Odd Stuff

by Nelson, Virginia

  Slate tile floors drew my eye to notice that, in the kitchen, Mia had all the modern conveniences. True to her Gothic taste, though, she’d painted the walls black, dotting them with star-like white specks—even on the ceilings. I think they may have actually represented constellations, but I didn’t know any constellations well enough, other than the Big Dipper, to tell for sure. The dark wood finished the room off making it all warm and inviting somehow. I opened the black refrigerator to peer inside curiously.

  I found milk, granola, fruit, vegetables and an array of other healthy foods. Blech. But Vickie would not go hungry. This was, like, Vickie heaven.

  One of the drawers, of course in black, was locked and I looked on my key ring for an appropriate key. Ah-ha, fridge.

  Hospital bags of blood lay in the locked drawer, looking horribly out of place in the pretty kitchen. I poked one with my finger and it sloshed like you might expect a bag of blood to slosh while being stored in a refrigerator drawer. Why did Mia have blood bags in her fridge? Oh, please. Let me guess. For her vampire friend. The freak couldn’t actually drink human blood? I stuck my tounge out at it in distaste, as if the bag of blood could see my derision. I was tempted to pitch the bags in the garbage, when Vickie called, “Mom!” and I changed my mind.

  I did not want her to know we were staying with someone who kept blood in their refrigerator. If I threw it away, she might see it. Okay, so I lock it back up and get rid of it tomorrow, I told myself. I also made a mental note to have a conversation with Mia about the keeping of blood in one’s refrigerator…

  Satisfied I would not have to shop until tomorrow, since I could just order a pizza for me and Vickie would eat most anything that Mia had, I followed Vickie’s voice down a hall done in big prints of Greek goddesses.

  The room on the end was Mia’s, which meant that the other three doors were the bathroom and the two bedrooms. I opened one and found a huge black sunken tub. Nice. Candles were plentiful in here, too, near bowls full of potpourri and I remembered Mia was a scent freak. She loved anything smelly. I smiled again at being back in her world, even if she wasn’t here to share it with me. Her towels hung neatly, all maroon, fluffy and looking like they had never been used. There must be good money in the freakishly weird market.

  Next was the guest room and I could see Mia had cleaned and redecorated just for me. She painted the small space in blues, the color of my eyes, and had placed fresh flowers in a creamy white vase on the windowsill. Tears threatened again.

  The next room, by process of elimination, had to be the spare room and the origin of Vickie’s calls. I opened the door and grinned.

  Also redone, but a little off in nailing the attempt to make Vickie feel at home. Mia repainted the room soft pink and decorated heavily with teddy bears and ballerinas. The quilt even had A-B-C blocks on it spelling Victoria. I smirked at Vickie.

  “Mom, this is a baby room. I can’t bring people in here.”

  I laughed. “But you couldn’t possibly make new friends, or so you said, anyway.”

  “Mom, seriously.”

  I forced down the rest of my laughter. “We can move some stuff from your old room in and hang some posters and you won’t even notice till we get a place of our own. We can put Naked Jonas’s—”

  “Naked Brothers and Jonas Brothers, Mom.”

  “Whatever, we put him over the teddy bears and we put Aaron McCartney—”

  “Jesse McCartney, Mom, god, you have no taste in music—”

  “Whatever, Vickie. We put his big blond head over the kittens and it will be fine.”

  She thumped back on the bed. “Just go work. I’ll come down if I need something.”

  She proceeded to plug in her iPod and tune me out to some fluffy boy band and the ever present hand-held video games on the tablet. I hated that stupid toy. She played that thing more than she read, lately. I could punch her dad for getting a tablet for a ten year old. Besides, I wanted one.

  I kissed her forehead and headed down the hall to dump my backpack onto Mia’s huge bed. Black silk sheets and a red silken spread were covered with at least ten pillows, and I giggled a little at the thought of sleeping in such a suggestive bed. James, my ex-husband, was a lawyer. We had not shared a suggestive bed. We had a sensible bedroom, tans and neutral tones for a calming environment, blah blah blah. He and the podiatrist probably had handcuffs and a torture chamber. Men. Disgusted with myself for traveling down that well-worn trail of thought again, I turned to leave the room.

