The Vanishing Vampire

by David Lubar

  The knife slipped from my fingers and clattered into the sink. I snatched it up and took another look.

  Everything was normal. I was there. I was solid. I was worried. I put the knife in the dishwasher. I was tempted to take another look, but I was afraid of having the transparent version show up again.

  As I was going upstairs, the phone rang. “It’s for you,” my mom called from the kitchen.

  “I’ll get it up here!” I shouted, heading toward the phone in my parents’ bedroom.

  It was Norman on the other end. “Want to go into town?” he asked.

  “Sure. I’ll meet you by your house.” There was no point sitting around waiting to fade again.

  I got dressed, grabbed my jacket, and headed out. The morning sun felt really hot. I took off the jacket, but that felt even worse with the sun beating down on me, so I put the jacket back on. As I walked past the house next door, Mr. Nordy’s dog, Browser, came running up to the fence. I stopped to pet him.

  As I reached out, Browser whined, then turned and ran around to the back of the house, his tail between his legs.

  Weird.

  I met Norman by his place, and we headed into town. It’s not a long walk—about nine blocks. As soon as I reached him, Norman started telling me all about some new software he’d downloaded. He’s big on that stuff. We both like monster movies and comics. And we both like video games. But Norman is way more into computers than I am. I think they’re fun, but I don’t get swallowed up by them the way he does. I could just imagine him getting sucked into his computer with nothing but his feet dangling out.

  “Uh-oh,” Norman said after we’d walked a couple of blocks.

  I looked ahead. Down the street, on our side, I saw one of life’s real monsters. It was Lud Mellon. Put him together with his brother Bud, and you’d have enough IQ for half a person. They were stupid and mean. Getting a Mellon angry at you was like taking something from one of those cursed Egyptian tombs. Sooner or later, one way or another, doom would fall. It was always a good idea to avoid being noticed by Lud or Bud.

  We crossed the street, hoping he hadn’t spotted us. Luckily, Lud seemed to have something else on his tiny piece of mind and didn’t look our way.

  “I hate those guys,” Norman said. “Somewhere along the line, a couple of their genes took a U-turn and headed back to the Stone Age.”

  “Agreed.” We reached the comic book shop without any other problems. This place sold comics and monster books and masks and stuff and was called the Gore and More Store. “Great,” I said, seeing that the newest issue of Swollen Rat People from Another Universe had finally arrived.

  “Look,” Norman said, holding up his discovery. “It’s the new Hyper Hurricane Man.”

  “I’ll tell you what: I’ll get Rat People, you get Hurricane, and we’ll swap after we read them.”

  “Deal.” We took our purchases up to the register and paid Lenny.

  “Thanks, guys,” he said as he counted the change. “The new Hawkchild is due out next week. Should I save a copy for you?”

  “Sure,” I said. We headed out.

  “Where to?” Norman asked as we returned to the bright light outside the store.

  “Your house?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “Mom’s cooking.” Norman’s mom was a caterer. She made fancy meals for people having parties. Most of the time, she was real friendly. But when she had a big order to fill, she didn’t like having any extra kids around. So there were times we couldn’t go to Norman’s house. On the other hand, it also meant there was usually lots of good food when we did go there, since his mom was always trying new recipes. “How about your place?” Norman asked.

  “We’ll have to share our comics with Rory. That’s okay with you, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t mind. He can read mine first.”

  “Great.”

  We headed back toward my house. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the cover of Swollen Rat People. The artwork was great. Rat Masterson and Ratatattat were locked in mortal combat with the evil supervillain Ludovico Mouse-Kara. I wasn’t watching where I was walking. If I had been, I would never have stumbled right into Lud Mellon.

  It was like running into the side of a cow. I looked up at his face, hoping to see something other than anger. He looked down at me as if slowly digesting the incident. Then he reached out, grabbed the comic book, pulled it from my grip, and said, “Thanks.”

  He walked on, leaving me standing there with my mouth open, my hands empty, and a feeling that was way beyond mad. I would have loved, for that instant, to have the power to become something horrible and get revenge. I imagined what it would be like to turn into a werewolf and rip off his arms. Yeah, and I’d do it without even wrinkling the comic.

  “He probably can’t even read,” Norman said when Lud was out of earshot. “He just likes the drawings.”

  “Yeah, but I’ll bet he moves his lips when he reads the pictures.”

  We laughed and tore him apart with our words as we walked to my house.

  Norman let Rory read his comic first. Then he let me read it. He kept himself busy by adjusting something on my computer. I don’t know what he did, but he told me it would run better now that he had optimized my hard drive.

  I kept thinking about how wonderful it would be to live in a world without bullies, mean people, and human monsters. At least with Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster, you knew what you were dealing with. It was people like Lud Mellon who were the real monsters as far as I was concerned.

  But by that evening, I had pretty much forgotten about it. And that night, beneath the posters of my favorite monsters, the change that had begun the night before took full hold of me. While I slept and dreamed of dark, rich earth and moonless nights, while I wandered through a mist-filled land of graves and crumbling castles, I became a monster.

