Bite Club

by Hal Bodner

  Chris had blown up and one of their rare fights ensued. Minutes later, after reducing Troy to tears, Chris had stormed off to his bedroom, slamming and locking the door behind him. An hour afterward, however, Chris had relented and apologized and the two had cuddled together in the coffin until Chris had finally drifted off to sleep at around four-thirty.

  Troy’s condition required minimal sleep and, so, after two hours of snuggling with the catatonic vampire, he’d risen slightly after daybreak and had gone about the apartment collecting sheets, towels, and clothing, separating them into piles on the living room floor. Chris had always preferred that Troy do the laundry by hand, eschewing the use of a dry cleaner, arguing that his shirts and trousers bore bloodstains too frequently to risk raising suspicions of foul play. So, Chris had painstakingly shown him how to use vinegar, peroxide and other household substances to remove blood from various types of fabrics; Troy was quite pleased with his acquired expertise and proud of his mastery of this odd process.

  The telephone rang, shattering the early morning silence. Arms laden with dirty clothes, carefully balancing a large bottle of bleach atop the bundle, Troy ignored it and, leaving the door ajar behind him, left the apartment to go downstairs to try and find the laundry room.

  Once there, he carefully piled the whites into one machine, the darks into another and the dubious items into a third. He added detergent and bleach to all three loads, closed the lids, pushed the start button and sat back and waited for the water to come.

  It didn’t.

  He pushed the button again.

  Nothing happened.

  Confused, Troy scratched his head for a moment and then came up with a solution. Obviously, someone had simply forgotten to hook up the machines. Proud of his powers of deduction, he craned his neck in an effort to see behind the machines. But no, everything seemed to be just dandy.

  He stood for a moment, frowning in thought. People did the laundry every day, surely there was something obvious he was missing. Dimly he remembered something about lint filters clogging; Chris had told him once that lint filters needed to be cleaned in order to prevent fires. He had absolutely no idea how the dryers could possibly be linked to the washing machines but, fire and water being connected in his mind by some inconceivably Troyesque thought process, he figured cleaning them couldn’t hurt. The job was quickly done; still, no water.

  He kicked the machines.

  Nothing.

  He kicked them again.

  “What are you doing?”

  A distinguished elderly gentleman in a bathrobe had entered the laundry room with his own pile of clothing, escaping Troy’s notice.

  “Hi!” Troy turned and smiled brightly.

  “Hello,” said the man, “Are we having problems, sugar?”

  “I can’t seem to get them to start,” Troy said, airily waving at the washers.

  “Let’s see if I can help.” The man put down his burden and went to examine the machine. “I’m Sheldon, by the way.”

  “Troy Raleigh.”

  Pushing the start button, Sheldon inquired, “You’re the one that just moved into 113?” Troy nodded. “You have a roommate?” asked Sheldon, studiously nonchalant.

  Troy noticed that Sheldon’s attention seemed to be equally divided between the washing machine and Troy’s partially bare midriff, alternately concealed and uncovered by the not-quite-long-enough purple T-shirt he’d chosen to wear.

  “My lover, Chris,” Troy said gently. After all, for his age, Sheldon was quite attractive.

  “I see.” Sheldon smiled, disappointment showing in his large brown eyes and turned back to the machine. “Did you have a problem putting the quarters in? Sometimes they get stuck.”

  “Quarters?” Troy asked innocently, “What quarters?”

  Sheldon looked at him in amazement. “You got to put money in the machine. Haven’t you ever done laundry?”

  “Well, yes,” Troy said, feeling slightly foolish and not quite knowing why. “But we always had our own machine before. You mean you gotta pay?”

  Sheldon smiled. “The machines belong to the building. How many loads you got?”

  “Uh, three.”

  Sheldon examined the fistful of change he carried. “Sorry, sugar” he said, “I don’t have enough to lend you. There’s a mini-mart at the gas station down the block. They’ll give you change.”

