Heidi’s husband died under mysterious circumstances fifteen years ago in Iowa. Celia liked to pretend Heidi did it.
Celia had been spending a lot of time in her kitchen as of late, because the kitchen wall was the only wall shared with Woodsy BO Guy. She could smell him best from there. She’d never seen Woodsy, but for some reason, young Bruce Willis came to mind, circa Die Hard.
She’d also noticed a new bike at the apartment complex rack. For the longest time, it was just Celia’s powder blue beauty. Now, there was this sleek, sexy black number. Most of her neighbors were either semi-chubby retirees from the north or alcoholic beach bums. They wouldn’t own a bike that that. That bike belonged to Woodsy BO Guy; she could smell him on it.
Sniff. Sniff.
Chapter Two
Imogene said she’d be over at eleven, which was perfect, since Celia had an appointment with her shrink at nine o’clock that night. Celia’s parents died in a freak hurricane accident three years earlier and left her everything. Otherwise, she never would have been able to afford Dr. Rayna Savage.
She sounded like a comic book character, like lightning should shoot from her fingers—and maybe it did. Celia wasn’t sure. Dr. Savage was hot with long, silky brown hair. She had an angular face with perfect bone structure. She was like those women in advertisements at Bloomingdale’s, only she was a vampire.
Dr. Savage’s office always smelled like lavender because she said lavender was calming. She kept the shades drawn, even though it was night.
She asked if Celia had been journaling, which Dr. Savage thought was super powerful for self-actualization.
“Yes!” Celia said. Victorious!
“Every day?”
“Well, twice,” she said. Less victorious!
Dr. Savage tried to iron over the disappointed crinkle between her eyes by giving Celia a glittering grin. “Good. Twice is good. You should try journaling every night.”
Celia sank further into the leather couch cushions, which evicted the sound of a fabric fart from deep within its pillows. “But something doesn’t happen every night,” she whined.
“Yes, Celia, something happens every night.”
She wanted to argue with her doctor, because Celia didn’t think hours spent watching her favorite eighties movies constituted “something.”
“Just write what you’re feeling,” Dr. Savage said. “What are you feeling, Celia?”
She pulled a piece of lint from her yoga pants to avoid Dr. Savage’s probing brown eyes. When her therapist was trying to probe, she tilted her chin down and looked at Celia over her spectacles. It was very unnerving.
But honestly, Celia had been feeling a lot, ever since the arrival of Woodsy BO Guy. He’d moved in to the Sleeping Gull Apartments seven days earlier, and Celia had been avoiding actually meeting him ever since.
She didn’t bring up Woodsy. She wasn’t ready. She didn’t even bring up the strange girl named Imogene who would be at her apartment that very night. Instead, she said, “I’m feeling disappointed.”
“Disappointed about what, Celia?”
“Well. Danny said becoming a vampire would make me more special.”
Dr. Savage’s voice went all sing-song. “You are special. We’re all special.”
Celia wasn’t buying it. “Danny said I would be different and prettier and men would like me, but I’m just the same, only more pale.” She threw her hands in the air. “I mean, it’s been three months, I haven’t bitten anyone, and I spend all my time drinking blood from hospital donation bags when I’m not working the night shift at a gas station. Being a newbie sucks.”
Dr. Savage went probing again. “I think your problem isn’t being a newborn vampire, Celia. I think your problem goes further back.”
Like when she was the fat kid in high school? Like when she only had one friend, Layla, and she was only Celia’s friend because she lived next-door growing up? Or like when she woke up the morning she was turned to find a note from Danny that just said, “See ya,” along with phone numbers for Dr. Rayna Savage and a blood dealer named Steve.
Dr. Savage then announced, “I think you have a fear of your first bite.”
Celia pouted. “I just haven’t met the right person.”
“Celia. You never meet anyone.”
She pulled another piece of lint from her yoga pants and begrudgingly agreed to see Dr. Savage twice a week.
