by Gayla Twist
I thought maybe I could keep it together. They were just kissing. Haley ostensibly had some kind of plan. But then the brute climbed on top of her and I saw red. Before I knew what I was doing, I had peeled back the roof of Tommy’s car like I was opening a can of sardines. Shattered glass rained down from the sky like someone throwing fists full of confetti.
Chapter 18
Haley
I really had no idea what to think of Dorian. What do you do when it turns out your dream man is just a big old slut? I wasn’t into slut-shaming or anything like that, but where did you draw the line? Was it once the guy crossed over into triple digits? Quadruple digits? How many women had Dorian been with over the years? I wasn’t sure. Maybe he wasn’t even sure.
In his defense, Dorian was a vampire so he’d had a lot more time on his hands to play the field. But at a certain point it just got kind of gross. I knew vampires couldn’t get pregnant, but could they spread VD?
The truth was I was actually kind of hurt that Dorian had been with a lot of women. I’d only ever been with Tommy that one time. If I ever actually did get together with my maker, how would I compare to the fleet of females in his past? In my fantasies, when Dorian and I finally got together, it would be something truly special. At least it would be for me. But how could it be special for him if I was just one more name on a very long list?
I was just so confused over everything in my life after death that I didn’t know what to think. I just really wanted someone to confide in. And then I experienced a longing that I had been constantly fighting to suppress for my entire life. I wanted my mom.
My mom was crazy. I know a lot of people think their mom is a little nuts, but my mom had the paperwork to prove it. She’d been in and out of different mental health facilities my whole life. But there were also times when she’d been there for me. She’d kissed me and cuddled me and made me feel loved. Those times had been fleeting, but maybe that’s why they were so sweet. And after everything that had happened to me in the last couple of months, I desperately wanted one of those good-mom moments. It felt like the only thing that would make the world feel better.
My mom was currently staying at a place down near the Kentucky border. Evergreen? Evergrove? Evercrazy? I couldn’t remember. But I knew how to get there. I didn’t have a car, but I figured I could fly down there by just following the highway. The only problem was time. It was pushing two in the morning. I had become better at flying, but I wasn’t super speedy. If I flew as fast as I possibly could, and didn’t get lost, I figured I would arrive at the facility at around four-thirty. I was pretty darn sure that wouldn’t be in time for visiting hours.
Even if I did get to see Mom, what would I do about getting back to Kevin’s house before sunrise? There was no way I could make it in time. But there had to be ways that vampires hid from the dawn when they were travelling. I just didn’t know what they were. It would have been really helpful if Dorian had explained a few of these tricks. Or at least given me an instruction manual, or something.
But then I remembered what Dorian had done after he’d turned me into a vampire. He’d dug a hole in the ground and pulled the dirt in over both of us. I didn’t know if he’d done that because it was part of the process of making a vampire, or if it was just something to do in an emergency when you couldn’t find a light-sealed room. Either way, it would be handy if I couldn’t find a spare janitor’s supply closet at my mom’s facility.
I quickly changed into pants. I’d worn my plaid mini and black tights for my date with Tommy, but I didn’t like to wear a skirt if I was going to fly. I knew most people didn’t look up beyond the streetlights at night, but I didn’t want to feel like I was flashing half of Ohio. So I slipped into my best pair of jeans. They still weren’t very good, but they were the best I had.
Not for the first time, I wished I had vampire money. Then my wardrobe would have definitely expanded. When I was first changed, I’d used my influence a few times to buy some clothes at a huge discount. But I didn’t feel good about it so I stopped. It felt kind of like shoplifting and that just wasn’t my thing. So I guess I was going to keep on being the worst-dress vampire in America. At least for awhile.
As soon as I stepped outside and made sure none of our neighbors were out having a smoke or walking their dog, I took to the skies. I was so glad Dorian had shown me how to fly properly. It was just so exhilarating to have the ground drop away from my feet as I soared through the air. I wondered if vampires ever did any kind of cross-country treks, like flying across America. That was definitely something that I would like to try. After I made some undead friends, of course. Flying across America was kind of like going to the mall to get your ears pierced. It really felt like something you should do with a friend.
I was surprised by how easily I found my mom’s care facility. I arrived at a few minutes after four. It turns out the place was called Sterngrove. Not sure where I came up with the whole “ever” thing. Sterngrove was a large structure made out of sandy brick, not gorgeous but not ugly. It had a few architectural details that let you know it was older, but not super old.
I circled the building, trying to remember where my mom’s room was located. I knew it was on the second floor, but things looked much different on the outside of the building than they did on the inside. I had a bit of luck with the fact that my mother was actually awake and had her light on. I hovered outside her window for a few minutes, just watching her. She looked sane. And actually kind of pretty, in the dim glow of her reading lamp. I wondered if that meant they’d be letting her out soon. How was I supposed to handle telling her that I was a vampire?
