DSosnowski - Vamped

by Vamped (v1. 0) [lit]

  Distracted, I forget to pull my punches this time, forget to hold my vampire reflexes in check. So my hand goes out and covers the card several heartbeats before Isuzu’s hand covers mine. Her eyes go wide; she didn’t even see me move. And then her eyes scrunch closed, her head tilts back, her mouth Ohs around a series of prefatory Ahs…

  And then the other Choo drops.

  Our hands are sprayed, along with the cards fanning out from under them. I look at the little beads of warm moisture scattered like diamonds on the back of my surreal, too-white hand. In the center is an absence—a silhouette in the shape of Isuzu’s hand, left behind when she took the real one away, to swab at her nose again.

  “You’re supposed to say, ‘God bless you,’ ” she informs me.

  I’m still shaking off the brick that’s just hit me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, because I am—so incredibly, desperately sorry that my heart feels like it might stop.

  Isuzu’s sick.

  Isuzu’s sick in a world that does not suffer sick little girls gladly.

  “I’m sorry,” I say again, overwhelmed by my sudden uselessness. Isuzu’s sick, and I have no idea what to do about it.

  “ ‘God bless you,’ ” I say, at Isuzu’s prompting, hoping he hasn’t stopped listening to me. Praying he hasn’t stopped taking my phone calls.

  Iknow I’ve done wrong. Iknow I’ve been bad.

  I know I’ve broken your stupid commandments. I know I’ve stopped going to your stupid weekly get-togethers. But your big threat hasn’t been such a big threat, lately—you know? Why would you do this to a little kid? Getting at me through her?

  Oh,that’smature!

  Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?

  I look over at Isuzu, who’s doing something she’s never had to do before. She’s shoving all the damp cards I’ve won over to my side of the table. She gets about half of them over there before stopping to sniff and rub again. And then she rolls up her snotty sleeve and turns her wrist to me, preparing to accept her punishment for losing.

  “Wait, wait,” she says, hurriedly. She closes her eyes.

  “Okay,” she says. She holds her arm out as straight and stiff as she can make it. It’s almost like it’s a single piece of bone—no joint, no elbow. She holds it there without me doing anything long enough to begin shaking. She holds it there long enough to finally open her eyes again. First one, then the other.

  “Marty?” she says. “What’s wrong?”

  She’s scalding, of course. Burning up. When I place my cold hand to her warm forehead, all I register is “hot.” But that’s how all mortals feel to my vampire hands at first touch, before the heat exchange, before I feel like them to them, and they feel like an extension of me. But is Isuzu’s “hot”too hot? That’s the question. And me, I just sit there like a dope, staring as my heat-pinked palm goes back to pale.

  And then I have an idea.

  I drop a pint into the reservoir of my Mr. Plasma, slide the carafe into place, and tap the warm-up button. The little red numbers click up and then stop. There’s a rocker switch on my model so I can raise or lower the temperature to suit my preference, but the preset is always the same:

  Ninety-eight point six degrees Fahrenheit.

  Those are the numbers I’m staring at now, terribly pleased with my ingenuity, terribly frightened of what it might tell me. Cupping my hands around the carafe, I wait until they don’t feel like my hands anymore—or separate from what they’re touching. It’s always a weird sensation, this warming up to the dissolving point. You can feel each degree as a throb or wa-wa in the blood. In your temples. In all your pulse points. They come fast, at first, but then slower and slower until the wa-wa’s stop. That’s when the background hum of nothing special—nothing different, distinct, separate—reasserts itself and you find that you’ve become one with, say, the cup of coffee you bought to avoid startling your next victim.

  Before, borrowed heat was always a big part of any seduction of a mortal by a vampire. We’d rest against registers, lean against warm car hoods, cradle cups of coffee, anything with the heat we needed to camouflage our own chillier disposition. And then we’d cup the cheek, caress the neck, run a warmed finger along this or that length of exposed skin. They never knew what was going on. They never suspected that by touching, we were borrowing their heat, too, reflecting it back to them, degree for degree, so that our touch felt like their own to them, the touch of the perfect lover.

  But now the thermodynamics of vampiric seduction have become the fuel of parental dread.

  So this is what karma feels like. So this is how I am to be paid back. I’ve been running away from my life ever since I didn’t die, but now—now my life has caught up with me, and it’s getting ready to take it out on the only thing it still can, my sunshine, my innocent bystander, my too-easily-killable…

  I take my hands away from the carafe and it feels like what it must feel like when an amoeba splits—that momentary sense of doubling, then loss. Before their borrowed heat can fade, I place one of my hands to Isuzu’s forehead, praying for the background hum to continue, uninterrupted. That would mean that she’s the same temperature as my plasma maker—98.6. That would mean she’s normal, which would mean it’s probably just a cold, probably just something that’ll come and go on its own.

  Probably nothing to worry about. Probably something to just ride out.

  But the hum doesn’t continue.

  I can feel a distinct waaa as soon as my skin touches hers.

