by P. J. Day
“What about Holly?” I asked. “What did you tell her in that room? Did you tell her she was in a cave with vampires?”
“No, I just told her that you were negotiating her release and it was possibly some extortion plot or something.”
“Okay, good,” I said, with relief in my voice. “I’ll get her to come out—dammit! This is going to be difficult.”
I motioned to Kai and asked him to approach our table.
I asked, “May I see Holly?”
Kai, who looked more inconvenienced than malevolent, headed to the holding room where Holly was staying. Ted sat on the bench and stared coldly across the room with the glass in his hand. The wheels clearly turning, he asked, “Are you going to tell her?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter Five
Holly’s usually red and rosy cheeks were smirched with soot, her golden hair was dull and the pores on the tip of her nose was blackened with dirt.
She sat next to me on the bench, and slumped her shoulders, giving me a pouty look with tired, sunken eyes, which began to slowly well up as soon as she made eye contact. I leaned over for a hug and a proper hello, and with the energy gathered from every cell of her small, petite frame, she pushed me off the bench, landing me on the scabrous, stony floor of the musty dining hall. Kai laughed at Holly’s unexpected reaction as he bent down and gave me his arm.
“How could you?” she yelled at me with enlarged green eyes.
“What?” I said. I gathered myself by standing up and dusting off my pants.
“You associate with gangsters and you don’t even tell me? What else are you hiding, Jack?” she said, crossing her arms. “Is Jack even your real name?”
“Wait a minute. Who told you I associate with gangsters?”
I looked over at Ted, trying to make brief eye contact with him as he checked out the strange statues on the wall.
“Did Ted tell you that?” I asked, pointing at him as he stood with his back turned to us with obvious feigned indifference.
“You’re trying to negotiate my release? You owe them money through some type of bad deal with your company? How long was I in danger?” she asked.
I weighed the truth and the perceived lie. I debated the consequences of going with the lie or telling her outright that I was not who she thought I was. Telling a girl who was already in an extremely stressful place that I was a vampire didn’t seem like the prudent thing to do.
“Holly, I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t know what to say at this point... I... I...”
My words were stuck. I couldn’t come up with an answer, an excuse, or a way I could explain the truth without freaking her out.
She quickly approached me, her eyes bulging with anger. She sharply placed her right index finger on my chest and said, “I want out of here. Do what you have to do, but I didn’t sign up for this. I am not some sort of toy to be bargained over.”
Ted heard what Holly had said and quickly walked over to her and put his arm around her shoulder as she wept. He looked at me, opening his eyes wide looking for a cue of some sort. I shook my head in a spastic manner, frazzled as to what he wanted from me.
He turned to Holly and improvised. “Sweetie, listen. Jack here is very sorry. His heart is broken that you are feeling this way. This is very complicated and I assure you there is a full, rational explanation behind all of this.”
She continued to sob, using the long sleeves of her cotton-blend shirt to wipe away her tears. She briefly composed herself and pushed Ted’s arm away from her shoulders.
She looked up and into both of our eyes and said, “I don’t trust any of you.” There was silence. She turned her attention toward Kai and the other Jiang-Shi. “Can I please leave? I barely know these two.”
The words she just uttered with detachment devastated me inside. My legs suddenly felt like Jell-O and I collapsed onto the bench. Ted looked at me with a dour set of eyes. I didn’t look up at Holly, but I spoke to her anyway.
“Holly, I’m sorry.”
“What? That’s all you can say? I was practically kidnapped because of you and your shady connections and all you can say is sorry?”
“This is not what it seems but the reality might be harder to swallow,” I said, looking up into her fiery green eyes.
“What can be worse than this?” she asked rhetorically. “Being bought into sex slavery? Killed?”
“None of that is happening.”
Ted walked away and sensed that if I were to spill the beans, it would be better if he wasn’t around. I looked at Kai and asked, “Where can we go for some privacy?”
He gave me a befuddled stare and didn’t seem to understand what exactly I was asking. I pointed at myself and Holly and made a funny gesture with my hand. He thought something else and gave me a wink, a nod, and a lascivious smile. Kai pointed to the end of the hall toward a small opening with faint lighting.
“Cave,” he said.
I looked over my shoulder and noticed a small cave with glowing, pulsating lights at the end of the large room.
I looked over at Holly and calmly asked, “Can you come with me? I have something to say.”
“Will you let me go if I talk to you?” she asked, still quite cold in her demeanor.
“Yes, you can go, but there is something I need to tell you about who I really am and how this all relates to what you’ve been through—just give me a chance to explain myself, please?”
She looked down to the floor and looked back at Kai with incertitude and said, “Fine.”
We walked side by side. I felt the overwhelming need to grab her by the hand or at the very least comfort her with my arm. While I longed for her touch, I sensed the complete opposite from her. She had her arms crossed snugly over her chest, avoiding eye contact at all costs, while slightly shivering in the cold, flat air that swept through the cave.
I began to hear a faint trickle of water as we entered the small cavern. In the small, candlelit cave, the stalagmites and stalactites remained untouched, and in the center wall, a black altar, adorned with small golden statues and incense, awaited its next humble supplicant.