  Shutting the door, I could have sworn I heard something in the room, and I opened it again to look.

  Nope, nothing. Writing it off as exhaustion, I stepped back toward Vickie’s room. “Brat child,” I called.

  She looked up and took her earbud out of one ear.

  “Here. Do not use up all the minutes.” I tossed her my spare cell phone, the one that had belonged to her dad. Guilt was an excellent parental motivator. Dr. Phil would hit me right about now.

  “No way! You said there was no way you would give me my own phone!”

  “Yeah, well, no calling back to Pennsylvania after nine, and use it to get a hold of me.”

  She leaped off the bed and hurled herself at me. “You are the greatest mom ever, you know that? We will make this work, I swear. I will do so good at school, and I will—”

  “Okay, okay, enough with the promises that you’ll never keep. You run the minutes up or eat all the data on my plan, and you won’t have a phone. Not kidding, young lady.”

  “Yes, mom!”

  She bounced back to her bed and began playing with the ring tones.

  I bounced a little myself as I jogged back down the stairs. Who knew? Give a kid a cell phone and become a hero for a day. Eat me, Phil.

  Walking back into the shop, I curled up with the spiral notebook and waited for customers to come pouring in.

  And waited.

  By seven-thirty that evening, I had read the entire notebook. I knew nothing about anything I had read. I think I could have read a VCR manual and understood more about what I was reading than this mish-mash Mia had left me. Tonight, I had the ghost hunting thing and I needed to stop at the Natural Foods store and pick up some iron supplements for someone named Marcus.

  Tomorrow, I needed to get some munchies for the “circle.” What was the circle anyway? There were long lists of things like “the circle” that Mia assumed I would understand without explanation. She was wrong. I was trying not to become annoyed with Mia, but it was increasingly hard not to become frustrated with the void of information she left by disappearing.

  She mentioned I should try to steer clear of Vance because I was his type. As if it mattered to me if I were some jerk’s type! Newly divorced after a year of divorce court—a man was the last thing on my mind. Kind of like giving birth makes you okay with not having sex for six weeks…divorce made me okay with avoiding males for at least six years.

  One couple came in while I read, looking for books on astral projection. I pointed to the shelves, having no idea what astral projection was or why anyone needed a book on it. After browsing for a few minutes, they held the book and a white candle out to me. “Is this a good candle for projection?” the woman wanted to know.

  I sniffed the candle, which smelled like vanilla and spice. Nice. I flipped it over and looked at the tag on the bottom. Ten bucks for a freaking votive candle! Besides that, the tag read, Astral Projection Candle.

  I handed it back. “Yup.”

  “Harv, go grab another one.”

  Harv did, and I rang up the candles and the book, which came to a whopping forty-six dollars. Good grief. No wonder Mia’s apartment was so nice.

  By nine, I had fed Vickie and had her in bed. I was waiting on Sven, but surprisingly the coma I had been considering—to make the time go by faster—was forestalled by a rush of customers.

  First, three teenage girls came in and dumped fifty-eight seventy-five on some rocks and incense. Then, two very creepy men bought a
crystal ball and four wands for four-eighty-eight. Like four-hundred-eighty-eight dollars. Finally, Sven showed up, just as a woman asked me about our jade selection.

  Sven waved me away from the counter. “Go make sure Vickie is asleep, and I will take care of the shop for the last hour.”

  “Thanks. It’s insane, the stuff these people buy.”

  He snorted in laughter and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Honey. These are the real ones. The ones during the day are the tourists. At night, the real boogie men come in to shop.”

  Ah-ha, I thought, and ran away from the crazy people with neverending wallets.

  Peeking in on Vickie, I smiled at the sound of her soft snoring. My heart warmed a little and I breathed a little easier. So long as I heard that familiar sound, all was right with my world. I crept in and attempted to take her iPod. She rolled over and grumbled in her sleep. Oh, well.

  I crept back down the hall then stopped mid-creep. The refrigerator door stood open. Funny, I hadn’t noticed it when I came through the first time. Vickie must have had a late night yen for yogurt.

