Each figure places a bundle in one of the panniers, pausing only long enough to unwrap the single blanket, carefully splaying the edges until they hang limply over the sides.
Without a further glance, the figures straighten and retreat through the doorway. When the final one has entered the Ward, the door closes.
She waits.
The closest row of panniers remains empty, so none of the figures have noticed her. And now it is too late.
They, too, cannot interfere.
None of the shapes in the panniers move. She realizes that—just as she had been—they have been tranquilized, drugged, nothing too strong, certainly nothing to taint the blood, but sufficient that there are no small cries, no sudden intakes of breath.
Along the fence, the eyes draw nearer, nearer.
She shuffles her way until she reaches the first blanket. She reaches up and touches its smoothness, then she stands.
Just as the first of the eyes vaults the fence.
There is a moment of panic as her mind reels with the force of her decision.
Then calmness as she stands, raises her eyes to the sky, and bares her throat.
It is pleasant.
There is even calmness as the fangs sink into her vein and begin sucking.
She is conscious long enough to hear a symphony—or cacophony—of sucking sounds all around her.
She does not know if she will receive the short sleep or the long death.
What is worse, she does not truly care.
* * * *
She is not the first. Nor will she be the last.
What is important is that the Accommodation still holds.
THE ART OF THE SMILE, by John Gregory Betancourt
“C’mere, pup,” Papa called from the cellar workroom one day. Bounding, ever happy, I rushed to his side.
He had a fresh, dead body stretched out on the marble slab (“marble ’cause it washes so well,” he always used to say), and it was a man this time, maybe forty or fifty years old, naked beneath the peeled back rubber sheet. Hit by a car, I guessed from his knocked-about look, dead fast. He was a bag of broken china inside, and it would be Papa’s job to get him presentable for the viewing before the funeral.
Papa began massaging all the bits and pieces back into place in the man’s arms and legs, working with a deft speed I did not think I would ever be able to match. I wandered down to the feet and bent over to read the tag wired onto his big toe: John P. Connors.
“Is he still warm?” I asked.
“We don’t get many still warm,” Papa said. “Feel.”
Trembling, I touched the back of one dead wrist. Cool, not cold, little better than me. I looked up at Papa’s dead black eyes, the sagging flesh around his long mouth and jaw, the sharp hugeness of his teeth.
“Cold,” I said. “Dead awhile.”
“Eat,” he told me, still working.
I raised the dead man’s limp wrist to my lips, bit gently, and began to suck thick, coagulated blood from the twin punctures my teeth made. Meanwhile Papa began massaging the chest bones to remove a few odd-shaped lumps that would show even beneath a shirt and a suit coat.
The wrist went dry. I put it down. It did little to satisfy my hungers, but it would keep me alive, as it kept Papa alive. Dead bodies were safe bodies, as he always said.
Finishing the chest, Papa stood back to admire his work. Mr. Connor’s face would be next, I knew; Papa always saved faces for last.
Often the bodies arrived with expressions of terror or pain frozen in place—terror at sure knowledge of coming death, pain from whatever caused that death. Only one in a hundred came in with a real smile, a smile of welcome release, and in them the blood always tasted sweetest.
Connors wore a horrible pained grimace, so Papa broke his jaw with a short crowbar—I heard bones crack like a slat of wood. Then Papa took out his finest steel wire, sewing with it like a tailor to shut the mouth properly. Then he inserted two tiny bits of cardboard in the cheeks, added another couple of stitches inside the mouth and lips, and pulled the wire tight like a master puppeteer. Suddenly the corpse smiled. I smiled, too, laughing, clapping my hands.
“You did it, Papa!”
“Yes, pup, yes I did, didn’t I?” He nodded down to me. “Do you want to do the makeup today?”
“Me?” I asked, hardly breathing.
“You know how, yes?”
