Blood Type: An Anthology of Vampire SF on the Cutting Edge

by Watts, Peter

  He waits. His lips are flushed with my blood. Red and purple and parted. Germs dance on the tip of his tongue. Almost a hundred different kinds of bacteria. The dragon waits.

  My face is wet. I am crying. It takes me a moment to realize this, now that there will be no more moments, now that this is the only moment left.

  I stare into RJ’s eyes and I move my head. The hole in my throat closes, opens again.

  RJ gazes back at me, and moves his head, too. If you weren’t watching him the way I am, you would never know he’d moved at all.

  He raises his hand and slips it into mine. He feels so cold. He feels so good. So good.

  All I see is his mouth. The opening hatch. The widening gyre. His mouth, red and purple and black. He's drained the souls of stars, but there are no stars, not tonight. Not ever. There's only white. Everything is white. I am turning to white, and I am turning to red, and I am turning and turning.

  And I am gone.

  ~

  The ship sings me awake. Generators vibrate through Angie's flesh, through her bones, up and down the rivers of vein, the streams of blood. Nerves twang like plucked strings. Electric sparks in red darkness. The body, her body, my body. Our body. Everything hums.

  I get to my feet and the air parts around me, washes over me, through me. I hold my hand up to the light, fingers splayed. Delicate webs of flesh, glowing pearl-pink.

  RJ's husk lies on the floor. I see the cells shriveling, curling in on themselves like burning paper; feel the rot lacing the tissue. The scent of violets fills Angie's nose. I pull it inside us, taste it at the root of the tongue, every atom, every molecule.

  All the pain is gone. All the world is new. And the same. The stones I have been, long crumbled, tell me so; the plants I have been, long withered, tell me so. The stars inside me have burned out, and burn forevermore.

  I remember my life, Angie’s life. Joys and triumphs, sorrow and fear, needs and wants and yearnings undefinable. It is all so small, and it is all so terrible, and so lovely.

  I take a step. Another. RJ knows where we’re going. I built the ship, after all. No one knows it better than I. Him. Us.

  Hatches and ladders and stairs. We're in the ship’s heart, now. The steel welcomes me. I punch in coordinates and feel the metal heave below my feet as the ship changes course. Lets go. Gives itself up to gravity, to that which cannot be escaped. Should not be escaped.

  I stand at the window and watch as we slip into the mouth of the black hole. Stars speed past, stretched to thin white thread. The thread snaps. No more light. We are in the dark, and we are the dark. We are falling, falling into forever, and this is what it is to fly.

  ~

  The ship touches down in thick orange dust, and the Lover is waiting. I would know the Lover anywhere. My own face in a mirror; my own hand, clasping the other.

  Triplicate moons throw my shadow to earth. Angie’s pores open in the autumnal light, tiny mouths sucking down alien air. Dust slips through the other mouth, too, the mouth she opened in her throat; sifts down her esophagus; settles gently in still gray lungs.

  The Lover moves toward me. Stands before me. We touch. We speak in tongues of flesh, of muscle and bone, nodes and cells and microbes. Behind walls of skin, blood whispers to blood.

  Universes move around us, and inside us. We stand together, perfectly still.

  Amelia Mangan is a writer originally from London, currently living in Sydney, Australia. Her writing is featured in Attic Toys (ed. Jeremy C. Shipp); X7 and No Monsters Allowed (both ed. Alex Davis); The Bestiarum Vocabulum and Phobophobias (both ed. Dean M. Drinkel); When Darkness Calls (ed. Emma Audsley); Charms Vol. 3 (ed. Sally Odgers); Carnival of the Damned (eds. Henry Snider & David C. Hayes); Mother Goose is Dead (eds. Michele Acker & Kirk Dougal), The Willows Magazine, Twisted Dreams Magazine, Cthulhupalooza Magazine, and Akujunkan: The Infinite Process 2003 Anthology (ed. Roseanna White). Her short story, "Blue Highway", won Yen Magazine's first annual short story competition and featured in its 65th issue. She can be found on Twitter (@AmeliaMangan) and Facebook

  (http://www.facebook.com/amelia.mangan).