“What is this place?” Holly asked, breaking her brief silence.
“I really don’t know,” I said, scanning the room. “I think they follow some sort of hybridized, Buddhist religion.”
“So, what are you going to tell me?” she asked sternly.
“These guys aren’t gangsters,” I said.
“What are they then?”
“They’re like me,” I said.
“Asian? You don’t look Asian.”
“No... well, listen,” I said, as I grabbed her hand.
She didn’t relent and let me hold it. I looked deeply into her beautiful green eyes. She kept her eyes connected to mine and I managed to catch a brief glimpse of the same carefree woman I had seen on past nights, by flashing me a brief smile.
“Holly, I instantly fell for you,” I said, feeling relief as if a cloud of smog resided in my lungs, traveled up my windpipe and expelled through my mouth. “You make me feel equal, you make me feel normal,” I said, remaining wholly focused and lost in the emerald abyss of her eyes.
Holly began to tear up but she caught herself, and slowly opened her mouth.
“I like you, too, Jack. You make me feel those things, too. But I’m just a normal girl with a hobby, trying to make a living... I really don’t like surprises.”
I approached her and held her tightly in my arms. She asked me with her voice slightly trembling, “What is it you need to tell me?”
My arms wrapped around her small frame and I pulled her in close to my chest. My forearms molded into the arch of her lower back and I drank in her warmth and submissive aura. My nose rubbed in against hers, my eyes lowered, our foreheads touched and I whispered softly, “I’m not human.”
Her brows receded down the sides of her face. She gently pushed me out at arms’ length.
“What do you mean, Jack?”
/> My submissive eyes drew down and implored acceptance.
“Do you remember on our first date how I was panicking because I needed to get home before sunrise?”
“Yes?” she said.
“My condition?”
“What about it?” she asked. “So what? I know you have a skin condition.”
“At the club, I caught the shoe that was thrown at me from behind because I heard it as if I was seeing it—no human can do that.”
“What are you implying, Jack?” she asked in frustration.
“Holly, I’m a vampire.”
She shook her head and began smiling.
“Are you nuts?”
“No, I’m really a vampire.”
“Jack, stop it—you’re starting to scare me.”
I moved in closer to her space and put out my arms in an attempt for an embrace as I began spilling my guts to her. She didn’t want any of it and my sudden revelation made retreat completely impossible.
“Holly, I was captured by my own company, by my own coworkers, because they wanted to do experiments on me for who-knows-what reason.”
“I’m sorry, but all this sounds so far-fetched. These men in the cave, they look like a gang; bikes, nice shit strewn across the cave, even that Milton guy, he just looks like your typical Asian gang member—living inside a cave? Seriously, come on...”
“Holly, how about these? I asked, as I pulled up my upper lip and quickly walked in front of her face.
“Jack, what kind of sick joke is this? You could have had those done; we already covered your teeth on our dates.”
I pulled up my pant leg and showed her my pale legs in all their glory.
“See, look? I’m practically see-through!”
Holly began to laugh out loud, almost mockingly.
“Jack, I’m sorry but there are no such things as vampires. You’re a rad guy, a jet-setter, great-looking, but I don’t want this life.” She came up to me and brushed the side of my face with her soft, thin hand. “Please, take me home.”
“I can’t,” I said, as my eyes began to slowly well up. “You need to believe me.”
“You don’t stop, do you?”
Many differing thoughts ran through my head as I pondered how I would prove to Holly that I was a separate species, one that has been ingrained in the minds of humans as a mythical being that turns into a bat, or that sleeps in a coffin or a being that somehow always gets the girl despite being a blood-thirsty beast, with class. A caricature basically, one created to scare and fright women into love, lust, or romance. Should I bite? No. What good would that do? That would literally be like rape. Oh, God no, I wouldn’t do that. I was on the verge of falling in love with this woman. I would’ve done anything to prove to her that I was real and how I felt about her was real, too. I looked around the room and noticed a six-inch object sticking up through the mantle of the altar. It was a ceremonial dagger of some sort, with a dragon-shaped jade handle. I ran to the altar to grab it.
“What are you doing?” asked Holly, as her green eyes opened wide in a panic.
I gripped the handle of the dagger and yanked it out of its wooden holder. I held it up to the dim light. Sure, it was probably used for worship, but still was meticulously sharpened if the need ever arose for it to be used as an instrument of death.
Holly stuck her hands out at me and began to move backward toward the wall of the cave.
“No, Jack, please... what do you think you’re doing—Ted!” she screamed.
“I’m sorry but this is the only way you’ll ever believe me,” I said, holding the handle of the dagger over my head, ready to strike.
“Ted!” Holly screamed again, holding her arms over her face and coiling up against the wall with her right knee in the air.
I plunged the dagger deep into my rib. I felt the muscles and cartilage that lined up between my ribs tear, split, and rip away as if they were hardened pieces of Jell-O. I gripped the handle of the dagger and moved it to the left another three inches, slicing up myself really good so it left no doubt that my wound would require surgery if I were a mortal. Holly began screaming hysterically. I hit the floor and blood began flowing from my sliced wound.
