Damon

by Vanessa Hawkes

  I could see him moving in there, pacing with agitation, but I couldn’t see his features, or tell what he was holding in his hand. It might have been a knife or a gun, but I didn’t think so. He wouldn’t stop flailing his arms long enough to tell. He was buck naked and looked like he’d been rolling in the red paint.

  His demons were eating him alive and there was nothing I could do.

  Cynthia came out on the porch to join me. “What’s he doing?” she whispered.

  “Just pacing.”

  “What’s he torn up?”

  I checked around the room. The dresser was away from the wall, the mattress was askew, and the nightstand was upside down near the closet. Various items cluttered the floor, including the broken remains of the porcelain clock Gram had given me for my fourteenth birthday. I really loved that clock.

  “Nothing,” I told her through clenched teeth. “He’s just pacing.”

  She let out a sigh of relief beside me, but I kept watching.

  “I heard some terrible crashing sounds earlier,” she said.

  “He knocked over the nightstand, that’s all.”

  She leaned against the wall beside the window and lit a cigarette. “God, this is just like it was when I left. I thought everything would be fine now.” Her voice was full of self-pity. “I thought I could finally get somewhere and live a happy, normal life. Oh, but nooo….” Her voice turned hard. “You better beware, honey, you’re right behind me.”

  Damon threw whatever he was holding at the mirror over the dresser. The crashing sound was awful.

  “He threw my hand mirror, that’s all,” I quickly told Cynthia.

  “No, it was not!” she barked at me. She pointed at me as she marched back inside. “You brought him into this house. He is just like your mother. Just like her!”

  She went inside and let the screen door slam behind her.

  He wasn’t the same as Mama. He was keeping himself locked in his room, where he couldn’t hurt anyone. He wasn’t like Mama at all. She had always come looking for us.

  Damon was still in control.

  I sat down in a rocker, where I could hear and take a periodic look and check on him. But I should have been keeping an eye on Cynthia.

  The sheriff’s car rolled to a stop in front of the house five minutes later and James Eddie maneuvered himself out of the car. I reluctantly got up to meet him.

  “Well, I thought we might make it a full year, lil bit,” he said, looking more serious than his words. “But you just can’t go without seeing my pretty face, I guess.”

  James Eddie was anything but pretty with his silly mustache, pockmarked skin, bushy eyebrows and tobacco-stained teeth, but I only chuckled a little to play along.

  “Everything’s okay,” I told him. “We just panicked.”

  “Her medication ain’t doing the trick anymore?”

  Oh, so he thought it was Mama? Fine. “We forgot to give her her pills. We’ve been out of town.”

  He rested his hands on his gun belt, nodding, because of course he knew that. He was Sheriff Backwater. He knew everything.

  “What’s the situation now?”

  “She’s in her room. She’s quiet. We got her pills down her.”

  Thankfully, Damon didn’t choose that moment to throw a TV through the window.

  James Eddie should have been leaving, but he kept staring at the house. I was anxious, and wanted him to go before something happened. Before Cynthia saw her knight in shining armor had arrived.

  “Well, I also got a call about that man you’ve got living here in your house,” he said. “Is he at home?”

  That man? “He’s my husband,” I told him indignantly.

  He looked at me sharply. He didn’t know everything. He didn’t know that. “You got married?”

  “Last week. He’s not here. He went home to Nashville to close his house up.”

  James Eddie nodded toward the red Mustang. “Ain’t that his car?”

  “He rented a truck. He had some furniture to bring back.”

  Boy, was I getting good at this lying thing. It was like an untapped natural talent.

  “Who called you about him?” I asked, to further distract him.

  He kept a stoic expression. That was for him to know and for me not to know. “Well, I’d just like to have a word with him when he gets back. You can tell him that.”

  “He hasn’t done anything wrong. I know Chester called you, but Damon was with me in Knoxville Sunday, so he couldn’t have done it. They’re just trying to blame him for something because they don’t approve of our marriage.”

