by Shadow Soft
“Oh yeah.” Grizzly dusted crumbs from the front of his coat. “All the time.” His face brightened suddenly. “Especially Celia Whitek.”
“Oh, mercy,” Trish grumbled, bustling back into sight. “Not that girl. She’s half your age, Griz.”
He scowled. “She’s thirty-one,” He turned to me for support. “Do I look sixty-four to you?”
“Uh . . . .”
“It’d be sixty-two, dunderhead.” Trish batted the side of his face fondly. “You’re paying for that, you know,” she added, kicking the cardboard cracker box he had crushed and dropped to the floor.
“Mm—of course.” Grizzly pulled a wad of dollar bills from his coat pocket. They were rather thoroughly damp. “Here’s . . . .”
“Do you have a blow-drier at home?” Trish interjected.
Grizzly looked up at her, confused. “Yes.”
“Good. Take those home and blow-dry them. Come back and pay me.”
I left. Trish had been good help and Grizzly had tried, but I didn’t think either of them could tell me anything further. I needed more opinions. Thanking Trish for the candy cane and Grizzly for the insightful conversation, I trudged back out into the frosty alpine morning.
Chapter 8
Though the fog was as heavy as before when I stepped back outside, Symbiosia showed signs of activity. Lights glowed from a few windows and chimneys were coughing up their first puffs of smoke. The air was filled with muffled sounds of doors opening and closing; hushed voices pressed their way through the mist. I heard footsteps crunching through the snow and looked left, where a couple of bundled figures were trudging side-by-side down the middle of the street. They glanced at me and one of them waved; I waved back, wondering if they were human or not. I hated how it was impossible to tell. It almost would have been better if the vampires didn’t wear their dentures and contacts all the time. Sure, seeing fangs and glowing eyes wouldn’t be relieving by any means, but at least I would know who was who.
I meandered through Symbiosia, keeping to myself for the most part. The town crawled awake and slowly shook off the cold of the alpine night. Its one diner opened––I marveled that it saw enough patronage to stay open, before remembering that the employees were probably vampires and so were paid in blood, not money. People hurried through the fog toward it, wrapped in scarves and long coats with fur around the collar. A bell chimed when they went in, and when they came out it was carrying cups of steaming coffee. The rich smell permeated Symbiosia and made my stomach grumble. I hadn’t had breakfast yet.
It was with a certain stubborn reluctance that I made my own way toward the diner. Although I knew my whole purpose for coming out this morning was to acquaint myself with Symbiosia and the mood of its citizens, actually initiating interaction was an unpleasant thought. I didn’t like the idea of chatting with a vampire over my morning meal. In fact, I didn’t like the idea of chatting with a vampire at all.
It still astounded me that the safest place on earth––according to the Nightfalls––was a place surrounded by some of my worst enemies. My footsteps crunched as I crossed the road from the grocery store to the diner. I kept my hands burrowed deep in my pockets and my chin tucked against my chest to shut out as much of the cold as I could. My breath flared hot into the collar of my jacket before puffing back against my chin in a welcome cloud of warmth.
Trish and Grizzly seem pretty happy here, I reminded myself, approaching the diner door. The bell rang and two women stepped out, laughing at something I hadn’t heard. One of them offered me a cherry-red smile and held the door open. I mumbled thanks and stepped inside. If they can be content surrounded by so many vampires, the system here in Symbiosia must be working. If it wasn’t they would be on edge. Trish says she’s been here over a years . . . .
The thought of peaceful coexistence between humans and vampires for that length of time rocked my world. Before Victor told me about Symbiosia, I never would have thought it possible. Can vampires be that self-controlled? I wondered.
I pulled the front of my jacket down away from my mouth and kicked the snow off my boots. Inside the diner it was warm and the air was sweetly spicy. It smelled of coffee and pancakes and hot apple cider. It smelled like a proper diner should on a snowy day. It smelled . . . . I blinked, startled, when I realized it. It smelled normal. It smelled like home and comfort and a crackling fire.
How can this exist? How can such peace and harmony hold? It’s almost unreal. A flash of epiphany flushed over me, and for a moment I was brilliantly convinced that the past weeks had been a lie. I hadn’t come with the Nightfalls to Symbiosia! That was ridiculous. I had died back there when LDV attacked my home. I had died and this was heaven.
Briefly, the thought mesmerized me with its pregnant potential. The idea of it was tantalizing. That this could be some sort of paradise, that no danger could enter here. That I was safe here. Safe. It was an alien word to me. I had never known safety. I had never known comfort. Not like this––not this wonderful, delicious comfort that ran deeper than blood and bone and marrow, into the very soul of me.
And then two things happened at once, shattering my reverie simultaneously: one, I remembered that I couldn’t possibly die, so this couldn’t be heaven. And two, a smiling woman with bouncy brunette curls tapped my arm. “Can I help you young sir?”