  EVERGREEN

  Peter Giglio

  1.

  Years before the world started to change, Rachel had gone to the grocery store. A routine trip, nothing unusual…until she didn’t return.

  The case turned cold fast. And so, in many ways, did Chance’s heart.

  The one thing he clung to was a holdover from his beloved wife. Her affection for living things: vibrant greens and cherry-red roses, beings as trivial as dandelions and those as magnificent as pink peonies.

  “Watch where you mow, dear,” she’d always warned.

  And he did, always. The yard, the garden, the flowers: these things were her legacy; one cut short by the cruel currents of time, by a cold case and a warming world.

  An old man, he thought, was entitled to simple joys, more than memories and photographs. Something he could feel, touch, smell; something that pulled the past closer.

  So for decades, Chance Freeman kept a plush, green yard. He tended her roses.

  He carried on.

  To countless compliments, he proudly beamed, “Just growing nature’s carpet.”

  He loved the soft, sticky feel of fine cool blades on his bare feet: Kentucky Blue, Bermuda, Centipede… Any species was fine, as long as it was green and his to tend.

  He spent many nights on the deck, sipping wine, enjoying the sweet scents of flowers and a fresh mow; aromas that, for many years, were the only constants in a progressively lonely life.

  But being alone wasn’t exactly loneliness, as long as he could pay tribute to Rachel.

  Then the world took a sharp turn for the worst. Temperatures spiked higher with each passing year, until four seasons were reduced to three: hot, hotter, and terminal.

  People in uninhabitable climates fled to other stars in vessels that moved faster than light. And those who stayed behind forlornly witnessed Mother Earth’s untimely demise.

  Great Lake states like Minnesota, where Chance called home, became deserts.

  Some installed artificial grass and staked ersatz trees, clinging to the look and feel of a bygone era. But most people dropped the façade altogether, settling for barren vistas.

  Chance did neither.

  He fought the unfavorable tides of time tooth and nail. He used the latest, greatest chemicals, spent hours watering a desolate yard, and tried to drown out the stern rebukes that had replaced compliments.

  “You’re wasting water on nothing...”

  “This must be costing you a fortune. You’re a fool...”

  Despite bruised pride, Chance smiled from inside his cooling suit as he toiled beneath the blazing sun. Long retired from a lucrative career, he had enough time and wealth to pursue whatever madness brought him comfort. And if not true comfort, at least a shred of solace.

  Some years his rectangle of earth sprouted a few clumps of Buffalo Grass. In good years, he cultivated entire patches. Regardless of yield, every blade that cheated fate was a giant victory.

  A victory for Rachel.

  Now, things had worsened. Record high temperatures and his failing back kept him indoors. He watched through the great windows of his sunroom, the last blades withering under the December sun…

  And thought about the short and happy life he’d led once upon a time.

  Even the years between had served a purpose; had been better than this.

  Something had to be done.

  So he scrolled through the yellow listings on his handheld vid-com and landed on lawn services. He started at the top of seven entries, remembering how the old phone books contained hundreds. The first six attempts produced the same result: a recorded message that said the business had gone under. Resigned to more of the same, he clicked the last entry.

  A jaunty man with a bright smile appeared on the screen.

  “Thank you for contacting Zellman Lawncare,” the man said. “My name is Nige
l Zellman, here to assist you with all your lawncare needs.”

  Chance’s eyes widened. “Hello,” he said. “Is this a…a recording?”

  Zellman laughed. “No, sir. This is yours truly, Nigel Zellman, in the flesh. Well, at least I’m in the flesh here in my office.” He laughed again. “How can I help today?”

  “I…I—”

  “Let me guess, you can’t grow grass, right?”

  Chance nodded.

  “Not to worry, friend. I’ve recently procured a new product from Rigel, a treatment sure to remedy your barren-Earth blues. And I’m proud to report that Zellman Lawncare is the sole distributor in the state of Minnesota. You’re in Minnesota, aren’t you?”

  “Duluth.”

  “Great! You’ll be my first customer in Duluth. That is, if you decide to go with Evergreen.”