  James Eddie raised his eyebrows slightly. He knew that might be true. “You just tell him I’d like a word,” he said and turned to leave.

  “Okay,” I sang lightly. I wasn’t going to say anything else to stop him.

  Cynthia came running out the front door as James Eddie’s car rolled past Mrs. Jarvis’s house. “Where’s he going?” she yelled.

  She ran out into the road and waved her arms, but was too late. I jogged back to the house to look in Damon’s window. He was lying face down on the bed, his arms and legs splayed,

  “What’s he doing now?” she hissed beside me.

  “He’s asleep.”

  “Oh, thank god!”

  I glanced at her as she went inside, then knocked on the window. Damon slowly lifted his head. I knocked again and called his name. He slithered off the bed like a snake and crawled to the window on his hands and knees.

  His forehead was smeared with red paint, and he rested it against the windowpane. “He’s still inside me,” I heard him say. “I can’t get him out of me.”

  “Don’t worry,” I told him. I knelt down and rested my forehead against the pane, almost able to feel his energy through the glass. “I’ll stay right here.”

  ***

  The day didn’t get better.

  An hour later, Damon was resting quietly, and I was able to get in the room to clean what I could before Cynthia blew another gasket.

  She was in the kitchen chain-smoking with the bottle of whiskey that had been under the sink since she’d left four years ago.

  I knew she was considering kicking us all out of her house. If Damon hadn’t offered to pay rent for the room, she would have done it already. Her financial misfortune had become our good fortune.

  I carried a trash bag with me and picked up paint soaked chunks off the floor. The floor would probably have to be refinished, or replaced. I hadn’t been able to have them waxed like I’d wanted to, and the red paint had soaked right into the wood. He’d knocked over the gallon can and the sticky mess was everywhere. He’d smeared it all over himself and bumped against walls and rolled around on the bed. Grammy’s quilt was ruined.

  That really, really hurt.

  But I was more worried about him. Chester said whoever wrote the message on his walls had done it in red paint. Damon could have sneaked out after I was asleep Saturday night, gone to Bella and Chester’s house, and been back before I woke up. The man never slept a full night.

  And I was worried about us. As I picked up another chunk to throw away, I stopped. I was holding red fangs.

  In the bathroom, I cleaned them up as best I could with soap and an old toothbrush.

  They were Damon’s fangs. The ones I had thought were natural. They looked expensive, and real, made out of some high-quality dental porcelain. I put them on and looked at myself.

  A horrible realization came over me as I stood there, shivering with mortification, with razor-sharp fangs pressing against my bottom lip.

  We weren’t vampires. We were insane. So insane we couldn’t even remember we were insane.

  The silver eyes… they must have been a hallucination. Shared psychotic disorder. Blood poisoning and blood loss and good old-fashioned insanity.

  I dropped the fangs in the toilet and flushed them.

  A wave of exhaustion passed through me and I knelt down against the wall to rest. One of us had to han
g onto reality for as long as possible. And God help us, it would have to be me.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Damon was feeling better by suppertime. He’d had a nap, a bath of turpentine, and was dressed in clean clothes.

  Thankfully, he hadn’t had the idea to get into the closet. He barely remembered the violent episode. All he would say was that it had been like a dream. He didn’t want to talk about it.

  Neither did I.

  Cynthia was still crabby, and drunk, so we stayed in our room until Damon went out to get supper. I didn’t feel like eating, or leaving the house, but Damon insisted.

  “We’re weak,” he said, looking himself like a skeleton wearing clothes. “We still have to eat.”

  I lifted my head off the bed where I lay sprawled, trying to find the energy to sit up. “Then I’ll make sandwiches. Don’t go.”

  He shook his head and wouldn’t let me go with him when he left to pick up a pizza at Pappy’s game room.

  So I stayed behind, lounging in bed, watching the nine-inch TV I’d brought in from my room, sleeping on and off. The picture was so clear it gave me a headache. When I really awoke, I saw the news was on.

  The outside door was opening, explaining the racket I’d heard.