“Yes!” I ran to the little table in the corner where Papa kept his makeup kit. Swinging back the heavy lid, I began rummaging through it for the proper shades of base, rouge, lipstick, and eye liner. These I brought back and set on the marble slab next to the body, and then I climbed up on a stepstool to begin my work.
How would Papa do it, I wondered. A trace of fire in the cheeks, lips the color of living flesh, tan eyeliner to hide the discoloration. I let my instincts carry me, swirls and dustings, smears and adjustments, a touch more rouge here and a bit more eye liner there. When at last I stood back to see the effect, it seemed passable enough. What really made the body was the smile, just a hint upturned at the corner of the mouth, no teeth showing. Subtle. Perfect. The work of a master. I would never be that good.
“You did well,” Papa said, nodding. “I particularly like the eyes. I will dress him. Now, it’s time for you to get the viewing rooms ready. We have four tonight, remember.”
“Yes, Papa,” I said. I hopped to the floor and headed for the stairs. In the doorway I glanced back and saw him touching up my work. Papa was smiling. It was my first face, and I had made him proud.
* * * *
That night, as all nights, I played usher, guiding grieving friends and relatives to the appropriate viewing rooms, steering them to the guest registers, keeping them as placid and orderly as I could. I disliked emotional scenes; we were working at full capacity, since our funeral home only had four viewing rooms, and I didn’t have time for soothing hysterics or calming shattered nerves tonight.
At exactly eight-fifteen an old woman arrived. She was dressed all in black, with a black lace veil over her face, and she smelled of lilacs and tobacco smoke. She moved slowly, almost as though it hurt, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she visited the basement workroom here. How thin her blood must be, I thought.
“Jacob Ebbler?” she asked in a high, quavering voice.
“This way,” I said, turning toward Number Three.
“Wait,” she said, catching my arm in a strong bony grip. She spun me around. “How old are you, boy?” she asked softly.
“Eleven,” I answered.
“You were eleven five years ago,” she said, “when I was here to bury my friend Elsa.”
“You must be thinking of my brother.”
“No, it was you. I remember that scar on your cheek. You said you were eleven. I asked how old you were because you so reminded me of my great grandson.”
Unconsciously I touched the half-inch moon shaped scar just below my left eye. “You’re mistaken.”
“He’s a foot and a half taller than you now,” she went on. “Handsome and strong. On the football team. But you—you haven’t aged a day.”
“You’re mistaken,” I said again, feeling uncomfortable. “You have me confused with my older brother.” I turned toward Number Three. “This way, please.”
She said nothing more but followed me, gliding over the rich red carpet as silently as a phantom. I left her in the viewing room with a handful of other old people and retired to the doorway to study her. Though Jacob Ebbler lay in his coffin, dead from cancer, the faintest of smiles on his lips, my teethmarks safely hidden beneath his shirt sleeves and his pant legs, she just sat and stared at me without saying a word. The attention disconcerted me.
Luckily the entry buzzer sounded, and I hurried to the front door to greet more mourners. I tried to bury myself in work, but every time I entered Number Three, I found the old woman staring at me. She could prove troublesome, I thought. She knew something was wrong, and she wasn’t going to let me
alone.
The first chance I got, I pulled Papa into the anteroom and told him what she had said to me. He nodded slowly.
“Few look closely at funeral homes and those who work there,” he said. “They fear death and those who trade it in. Old people, though, sometimes grow comfortable with death, and then they are most dangerous. Did you get her name?”
“She signed the register as Mary O’Grady.”
He nodded slowly. “Tonight, when she leaves, you may hunt her.”
I felt the cold blood in my veins surge. I could have jumped around the anteroom in excitement, but I knew Papa wouldn’t have approved. Instead I nodded solemnly.
“Yes, Papa,” I said.
“Do not take her blood,” he went on. “Make it look like an accident. We’ll see her here soon enough.”
“Yes, Papa.”
“Now, return to your work, pup.” He swept back the curtain and returned to Number Four, where I knew he had a sobbing widow and three sobbing daughters to cope with.
