by Chism, Holly
“Yep. I always wanted a library as a kid. Now I’ve got one.” I sighed, looking around the room, then moved to turn on the lamps I’d set here and there. “Hey, turn off the overhead light. It’s nicer with just the lamps, and we can sit wherever you want to talk about stuff.”
She smiled, flipped the light switch off (and, with the strategically placed lamps around, we weren’t suffering a lack of light—just also not suffering the overheads in our eyes when we didn’t need them), and headed for the chair on the side of the fireplace next to the arch into the living room. “I can’t wait until the weather turns cold enough for a fire in a couple more weeks,” she squealed.
“Heh. Neither can I. I’m almost always a little cold, but hey,” I said, shrugging. “If I wasn’t, then I wouldn’t need the help.”
“So, what is it you’ll need me to do?” she asked.
I sat in the other chair, and kicked up the foot rest. “Well, not that much. Basic stuff. You know, grab the mail, call around for repair quotes for things that need fixed, let in repair guys. Get us some cable, now that they’ve got it reaching out this far from city limits—or maybe city limits are creeping out this way. One or the other. Answer phones if I’m not up. Stuff I can’t really do because it happens during daylight hours when I’m unavailable.”
“Why me?” she asked, her voice small. She didn’t look at me, instead looking down at her hands and picking at a hangnail. “Why did you even step in to help me in the first place?”
“Well…that’s kinda interconnected,” I said. “First off, I purely hate rapists. Hate them. The vampire that turned me was a rapist. Raped me, then ate me. If I catch one that’s like that—the kind that are out-and-out bastards, rather than the simple opportunists whose ways can be changed by force, if need be—I kill them. World’s a better place without them,” I spat.
She shrugged and nodded without looking at me. “Can’t argue with that. Why me, then? I know you answered earlier, but I still don’t get it. I’ve spent most of my life being told that I’m not good enough. Why me? Why not somebody…better?”
“Because you didn’t run.” I paused, then corrected myself. “Well, you did, but only so you could get your hands on a weapon of some kind, and you actually came back. You came back, saw me feeding, saw me killing, and didn’t freak out about me being what I am.” I sighed. “You are the first. The only one like that I’ve ever met. Not the first one who saw me feeding, but the first that didn’t freak out. The first that didn’t run after they saw me for what I am, and the first that still tried to help me, even if I didn’t need it. Everybody else that’ve found out about me has reacted…badly. They’ve run screaming, either away from me, or toward me to try to kill me. One of the two, with no variation. I’ve had to figure out, over the years, how to modify their memories—something weird I found out, early on, is that if I want to, I can hypnotize pretty much anybody that looks me in the eyes, and plant suggestions without speaking—so that I don’t get killed for good.”
“Damn,” she said. She glanced around the room again, then yawned suddenly. “God, what time is it?”
I glanced down at my watch. “Quarter past midnight,” I said. “Sounds like you need to go to bed. We can talk more tomorrow night.”
“Sounds good,” she agreed, pushing herself to her feet. “I’ve got to call the phone company, tomorrow, and get my business phone ported to my personal cell phone, and that number dropped. Or something. And I’ll need to call my daddy and let him know what’s going on.”
“Grab some towels and stuff before you head up,” I suggested. “Take a nice, hot bath when you get up in the morning. It’ll help you settle in, and give you a chance to plan out your day.”
“I think I’ll do that,” she said, stifling another yawn. “I haven’t had a bath in ages.”
What Do People Who Don’t Eat People…Eat?
I was quietly relieved when Andi pushed herself to her feet and left the room. I heard her puttering around in the linens closet, where I kept the towels, pillow cases, and sheets, then making her way up the stairs. Her footsteps weren’t heavy, but they were slow. I could hear the adrenalin from earlier in the day drain out by the way her steps sounded so…draggy…when she went down the hall upstairs. I didn’t hear the door close, but I could hear the click of the doorknob catching the plate. And I could still hear her heartbeat, if I focused.
It was nice, in a way. I didn’t feel quite so alone in my home, anymore.
In another way, it was nerve-wracking. I wasn’t alone in my home after twenty-eight plus years of living by myself, and after twenty years of not having close neighbors in my apartment.
It had been a while since I’d spent any significant amount of time around people when I wasn’t hunting, and I’d never had anyone in my house, in spite of having prepared for it. I dealt with my clients and their investments all online, or by phone. Land-line phone, not that Skype thing that so many people are discussing all over the place. All of my social interaction—except for hunting, and that wasn’t really social interaction, as such—was online.
Besides. It was just about time for the markets in Dubai to be opening. Time to go earn some more money for me by making money for my clients.
I was pretty sure most of my clients were upstanding citizens who were shut ins, just like they told me. (Actually, I was pretty sure that most of my clients were figures in organized crime using my services to launder money, but I haven’t given half a shit about that since I realized that they were the only clients I could get, since I couldn’t meet with them in person—which meant I couldn’t identify them if they, or I, were arrested.) Money is money, though, and everybody needs it to comfortably live.
So to speak.
