Gilchrist set his bag down at the top of the stairs. He withdrew a battery-powered screwdriver and removed the lock on the door. The old wooden door swung open and we stepped out into a dark basement full of liquor crates. He turned around and shut the door.
“You should probably put the lock back on,” I said. “So they don't find that poorly-hidden mess of blood down there and start looking for a body.”
Gilchrist nodded. He put the lock back on the door. I sat on a crate of Crown Royale while he worked and tapped my foot, impatiently. When he was done he motioned for me to start up the stairs. I was almost free.
The door to the basement of the Crown Bar wasn't locked. It was quiet on the other side. I just hoped that we wouldn't have to explain ourselves to some poor surprised bar tender on the other side of that door. I know that if I was closing up after a long night at work, and two blood-smeared people with a bag of weapons came out of the cellar, I would call the cops. The last thing I needed was police.
The knob turned easily. I opened the door and was immediately met with the pink light of the rising sun, streaming in from the glass window at the front of the bar. I was frozen, one foot forward, one hand on the door. In a state like rigor-mortis, I was propped up by my stable stance. I couldn't move. Even my eyes were locked. I was dead.
How much time had passed? I realized now that I had no way of knowing how long I had been dead before coming back to Rawdon. I had taken the pill and within twenty minutes, Rawdon had taken my blood from me. It had worn off soon after we had started walking. That had to be at least six hours. We had worked for an hour in the tunnel before. Maybe two. We had walked for a long time in the tunnel, too. Then he had covered up the blood. Had that been to stall for time? I had wasted precious minutes making him put the lock back on the door. Had the entired night passed since we had gone into the museum?
Gilchrist gave me a push on the back. I fell forward, dead weight on the bar floor. He stepped over me and turned around. All I could do was stare straight ahead at Gilchrist's boots. He crouched down and put his hands on the floor, lowering his face into my line of sight. He had pulled the night vision goggles up to rest on his forehead. He was smiling.
“You didn't think I was going to let you walk out of here, did you? I came to get rid of a vampire, not trade one out for another.”
He pushed himself up and paced around my body. His shoes turned and pointed towards the front of the bar. “Good,” he mumbled. I heard the sound of sliding metal above me and then his feet turned back towards my corpse. “Did you think I hadn't figured it out? I'm not stupid, you know. There were little things,” he said. “The breathing, the blinking, such clarity in the dark, all the things you don't know to fake yet. But the real giveaway was your neck. It's flawless. A girl who's been bitten by a vampire twice in a week should have some injuries. Just thought you'd want to know what gave you away.”
He stepped towards me then and severed my head from my neck, ending my un-life. As my head rolled on the floor, I realized that there wasn't nearly as much blood as Rawdon left behind. My mouth flew open, my fangs extended, and then my soul was vomited from my body before swirling into a tempest of shadow and vanishing straight to hell.
The road outside my windshield vanished into a solid wall of white mist. Each curve was a surprise, revealed just feet before the front bumper of my car. Ahead, I saw a confusing plume of black smoke pouring out of the ground. As I approached it, the image clarified and sharpened down into the winter skeleton of a tree.
A cloud of dust rose up around my car as I parked in front of the house. I glanced up at the small square of mirror in my sun visor, noting the stubble on my face and the circles under my eyes. I hardly recognized my own reflection, so I closed the flap on the vanity mirror.
Gilchrist was waiting at the end of the snaking dirt driveaway. He leaned back against his car, eating pistachios and dropping the shells on the ground at his feet. I parked behind him and got out, making sure to bring my stake with me, just in case we found a surprise in a dark corner.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
“Your lead was like, ten minutes away. Cut me some slack.”
“Let's go.”
I knocked on the door. It was an old farm-style house, built at the turn of the century. There were white rockers lined up on the wide porch overlooking the field and the driveway. Directly behind the house were miles of hills and forests. Alabama.
Nobody answered, so I knocked again. Silence.
Gilchrist walked around the house, looking for basement windows.
“Windows still have clear glass?” I asked.
“Yep. Not that I expect them to have actually turned the master of the house.”
“Why not?”
“They've been a couples act for six-hundred years. Moving to America won't change that. They make some poor schmuck think he's about to join a threesome, and then they drink him together.”
“Nobody is answering,” I said.
“Pick the lock.”
“Are you sure?”
“Man up, and do it.”
I knelt down in front of the door knob and pulled my pick kit out of my coat. I slid the tension wrench into the lock while Gilchrist peeked in the front windows. “This is illegal,” I told him.
“So is murdering someone to drink their blood.”
I slipped my pick into the lock and felt around for the pins. One by one I pushed them up until the lock was open. I turned the wrench. The door opened. “Deadbolt wasn't done,” I shouted back. Gilchrist was right behind me.
He pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked inside. I looked around, but was satisfied to find that we wouldn't even be visible from the road with all of this fog. “Hello?” I called out. More silence.
Gilchrist walked immediately down the hall and found the master bedroom. He stopped in the doorway and shook his head. “Too late for this one,” he said.