  Pushing the door closed, I hit something.

  Or someone, as it turned out.

  The man looked like he had died last week. Sunken eyes glittered, surrounded by shadows so deep they looked like bruises. They glowed. Shit you not, his eyes glowed, like he wore glowsticks for contact lenses. The eerie blue shone out from the bruised waxy, white skin. His face seemed dried out somehow, pulling his skin tight across his prominent cheek bones. The pale white raisin skin left his lips pulled back in a grimace which showed teeth that had horribly distended canines. A knotted black mass of hair hung to the waist of it, dust and God knows what tangled in the gnarly mess. Either mud or dried blood clumped on its clothes, and either seemed equally likely.

  He stunk. Like death. Like dog shit. Like dead dog shit.

  All of this took less than a second to imprint on my mind as I shrieked and fell gracelessly to my ass. I scrambled in a crab walk as far as I could away, until my ass hit the far wall.

  Two seconds into my encounter with whatever rummaged in the refrigerator, It hissed at me. It seemed wrong, somehow, to think of this creature as a him. It wasn’t a him. It was a nightmare.

  I shrieked again in terror. Not that screaming did much good the first time, but it seemed to be the only thing I could think to do right then.

  It came at me. I dove for the butcher block full of knives, but the Thing was faster. I found myself pinned to the counter. Before I could think, It had whirled me around and had me pinned to the wall, facing It.

  So this is how I’m going to die.

  I concentrated on breathing as the monster’s cold, slim fingers moved at my waist, fumbling at my jeans. Pinching my eyes closed, I breathed in the stink of the monster. The fingers slid a bit down my thigh, and I wondered if I was going to get raped before It ate me. Monsters never raped first then ate the victim in the movies. As my mind tried to figure this out, I half-noticed the hand found my key ring and attempted to remove it.

  I shrieked for the third time, and the Thing spoke. “Open your bloody eyes.”

  Huh. The monster spoke. I tried to open my eyes. Nope, can’t do it. When I was a little girl, I was sure that so long as my eyes were closed and every part of my body hid under the blanket—no air even getting in—the monsters couldn’t get me. Some part of my childish belief came back now. If I didn’t open my eyes, it wasn’t happening.

  “Open your eyes, dammit.”

  Its voice sounded like rusty air, hardly any sound at all. Just a raspy sound barely forming words. I shivered at the lack of humanity in the sound and fear choked me. “I can’t.” I finally managed and was happy I still had a voice at all. When I spoke, I was hardly louder than the creature.

  “Why the hell not? I can’t get it off. Take it off.”

  Take it off. Oh God, I was going to get raped before It ate me.

  “Girl! Do you hear me? Take it off before, ohhh.” The last part came out a sigh. “Type O positive.”

  Huh? Lips nuzzled at my neck. The reek worsened and the nasty cloud of hair tickled my face. I choked on the rank, musty smell of him and whimpered. The door leading downstairs opened, and I finally managed to pry apart my eyelids. Sven barged into the room. “O-mi-God, Vance!”

  The creature murmured into my neck. I wondered why Sven was calling for Mia’s friend when we had a situation, here. I flapped my arm at Sven. “Sven! Help! Run away! Get Vickie and run away! Help!” I wasn’t sure what I wanted.

  Sven caught the monster by the shoulder and pulled him back like he weighed nothing. Then again, to Sven, maybe the monster didn’t. “Dude! Everyone thought you died!” Sven hugged the monster thing.

  Okay, I fell asleep because the store was so slow, and I am having a dream. A very weird dream.

  “Can’t you smell her?” The thing asked, trying to get to me. I jumped on the countertop and backed up to the cupboard doors, one foot sliding into the sink.

  “What?” Sven reached up and grabbed the key ring off the belt loop of my jeans. He pulled the Thing to the fridge and unlocked the drawer that held all of the blood. “Dude, why didn’t you just rip the friggin’ drawer out?”

  The Thing dug its teeth into the bag, gulping frantically.When the bag was emptied, the Thing threw it in the garbage and gracefully wiped his face on his arm. “I did not want to ruin Mia’s pretty kitchen. Gimme another bag.”