She came home from therapy to the smell of Woodsy BO Guy and the sound of his blender through the kitchen wall. Then, she straightened her house like her great-grandmother was about to show up with a white glove to test for dust. She hid her dirty laundry under the bed. She arranged her extensive VHS collection in perfect rows beneath her TV. She checked the fridge three times for blood as if some blood goblin was going to come steal it. She stood and appraised her obsessive reordering.
Celia had come to realize her apartment looked nothing like a vampire lair. Maybe if she had more candles. Yes, definitely more candles.
She put in a movie to await Imogene’s arrival. She chose something that would calm her down: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. She spent the next hour pacing between her living room and the kitchen. On one side, she was comforted by the sound of light sabers. In her kitchen, she was comforted by the scent of Woodsy BO Guy. She only relegated herself to the living room when she noticed she’d pressed her entire body against the wall between apartments and scratched little claw marks in the off-white paint.
By 11:30, Celia gave up on Imogene, so she pulled out her copy of Labyrinth. David Bowie in spandex was very soothing.Then, there was a shattering knock on her front door. Celia thought the hinges were going to give way, which of course, scared the hell out of her landlady and possibly woke Woodsy BO Guy, who’d been sleeping for the past hour. Celia wasn’t stalking him. It was just…he had a loud snore that she could sometimes hear through the cheap apartment plaster.
By the time Celia got to the front door, she could already hear Heidi screaming at Imogene from two doors down.
“Do you know what time it is?”
Celia opened the door in time to see Imogene say, “Whoa,” and take a step backwards like Celia did every time she saw a palmetto bug.
Celia supposed Heidi was sort of shocking. She looked like she’d lived on the beach her whole life, since her skin closely resembled an antique baseball mitt. She wore a white-blonde wig. Even at that hour, wrapped in a robe the color of fluorescent yellow cat puke, she had on The Wig. The Wig was shaped like a huge, upside-down bowl.
Heidi shook her fist. “Do you know what time it is, Celia?”
“Yes, Heidi, I’m sorry. We’ll be quiet.”
“You better.” She pursed her old lady lips together. Heidi had to be at least eighty, but it didn’t stop her from walking the beach in a bikini every day. She turned and slammed her front door.
Imogene flicked a thumb at her absence. “What the fuck was that?”
“My landlady,” Celia said.
“She looks like a fake person.” Imogene nodded toward Heidi’s front door.
“You think she’s a robot?”
“I don’t know, Merk. She’s scary as shit, though.” Imogene clomped inside. Clomp, clomp. She wore another tight t-shirt, same tight jeans, same combat boots, and red plastic sunglasses, complete with cassette player on her hip. Her crazed, curly hair was held in a clip on top of her head. She smelled like fruit punch. She pointed at Celia’s poster of David Bowie.
“You like Bowie?”
“Um, yeah, he’s okay.”
“What do you mean he’s okay?” Imogene seemed offended.
“I mean he’s awesome.”
Imogene poked at Celia’s TV, then her VCR. “What’s this, an antique? Why don’t you get a damn DVD player?”
“Oh, well, all my movies are from when I was a kid,” she said.
Imogene didn’t say anything.
“It just seems a waste to update, you know?”
“I get it. I mean
…” She gestured to the small cassette player at her hip. Then, Imogene stuck her nose in the air and sniffed. She continued sniffing as she moved through the living room and into Celia’s kitchen. She planted her body right where Celia had been a couple hours earlier. She took a deep, deep sniff. “Who lives next door?”
Celia stood in the doorway and played with her hands. “I don’t know.”
Imogene took a breath that would have filled a pair of elephant lungs. “He smells good.”
“Blood in the fridge!” Celia spat.
“Oh, right.” Imogene moved away from the wall, which made Celia feel better. Maybe she was stalking Woodsy BO Guy. She felt ownership over his scent, and she didn’t want Imogene anywhere near him.
Quickly diverting her attention, Celia opened the fridge, and Imogene made an impressed “heh” noise. “Wow, that’s a lot of blood.” She reached around Celia and grabbed a bag. “A-positive? Got any B-neg?” She dug through the bags.
“I only drink A-positive.”