I walked in the room after him and yelped in surprise. A thin, young man, maybe twenty years old, lay on a blood-stained comforter, naked. His body was covered with pairs of holes at every major artery. They had drank from his neck, his thighs, his elbows and wrists. His face was frozen in a look of final terror.
Gilchrist crossed the room and looked down at the body. He crossed himself, slipped his rosary from beneath his shirt, and muttered something under his breath. I closed my eyes and nervously fingered the raised scar on my cheek. I had always been a kid who liked to pick at bug bites and pimples. Six months after the injury, I still couldn't keep my fingers off of it. The same held true for every other scar I had earned that night.
“Shit. Can we go?” I asked. “We should call the police, anonymous tip. We found a body.”
“We will when we're done here,” Gilchrist replied. “He's been dead for only an hour. They might be close.”
“An hour?” I said, suddenly alert. “But the closest cemetary was like, thirty miles away.”
“Which is why they might be here. Or in a nearby house.”
The houses were spread far apart in this part of the country. There weren't a whole hell of a lot of options for a light-tight hiding space.
“There were no basement windows, but let's double-check,” he said.
“I bet the pantry is light-tight,” I added. “Walk-in closet?”
Gilchrist drew the UV gun from his belt and started around the house. I slipped a pair of gloves on and followed close behind him, stake ready in case we woke anything up. The house was fairly well lit by natural light, having been built before electric lights were readily available. We came up dry.
“Well, we'd better start looking elsewhere,” Gilchrist said. “You can call the cops when we're out of the yard.”
“Wait,” I said, remembering something I had seen in our trip around the house. I turned back to the master bedroom and the walk-in closet. Who laid down a throw rug in a closet? I stomped on the floor. Hollow.
“How'd you know to c
heck there?” Gilchrist asked, helping me pull the rug up.
“True Blood,” I said. “She hides the vampire under the floor in her closet.”
“True Blood?”
“It's a TV show about vampires. You really do live under a rock, huh?”
“You mean a TV show about a girl fucking vampires?”
I hesitated, “Yeah.”
Gilchrist shook his head. He looked around the closet and found a flathead screwdriver on the floor, possibly left for this purpose.
“It's quite good, actually,” I said.
“Right,” he pried the floor board up. There was a hiss. Gilchrist clicked the switch on his UV gun, casting a weak beam of artificial sunlight into the deep hole and freezing whatever had moved. “There's two of 'em,” he whispered, before lowering the floorboards and sealing off the hole. “I'm not climbing down there to meet them in the dark, but they won't be popping out to kill us so long as we leave this closet door open for the sunlight.”
“What do we do?” I asked.
“Hang on.” Gilchrist lifted it up and looked down into the hole, smiling. “Hello,” he said. “I'm Mr. Gilchrist. Heard of me?”
More hissing.
“Good.”
“And I'm Mr. Hunt,” I added, trying to sound mysterious, like some sort of secret agent.
“Cody,” Gilchrist said. Now Cody just didn't sound like a good name for a fierce vampire hunter.
“Now I know the names of the ones I'll kill,” said a thin voice from under the house.
“Right, about that. You're not going to really get the chance. I found your lair in daylight, dumb-fuck. Burn in hell!” He waved cheerfully and shut the floor again.
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
Gilchrist went to his bag and pulled out two glass bottles, two rags, and a tin can of gasoline. He set them up on the bedroom dresser and set to work.
“Molotov cocktail?” I asked, trying not to look at the bloodied body on the bed behind me. “Are you crazy?”
Gilchrist just laughed. “Go stand at the front door,” he said, “and when you hear me running, get to the car.”
“But the body, the victim...”
“He's already dead. Would you rather the police find the vampires after dark?”
I shook my head and went to the front door. I had gotten used to the fact that my mentor was half-crazy. He had been the one to find me on the kitchen floor of my own house, an hour after sunrise, laying in a puddle of my own blood.
I remembered waking up to find Gilchrist staring down at me. My face was cold and wet because he had just poured a cup of ice water on it.
“Ugh,” he had grumbled. “That'll keep you out of Abercrombie ads.” I sat up and touched my face, feeling the first scabs of my new wound. Rawdon Hale had dragged a fang down my face. He hadn't fed, only tortured. He had thought I knew where Kendall was.
My body was marked with similar scars, but they were easier to hide. Gilchrist went home to Boston. I quick-sold my house and quit my job. A month later he returned and started to train me. I had been with him since that day. Analyzing marketing ROI just didn't seem that important in the wake of what I had experienced. The world was bigger and darker than I had perceived. I was free from Kendall and free from Cheyenne. I think Gilchrist just wanted someone to keep him company.
I heard a crash and a woosh. Gilchrist came barrelling down the hall, carrying the second fire-bomb in his hand.
“What's that one for?” I asked.
“Insurance!” he threw it over his shoulder and pushed me out the door.
We heard screaming from below the house. Two voices cried out as they burned alive. I leaned on my car, panting, as the voices cut out. “We'd better... we'd better go,” I said. The fog was clearing, and I could just make out the blurred shape of a red car driving on the street below.