  Okay, okay, I tell myself. No need to panic. A degree or two of cooling between pot and forehead. That’s to be expected. My hand will warm back up to that point, and then stop, and everything will be okay. Right? Right.

  Except they keep coming—wa-wa-wa—and I start counting them, like Mississippis after a lightning strike. Granted, this is hardly as precise a measurement technique as even counting Mississippis, but…

  By my reckoning, Isuzu has a fever of around 110.

  I turn a whiter shade of pale.

  “Marty,” Isuzu says, though it’s harder to hear her this time, through the rushing of other people’s blood in my head.

  “Marty,” she repeats. “What’s wrong?”

  The highest fever I can remember having was 104, when I was six years old. My mother made me get into the bathtub, which she’d filled with cold water and bags of ice from the drugstore. I cried from the cold and she cried from having to make me bear it. At the time, I had no idea how serious the fever was, had no idea that children like me were dying. All I knew was that I was sick and my mother seemed to be punishing me for it.

  “Please,” I pleaded, grabbing the edge of the tub, trying to pull myself out of the icy water.

  “No.” Followed by a hand to my forehead, pushing me back down.

  “I’m s-s-s-sorry,” I apologized, a feverish little Catholic boy, guilty since birth, periodically called upon to pay for it.

  I tried getting up again.

  “No.”

  The water closed in so cold, I could feel my bones inside my skin.

  “B-b-b-but…”

  “No.” My mother wept, pushing back. The strings in her neck were pulled so tight, they seemed ready to snap.

  “I w-w-w-won’t d-d-d-do it a-g-g-gain,” I said. “I s-s-s-swear…”

  Which is when my mother slapped me and I stopped crying. Stopped pleading. Stopped trying to get out of the bath. I just went numb, and from the look in her eyes, my mother had done the same.

  I didn’t know children like me were dying. I didn’t know that the ones who did were sometimes luckier than the ones who didn’t—the ones who ended up inside machines that breathed for them. I just knew my mother had finally figured out the truth about me, and was going to get even. Even if it killed us both.

  Obviously, Isuzu didnot have a fever of 110 degrees.

  That’s brain-cooking temperature. That’s “This is your brain on drugs” territory.

  That
’s the “too” in “too late.” At 110, she’d have gone past delirious straight to spontaneous human combustion. And there I’d be, scooping up handfuls of oily ash from the kitchen floor. Maybe I was counting wa’s when I should have been counting wa-wa’s; maybe the pace of the wa-wa’s had something to do with my own frantically beating heart. But shedid have a fever—my little experiment proved that much—which meant it wasn’t just a cold.

  I could draw a bath for Isuzu, but lots of luck finding ice in a world where there’s no use for it. No drinks that are drunk on the rocks. No frozen foods section. No use for it but chipping it off our cars when it’s that time of year, and it’s not that time of year.

  I’ve seen aspirin on eBay, at twenty-five bucks a tab, but with the bidding, the back-and-forth with the dealer, even with FedEx, it would be a couple of days before I had anything I could offer Isuzu. Assuming it wasn’t counterfeit. Assuming it was even still good. And even if itwas still good, what’s the proper dose for a kid Isuzu’s age? I remember something called “baby aspirin.” “Baby” according to whom? The mothers who insist, “You’ll always be my baby”? Or is there a specific cutoff? Are baby aspirin and adult aspirin even the same thing at different doses, or are they completely different? And isn’t there supposed to be some disease where you’re not supposed to give kids aspirin?

  Plus, if there’s a fever, doesn’t that mean there’s an infection? And doesn’t that mean antibiotics? I haven’t seen those on eBay. I think about calling Father Jack, asking him if Judas has ever gotten antibiotics from the vet, if he’s got any leftovers. But how would I explain the need? Maybe I could get a mortal puppy from a different pet store, cut it, let it get infected, and then take it to the vet so I can get a bottle of antibiotics for Isuzu…

  But what am I thinking? Even vets don’t carry antibiotics anymore. That’s partly because vets aren’t really vets anymore. They’re more like glorified dog groomers, nail clippers, the runners of pet hotels for when the owners are away. Maybe they spay and neuter the unvamped. And that’s about it. An owner whose pet is in bad enough shape to need the services of a for-real, old-fashioned vet either can deal with the problem himself by vamping the thing, or else he was really looking for a disposable pet in the first place.

  What about penicillin? Penicillin is an antibiotic. The first one. And wasn’t that just made out of mold? But what kind? How do you find it? How do you grow it once you find it, and how do you get penicillin from it, once it’s grown? And then we’re right back in aspirin territory. How much is too much, too little, just right? And what if Isuzu’s allergic? A lot of people used to be, proving yet again that every miracle has another side.

  And it’s not like I can’t think of what to do. It’s not like I don’t have a one-cure-fits-all choice to consider. To choose. To decide.

  Vamping.

  That’s the thing I have in my back pocket, worst-case scenario. Just like the do-it-yourself vets out there. If things get out of hand, I can always cure Isuzu by turning her into one of those howling midgets. It wouldn’t be so different. Not right away. We could stop hiding. That’s a plus. I could stop worrying, turn my toilet back into a planter, and never write another check to someone I met on eBay.