I jolted and blinked at her. “Hm?” Oh. A waitress.
She laughed. “Would you like breakfast or are you just hoarding our warmth? We charge a dime an hour, you know. Kerosene’s expensive.”
“Breakfast, thank you,” I said, blushing.
“Breakfast it is, then!” She led me through the mild bustle to a table in the far back corner, separated by a partition from the short hallway that led back to the kitchen. “Do you know what you’d like, or should I give you a few minutes?”
“Um . . . . a few minutes, please.”
She winked and wrinkled her nose. “Perfect. I’ll be back!” As she whirled away I caught her name beneath the flash of her name tag––Twinkle.
Twinkle? What kind of name is that? Ignoring the menu in front of me, I surveyed the diner from the shelter of my corner. I wondered if Twinkle knew who I was and knew I would want to be put in the corner, instead of exposed in the middle of the room. In any case, I was glad to be there. I could wedge myself between the wall and the back of the seat and stare out at everyone else, and nobody could sneak up on me without me seeing. Perfect for staying alive in a room full of potential vampires. ‘Staying alive’ wasn’t the most accurate term, since I couldn’t actually die, but . . . . well, it was pretty much how I envisioned capture. A metaphorical death. Worse than a real death, actually. Dying in reality was generally quick, which meant the pain was temporary. Being unable to die meant that pain went on forever and ever. Worse than death.
It’s remarkable how your thoughts will wander so far away from their first spark. Here I was appreciating the fact that I had a corner booth, and within a matter of seconds my appreciation turned into a philosophical comparison between physical death and metaphorical death. What’s gotten into me? I wondered, shaking my head. I didn’t used to flinch at every sound of a scraping fork, every loud voice. Is it worth living like this? Always looking over my shoulder and peering at people’s teeth? Would it be better to not care? I might fall into their hands sooner than later, but at least I would have lived a carefree life while I had the chance.
I sat where I was, transfixed by the thought. Would I rather live a hundred years with the terror of unseen horrors always pricking the back of my neck, and never be caught? Or would it be better to live fifty years of freedom, filled with joy and uncaring, then be caught and live the next fifty in torture? The thought of being carefree, even for a day—an hour, a minute!—held ineffable appeal. It might be worth fifty years of doom. It might. Just might.
A glass clanked somewhere in the room and I shook myself out of my thoughts. Stay alert, Valx. Stay alert. I paused, realizing what I was doing, and sighed. Somebody hel
p me. I’m going to go crazy from fear if I keep this up much longer.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t merely settle down to a peaceful breakfast. Folding my hands in my lap, I studied my fellow diners. There were maybe twenty of us in the room. Not many, but then the diner wasn’t particularly spacious. Its cozy dining room only just managed to escape the confines of the word cramped. A fire blazed on the hearth across from me; the tables nearest it were full. Chatter and laughter tangled among the rafters. Above the counter and cash register there was the massive stuffed head of a black bear, maw gaping to show fangs.
I shivered and averted my eyes. I didn’t like fangs. On anything.
Two waitresses and one waiter bustled about, sharply dressed in dark green aprons. I watched Twinkle from a distance as she worked. She giggled and chatted with all the guests as she served them their meals. Obviously everyone here knew each other except me. They were all neighbors, every single one of them. In a town this size you couldn’t help but know each other.
By the time Twinkle returned I’d had ample time to look over my menu, and taken advantage of none of it. I saw her coming and scrambled to pick out a meal. Fortunately, it wasn’t a very complex menu. It consisted of a single laminated piece of paper—no backside—with a column of options.
Eggs.
Pancakes.
Bacon.
Sausage.
Biscuit.
Toast.
Fruit.
Then a gap, then:
Coffee.
That was all. Each item had four dots and then a price.
“Ready?” Twinkle flipped out her note pad and pen with impressive speed.
“Eggs,” I said by reflex. “And . . . . pancakes.”
“Anything to drink?” She scribbled my order onto her pad. From the way her hand moved, it hardly looked like she wrote a single letter.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll have some coffee.”
Twinkle winked at me. “Good choice. It’s the best in town.”
That pulled a smile out of me despite everything. I handed her my menu. “Thanks.” As Twinkle turned away, I wondered if I caught a glimmer of silver wire at the back of her broad smile. Gratefully, I didn’t freak out. I could have leapt to my feet, punched her in the face and fled out the door. But that probably wouldn’t have made the situation much better. So I smiled at her and let her walk away.
While I was busy wondering if it was smart to let a vampire be my waitress, the door jangled and Trish walked in. She wove her way through the scattered tables, waving and returning the chorus of ‘good mornings’, before leaning on the counter under the big black bear head. “Coffee, Twinkle!” she called unceremoniously.
Almost before the breath had left her Twinkle came flurrying around the corner, a mug of coffee in hand. “You, my dear,” she declared, “are approximately eighty-two seconds late.”