Imogene pulled out a single bag, popped the top, and jumped on the countertop, where she sat and commenced to consume. “Why?” she asked between gulps.
Celia modestly removed her own bag and sat at the kitchen table. “It makes me feel like I got a good grade, you know? Like A-plus.”
Imogene finished the entire bag and dropped the empty in the kitchen sink.
Celia gasped. If she’d consumed that much blood that fast, she would have been on the ceiling, literally, clinging to it like a giant, redheaded bat. Instead of the ceiling, Imogene clung to the countertop with both hands and swung her boot-clad feet back and forth. Celia could tell she was riding out the high. Blood gave vampires a hell of a rush. Celia compared it to caffeine via IV. Imogene, meanwhile, breathed a little faster and shook her head a couple times. Then, she hopped off the counter and stretched her arms over her head.
“All right, let’s go out.” She clapped her hands and moonwalked.
“Go out? You want to go out right now?”
“Yeah.” She wheeled her arms in the air at an invisible punching bag.
“But, I, um…” Celia looked down at herself. She’d put on her black yoga pants to appear more formal. Other than that, she wore an oversized Minnie Mouse tee and white socks.
“Clothes. Where are your clothes?” Imogene barked.
“In my bedroom.”
“Okay.” She grabbed Celia by the wrist and tumbled her out of her chair. Celia stutter-stepped to keep up with Imogene’s way above normal human speed. Then, Imogene shoved Celia on the bed and told her to drink up. She reached into Celia’s closet and threw things over her shoulders. “No, no, no,” she muttered.
Then, Imogene found Celia’s faded Freddie Mercury off-the-shoulder sweatshirt and flipped her glasses onto the top of her head.
“This is fucking fabulous!” she shouted. “How do you own something like this?” Imogene’s irises were gone, pupils blown full black by the influx of human blood. “Put this on. Do you own anything other than sweatpants?”
“They’re yoga pants,” Celia said.
Imogene stared at her, eyebrows squeezed together above her nose.
“I own a pair of jeans.”
“Good. Put them on. Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?” Celia was afraid to ask.
“Lazaret, bitch. We’re going to Necto.”
Celia decided to consider Dr. Savage’s advice, make friends, and hit the town with a mad woman.
Imogene owned a fast car—something black and topless. She also paid little attention to speed limits or oncoming traffic. Celia kept her hands over her face most of the ride.
Imogene took Beach Drive past Happy Gas and all the way down Admiral Key to the bridge where they crossed the Gulf of Mexico inlet and saw the pathetic lights of downtown Lazaret. Lazaret liked to believe it was a city, but it wasn’t. Celia would know; she grew up there.
It was a stack of office buildings with squat restaurants and rooftop bars. It was a coven of homeless people and shopping carts. It was a shithole, but the freckle on the ass of Lazaret was Necto. Celia had never been there because it was considered hip. Her whole life, she’d been to one bar in Lazaret—Tequila Sunrise, a place for high schoolers with fakes. It was where she met Danny.
Imogene parked behind Necto. Celia could already hear the music from inside, and panic struck. “I can’t go in there,” she said. She clutched to the door of her car like a sailor in a storm, afraid of going overboard.
“Here.” Imogene reached into her back pocket and pulled out a small, round, yellow pill. “Take this. It’ll calm you down.”
Celia swallowed the pill, thinking for a moment that there was a reason they said not to take candy from strangers…and Celia had never met anyone as strange as Imogene. But if the yellow pill could calm her down, so be it.
Imogene seemed to know everyone at Necto. She high-fived humans and kissed this one guy with glasses right on the mouth. The bartender immediately poured them two shots.
“What is it?” Celia asked over the late nineties techno music.
“Who cares,” Imogene shouted.
The shot was something sweet and burny. The next thing Celia knew, there was a rum punch in her hand, and Imogene dragged her to the dance floor. Celia didn’t dance, not that Imogene asked. She started doing all these crazy breakdance moves. It was almost as if she was in her own music video, but people were into it. When Imogene wasn’t dancing, dudes surrounded her—guys who looked like they’d fallen off the cover of GQ.