  Five

  I RISE

  And then, suddenly, I was totally awake. One instant, I was deep asleep. The next, I was sitting straight up in my bed, drowning in a billion sensations. Waves of sound crashed over me. I heard a million conversations: every voice in the house washed over me, along with a flood of voices from up and down the street. The sounds …

  A car, half a mile away—I knew exactly how far it was—rushed down the road. Two jets passed overhead—one heading east, the other going southwest. A fly walked across the ceiling of the living room downstairs, all six of its tiny legs hitting the plaster with the boom of giant drums.

  That’s when the smell kicked in.

  I smelled an entire world around me. People. Animals. My family. Browser. Cats, squirrels, the fly. I could smell two quarters and three pennies in the pocket of the jeans that I’d dropped on the floor last night.

  I could feel more than just the sheet against my hand. I could feel the weave of the threads, and the touch of the man who ran the machine that made the sheet, and the hand of the woman who sold the sheet, and beyond and beyond.

  Then I opened my eyes. And nearly screamed. I slammed my eyes shut against the flood of light. It was barely dawn, the sun just beginning to rise, but the light hit me like a thousand jagged rocks. I pulled the sheet and blankets over me, and jammed the pillow hard against my head to protect my ears from the surge and crash of sounds.

  And slowly, in a world where time suddenly had no meaning, I started to hold back the sensations, filter them, and sort through the waves. It was like focusing a magnifying glass. But I was juggling five overloaded senses and kept losing my hold on one or another. When I lost control of one, they would all slip and crash back into me.

  Loud noises came from nearby. Roaring sounds. Words. Mom’s voice. “Hey, sleepyhead.” The sound was loud and slow and forceful, each word striking like a slap in the face. “Are you going to stay in bed all day?”

  When I spoke, the words exploded through my head with the force of a hurricane. “I’ll be up soon.”

  No more now, please. Even my thoughts roared.

  Her
steps slammed away.

  And another timeless hour passed. And I gained more control of my senses.

  I was hungry.

  But I was afraid to get up.

  Another hour passed. I had shut off more sensations than I ever knew existed. I was in control—sort of. It was a slippery control that threatened to fly from my grasp at any moment.

  I had become something other than what I was.

  But I had won the first battle.

  And boy, was I hungry.

  I didn’t know what had happened. I was still too busy fighting the waves, holding off the sights and sounds and smells.

  But I had made it through what had to be the worst of it.

  Then, as I stepped from bed, I learned the real meaning of pain.

  Six

  FEEL THE BURN

  I left my bed and stepped into the light of day. The light felt hot against my flesh. I could bear it, but it felt the way dripping candle wax feels—not hot enough to hurt, but hot enough to make me flinch. Then my foot landed inside the bright square of sunlight on my floor, and my body filled with the pain of an unending fire. I yanked my leg back and fell to the bed. I looked at my foot. The flesh had already started to smoke and blister, blacken and crackle.

  Then it healed. As quickly as it had burned, it mended, like a movie running in reverse.

  That was when I realized what I had become. My mind would not accept the truth all at once, but I knew there was no other explanation. I fought against the waves of sensations as the pain of the direct sunlight slowly faded.

  “Are you getting up today?” Mom called from below.

  “I don’t feel good.” I pushed the curtain closed and got back in bed. As the words left my lips, I tried to grab them and stop them from reaching Mom’s ears. This was another of those magic chants. This was the spell of parental action. I had set in motion Mom-the-Nurse, one of the most powerful types of adult wizards.

  She was up the stairs in an instant, thermometer in one hand, medicine in the other. “Open,” she said, jabbing the thermometer toward my head.

  I hesitated. Did I have fangs?

  She jammed the thermometer into my mouth, then placed her hand against my forehead. “You feel chilled,” she said. She hopped from the side of the bed. “It’s too dark in here.” She reached for the curtains.

  “Ooob right!” I shouted around the thermometer.

  She paused, her fingers gripping the curtain.

  I pulled out the thermometer. “Too bright.”

  Mom smiled, but she was obviously adding this symptom to the list and running through a collection of conditions in a way Norman would have approved. “Well, you just stay in bed today, and I’ll get you some nice hot soup. We’ll have you feeling better in no time.”

  “Thanks.” I looked at the thermometer as Mom left the room. The mercury hadn’t moved. My body seemed to be the same temperature as the air. I wondered again whether I had fangs. There was only one way to tell.

  I crossed the floor, opened my closet door, and looked at the mirror there. Like an idiot, I stared and moved from side to side, then glanced around. It took a minute to sink in. I had no reflection. I wasn’t in the mirror. Then my reflection flickered back. For a moment, it was solid; then it became transparent.

  I heard Mom take a bowl from the cabinet. I switched on the lamp by my bed, flinching a bit from the sudden light, and held the thermometer near the bulb until the temperature rose to ninety-nine degrees. Then I put the thermometer back in my mouth.

  Mom had a steaming bowl of soup on a tray. I never could figure out how she did stuff like that so quickly. “Here, this should pump a bit of life back in your veins.” She took the thermometer, looked at it, nodded wisely, then said, “Just a bit of fever. You rest. Can I get you anything else?”