Gilchrist nodded. “Right, Cody,” he said. “Meet me at that breakfast place back about twenty miles, yeah?”
“Breakfast?”
“Sure. I'm hungry. Gotta fill up before we hit the road.”
“Where are we going?”
“Boston,” he said. “Time to introduce you to the Misses.”
Afterwards
Vampires have become increasingly popular over the past five or so years. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of my mother's minivan when I was in college, listening to her tell me that an article she had read was calling this book, Twilight, the next Harry Potter. I tried to read it. I really did. I just couldn't get over how many pages I had to listen to Bella, a non-descript character, whine because she had to move to Forks, despite the fact that her mother had told her that she didn't have to move. My friend Jackie loved the series (though she didn't love New Moon), but I could not get past the rough beginning.
When I read the first Sookie Stackhouse novels, I was doubtful. The trend of girls falling in love with misunderstood vampires gave me little hope. I only decided to give it a shot when I saw that the publication date preceded Twilight. I did love Interview with a Vampire, after all.
What I love about Sookie and True Blood, is the monstrosity of the vampires. They are not human. They are predators. When examining why I liked one vampire romance over the other, I realized that this fact, combined with how much stronger a character Sookie Stackhouse is, made True Blood fit the purpose of the vampire in literature. Vampires are predators and creatures of darkness. They are symbolic of death, temptation, and seduction. They drink blood; they feed off of the life force of innocents to maintain their immortality. Sparkly vampires with a heart of gold did not fit the purpose of vampires as mythology. Edward could have easily been a fairy and told the same story.
I decided that I wanted to tell a vampire romance as I thought it would play out. Even now, ten books into Charlainne Harris' series, I hold out hopes for Sam and Sookie. I wanted to write a book that was the anti-Twilight. I had very few details in mind, until I decided to do NaNoWriMo.
Preparing for NaNoWriMo, I started to flesh out the details of the characters. I examined what kind of girl would let herself be seduced by a corpse and what kind of corpse might seem appealing on paper. Gilchrist had always been a plan, but Cody, Geneva, and Noah were happy accidents. The end of this novel occurred to me as I was approaching completion. I usually do not rely on organic plot. I outline like woah. Most of the foreshadowing you will find was there from square one. I put the gun on the mantelpiece without planning to set it off in Act V, and then was delighted to find it when I looked back.
I respect everyone's right to read what they will, regardless of quality. I've seen Love Don't Cost a Thing six times, and I really can't defend that choice in regards to value. For some, Twilight is just the kind of book that they want to read and relate to. For others, I've written this book.
I hope you enjoyed the ride.
About the Author
Amy Leigh Strickland is a writer and teacher from Townsend, Massachusetts. She has a BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design and is currently working towards her Masters of Education at the University of Montevallo. Amy currently lives outside Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, Kyle and their terrier, Apollo.
Amy blogs about reading, writing, and roller derby at http://www.amyleighstrickland.com.
Olympia Heights: The Pantheon
by Amy Leigh Strickland
“The kinds of events that once took place will by reason of human nature take place again.”
-Thucydides
i.
A rising fog outlined the sun's golden rays.
In a silent forest shrill giggles echoed
off the slender gray slanting trunks of Carobs.
They flew through the mist.
The sun's spotlight pursued the lusty god's prey.
On soft cool grass he ran a humoring pace,
at her heels to keep the game interesting.
Then a burst of speed.
He wrapped his arms around her naked white flesh
>
and his soft brown beard tickled her slender neck.
The chase was up and the prize was softly kissed
as they tumbled down.
“Quick decisions are unsafe decisions.”
-Sophocles
I.
Zach Jacobs leaned on the wall in the tiled hallway of Olympia Heights Senior High. He was a tall, broad-shouldered teenager with brown hair and a smile that disarmed almost any girl who saw it. Zach Jacobs had bulked up during the summer and now, during the first official week of the football season, he was attracting a lot of attention. Not all of it was from his girlfriend.
Zach’s hand was planted on the wall, high behind the head of a skinny blonde girl with too much makeup and not enough skirt. He was dressed in a pressed, collared shirt and light green tie because it was a game day. The skinny blonde pretended to be picking some lint off of the tie as she gave it a flirtatious tug.
The girl’s expression changed from a careless smile to frightened and alarmed in an instant. Zach’s tie was dropped and the blonde sputtered, “Oh look. June. Bye!” She ducked under his arm and headed for home room. She cleared the scene of the crime just as June’s eyes caught sight of her boyfriend. The pair had barely avoided the violent storm that was the jealous fury of June Herald. The look of surprise and guilt on Zach’s face was apparent for a flash before he pulled himself together and stood up. June made straight for him.
“Hey, baby,” he said, leaning down to kiss her. June made a graceful dodge, turning her cheek to him.
”Feeling better?” she asked as she started to pull a printed outline out of her binder to hand to Zach. He had given her a story about having a cold the night before to avoid working on their U.S. History presentation. He’d had other plans that involved a long-legged brunette.
Kissing Corpses Page 11