  But eventually, things would change. As her face and age grew further apart, she’d realize what was stolen from her. That’s when the fun—and screaming—starts. That’s when my misery finally gets the company it deserves.

  Ever since the change, History has become the largest section of most bookstores, at least those that didn’t sweep their Cooking and Health Care sections into the bargain bin right from the start. Almost everything that’s no longer relevant to the current context has been deemed “of historical interest,” and reshelved accordingly. And so it isn’t too hard for me to track down a copy ofThe Merck Manual Home Edition. The hard part is explaining why.

  Sex, blank, and rock ’n’ roll, I decide.

  That’s my excuse. Fill in the blank. Drugs. Getting high.

  It’s long been rumored in the vampire world that certain diseases produce an inebriating effect when the vampire’s immune system fires up to combat them. AIDS, anthrax, hepatitis—strains of these viruses are rumored to still exist, and can be purchased through the same dark channels through which cocaine and heroin once flowed. You know a guy who knows a guy; you meet someplace; you exchange newspapers. And then you go home with a postage-stamp-sized Ziploc bag full of fuzz or slime. You add a little to your bottle of lab-grown, keep it warm for a few nights, let the buggies cook, and voilà! When the BBQ’s Enforcement Division isn’t busy hassling microbleeds, these are the guys they go after. The bug dealers. AIDS, anthrax, and hepatitis—these are the pot of bug culture. But then there’s the higher-end, exotic stuff—dengue fever, Ebola, typhoid, SARS.

  I pick the clerk who looks like she might understand. Punky, cropped hair. Black T-shirt, “Bite Me” in white military-style stenciling across the front. Black plastic, dark-lensed cat glasses. I bend close to the counter so she has to lean forward to hear. I mutter my cover story into my fist, explain that I’m a bug head, looking for something new to pique my hemo- (cough, grin, sell the pun)philia….

  Not that the clerk cares. It’s midnight; my attempt at humor is cutting into her lunch break.

  “Yeah, whatever,” she says. “Don’t forget your receipt.”

  I thank her and leave the child care books for another night, and a better excuse.

  When I get home, the TV is on and Isuzu is asleep on the couch. Her blanket is kicked to the floor, her already-shiny face is shinier still, thanks to the sweat the fever has brought out of her. While watching her sleep and watching her breathing for signs of its getting shallow, I list her symptoms in my head.

  Fever—check.

  Sneezing, runny nose—check, check.

  Cough—yes, okay.

  But then:

  Irritable? Fussy?

  These aresymptoms ? Do they mean more than how she is normally? Is there some sort of scale or examples or something? Calling me a “poophead,” say, versus threatening hara-kiri if I won’t let her watchThe Little Bobby Little Show ?

  And then there’s this whole thing about spots—on her tongue, in her mouth, on her face. Red, white, brown, or worse? Regular or irregular? Plain or pus-filled? Carbuncular. Scaly. Leprotic. Open and oozing.

  Flesh-eating!

  I’msupposed to be the vampire, here.I’m supposed to be the one who sucks the life out of things, makes them feel hollow and exhausted and like parts of them are dying. But all it takes is a few sniffles from a mortal half my size to trump anything my fangs and I can pull off.

  When I was vamped, there was a point when I’d been nearly drained, when I’d been taken to the bottom, the brink, to as low as a living thing can get andnot be dead. It was a hole. A hole into which I’d fallen, only to discover thatI was also the hole into which I’d fallen. It was a point of utter despair and emptiness. Before, I always imagined that the feeling was fear. Now I know better.

  It was love.

  Before, back then, it was my love of self. It was the love that gushed out of me when I saw my life ending, when I sawmyself going away forever. This time…

  I turn the pages. More contagion, pestilence, plague. More obscene illustrations of what to look for, lit clinically, lit with a sad, cold, slightly jaundiced light that reminds me, somehow, of pornographic films from the 1970s. All that’s missing is the wocka-wocka background music.

  No more.

  I just can’t take it. I just can’t handle this Chinese menu of heartbreak anymore. And so I slam the book closed like a movie assistant marking a scene.

  The noise makes Isuzu stir. She stretches. Rubs her eyes. Looks at me. I try not to stare at the whites of her eyes, try not to wonder what qualifies as jaundiced.

  “How you feeling, Pumpkin?” I ask.

  “Poopy.”

  “Poopier than before?”

  She thinks about this as she checks w
hatever she needs to check inside that dying-since-birth body of hers.

  “Nah,” she says.

  And then the word that puts my world back together again:

  “Better,” she says.

  Sure, there’s a few pieces missing, and it’s a shakier place, for damned sure, but the Band-Aids are in place. Ditto the nails, staples, chicken wire, and twine.

  “Better?” I ask, making sure.

  “Yeah,” she says, sucking in a sniffle before looking around her, toward the kitchen. She looks back then, at my face, at the pure sense of relief that’s made its home there. Sensing a winning hand, she asks:

  “We got anymore Count Chocula?”