  I stared at the creature. Is it just me or is It looking more human? Yes, the face was fuller and a rosy color tinged the monster’s skin. Even Its hair glistened more. The monster’s lips filled out into sensual curves. Long, curling lashes framed heavily-lidded eyes and enhanced a graceful brow. The Thing in the kitchen transformed in less than five minutes from dead looking monster to Greek rockstar god.

  Somehow the transformation made the Thing more terrifying and less real all at once, which somehow worked out as a mood changer for me. I found myself making a transformation of my own—from terrified blubbering idiot to pissed off—in less time than it took the Thing to finish the second bag.

  I jumped off the counter. With a butcher knife in one hand and a steak knife in the other, I lunged at the Thing.

  Sven pulled at my arm. “What are you doing? Janie!”

  I whirled on him, shaking my knife in front of me automatically, now in Sven’s huge face. “What the hell is that thing?”

  Before I could blink, I was on my back, steak knife arm coming up automatically and hitting something. As I got the wind back that had been knocked out of me, I realized that the knife was stuck in the creature. I tried to gather my wits and catch up on what was going on. My hand had been in a fist, knife pointed down, so when I fell, I drove it home into the hollow between the Thing’s neck and collarbone. Now, I looked into Its eyes. The monster’s body pinned me to the floor. Its very firm, very healthy body. A shiver that was not entirely fear slid like velvet down my spine. The creature smirked above me, his blue eyes knowing. He shifted his weight, making his more intimate parts brush mine, and caught the knife just as I released it. Tugging it out, blood gushed to the site and poured onto me.

  Nauseated and slightly dizzy, I heard It say as my eyes closed, “I am a vampire, love, what else?”

  CHAPTER Two

  Rolling over on the sleek sheets, I buried my face deeper into the soft, silken pillow. Mm, mm. Something smelled really good, like steak and soap. My stomach growled at the thought, and I considered getting up to get something to eat, but I discarded the notion since I was deliciously comfortable. Stretching, I encountered something even softer than the sheets. Curling my fingers and furrowing my brow, I tried to identify it without opening my eyes. Whatever I touched slid through my fingers like water, but wasn’t wet. Maybe I was still dreaming.

  I remembered something about a dream. Monsters in the refrigerator. I chuckled. Maybe I should take up writing, with an imagination like that.I opened my eyes and blinked. A face lay on the pillow nex
t to mine in the bed, forehead nearly touching my own.

  And reality, or unreality as the case may be, came crashing back.

  Breathing hard, I took in his restored features closely. A long, slender and sculpted face with flawless creamy white skin stared back at me. His sharp-boned jaw saved him from appearing feminine. His eyes glittered at me, an unrelenting sky blue. True blue, my grandmother would have called them. His face spoke of perhaps German ancestry, but the hair made me think Black Irish.

  Speaking of the hair, the jet black silkiness put my own to shame. My fingers tingled with the memory of how that hair slid through them. As a matter of fact, black hair spread across a good portion of Mia’s bed, like some big, living blanket. He reminded me of a rock star. I froze in place, not even sure I was breathing. Apparently, neither was it. “Breathe, Janie. Just breathe.”

  I sucked in air. It knew my name. Screaming seemed out of the question. I had seen twice how fast this thing moved. By the time I got out “eek,” it could have me pinned…again.

  Good point, Janie! It had me pinned twice already and had not eaten me. Maybe It wasn’t going to. I stared at It, and It stared back.

  This so was not happening.

  Breathe in, breathe out. I chanted the words in my head and tried to get my train of thought back on track. So, this is a vampire. Supposedly. I didn’t believe in vampires, so maybe I had gone insane. Made sense, really. Stress from the divorce…newly a single mom. Maybe I had cracked under the pressure.

  Having come up with a believable reason why I was in bed with a vampire helped. So, I’m insane. What next? Did I need to tell someone, so they could lock me up or whatever? They still keep crazy people somewhere, don’t they? I remembered reading a book in which they put the crazy person away—maybe something about a cannibal?—so they must still do that.