I sat down and waited patiently while my machine powered up, then flicked the switch on my coffee pot I’d set up yesterday morning before I went to bed for the day. I’d had to learn to drink it black after I’d been turned (note to self: check to see if Andi wants creamer before I go shopping). Nothing with any sort of nutritional value—even empty calories—did anything but make me sick. Really sick. Throwing up until there was nothing left, and I was throwing up odd fluid that made me feel like I was bleeding to death internally, sick. Having to feed off schedule and in a great deal more volume than usual to heal, sick. So, I stuck with coffee, water, hot tea, and unsweet iced tea. Better to do without what I remembered enjoying drinking than experiencing that ever again.
Yeah. No calories meant no alcohol, too. Better check with Andi to see if she drinks, and what she drinks.
And I’d better come up with a household food budget, too. After I wander around in Wal-Mart later, figuring up prices…I hadn’t shopped for groceries in twenty years, either.
I turned back to my computer, and pulled up a document to write a few notes in. Shopping lists, to do lists, questions lists, stuff like that. And then I sat back, wondering if I’d need to figure out a way to secure my night time hidey-hole.
Hmm…best not. It might be better to either build another one, or put in a second storm shelter. I’d hate for my new housemate to have to ride out a tornado in one of the hall closets.
I decided to leave Andi a note to get a second shelter put in. Hell, after that, I could have her get someone in to turn my little cement coffin into a basement bedroom suite
A housemate. It’s been so long since I lived with anyone. I hadn’t been close to anyone before I’d died, not after college, and had stayed in the studio apartment not much bigger or nicer than a dorm room (which was what I could afford) that I’d rented during college for three more years while I built a client base. Then, I’d rented a slightly nicer but still crappy one-bedroom apartment for a two more years, and had had the intention of moving up again within another year…but then it all came crashing down.
I’d been at one of those stupid, semi-required, office networking functions, smiling ‘til my face hurt and mingling with clients current and prospective, when something had
caught my eye. I don’t know what did it, or why I followed it out of that party, but that’s what changed my entire existence.
I remembered sensation flashes of the rape—but not really what my attacker looked like, beyond general color (dirty blonde hair) and that he was nasty. I remembered fighting with everything I had, and losing. I remember the feel of the dirty, greasy hair I’d pulled in fighting. I remembered the stale taste of unwashed skin from where I’d taken a chunk out of his arm. I remembered pain. I remembered dying.
And I remembered waking up. And sitting up. And cracking my forehead and nose on the ceiling of the unit they’d stuck me in in the morgue.
I don’t remember how I’d gotten out of the unit. It may have been the first, unconscious, desperate, terrified use of the new abilities I’d gained (some telekinesis, something else related to telepathy, a dash of a few other things that made survival easier). I remembered looking down and thinking, “I died. I’m dead. I’m—woah, I’m naked.” I remembered noticing that I didn’t feel my heart beating, that I wasn’t breathing.
I remember a young man in green scrubs with floppy brown curls and black, rectangular, plastic framed glasses wandering in, headphones on, and Walkman tucked into the pocket on his smock. I remember thinking, then saying, “Um…don’t freak out,” as he looked up at me.
And I remember thinking as his eyes rolled up and he went down, “Of course. He would faint. I would have fainted in his position. Hmm. I need clothes. He’s got clothes. And money. And I am so sorry for this, but you’re going to be known as the creepy necrophiliac for the rest of your time here.”
Yeah. Guilt over my first robbery. It didn’t last much longer than the guy’s job did, after security found him in his boxers in the cooler room. And I haven’t really felt guilty, since. Not about robbing people, nor yet about anything else. Why should I?
Then again, I’ve only stolen from those who’ve royally pissed me off by trying to rape people they found alone at night, ever since. Sometimes “people” was me, but I’d usually carefully set that up when I saw someone trolling for victims. And given that those would-be rapists were invariably dead before I robbed them? Corpses don’t care. Nor do they need money. And I’d only taken cash, never credit cards (since those bastards can be traced).
I shivered as I remembered some of the nightmares I’d had when I’d started dreaming again, after I’d been raped. I hadn’t had many dreams before they stopped when I got enough distance from where I was attacked. I’d assumed I was reliving my own trauma, in a way. A weird way. And I thought that once I’d finally dealt with it, they’d stop. They hadn’t been frequent, but they were disturbing even decades later. I hadn’t dreamed in almost twenty years, though, thankfully.
I glanced at the clock, then stared. I’d been working and thinking for nearly four hours straight. If I was going to go get basic necessities tonight, I needed to leave soon. It was about a half an hour to town one way, and I didn’t know how long shopping was going to take.
I pushed myself to my feet, and headed out through the door. Then stopped. Glanced up the stairs. Headed up the stairs, as I heard her heartbeat and breathing change, and tip-toed to the master bedroom door. I figured if she was having a nightmare, I could knock and ask if there was something in particular she wanted me to get, break her out of it. I’d have given anything to have someone wake me out of my nightmares after I was raped. It was a close enough thing for her that she was likely going to dream about it for a while. I listened for a few moments, waiting to see if she was going to wake on her own, or not. I could hear her sit up in bed, swing herself out of it, and make her way into the bathroom, so I guessed she’d woke up okay.
