by Sara Beaman
I removed my glasses and pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes until I saw stars. I started to laugh.
“Dr. Fletcher?”
“This is a morbid fucking dream.”
“Well... no, it isn’t, I’m afraid. It isn’t a dream at all,” she said. “I wish that it was.”
I laughed again, almost a cough, and then my chest went still. No breath, no heartbeat.
“I’m terribly sorry, Dr. Fletcher.”
I pulled out one of the chairs from the dining table and sat down.
“I know this situation must seem suspicious—perhaps even malicious—but we’re trying to help you,” she said. “Both Master Radcliffe and I.”
I closed my eyes. I could feel her watching me, could hear her waiting for me to move or speak.
“Whatever,” I said. “I want my phone call anyway.”
“A-all right. Well, there’s a phone in your suite. I can show you there if you’d like.”
I stood up and gave her a tense, insincere smile. “Sure. That sounds great.”
I followed Aya down a narrow flight of stairs and through a series of dark-walled corridors to a suite of rooms in the basement. She left me in a small sitting room outfitted with two velvet-upholstered couches, a lounge and a fireplace.
My eyes drifted to a trio of diplomas hanging over the mantle. All three were mine, all in their original frames. The bookcases next to the fireplace were filled with familiar texts, their dust jackets removed. I picked up a textbook at random, opened it, and found my own handwritten notes in the margins. Stricken with the strangeness of its presence, I barely managed to shelve it without dropping it on my foot.
I wandered out of the sitting room, crossed through an open door and found an office. My own work computer sat on a desk next to a framed photo of myself and my fiancée. Beside the photo was a rotary phone. I brought the receiver to my ear and heard a dial tone. I stared at the picture, my jaw tightening.
My fingers moved on their own as I dialed the number to our apartment. The phone rang three times before my fiancée’s mother picked up on the other end. I introduced myself and asked to speak with Alison. She hung up.
I dialed the number a second time, waited three more rings, introduced myself again and told her we must have been cut off. She started to cry. She asked me what kind of a person would do this, what kind of person would call her with such a sick prank, and she hung up again.
I called a third time. Five rings before the answering machine picked up. A message informed me of Alison and Adam’s passing and told me where and when I could attend the funeral.
I hung up.
A grey-green bruise glared up at me from the crook of my right elbow. I prodded the tiny wound at its center, the mark I’d noticed in my reflection before. The needle must have been a large gauge, which meant it was most likely from a medical IV, not something recreational. It fit the story, which I didn’t like.
I pressed down on it hard. Pain shot through my wrist. Was that normal for a dream? Was any of this normal for a dream? All of it was absurd, certainly, but it was also persistent, the setting tangible and detailed. Could my own mind really manufacture something like this?
I walked back through the sitting room, through the door on the opposite wall, and into a bedroom filled with unfamiliar furniture, all in matching dark wooden tones: an imposing four-poster bed attended by two bedside tables, a wardrobe, a writing table and a vanity. I presumed the wardrobe was full of my own clothing, but I didn’t have the stomach to check.
I slumped down onto the crimson duvet cover and rolled onto my back. I closed my eyes. Maybe I could fall asleep in this world, and wake up back in my normal life, alive, back in Baltimore with Alison.
Maybe.
3
In Between
{Anonymous}
When I open my eyes the forest is dark. Faint patches of moonlight filter through the fluttering canopy, casting irregular, shifting shadows. The air has gotten colder. I sit up, look around, try to gain my bearings, but I can’t tell which direction I came from. The hunger is stronger now, and so is the pain in my chest, and I’m alone out here, wherever here is. No—not completely alone: the low calls of owls echo through the air. I have no way of protecting myself from whatever stalks these backwoods at night, nothing but the knife, and I don’t know where it went.
I draw my knees to my chest, keep still, and wait.
My mind returns to my dream. I was Adam—the same Adam from the cabin, the man who might have kidnapped me. I recognized myself—I mean, I recognized him—in his reflection.
What does it mean?
Suddenly the forest goes silent. Moments later, I hear footsteps approaching in the distance, accompanied by flickering bursts of flashlight, and, soon, voices.
“We’re close,” a woman says.
“How far is she now?” Adam’s voice, familiar even from hundreds of feet away. “Is she hurt?”
“I don’t know,” the woman says.
I pull myself to my feet and stumble towards them a few paces. I step on the knife, cutting my foot on the blade. Gritting my teeth, I pull my foot away from the ground. The knife sticks in my flesh.
Their conversation continues. “You shouldn’t have revived her, Adam.” A new voice, also female, but higher in pitch than the first. “I know you think you did her a favor, but...”
“You have a right to your opinion,” Adam says.
Slowly, carefully, I pull the knife out of my foot, provoking a gush of blood. I clutch it, wincing, and draw my fingers across the incision. It’s not wide, but it’s deep, penetrating right through the arch.
“I know you don’t agree with me, but there’s a reason it’s forbidden,” the girl with the high voice replies. “After what you did to her, now she’s... stuck in between. I’ve heard it’s awful.”