I had assumed that the doctors at Sterngrove were going to hold onto my mom until after I turned eighteen. Then I would be considered an adult in the eyes of the government and I could leave home without being considered a delinquent or anything. My plan was to send her money and visit her as much as I could before it became too obvious that I wasn’t aging like everyone else. I had to wonder how most vampires handled taking care of their loved ones after their undeath. I had absolutely no idea. I knew there were insurance policies you could buy to help with the expense of a funeral, but I’d never seen anything advertised for the undead.
My mother suddenly looked up like people do when they have the feeling someone is watching them. I froze in mid-air, thinking that she probably couldn’t see me in the pitch-black of night. But she smiled and got to her feet. I could see her lips form the word, “Haley,” and she walked directly over to the window.
“What are you doing out there?” Mom asked, opening the window. I’m not sure that would have been the first question I would have asked if I’d found my daughter hovering in mid-air while outside in the middle of the night. But Mom doesn’t actually process a lot of things in the same way that most people do.
“I just missed you so I thought I’d come down,” I said, rather sheepishly.
“Well get on in here and give me a hug,” she said, pushing the window open.
I crossed over the sill and set my feet on the floor. “I thought that all of the windows here were supposed to be sealed shut. How come yours opens?” It was a facility for the mentally ill, after all. There were safety issues to consider.
“I’m mentally ill, sweetheart,” she told me. “Not stupid. I can figure out how to unseal a window. This place was built before they considered things like blocking people’s access to committing defenestration.”
I blinked at her, just waiting. I was used to my mother using words that she darn well knew I didn’t know, but she usually ended up defining them for me if I was patient.
“But you’re not worried about someone chucking you out a window anymore, now are you?” she asked with a sly grin.
“No,” I told her, without further elaboration.
She gave me a big mom-style hug and I breathed in the scent of her while saying a silent prayer of thanks that I had dined on a stray dog before approaching Sterngrove.
&nb
sp; Eventually she pulled away from me and gave me the once over. “When did this happen?” she asked, waving a hand at me to define what she meant by “this”.
“Christmas Eve,” I told her. Or maybe it was Christmas. I wasn’t exactly sure. I would have to check with Dorian. It would figure that my maker’s day would coincide with one of the biggest holidays of the year. I was sure it would probably be the same as when someone is born on Christmas. No one would be free to celebrate it with me because they’d all be focused on the holiday. I knew a kid in foster care who was born on Christmas. He ended up telling everyone his birthday was in July just to avoid being completely overlooked.
My mom looked me over again with a more critical eye. “It suits you,” she said.
“So you’re not upset?” I had thought telling my mother that I was a vampire would be at least as challenging as for a gay man to come out to his family.
“Well…” She thought it over. “I was looking forward to grandchildren, but I guess that’s never going to happen.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“And I guess it’s too late to do anything about it now,” she went on. “It’s not like there’s a laser tattoo removal for the undead. Is there?”
I was confused for a moment, but it was a very Mom thing for her to say. “No,” I told her. “I think the only way to stop…” I faltered at using the V word. “I think the only way for me to change is if I… you know… died.”
“But you’ve already tried that,” she said, as if I’d tried smoking or something. “Did you enjoy yourself?”
I remembered the last few seconds of my life, after I smashed through the windshield, but before I slammed into the tree. “No,” I told her. “That part was very bad.”
She hugged me again. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you.”
For a few moments I felt like I was in some kind of weird dream where I had this ideal parent who was supportive of everything I did in life, or death.
“You’re father is a vampire, you know,” she said, casually.
“He… what?” I stammered.
“Yes,” she went on. “He is a member of the undead. He told me that I couldn’t get pregnant, but I guess it’s kind of like the pill; it’s only effective ninety-nine percent of the time.”
I used to get sucked in when my mother told me crazy things about my father. For a long time when I was very young I believed he was killed in Vietnam. Until a neighbor pointed out that the war had ended a couple of decades before I was born. When I confronted my mother about this gross miscalculation in time she said, “I never told you he died during the war, I just said he was killed in Vietnam. It is a country, you know.”
I had learned not to believe my mom about any detail of my father’s existence, but claiming he was a vampire really caught me off guard. She was just too casual about it, too glib in her acceptance of me as a member of the undead.
“Seriously, Mom?” I asked.
“Oh, yes,” she assured me. “I wonder if you’ll meet him someday. I have to assume he’s still alive, although he was at least a hundred and fifty when I met him.”
I tried to think back to all that I had pieced together as fact about my father. I knew that someone sent my mother money sometimes. It never came as anything steady, like a monthly child support check, but there were lumps of cash randomly deposited in a bank account. And there was also someone who paid for her frequent stays in facilities like Sterngrove. Mental illness was not cheap. So someone had to have at least some money that they were willing to dispense with irregularity. But I didn’t know if the money came from a trust or a lawyer or anything. And even if the money did come from my dad, that didn’t necessarily mean he was a vampire. It could have just meant he was an asshole.
“Um… Mom?” I began. “If my father is a vampire, then why is this something you haven’t mentioned until now?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. I do have a reputation for being crazy, you know.”