  “Evergreen?”

  “That’s what we’re calling it. Great name, eh?”

  “Yeah, well, uh…does it grow grass?”

  “Thick, lustrous, weed free grass, just like grandpa used to grow and mow, and the best thing about Evergreen, it only needs to be applied once a year. Go with Evergreen…I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Chance.”

  “Go with Evergreen, Chance, and you’ll be mowing in no time. When would you like me to come by for a free consultation?”

  “Uh…anytime that’s good for you.”

  “Nights work best for me.”

  “Nights?”

  “When it’s cooler, of course.”

  “I go to bed pretty early, Mr. Zell—”

  “Please, call me Nigel.”

  “Tonight’s fine, Nigel.” Chance tentatively returned the man’s smile. “Tonight is just fine.”

  2.

  Chance was awakened by a beep from his vid-com.

  It was dark, his head foggy. He glanced at his wristwatch, a fifty-year-old Timex he kept in perfect condition (“takes a licking, keeps on ticking,” he liked to say, though no one seemed to remember the now-defunct watchmaker’s once famous slogan), and squinted until he made out the time. “It’s almost ten,” he groaned, pulling himself upright on the couch.

  “Sir,” a pleasant female voice said, “you have a visitor.”

  “Who bothers an old man this time of night?” he asked.

  “Remember,” the voice said, “your appointment with Zellman Lawncare.”

  Chance rubbed his head and considered his place on the couch rather than his bed. “Of course,” he said with a dry chuckle. “Where’s my mind? Please disengage the antechamber door, Rachel.”

  “Yes, dear,” she said.

  He’d programmed her voice into the house’s communication circuit a decade ago, using an old DVD recording he’d stumbled upon in the attic. The system had analyzed the recording in less than five minutes and produced a remarkably lifelike facsimile that was sometimes calming and other times eerie. Still, it wasn’t much. Not her legacy, of course, just a cheap electronic imitation. He was capable of programming it to say anything, even “I love you,” but he never did. It already felt aberrant to keep her around in such a counterfeit manner, and just like he didn’t carpet his lawn in turf, he didn’t like pretending artificial intelligence could possess his wife’s soul.

  A light knock sounded.

  “I’m coming,” Chance said. Cracking the door open, he said, “I’m an old man, don’t move as fast as I—” Peering into the antechamber, he gasped at the sight of his visitor.

  “May I come in?” asked the Rigelian male at the door.

  More than ten feet tall, the alien wore a poorly-fitted business suit of earthly origin. His florescent, green skin pulsated, giving off its own light in the dimly-lit corridor. And when the man—the thing—smiled, Chance felt panicked as he fixated on its—his—incredibly sharp fangs.

  He’d never seen a Rigelian in the flesh. After all, he’d never been to Rigel, and as far as he knew only dignitaries from their planet’s four nations ever traveled to Earth.

  “My name is Tim,” said the visitor. “I’m a representative of Zellman Lawncare.”

  Chance swallowed the dry lump in his throat, eyes never leaving his caller. “Tim?”

  The fangs became more pronounced as “Tim” laughed, and Chance’s heartbeat, pounding in his head, grew dangerously arrhythmic. “Not my real name, of course, but I like it. I like human names very much. Take yours, for instance. Chance. Such a daring moniker.”

  As far as mankind at large was concerned, these creatures were heroes, having opened the door to their world, inviting millions upon millions of human refugees to live free on their soil. Who was he to deny one of them entry through his front door?

  “May I come in?” Tim repeated.

  “Of course, of course, you’ll have to forgive me…” Chance stepped aside as Tim ducked his head beneath the relatively short door frame and entered, his flesh taking on a more normal appearance in the halogen glow of the living room.

  “You’re the first man from Rigel I’ve ever met,” Chance said.

  Tim nodded. “Yours is a forgivable and common reaction, Mr. Freeman.”

  “And your English is—”

  “Perfect,” Tim said with another hearty laugh. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Freeman, but human languages are not complex.”