  “Thanks,” said Troy as he moved toward the door.

  “Uh, sugar?” Sheldon called.

  “Yes?”

  “Take dollar bills with you, OK?”

  “Got five bucks right here,” said Troy, patting the back pocket of his cut-off shorts. “Will that be enough?” he asked, uncertainly.

  “Should be,” replied Sheldon, shaking his head in disbelief as Troy left the laundry room and skipped up the stairs and across the courtyard.

  At the front door of the apartment building, Troy realized he’d left his keys in the apartment and barely managed to grab the front gate before it swung shut behind him. Breathing a sigh of relief, he considered for a moment. Finally, he removed the pink hankie from his back pocket, tied it around the latch of the gate to keep it from locking shut and flounced happily down the street toward the gas station.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Troy returned to the apartment building less than ten minutes later, recovered the handkerchief, and with Sheldon’s gracious help, managed to get the machines started. Walking up the stairs to the building, inordinately pleased with his ability to overcome all obstacles thrown in his way by the trials and tribulations of modern life, he stopped short, aghast; the apartment door was swinging wide open. Cursing himself roundly for his stupidity, he bolted up the stairs and into the apartment. Bursting through the door, he was horrified to see Becky, grim-lipped and white-faced, sprawled in one of the crimson armchairs. He glanced toward the bedroom and, with a low groan, noticed the door was more than slightly ajar.

  Panicked, Troy stood motionless, a vision of his beloved Chris lying in his coffin, headless and with a blood-stained two-by-four sticking out of his chest, flashing across his mind. Instantly, Troy came to a decision. Although he’d never killed anyone before and although Becky outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds, if she’d so much as laid a finger on his lover, Troy would murder her or die trying to. He figured, if Marlene Dietrich could get away with it in Witness for the Prosecution…

  Even though Troy was standing right in front of her, Becky didn’t seem to see him. In fact, Troy discovered when he leaned cautiously forward to look directly into her face, Becky didn’t seem to be capable of seeing anything. Her eyes had rolled back into her head until the whites were showing and her mouth hung slackly open, her ample bosom heaving while she gasped for breath.

  Troy darted into the bedroom doorway and glanced inside. With a sigh of relief, he saw that the coffin lid was still closed and the room appeared placid. Had Becky tried to drive a hunk of baseboard through Chris’s chest, he knew, the bedroom would have been subjected to a much more severe onslaught than the few piles of Troy’s discarded clothes that were lying on the floor.

  He returned to the living room, relieved, and tried to force his mind to stop racing so he could deal with the problem of getting Becky out of the armchair and, hopefully, as soon as possible thereafter, out of the apartment entirely. From the looks of things, the coroner wasn’t going to be going anywhere very quickly.

  “Becky,” he called softly. But there was no answer.

  Puzzled, he approached her cautiously and waved his hand in front of her face. She didn’t react. Annoyed now, he gently slapped at her cheeks, but her only reaction was a soft groan and her eyeballs tried to retreat farther into her skull.

  Dimly recalling something he’d once seen in an old black and white film, he went into the kitchen and filled a tumbler with cold water. He returned to the living room, dipped his fingers into the glass, and began to flick droplets of water onto Becky’s face. When this provoked no response,
with a snort of irritation he gave up and, allowing himself a small smile of sheer bitchiness, he dashed the entire glass of water full into Becky’s face. The coroner coughed and her eyelids began to flutter. By the time she came to, her eyes finally focused, droplets of water dripping from the end of her nose, Troy had forced his features into an innocent mask of concerned sympathy.

  Becky opened her mouth to speak. Troy stood, desperately wondering how he was going to respond to whatever it was she was going to say. Fortunately, he was spared making any decision. Becky seemed to be unable to say anything intelligible. She just burbled and gagged for a minute, unable to catch her breath.