  A coffin? I thought. What about a nice castle in Transylvania? And maybe a drooling servant. “Nothing, thanks,” I said.

  I spent the rest of the day in bed. I knew that I couldn’t stay there forever. Now, there was a word that had taken on a whole new meaning for me. Up until now, forever pretty much applied only to stuff that seemed endless, like the films they showed in science class or some of Mr. Quib’s lectures about the glories of ancient French poets. Suddenly, forever looked like it might become an important word in my life.

  I needed to talk to someone. My folks would explode. Rory would be thrilled, but he was just too young to be able to actually help. Angelina was useless unless you needed help picking what shirt to wear with which pants or some other pointless part of “correct” living.

  I needed to talk to Norman. Not only was he smart, but he had resources, too. He had a great library. He collected books on all kinds of things. So did Norman’s parents. His father, Mr. Weed, taught at the state college and bought books the way other people bought bread. I mean, we had lots of books in our house, but the Weeds went way beyond that. They were always buying more bookcases.

  I couldn’t expose myself to direct sunlight. I’d have to wait for it to get dark.

  I spent the rest of the day learning to keep the world from smashing me with sensations. The forces were strong, but my willpower was stronger. Each hour that passed, I gained more control, and the sensations got weaker. I was sure there was more to learn about what was happening to me, but I needed to take my time exploring the changes. I suspected there were things I could do that would probably freak me out. I wondered about bats and fog and wolves.

  My folks were going out for the evening. They checked in on me first. I told them that I’d be fine. They left. Angelina was in charge, but I knew she’d never look in my room. If I turned into a puddle of purple slime and dripped from my bed, Angelina would be the last to notice.

  The sun, my enemy, slipped away. I remained. I listened.

  Soon enough, Rory was asleep. Angelina was downstairs, talking to a friend on the phone. It was time to visit Norman.

  Seven

  A FRIEND INDEED

  I crept from bed and snuck downstairs, silent as a cloud brushing in front of the moon. Night. This was my new home; this was my world. It welcomed me as I slipped out the door. I reached Norman’s house and stood out front on the sidewalk. His bedroom window was to the left of the front porch on the second floor. The light was on. The rest of the house was dark. I didn’t want to wake his parents.

  I went under his window and thought about throwing a pebble to get his attention. I stood there and looked up to where I wanted to be.

  The window came closer.

  It happened even though I wasn’t trying to do anything. It was so smooth that, for a moment, I thought the window was sinking toward me.

  I was wrong.

  I rose to the window. I hung in front of it, standing on air. Norman was sitting at his computer. I reached for the window. I raised it. I tried to step inside. But I couldn’t go in.

  That didn’t surprise me. I was starting to learn which parts of the legends were true, and which parts were totally made up. I’d already found that the direct rays of the sun could destroy me, though I could survive indirect daylight. Now, I knew that I couldn’t enter a home until I was invited.

  “Norman.” I tried to whisper, but it came out more like an order to look at me.

  He turned toward my voice. “Splat,” he said, waving at me before his mind took in the fact that I was floating outside his window.

  When it sank in, all he managed to say was, “Guh…”

  “It’s okay,” I said quietly. “Something’s happened. I need your help. Ask me in.”

  “Umg … unnngg…”

  “Look, I won’t bite,” I said, hoping this was true. “Can I come in?”

  He nodded.

  Apparently, that was good enough to count as an invitation, because I was able to climb into the room.

  “You floated.”

  I nodded. “And I sort of have to stay out of bright sunlight.”

  “You’re, you’re a—” His mind was obviously a
head of his mouth.

  “Vampire. Yeah. I pretty much came to that conclusion.”

  “You thirsty?” he asked.

  I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. There was a deep hunger in me, but everything was so new and there was so much else happening that the craving wasn’t unbearable. “I need your books.” Our school librarian was always telling us to check books before checking the Internet.

  “Sure.” He sat for another moment, then shook his head hard the way a dog shakes to get rid of water. After that, he went over to his shelf and pulled out three volumes. “These two are just vampires, this one has other monsters, as well as a really good section on vampires. Now, hang on—Dad’s got a couple of good ones, too. And I think there was an article in an issue of Smithsonian last year. I’ll check.” He left the room.

  That was Norman. Once the search was on for facts or answers, he just shut out everything else. Any other kid would already have run to the next state or tried to plunge a stake into my heart. Norman was more interested in running after information. I knew I’d come to the right place. Norman’s room was like a little science museum. Half the walls were filled with books. The rest of the space was taken up by all kinds of specimens. There were rocks, crystals, and all sorts of things in jars. He had a whole bunch of butterflies mounted on a board. They weren’t too bad, but I tried not to look at his collection of ants and spiders and beetles. Those things were really kinda gross.

  I’ve always been weird about bugs. I remember, when I was little, really hating the section in the encyclopedia with the pictures of bees. I didn’t even want to touch the page.

  Norman came back with two more books and a stack of magazines. “Try these, too,” he said.