I slid into Number Three behind a pair of new mourners. The old woman didn’t seen me. Safely out of her line of sight, I sat and studied her as a hunter studies its prey. She still sat in the front row, her back stiff as a board, saying nothing. My hunger stirred and I had to fight to keep my teeth from changing. Papa would throw a fit if any of our patrons saw me as I truly was.
Mary O’Grady stayed till near the end. I avoided her gaze as she paid her respects to Jacob Ebbler’s daughter, and I found something to do in Number One as she glided to the front door and out of the funeral parlor.
Twenty seconds later, I slipped out by the side door and, hidden by a thick evergreen hedge, watched as she crossed the cement walkway to the sidewalk. Parked cars lined the street, but she didn’t get into one; she turned right. She must have walked here from the nursing home five blocks away, I realized. That would make things easier.
A shadow, I glided after her, crossing the street, visible only as a darker shape against a greater darkness. I paced my prey and waited for the best moment to strike.
She looked neither left nor right, but strolled with a self assured confidence that nothing would harm her here, so near her home. A solitary car cruised by, its headlights cutting the darkness, and I waited for it to pass before making my move: we were far enough from the funeral home now that nobody would hear her scream.
Changing shape to that of a lean and hungry wolf, I loped toward her, tongue lolling, the faintest snarl on my canine lips.
She heard me and turned. Her hand flew to her purse, and she pulled out a small plastic canister and squeezed. A gush of liquid hit me in the face, and I was blinded for the moment. Lancets of pain shot through my eyes. Mace and garlic and other noxious chemicals were in the spray, I realized. I felt myself change—I couldn’t help it—and as a human I lay on the ground before her and clawed at my face. Finally my eyes teared, and as I blinked and rubbed them, my vision began to come back once more.
Through a haze I saw Mary O’Grady staring at me. She had pulled a little silver cross from her purse and now fingered it. Otherwise she showed no sign of fear—no emotion of any kind. I noticed the little spray can on the ground; it must be empty, I thought.
Rising, I advanced. With a trembling hand, she raised the cross to ward me off.
I took it from her and threw it into the bushes to the right.
“There are advantages in being from a family of atheists,” I told her. Then I showed her my fangs.
She fainted—and I caught her as she fell forward. I could feel the faint flutter of her heartbeat inside her chest, sense the murmur it contained. Her thin old blood barely moved in her veins, I saw. She didn’t have much time left, even without me.
A plan began to form in the back of my mind. Perhaps, I thought, I could do her smile myself, without Papa’s help. Perhaps—
I picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to the nursing home, whose front gates stood invitingly open. Nobody stopped me, so I brought her in to Reception, where a woman in white dozed behind a counter. The glow of video monitors cast her face in eerie shades of gray. Her name tag read “Ginger.”
“Nurse,” I said calmly.
She came awake with a start, took me in, saw Mary O’Grady in my arms. “What happened?” she asked. She pushed a button, then hurried around the counter to help.
“I’m from the Andropov Funeral Home,” I said. “She didn’t look good at the viewing tonight, so my father had me follow her to make sure she got home safely. She collapsed about halfway here.”
“Mary has a heart condition,” she said. A wheeled bed stood just a few feet down the hallway, and together we stretched Mary out upon it.
“Will she be all right?”
“I’ve buzzed for the doctor. He’ll have to examine her.”
I nodded slowly. And as Mary’s eyes flickered open, the plan which I’d been working on suddenly came clear.
“Perhaps you’d better see if you can find that doctor,” I said to the nurse.
“No—” Mary croaked, the barest whisper.
“I’ll stay here and keep Mary company,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”
“You’re a good boy,” the nurse said. “I’ll be right back. Just shout if you need me and I’ll come running.” She headed up the hall, peering into first one room then another.
Mary’s eyes widened as I leaned over her. I smelled her fear and smiled, but this time I showed only the flat normal teeth of an eleven-year-old.