“And what proof do you have that he’s a vampire? How do you know?”
“He told me,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“Yeah, but you told me he was killed in Viet Nam,” I pointed out.
She thought about it. “I’m pretty sure that’s where he told me he died.”
I felt a headache coming on. “And do you have any way of contacting this man, who is my father and also supposedly a vampire?”
Mom squinted at a patch of wall behind my head. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly. “But maybe through the bank or something. Quite honestly, I’ve never tried.”
“Why wouldn’t you try?” I asked, a bit flabbergasted.
“He obviously knows where I am,” she said. “If he wants to talk to me, he can call.”
Great, I thought to myself. My mom was treating her relationship with my father like she was a pouting middle-schooler. “Mom, did it ever occur to you that I might want to know my father? Or at least know something about him?”
Frowning, she asked, “What does he have to do with you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because he’s my dad. Does he even know I’m alive?” I was losing my battle to keep my temper.
“Well you’re not actually alive,” she told me with a laugh. “Not anymore.”
“Mom!” I was really getting angry. Visiting her was obviously a mistake.
“Oh, let’s not fight,” Mom said, holding her arms open wide to me. “Come here and let me hug you some more.” I made absolutely sure not to sniff her as she wrapped her arms around me. “This is going to be so fun,” she said, giving me a squeeze. “First you’ll be my daughter, then my granddaughter, and then my great granddaughter, if I last long enough. Won’t we have fun tricking everyone?”
I had to laugh and squeeze her back. It was typical of my mother to look at me being turned into a vampire as some kind of game.
And then suddenly everything felt alright. I could handle being a vampire and I could find a way to either make Dorian love me, or learn to live without his love. For absolutely no reason, I just felt better. It was the magic of my mom, I guess. I don’t know if she had this effect on anyone else, but she sure had it on me.
We chatted for awhile, still hugging. Mom told me all of the Sterngrove gossip. I told her about my maker. “He sounds hot,” she said. “Try to bring him by so I can get a look at him.”
“I’ll try,” I told her. “He’s really stubborn, so don’t get your hopes up. But I’ll try.”
After awhile I felt a weird sensation. It was hard to define, but it was kind of like a prickling at the back of my neck. And then I felt a little light headed. Not as bad as when I’d almost fainted at the castle, but enough to make me woozy. “What time is it?” I asked, looking around for a clock.
“About five-thirty,” she told me.
“Oh.” It was going to be sunrise soon. “I’ve got to go.”
“You can’t go now,” Mom said. “You’ll never make it back to Tiburon before the sun rises. You’ll be burnt toast.”
“Then I’ll have to dig a hole and sleep in the ground in some neighboring woods,” I told her.
Mom gave me a funny look like she was questioning my sanity. “Why don’t you just sleep in my closet and stuff a towel under the door?”
Chapter 19
Haley
Sleeping in my mom’s closet turned out to be rather nice. The lingering scent of her permeated her jackets and sweaters. I found myself sinking into a deep state of relaxation. It wasn’t exactly sleep, but it was the second best thing to being in Dorian’s arms.
I left at the next nightfall to fly back to Tiburon. I felt better in some ways and more confused in others. I was glad my mom had accepted me as a member of the undead — pretty much without batting an eye — but I really had to wonder if my father was actually a vampire, or if that was just more crazy talk from Mom. It was so hard to tell. If it was crazy talk, I had to give her points for creativity. Nothin
g like messing with your kid when she’s vulnerable.
As I was closing in on Tiburon, I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. My new cell plan apparently had much better coverage than my old one. “Hello?”
“Haley, it’s me,” a male voice told me.
“Me who?” I asked, playing it cool.
“It’s your boyfriend,” the guy said. And then just to be clear he added, “Tommy.”
“Yeah, I don’t think we’ve ever discussed our status as boyfriend and girlfriend,” I told him.
“Oh, come on,” he whined. “Don’t be like that.”
I hated when guys said stupid things like, “Don’t be like that.” What they really meant was, “I just want you to give me my way and I’m going to kind of be a baby about it.”
Instead of saying, “Don’t be like what?” and starting a weird fight, I said, “I’ll be ready in twenty minutes. Come pick me up at my Uncle Kevin’s.” And then I hung up. It was so much easier dating a guy when I hated his guts.
Tommy took me to White Castle to meet up with some of his friends. The mortal me would have loved this. I would have been thrilled to be out in public with the cool kids. The undead me didn’t care. I’ve never been a fan of fast food, so being in a White Castle didn’t bring on any phantom food cravings. I did recently learn that White Castle was the first American-style fast food restaurant. That made it a little historically interesting at least.
At first everything was going fine. I ordered a few of their mini-burgers, some fries and a coke. There was no way I could choke down any of it, but I had a feeling Tommy could easily vacuum up the extra portions. The Maybe-Lauras were there, staring daggers at me and texting on their phones so quickly that their thumbs were practically blurs. About ten minutes after everyone had settled into their chairs and horked down their food, Sheila came storming in.