  I sat up, belatedly alarmed that he’d been gone so long. “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  He dropped the pizza box on the dresser and set a paper sack on top of it. “Don’t get up.”

  I certainly did get up when his face turned ashen gray and his eyes grew wide.

  “I’m gonna throw up.” He rushed past me and barely made it down the hall to the bathroom in time.

  I hurried to get a cool, wet cloth but stopped when I saw the fluid coming from his mouth was red. He was vomiting blood.

  “Damon, oh my god!” I stood frozen, unable to think or move.

  He straightened and staggered toward the door. “It’s okay. It’s nothing.”

  I rushed to put his arm around my shoulder and helped him into bed. He caught my hand when I turned to go call an ambulance.

  “Don’t go,” he whispered. He sat there breathing heavily, sweat dripping down his face and neck. When I felt his forehead, his skin was cool and clammy.

  My vision blurred and the room began to spin. “You’re dying. I’m calling an ambulance.”

  “No, it’s okay.” His voice was slightly stronger and he held onto my hand. “It’s okay. I drank some blood and it made me sick. That’s all. It’s gone now and I’m fine.”

  I sat down on the edge of the bed. “That’s why you were gone so long. Where did you get blood?”

  That question came out of my mouth, but the question I wanted to ask was, how could you drink someone else’s blood? How could you betray me like that?

  “From the butcher’s,” he said, nodding to the sack on the dresser. “I wanted to try it before you. Don’t take any of it. It’s bad.”

  “But how could you do that?” Even as the feelings raged painfully through my muscles, I couldn’t believe I was jealous of a dead cow or pig.

  “I had to, baby, I was making you sick.”

  “I’m not sick.” I remembered the wet cloth in my hand and wiped the sweat and blood from his face. He did seem better now that the foreign blood was out of his system. He wasn’t sweating anymore and his skin had warmed some.

  He watched me with dull eyes as I worked. “I’m bleeding you dry. You look like a drug addict. Like a hardcore junkie.”

  “Do I?” All the movement had exhausted me and I rested my hands on his stomach. “No wonder everybody was looking at me weird. I feel real tired, Damon.”

  “We’ve been taking too much. Not eating food or drinking enough water. We have to stop for awhile. You’re a skeleton. I didn’t see. I’m sorry.”

  I sat looking at him for a minute, loving the way he looked when he was truly himself. When only Damon was behind those wonderful blue eyes. “But you’ll drink cow blood.”

  “I won’t, I promise.” He lifted his arms to me. “Yours or nothing.”

  Eagerly, I went into his arms and rested my head on his chest. The instant his warm body and solid arms were around me the world slowed and I could begin to relax. I settled into a more comfortable position.

  “I hurt all over, Damon.”

  “Me too, baby.”

  ***

  Three days later, when Chester stopped by to check on me, I was sitting outside, rocking on the porch wrapped in a sweater. I looked and felt like Mama on a bad day.

  I could tell he thought so by the way he almost walked past me to knock on the door, and then turned back.

  He came over to sit beside me. “You cold, kiddo? It’s almost eighty degrees out.” He laid a soft hand on my forehead. “You’ve got a fever.”

  I felt like I was dying. I’d been drinking blood, and now I was poisoned. I didn’t mind, really. I deserved it, to die, to be punished.

  I couldn’t remember how I’d come to be sitting on the porch, or how long I’d been there. Nothing really mattered. Sweet indifference had set in.

  “Are you here alone?” Chester asked. “Where’s everybody?”

  “Damon’s sick in bed. Mama’s catatonic. I don’t know where she is.”

  “Catatonic? Well…. How’d that happen?”

  “Cynthia tried to overdose her and now she’s brain dead.”

  “My lord,” he said with emotion. I couldn’t turn my head but I could see the look of pity in his eyes all the same. “She’s at the hospital?”

  “No. What’s the point?”

  “Maybe they can help her, kiddo. Maybe they can help you. You look like hell and you’ve got a fever.”