  She looks, Troy thought to himself, with a shock of recognition, Just like the fat version of Goldie Hawn in Death Becomes Her. When they were dragging her away from the television set. He snorted arrogantly to himself and patted his own flat little belly. It’s disgusting how some people let themselves go.

  Then, unable to resist, he grinned and leaned forward, twisting his face into a creepy leer and whispered, “Boo.”

  Becky let out a strangled squawk and immediately passed out again.

  “I’ve got to stop doing things like that!” Troy said aloud, irritated with himself this time.

  He stood for a moment, thinking, when suddenly he was seized by an idea that was, in his estimation, nothing short of brilliant. He went back into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The pickings were rather lean, if typical. Although Troy’s system needed nourishment on a regular basis, his heightened constitution enabled him to indulge himself in a diet that would have sent a normal human being straight to the Betty Ford Clinic. The refrigerator contained two bottles of Stoli, a six pack of Evian water, a half gallon of margarita mix, a jar of maraschino cherries, and the remains of half a dozen McDonald’s Happy Meals that Troy had purchased so that he could have the plastic toys inside. Tucked away neatly on the shelves lining the door were a selection of practically every condiment known to man, a bottle of Hershey’s syrup, and the remainder of a can of whipped cream he had picked up with the faint notion that, even though Chris couldn’t indulge, the idea of whipped cream and sex in a coffin was kinky enough to be intriguing yet not quite warped enough to be considered truly depraved.

  The yield of the freezer was similarly dismal. Aside from a few microwave dinners, there were only two items: a package of chicken breasts which Troy had forgotten and left on the counter for almost two days and a lonely-looking pint of Ben & Jerry’s Rocky Road ice cream, Troy’s favorite flavor.

  Sighing and telling himself that his noble sacrifice was just penance for the indulgence of deliberately scaring Becky half to death, he pulled out the ice cream, the chocolate syrup, a spoon, and an exceedingly large ceramic bowl—scarlet, of course— and set to work. Five minutes later he had constructed an ice cream sundae which, he admitted modestly, would do even Becky O’Brien justice.

  Carrying the bowl back into the living room, ignoring the fact that he’d managed to get almost as much whipped cream and chocolate sauce on himself as he’d managed to get into the bowl, he paused at the sink, debating with himself for a moment.

  “If I have to give her my Rocky Road,” he murmured aloud, “I think I’m entitled!”

  So saying, he went back to the refrigerator and took one of the bottles of chilled Evian. Standing in front of Becky’s chair once again, he unscrewed the plastic top and dumped the contents over her head. As she began to sputter into consciousness once again, Troy shoved the sundae under her nose.

  Becky coughed again, several times and her eyes unglazed for only a brief instant before they crossed as she tried to focus on the large scarlet object scarcely two inches from her face. Her nose twitched and, instinctively, she reached up and liberated the bowl from Troy. She grabbed the spoon and shoved a heaping load of ice cream into her mouth, swallowing it so quickly that Troy was miffed that she hadn’t taken time to savor his creation.

  Troy was about to launch into a speech about the ingratitude of people who had just been waited on, hand and foot, to the detriment of certain other people’s supply of their favorite flavor, when Becky held up her hand, commanding silence. The two remained still for several moments, not speaking, merely looking at each other while Becky continued eating and finally managed to compose herself.

  Finally, she spoke. “May I have a glass of water, please?”

  “Another one?” Troy asked before he rushed to comply, bringing it to her in another red aluminum tumbler.

  She grimaced at the color then sipped daintily, commenting absently, “Isn’t it awfully...well, monochrome in here?” Troy said nothing, merely watching her apprehensively as she continued sipping the water. She looked up a moment later, surprised.

  “I’m soaked!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, I had to do something,” Troy told her, peevishly.

  She continued alternately sipping the water and spooning ice cream into her mouth. A few minutes later, when the last smidgen of chocolate sauce had been consumed, she placed the bowl on the end table next to the empty Evian bottle, closed her eyes for a moment, and took a breath.