She sounded okay. I could ask her and make sure tomorrow, I decided. I was pretty sure she’d not want me checking on her tonight. No matter how well we’d unexpectedly hit it off, we were still strangers to each other.
And I needed to get going, if I wanted to have anything for her in the morning. I made my way back downstairs, and into my office to grab my wallet (and the cash I’d taken earlier in the evening) from where I’d pulled it out of my pocket when I’d sat down to work. Maybe some could sit on a lump without getting back pain, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure if it was my size (small), or my build (scrawny and bony), or that I was actually conscious of it in ways that other people were able to block out. I tucked it into my purse I retrieved from the closet on my way past and out the door to my car.
The drive back into town was much nicer than the drive home. I wasn’t sharing the road with harvesters or loaded trucks that were perhaps a spot wider than these country chip-and-sealed used-to-be-dirt roads were comfortable for sharing with. The sky was dark and clear, showing a thick sprinkling of stars—though the town was a college town, most of it shut down with the bars at about one in the morning on a week day. And we were a little farther into Thursday, at this point. Which meant light pollution was still at a minimum, and the night sky was glorious.
But the Wal-Mart Supercenter is always open. And the stars were fewer the closer I got to its well-lit parking lot.
I was able to park just barely past the handicapped spots, only yards from the door. I made it in at the same time as the local paper’s delivery guy, a soft-bodied guy with a widow’s peak in his dark hair made even more pronounced by the receding hairline on either side, and muddy brown eyes. I stepped up and tapped him on the shoulder. He glanced back and grinned.
“Hey, Meg. Just getting off work?” he said, handing one each of Wednesday’s and Thursday’s editions over to me.
“Yeah, Ed.” I pulled a face, then fake yawned. The yawns wouldn’t be real for another hour and a half. “They’ve got me working swing shift again. I’m gonna get a few things, go home, get a couple hours of sleep, and then you won’t see me again until Saturday or Sunday.”
“They got you working tomorrow and Friday, then switching you back to nights?” he asked, his face going slack with shocked dismay. “What do you do?”
I shrugged. “Stocks. Sometimes the best buys are with local markets, sometimes they’re with markets on the other side of the world. We all kind of take turns with who’s on what shift, watching which market.”
“You’re with a company?” he asked. “Which one? I don’t like dealing with companies that treat their employees like shit.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly, “but it’s not a big company. There’s only two or three of us doing this, all in one office, with a small client base. We’re not doing that great. It’s why we’re doing this. And we’re all part owners, so we all kinda volunteered for this.”
I’d feel guilty for lying, if Ed wasn’t such a self-righteous prick. He had been currently in college for as long as I’d known him (five or six years, now), though whether he was an undergrad or in grad school was beyond what I cared about, majoring in literature to film and cultural studies, is a self-proclaimed feminist, and a frat-house drunk date rapist (as in: he only does that when he’s drunk, but he’s drunk a lot).
And it wasn’t like he’d ever have any kind of money to invest. The best he could hope for with those degrees was what he had: a job delivering papers to the local stores that carried them (and switching them out for the ones that didn’t sell from the day before) in the pre-dawn, and a Starbucks barista until noon, on the days he didn’t have class.
Personally, I thought that was every day (he was either born without class, or nobody had beaten it into him growing up), but what did I know? I’ve only munched on him half a dozen times, not that he’s remembered any of it. Blackout drunk makes it so easy to fix the memories. But I am getting a little tired of having to rescue airheads from this guy, especially since the suggestion to stick with the sober and willing aren’t sticking.
Actually, he may not have ever gotten any willing, sober action at all. Might explain the drunk rapes.
I grabbed a cart and dropped the papers into the basket, heading for the grocery section. I needed more coffee. I was almost
afraid to get anything else…I didn’t remember, anymore, what I used to like to eat for breakfast, when I remembered to eat breakfast in the first place, and had no idea what to get for someone I’d just met. I decided on a few staples, but nothing more than crackers and ramen, box macaroni, and summer sausage—a small one. Oh, and toilet paper, paper plates and a small box of plastic cutlery. Nothing that needed to go into the fridge. Mostly because I figured if I got anything perishable tonight, I’d have to go get a cooler and ice. I’m not sure whether or not the fridge still worked.
Hell, for that matter, I wasn’t sure if the stove still worked. Or the dishwasher.
The toilets I was sure of, because I flushed the two that were in the upstairs bathrooms once a month when I cleaned them and the rest of the bathrooms they sat in.
The downstairs toilet? Yeah, I’d braved falling through the floor (it had happened to others—the holes were still there), and twisted the shut-off valve to turn off its water supply. It wasn’t getting cleaned until the floor got replaced.
Which I’d been unable to do, and unable to set up.
Which was why I’d hired Andi.
Which was why I was buying groceries at half past four in the morning, with dawn three hours away.
Which was, honestly, one of the best times to shop at Walmart. I practically had the place to myself.
I didn’t understand why I was getting that creeping, uncomfortable feeling I usually associated with crowds, but there it was.
