ill at ease, she looked like she was about to have chemotherapy. I’d never seen her so spooked before. She inspected her feet, glanced at Charlie, who stood there totally lost, and then looked me in the eyes. “You are really putting me in a predicament, you know.” I thought that stare was going right through me.

  “Why? What is it?” I asked. Goosebumps formed on my skin.

  She inhaled a deep breath through her nose and explained.

  “Duncan fancies me and has asked me to join his pack. He has helped me a lot with hunts these last few days, so I owe him. But I don’t love him, and I certainly don’t like the way he runs his pack. Besides, I want to keep my independence. So, I refused him with the excuse that I have a girls-only pack to take care of.”