  Opening her eyes, she fixed Troy with a remarkably level gaze and said, “I called first. There was no answer.”

  Troy nodded, afraid to speak. Becky was, after all, taking this quite well, he thought. She was still slightly pale, gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that the vinyl was going to rip any minute. And the dampness under her arms was obviously not a result of Troy’s having drenched her, but the ice cream seemed to have done wonders.

  “I hoped I could catch you at home. I thought maybe the two of you were still sleeping.” She looked directly into Troy’s eyes, steeled herself and said, very softly, “It looks like I was right.”

  “I can explain,” Troy said, desperately.

  Becky stood. “Yes, I’m sure you can,” she said primly. She walked over to the bedroom door and, with an obvious effort, forced herself to glance inside. “I suppose I should have guessed,” she commented rather distractedly. “I’m usually not this obtuse about things.”

  “Oh, that!” Troy began, forcing a light, airy tone and grasping at straws, “It’s an antique. I’ll admit it’s strange, but Chris loves it so, I haven’t got the heart to make him get rid of it.” His tone became even more friendly, conspiratorial, “Actually,” he confessed, “It gives me the willies, but-”

  “I opened the lid.” Becky still seemed to be struggling to speak coherently but Troy had no intention of doing anything to help her out.

  Desperate, Troy tried another tact, “Look, Becky,” he said sternly with what he felt was just the proper touch of righteous outrage, “I don’t ask about your sex life. Kindly keep your nose out of ours!”

  She gave him a withering glare. “I am a doctor,” she said. “I checked for a pulse.” Her eyes went vacant again. “A pulse,” she repeated, her voice slightly higher with tension. “I couldn’t...find...a pulse.” Now, her tone was one of sheer disbelief.

  “It happened last night,” Troy was panicked. Maybe they could stage a quick funeral and return to Philadelphia for a fake burial. If Troy played his cards right, they might manage be out of Los Angeles before nightfall with the added benefit, in Troy’s opinion, of having to sever their ties with Becky completely. Then again, in the event that there were delays, or if Becky insisted on an autopsy, and if Chris happened to wake up... Nevertheless, flawed as the plan was, Troy decided to go all out with it and worry about the details later.

  “I was going to call an ambulance, really I was.” An artful, contrived tear came to his eye. He sniffed, making sure Becky noticed, and wiped it away. “I just wanted a few hours with him. Alone. To say goodbye.” He collapsed dramatically into the chair Becky had vacated, throwing his arm across his eyes and sobbed with great realism. A moment later, he peeked out and noted that Becky was unmoved. To add to his dismay, she seemed much steadier on her feet.

  “When you’re completely finished playing Cami
lle...” she snapped. Suddenly she burst out, “What do you think I am? A total moron?” She was practically screaming.

  Frantically, Troy darted to the front door, slamming it closed.

  “Will you, puh-l-e-e-eze keep your voice down!” he hissed. “There’s some dirty laundry you don’t want to air in front of the whole neighborhood!”

  Becky began to giggle, quiet little giggles at first, giving way to louder and louder uncontrollable whoops of laughter. Shaking with mirth, she collapsed on the couch, clutching her sides. Troy struck an offended pose as she slowly regained her equilibrium, wiping tears from her eyes.

  “I feel much better,” she snorted, a few final chortles escaping despite her attempt to stifle them. “Oh god, what I wouldn’t give for something sweet right now.” She looked up, pathetically.

  “You ate all the ice cream,” Troy told her, hoping that his tone would let her know how displeased he was by that fact. “What did you want? A catered spread from Sweet Lady Jane?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d have any...” she said hopefully and then stopped. “No, I guess you wouldn’t, would you?” she finished wryly.

  Troy gave up. Sinking to his knees before her, he begged, “Please, you won’t do anything, will you? You can’t tell anyone!”