  “I heard you the first time.”

  “Well, hear me when I say I’m taking charge here.”

  He stood and pulled on my arm, but I wouldn’t budge. “I’m not leaving Damon.” I looked up at him and tried to express the urgency pulsing through my veins. It felt like my face was coated in hard wax. “Bury us in the same casket. Please. It’s so important.”

  He kept hold of my arm. “C’mon now. I’m going to take care of this. We’ve been fools.”

  “We sure have.”

  “Not you. Come inside.”

  My legs didn’t want to work and Chester had to support me into the house. I was worried about his old bones, but he had more strength left than I would have guessed. He led me toward the hall.

  “Which one is yours, hon?” I heard him say, but all I could think was that he smelled like Old Spice and the drugstore.

  “We’ve got three choices, looks like,” he said, pushing open the door to Mama’s bedroom where she lay neglected and possibly comatose. Probably dead.

  I didn’t want to go in there. “With Damon,” I told him. “At the end.”

  Damon lay naked face down on the floor, where he’d obviously passed out trying to get to the door. Chester went to the bed and pulled back the covers, but I lay on the floor beside Damon instead. Instinctively, I curled into his warmth. He was sleeping with his mouth open. His breathing was raspy but I could feel his energy and heartbeat. His body was burning hot. He was still alive.

  Chester dropped a blanket over us both. “You stay right there,” he said.

  I wasn’t going anywhere. I could barely lift my arm to drop it across Damon’s back.

  ***

  I awoke to voices. I was awake, I knew I was awake, but my eyes wouldn’t open. My body was numb and I couldn’t move. But I could hear. I recognized Chester’s voice, but the woman’s voice wasn’t familiar at first. Then I recognized her as Verna Jarvis next door. They were speaking from the far end of a tunnel.

  “We have to do something, Chester,” she said. “This is just like with Harvey and Beverly all over again.”

  “We searched for an answer for fifty years,” Chester said. “What can we do now? There was never supposed to be more children.”

  “This will end in tragedy, just like before. Mark my words
.”

  “The ambulance is coming. That’s all we can do.”

  I couldn’t hold on any longer and black sleep pulled me under.

  ***

  When I awoke, I was lying in a bed in a cool, airy room. I couldn’t see well though foggy eyes, but I could tell I was in a hospital bed. I had an IV in my arm and a horrid stench in my nostrils. My throat burned and when I tried to swallow tears poured from my eyes.

  I tried to sit up, but someone was there and they pushed me down by the shoulders.

  “Just lie still,” a warm, beautiful, comforting voice said. “Bella’s here, sugar.”

  Bella, oh Bella. I was so glad. I was terrified. When I tried to speak, and couldn’t, she poured cool water down my throat. The dry cracks softened and my vision began to clear.

  Still, my voice didn’t want to work. “Where’s Damon?” I croaked.

  “He’s in a room down the hall. He’s going to be fine. And so is your mama.”

  Feeling slightly better, I sat up a little and looked around. Someone was in the room with us. A woman asleep in another bed. She had flowers all around her but no people.

  I focused on Bella’s familiar wrinkled face and clutched her soft hand. “What happened?”

  “Well, your cuts got infected,” she said, lowering her voice. “You were dehydrated and suffering from malnutrition. Both of you. I’m so sorry I had to tell them about your mother, but they needed to know. They’ve got you on fluids and antibiotics, and gave you a tetanus shot, I believe. How do you feel now?”

  Now that she’d filled me in, I did have vague memories of being rolled down a bright hallway with people looking down at me, touching me, asking me questions I couldn’t answer.

  Her hand felt so cool and soft on my forehead I closed my eyes, then opened them so I wouldn’t drift off. “Mama’s alive?”

  “She’s recovering. They moved her to Nashville. We’ll need to discuss what to do with her once you’re well, but that can wait.”

  “She has to come home.” Of course.

  “Well, hon,” she said, giving me a calming pat on the hand, “we’ll worry about that later. Right now, she’s fine.”