“Is it worse than being dead?”
She doesn’t respond.
They’ve started pointing their flashlight in the wrong direction. They’re going to pass me by. The three of them may have kidnapped me, but I’d much rather go with them then be stuck out here to die alone.
I lunge forward, throwing myself towards them. Stinging tears fill my eyes as I step on my injured foot. No, come back! I call to them silently, like I called to the deer. I’m over here—please don’t leave me—please don’t leave me out here alone—
“Huh,” the first woman says. “She’s trying to manifest.”
She turns and points her flashlight at me. I stumble backwards, attempting to shield my eyes from the light. I hit my side against the trunk of a tree and fall to the ground.
A minute later, the woman is standing over me, scanning me with her flashlight. “You look awful,” she says. “What did you do to yourself?”
She helps me sit up. Slowly my eyes adjust, allowing me to make out her face. Her hair and eyes are black; she looks like she might be Japanese. She’s tall—about the same height as me.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks.
“She was probably looking for blood,” the other girl says. In the shadow of the trees, I can see only a vague outline of her petite form. “She doesn’t understand what happened.”
Adam approaches last. He kneels by my feet, placing a square black lockbox down in the leaves. He takes a look at the sole of my injured foot and shakes his head.
“Is she all right?” the Japanese woman asks.
“Her wound isn’t bad, but we can’t risk her getting an infection,” he says in a monotone. “I’ll need to take care of it now.”
“Is that wise?”
“It’s fine,” he says. “My memory hasn’t started to go yet.”
He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and takes out a folding knife. “We’re going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. I apologize.”
He flips open the knife and, without hesitation, slices into his neck, piercing his jugular. His blood starts flowing in an even trickle. In the dimness it loo
ks black.
Unable to restrain myself, I throw myself at him and place my lips around the cut, sucking at it. Immediately I can feel the wound on my foot start to knit itself shut. I close my eyes, sighing with relief, but then my ears close as well, and I begin to feel a strange floating sensation, a disconnect from my body, and then I’m no longer sitting on the forest floor with my lips pressed to this stranger’s neck, I’m swimming in a pitch-dark well, just barely treading water, and then my head goes under, and then I’m drowning...
...and then I’m back in the main building in Atlanta, back in the elevator, staring up at my reflection as I sink down towards the third sub-basement. I grit my teeth, anxious for the descent to finish. My mouth waters. A chime sounds, the door slides open, and I step out into the hallway.
No! This is where I got shot! I have to turn back!
But I can’t control myself. My feet take me down the hallway at a regular pace, slow and even, carefully placed so as not to slip on the slick concrete. I fidget, swallow, adjust my purse strap. My mind races, anticipating the attack to come; meanwhile I nibble idly on my chapped lower lip.
A door slams. A whispered conversation echoes in from around the corner. It sounds like an argument.
There. Finally. Now I start running. I turn back towards the elevator—and walk—I start walking back towards the elevator. Why can’t I run? Why won’t I run for my life?
They’ve heard me. I can hear their footsteps behind me, closing in.
“Mirabel?”
Adam’s voice.
I stop dead in my tracks and turn to face him. I catch a split-second glimpse of his face before he raises the gun and pulls the trigger. I stagger backwards, deafened, my vision failing—
—and snap back into myself to find my lips still pressed to his neck.
I shove him away and haul myself up to my feet, preparing to run.
“Don’t,” he says. “You’re still weak.” He grabs for my wrist.
I recoil and try to limp away. The smaller girl darts from the shadows, grabs my waist and hefts me over her shoulder. I struggle, but she’s absurdly strong, despite being only a fraction of my size.
She carries me back to Adam. He places his hand against my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he says, “but it’s for the best...”
I lose consciousness.
4
A Dream of Memory
{Adam}
I began to drift into something like sleep, but instead of dreaming, I found myself transported into a vision—something like a drug flashback, but clearer and more vivid. A memory. Somehow I knew it belonged in the timeline of someone else’s life, not my own.
This someone was named Aya.
She was lying in the same spot as me on the bed, underneath the sheets. They were cold against her bare skin. Beside her was a young man with blonde hair, staring up at the ceiling with terror in his eyes.
He started to speak. I couldn’t understand what he was saying—it sounded like German, maybe—nor could I understand what Aya said to him in response as she stroked the tears off his cheeks, but I could feel the resignation building in her chest as she slowly sat up, left his side, and put her clothes back on. She had to help him dress himself; his hands were shaking so violently he couldn’t fit the buttons through the buttonholes.
She took his hand and led him out of the room, out of the suite, up a wide staircase and out into the gardens behind the estate. The night air was cool and full of the music of insects. The sky in the east was beginning to fade to blue, heralding the coming of dawn.
She let him pull her against his chest, let him squeeze her shoulders nearly hard enough to crush her, let him kiss her and run his hands through her hair. His tongue was cold in her mouth and only slightly moist.