“You have nothing to be afraid of, old woman,” I whispered. “I know you don’t have much time left, and nobody will believe you if you tell them what I am. Therefore I give you back these last few days or weeks or years freely. Enjoy them to their fullest.”
She relaxed. I’d said what she wanted to hear. Her mouth opened and her lips curled up in the faintest of smiles, but no sound came out.
It took me a minute to realize she wasn’t breathing any more.
* * * *
We got Mary O’Grady in the funeral home the next day. The death certificate listed heart failure as the cause of death. And she still wore that slight beatific smile.
Papa nodded proudly when he saw it. “Yes, pup,” he said, tousling my hair happily, “you have the makings of a true artist.”
I basked in the glow of his praise. My first smile. I had done Papa proud.
RENFIELD’S SYNDROME, by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Rats didn’t taste nearly as good as he hoped they would—even spiders were tastier. He managed to choke the third one down, pulling the tail out of his mouth as if it were an unpalatable length of spaghetti. He put this in the little plastic bag where he had already stowed the heads and skins and guts and paws of his other rodent-prey, then closed the bag with a knot. That done, he sat down and waited for the energy to rev through him as he knew it must. This time it hit him hard, making his veins fizz with the force of it. This was so much better than anything he’d gotten from bugs and lizards. He got up and paced around the basement, suddenly too full of vitality to be able to remain still. It was everything that he had hoped, and that thrilled him.
When the call came for dinner, he made his way up the stairs, the bag of innards and skin at his side. After his feast he was almost convinced he could levitate, so full of life was he. Everything in him was alive, from his hair to his toes. He felt like a hero in a comic book, or maybe an action hero. His step was light and he was smiling as he emerged from his haven. In the kitchen, he looked about, smelling all the odors with an intensity that made him feel dizzy. The salty aroma of Hamburger Helper seemed overwhelming and yet unsatisfying—the beef was dead, robbing it of its savor. Since eating the rats, he knew it was only living meat that would satisfy him.
“Henry! Wash your hands!” His mother’s voice—along with her choice of words, since she only called him Henry when she was stressed out—warned him that she had had a rough day at the clinic.
“Okay!” He stopped at the si
nk and rubbed his hands on the cake of glycerine soap in the dish over the faucet. It reeked of artificial flowers, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust.
“And turn the heat down under the string beans!”
“Okay!” he answered. He rinsed his hands and dried them on a paper towel. He went to the stove and adjusted the gas flame under the saucepan.
“The table’s set,” his mother called as a kind of encouragement. “Your sister will be down in a minute. She’s changing.”
Henry made a face; just the idea of his sister made him want to puke, but he would not let any of it show. He licked his teeth, hoping no scraps of his meal would remain; he was not in the mood to answer questions about his basement activities. Let them think he was playing or studying or whatever they assumed he did down there.
“I could use some help with the salad.”
Salad! he thought contemptuously, but spoke meekly enough, “Sure, Mom.”
“There’s lettuce in the fridge. I’ll slice a couple tomatoes, and if you’ll wash and tear up the lettuce, we can use the last of the buttermilk ranch, or the creamy Italian. You can choose the one you like best.” She had gone to the cupboard and taken down the bottle of vodka and was now pouring herself about three ounces into a small water-glass. “I need to relax tonight,” she said, by way of explanation. She drank about a third of the vodka without ice, which wasn’t like her.
“Something bad happen today, Mom?” Henry asked, knowing she wanted to talk. He retrieved the lettuce from the refrigerator and made sure it wasn’t too brown.
“Things are always happening at the clinic,” she said, and Henry realized whatever has taken place, it had been very bad. When she sounded like that, it meant something pretty awful.
“What about getting another job?” he suggested, knowing the answer.
“The only other jobs I could get pay less. Working with those patients—the mental ones, in the locked ward—I earn more, and we need the money.” She bit her lower lip then made herself smile. “I guess I’ll just have to make the best of it.”
The Vampire Megapack: 27 Modern and Classic Vampire Stories Page 21