Since being turned, Celia had developed this embarrassing new habit; she stared at men’s necks. It was one of those things her therapist told her she wasn’t supposed to do as a vampire. Apparently humans considered it off-putting. Celia didn’t see how this was fair, since men stared at women’s breasts all the time—not hers, but other women’s. At Necto, she stared at the ceiling and watched the lights move around, until she felt Imogene dragging her to the bar for another shot and rum punch. When Celia asked about Imogene’s cocktail choice she replied, “What? It’s beachy, bitch.”
It was about an hour into their festivities when things got fuzzy. It was like the night at Tequila Sunrise with Danny when Celia got way too drunk and woke up immortal. This was a different feeling, though. This wasn’t just drunk. This was—I gotta dance!
Celia felt like she danced for a very long time. And there were more rum punches and more shots and she felt really relaxed until she vomited—all over Imogene.
Outside, Imogene screamed at her. “What’s the matter with you?”
Celia wavered on her feet in response.
At least Imogene was in a dark t-shirt, so the vomit wasn’t that obvious. Celia wanted to tell her that. Plus, it was only rum punch. Celia could smell it—like peach juice and bananas. She realized it was the way Imogene always smelled.
“You’re so new, you’re still puking? Real vampires aren’t even supposed to be able to throw up.” Imogene tore off her sunglasses and stuck her nose right in Celia’s face. “You are a total fuck up. Find a ride home.”
And in the middle of downtown Lazaret, Imogene took off her t-shirt and threw it in the gutter. She had on a red satin bra underneath and only then did Celia realize Imogene was way too hot to be friends with a loser like her. Imogene put her glasses back on and returned to the club. Somehow, in Celia’s pill-induced haze, she found a cab.
Celia didn’t know what time it was when she got back to the Sleeping Gull Apartments, but she walked right past all the quiet, closed doors with their lights out. She didn’t smell Woodsy BO Guy; instead, she heard the call of the sea. Once she felt sand under her toes, she peeled off clothes—the Freddie Mercury sweatshirt, gone, and her bra landed in the bushes. She fell on her face trying to get her jeans off, but she finally wrestled free. She even took off her cotton underpants before diving headfirst into a moonlit wave.
Under the cold water, she was still buzzing hard, and the mystery pill left a blis
sful echo as she rumbled and tumbled through the waves. She caught a mouthful of salt water and spit the taste of vomit into the sea.
Celia loved the ocean—had since she was a kid—but once she got old enough to realize she was the “fat kid,” she refused to put on a bathing suit. Days at the beach stopped, but since she’d been a vampire, the night had become not something scary but, rather, a comfort—a way to hide her stretch marks and insecurities. So Celia swam at night, often. Maybe that had been Danny’s real gift; he gave her the ocean back.
She didn’t know how long she floated, but she was still wasted when she got out. She wandered naked up the empty beach, weaving, ankles unsteady in the ever-moving sand. She didn’t notice him until she smelled smoke and pine and happiness, and by then, she was six inches from his chest.
The man was way taller than Celia, which wasn’t saying much since she was short. Still, she had to tilt her head up to see his face, which made her head spin and made him grab onto her naked arm to keep her upright. A cloud of smoke surrounded the guy, blue in the night-light. She could only really see his outline—weird, curly hair; freckled nose in the moonlight; relaxed shoulders. It was Woodsy BO Guy. Even surrounded by weed, she smelled his skin.
“I thought you were a mermaid,” he said.
Literally, the last thing Celia remembered was running naked up the beach screaming, “I’m not a mermaid! I’m not a mermaid!”
Chapter Three
After The Mermaid Incident, she fell into a death-like slumber. She didn’t wake until about 9 p.m., which was really late for Celia, who usually woke with the sunset. She wasn’t hung-over. She wasn’t even sure vampires could be hung-over. She sipped slowly on a bag of blood, her stomach still lacking confidence. She put on her soft Minnie Mouse t-shirt from the night before and felt bad for herself.
Bite Somebody Page 2