After a minute or so she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him away, turned from him and walked back to the mansion. He called out to her, calling her name, but she didn’t turn back or respond.
As she shut and locked the door behind her, she sighed with relief. It’s over now, she thought. We’ll try again next year.
His cries stopped a few moments later.
Farewell, Markus.
///
A knock on the door woke me up, snapping me out of the vision. I got out of bed. It took me a minute to find my way back to the door to the suite.
Aya was waiting on the other side. She smiled at me brightly. “How are you feeling?” she asked.
I brought a hand to my mouth. The honest answer to her question seemed obscene: I felt almost nothing. My mind was full of distress and regret, but my body was placid, unresponsive. I didn’t want to cry or scream. I wasn’t tired, hungry or nervous. The only thing I felt was a peculiar sensation in the chest, like my ribcage was being simultaneously compressed and pulled apart. It worsened as the minutes passed.
“I can’t say,” was all I said.
She nodded.
I stood aside, allowing her into the room. She sat down on one of the couches, crossing her legs at the ankles, and gestured to the space next to her. I sat down on the edge of the lounge, spine straight, feet ready to take off for the exit.
“Is there anything I can get you?” she asked. “Anything I can do to help?” Her delicate, symmetrical features were fixed in a mask of polite concern.
“Why am I here?”
“I’m sure Master Radcliffe would be happy to answer that question for you.”
“You can’t tell me yourself?”
“No,” she said. “If you’re asking why you specifically were selected, I don’t know.”
“Selected?”
“For the initiation.”
“You mean the... resurrection?” I could feel my face twitch as I said the last word.
“Dr. Fletcher... well, it’s not quite like that, I’m afraid.”
“What do you mean? I’m conscious, I can walk around...”
“I think it’s best if you meet with Master Radcliffe as soon as possible. He can answer these questions far better than I can.”
I didn’t reply.
“Besides,” she continued, “you’ll need to eat soon.”
Not eat—feed.
“Eat what?” I asked.
“He’ll have something ready for you.”
Human blood.
“What?” I asked, my voice thin. “What am I supposed to eat?”
“Well, it’d be more accurate to say ‘drink’. Now that you’ve been initiated, you’ll need to drink, well...” She grimaced. “Human blood.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek.
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Dr. Fletcher?” She held my gaze with surprising intensity. “Do you understand what you are now? What we both are?” She didn’t blink. Her nostrils didn’t flare. Her little breasts were still under her prim cardigan. She was like a photograph, like a doll.
Then she took a breath. “You must understand that my master didn’t kill you,” she said. “Just a few hours ago, you were dead. All he did was revive you.”
I pretended to reflect on her statement. Those words—human blood—went through my head again, made me contemplate what it would be like to consume it. I already knew how it tasted, but not in quantity. What would it be like on the tongue? Would it be slightly viscous, like heavy cream?
Aya cleared her throat. “Dr. Fletcher? Would you be ready to meet with him now?”
I tried to shove the thought to the back of my mind.
“Sure,” I said, slowly rising from the lounge. “Of course.”
5
The Rest of My Life
{Anonymous}
I wake up back in the cabin, in the living room, lying on my back on a musty-smelling couch that creaks underneath me as I sit up. Adam and the tall Japanese woman from the woods stand in the kitchen near the front door, talking in low voices. I can hear a car running outside.
“I’ll stay here with her,” the woman says.
“No,” Adam says. “I don’t
want to leave her again. I need to explain what happened. You and Aya go.”
“You need to eat,” the woman says. “You can’t keep bleeding yourself dry if you’re not going to eat.”
“Well, when you get back, I could—“
“No.”
“Come on, Haruko.” He glances into the kitchen, at the black lockbox sitting on the counter.
“Fine,” she says, annoyed. “But just once.”
“Thank you.”
Haruko walks out the front door without replying.
Adam turns to me, looks at me through those cold grey eyes, and walks towards me. I sputter, trying to speak and failing. I want to tell him to get away from me. He shot me. He kidnapped me. But worse than that, he’s... I don’t even want to think about it.
“You’d probably call me a vampire,” he says.
I feel a sickening surge of adrenaline. I drank his blood! Does that make me a vampire too?
“No,” he says. “You’re a dhampyr. An altered human, you might say.”
Oh God. He can read my mind.
He sits down across from me in an armchair and says nothing.
You can read my mind, I think at him.
“Yes.”
I bring my hands to my head and take a deep, shaky breath.
You shot me.
“It was an accident. I thought you were Mirabel.”
Mirabel. The name is familiar. I know she and I look alike; I know she was in charge of the Project; I know I was afraid of her. I can’t remember anything else about her.
“She’s a revenant. A vampire, like me,” Adam says. “We were initiated—brought back from the dead—by the same man. If I were fond of her I might call her my sister.”
I think of my dream just now. That girl, Aya, mentioned something about an initiation.
“You had a dream about Aya?”
I look away, feeling embarrassed. Sort of. I had a dream about you.