Holly knelt next to me, trying to cover my wound with her hand. Blood began running through her fingers. I could see on her face that she was filled with a complex feeling of sorrow and anger.
“Why would you do this?” she asked.
I looked up at her and I smiled.
“To prove to you that I am not lying to you,” I said, my eyes beginning to close intermittently at the sudden loss of blood.
Ted, Kai and the Jiang-Shi ran into the small cavern, responding to Holly’s cries for help. They looked down at the bloody mess before them and remained stoic and without panic. Ted held out his arm to Holly as she remained on the floor doing her best in caring for me.
“Holly, stand up; he’s going to be okay.”
“What do you mean he’s going to be okay?” she asked, panic-stricken and sobbing.
“Someone get some gauze—is there a hospital around here? Does 9-1-1 exist in China?”
Ted picked up Holly by her arm. She fought him off, and Kai immediately assisted.
“Holly, listen, quit panicking,” Ted said. “You’re going to get blood all over your clothes for no reason... Jack is going to be fine, I assure you.”
“Jack, don’t die,” Holly pleaded. “I’m sorry, I believe you.”
Kai and the other Jiang-Shi picked me up and took me out of the small cave, through the dining hall, and onto a cot in the sleeping barracks, Holly and Ted not far behind. I was out of breath as they picked me up off the ground.
Chapter Six
I felt the brush of soft, velvety skin on my forehead. I slowly opened my eyes and Holly’s warm, smiling face came into focus. Her soft green eyes were filled with a maternal aura.
She looked unkempt but still beautiful. I felt bad for her as I knew she took pride in her outfits, hair, and hygiene, but most of all, I thought she took extreme pride in her independence. I felt at fault for letting Milton know about her whereabouts when I was imprisoned in Guangzhou, but I knew I’d be rolling the dice with her safety if I didn’t.
“Did I fall asleep?” I asked, with a groggy grin.
“Yeah, you did,” she said, in a soft voice.
She took a quick glance down at my rib. There was an inquisitive yet somber look in her eyes, like someone who just found out they were adopted or that they were born a different sex and changed at birth. Holly didn’t know what to say to me, but by examining the timing of her breaths and her posture, it seemed that she wanted to ask me more questions, but it was clear she didn’t know where to start.
“Where’s Ted?” I asked.
“He’s asleep. It’s almost midnight,” she said. She closed her eyes and lowered her head; she was clearly tired.
“Jack, I am exhausted. I don’t know what’s real anymore.”
“That makes two of us,” I said, smiling and gently placing her hair behind her ear. I humbly asked, “Do you think I’m a monster?”
“No, but I don’t know if I can trust you... or if it’s the situation I can’t trust? I just don’t know, Jack... I’m sorry.”
I quickly sat up on the cot.
“Trust? I’m sorry but I had to lie... you wouldn’t have gone out with me if you knew what I was.”
“No, it’s not that... of course you had to lie. It’s just that… I just don’t know what to expect. I don’t even know where I am. I’m with these things in a cave. You’re somebody completely different. I always thought you had a family like me... a mother... a brother or a sister.” Holly caught herself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you things. You’re just different and I don’t know what you are, what you can do, what you need... I just want to go home, Jack.”
I grabbed both of Holly’s hands tightly.
“Did you have fun with me in L.A. and Hong Kong?”
“Yes,
I did, but—”
“But what? I’m still that same person. I still like having fun. My looks are still the same. I still like doing the same things you like to do. We’re not that different.”
“You are, though. A vampire... a fucking vampire,” she yelled as she stood up from the cot. “What the hell? You’re not supposed to be real.”
“Look, I know the word vampire has all these fantastical connotations attached to it, but in the end, it’s just a word. A word that describes another human with a different set of traits. I still can feel, I still can taste, I still can have fun and... I still can love,” I pleaded with Holly. I slowly got up from the cot and I gently grabbed her hand and placed it on my chest. “Feel that? It’s beating. I’m not dead.”
Holly pulled her hand away and retreated. She crossed her arms in front of her chest with insecurity.
“What about blood... don’t you need blood to survive?”
“Yes, we do.”
“How come you didn’t bite me?” she asked.
“Goddammit Holly, it’s because I like you. I really like you, okay?”
Holly paused and stared at me without expression. I felt my words beginning to slowly impact her. She switched gears after pondering what to say next.
“Why didn’t you bite my neck? If it’s true what they say about you, I would have been bitten by now.”
“No, I had other sources...”
Holly gave me an inquisitive look.
“Other sources? Like what? Other women, men, dead people, cats?”
I briefly closed my eyes and Holly’s questioning had once again put me in a position to lie.
“Well?” she asked.
She had me tongue-tied.
“I don’t want to lie to you anymore.”
“Then don’t.”
“There was another girl at the time.”
“Who?”
“This girl named Cassie... but it wasn’t serious,” I said.
“So, she gave you blood?”
“Yeah, but I needed it to survive.”
“Was it consensual?”
“Of course, I’m not going around biting necks without permission.”