  “No. Not at all. I studied French for years in college and still have no fluency to show for my efforts, so I wish I could say the same.”

  “Ah, French. One of my favorites. Your human tongues have the elegance of simplicity, and I’m happy you didn’t consider my remark condescending. As you know, we admire you in many ways. The ability to walk in the light of your sun is a far greater gift than our intellect, wouldn’t you say?”

  Chance considered the question for a moment. Although his pulse had returned to normal, his muscles tensed at the irony of the question. “Perhaps,” he said, “but that gift has been rendered somewhat pyrrhic now, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Ah, but not for those who come to Rigel, Mr. Freeman. Our world blooms with the most beautiful flora and fauna in the universe, and the mildness of our seasons makes it a paradise, particularly for humans who are able to enjoy the long Rigel days.”

  “I’m sorry, are you a travel agent or a lawn-man? I’m confused.”

  “It is your turn to forgive me, if you will be so kind. It was my understanding that humans often enjoy a thing called ‘small talk.’”

  Chance laughed his first real laugh in years, and it felt good. “Language is logical, Tim. Not culture.”

  Tim arched a bushy eyebrow, raised a long, sharp finger, and said, “Very true.” Then he walked to the sunroom, Chance following closely behind. There, he stared through the large windows, into the desolate backyard.

  “Can you help me?” Chance asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Freeman. I can help you.”

  3.

  The fee for the service was shockingly low, and Chance couldn’t help but be suspicious. “And this really works?”

  “Evergreen is guaranteed to work within twenty-four hours or you pay nothing.”

  His father’s advice rang through his mind: If something’s too good to be true, run! But these were different times. And he—here in his living room, talking to a man from another star—was desperate for a modicum of normalcy.

  Chance nodded. “Okay, you sold me.”

  “Excellent,” said Tim. “Our team will apply the treatment tonight as you sleep.”

  “Thank you. Should I pay you now or—”

  “We’ll send you a bill, Mr. Freeman. We never accept payment until the customer is completely satisfied.”

  As Tim ducked through the front door on his way out, he paused and glanced back at Chance. “Would you mind if I asked you one last question?”

  “No. Go ahead.”

  “Why do you stay?”

  “This is my home, Tim. At my age, memories are fleeting enough. This place…well, it keeps me in touch with the p
ast. Happier times.”

  “How’s that working out for you?” Tim said with a smile…

  A somewhat wicked smile, Chance thought, not to mention a second “last question.” His mouth turned down as he tried to shake off prejudice. Cultural differences, he reminded himself, then with a greater degree of happiness, he thought about the promise of a green lawn. He forced a weak smile and said, “If you do what you claim you can, everything will be…much better.”

  “Of course. Goodnight, Mr. Freeman.”

  “Goodnight, Tim.”

  4.

  The next morning, Chance ambled into the sunroom, sipping coffee. He pressed a button on the wall and watched expectantly as shutters rose. A sliver of green widened until it was a sea of bright perfection. Tears streaming down his face, body weak, he spilled coffee down his nightshirt. But the painful burn on his chest couldn’t weaken the fullness of his heart. He dropped his mug, ignored the crash-tinkle of shattering ceramic, and stepped out of his slippers. Then he unlatched the door and rushed into the yard in his pajamas. Even though the morning air was blistering, the earth beneath his feet—draped in lush, velvety greenery—was intoxicating on his toes and in his nose.

  “I need to mow already,” he said with a smile. He couldn’t believe how fast Evergreen grew.

  He pushed the electric mower over the yard three times a day, breathing deep the scents of rediscovered hope.

  “A man your age should be more careful,” Miranda Sicuro, a neighbor, warned through a thin crack in her sliding glass door. “You’re going to dehydrate out here.”

  He smiled. “Ah, Miranda, such neighborly concern. Let me ask, did you bring me something cool to drink?”

  “Well, no, I—”

  “Then kindly shove your concern up your ass, dear.” His eyes widened, smile implacable.

  Miranda slammed the door shut.

  As the days ticked by, Chance’s back began to feel better. He discovered muscles he’d forgotten he had. And he was happier than he’d been in decades.