Trish took the mug and flicked a coin onto the counter. She sipped her coffee and made a face. “Why, it’s practically cold.” Both her and Twinkle chuckled. Trish turned away with a wave. “Thanks, Twinkle. I’ll be back for lunch.”
“Good grief, today’s surprises never end!”
“Or maybe I won’t,” Trish called back, pushing open the door. “And you’ll probably think I tripped in a drift and broke my neck.”
I watched Trish through the foggy glass of the diner door as she crossed the street back toward her store, checking both ways before stepping off the snowy curb. As if there was any traffic to watch out for. If Twinkle’s a vampire, Trish certainly does seem at ease around her. I knotted my hands in my lap, frowning. Maybe the vampires here really are as self-controlled as the Nightfalls have been assuring me. Maybe I am really safe.
I experienced a moment of dazzling optimism before my darker, more logical side checked myself. I’m not like the rest of the humans here. Even a vampire who can keep their hands off Trish or Grizzly may not be able to resist the temptation of my X blood.
Twinkle danced up with my order, startling me. Her earrings jangled as she leaned over the table, setting plate and mug in front of me. “There you are, young sir. Anything else?”
Eggs, pancakes, and coffee, just as I had ordered. “Yes,” I said, looking up at her. “Are you a vampire?”
She laughed, brunette curls bouncing. “Yes I am, young sir. But don’t worry––” she winked at me “––not the type to come sneaking in your window at night.” Someone called her name from across the room, mug waving in a demand for more coffee, and she skipped away.
I picked up my fork, staring after her. You’d think that I wouldn’t have an appetite in a time—or place—like this. I was, however, actually quite hungry. I had just looked down to my plate, stomach growling, when the person in the booth adjacent to my own turned around and grinned at me.
“You must be Valx.”
My stomach grumbled again, but I ignored it. “I am,” I said with my best attempt at a warm smile. “And you are?”
“Jason.” He stuck his hand over the seat-back divider and we shook. “I’m human, in case you were wondering.”
I grinned in relief. “Thanks,” I said, “I kinda was.”
“Mind if I join you?”
“Not at all.” I cleared room on the table and he swung around to sit across from me, clattering his own two plates and mug of coffee next to mine. “How long have you been here in Symbiosia?”
Jason took a generous swig of coffee and wiped his lips. “Ah––four months.” He smiled. His teeth were white and his smile was perfectly-shaped, the sort that would be on the cover of a magazine. “I made the last screening. Just barely.”
Taking a bite of scrambled eggs, I studied him as I chewed. He was the youngest person I’d seen in Symbiosia. Trish and Grizzly had both been somewhere in their thirties, Trish toward the lower end, Grizzly toward the higher. Jason looked twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight at the oldest. He had rich black hair, shorter on the sides than the top, and attractive gray eyes. I wondered what in the world someone like him was doing here in Symbiosia. Wasn’t he lonely? He didn’t seem like the backwoods hermit that Grizzly was, or the eccentric Trish seemed to be. “So,” I asked, “how do you like it here?”
“Oh, great.” Jason swabbed his biscuit in the pool of syrup leftover from his pancakes and took a bite. “People are friendly, scenery’s astounding.” He saw my disappointed expression and laughed. “No, really.” His tone grew more serious, his voice lowering so our conversation took on the trappings of privacy. “It’s nice. I was skeptical about the idea when I first applied for the screening—had a connection, a friend of a friend who knew Victor and what he had going on—but it’s turned out . . . . well, definitely different than I expected. Better.”
Jason paused to gulp coffee and I took advantage of the moment to wolf down half a pancake. When he set his mug down I refocused my attention on him.
“I have to admit, it’s not a . . . . hm, well I guess I’d say normal lifestyle. By any means. It’s a little nerve-wracking. But––” he held up a finger “—nothing bad has happened to me yet, so so far I count it as a decision well-made.”
Nerve-wracking was the mildest term I’d consider appropriate. “What made you want to come here in the first place?”
“Ah.” Jason shrugged, and for the first time some of the enthusiasm faded form his demeanor. “Well,” he said, “there was something of a mess back home. I––”
“Where are you from?”
“Hm? Oh––Australia.”
Australia! They really do come from all over, don’t they? By his accent I had thought he was English, but living life as secluded as I have, I really don’t know accents all too well. I nodded and gestured for him to go on.
“I was a cop back home, see. A police officer. There was a situation I was involved in . . . .” He made vague shapes against the table with one hand. Clearly it wasn’t something he wanted to discuss in detail. “It was a firefight in a neighborhood street, we nabbed them in th
e middle of a deal, they opened fire. We fired back. Self-defense. An innocent bystander ended up taking a bullet—a kid.” He met my eyes for the first time. “About your age. Anyway, it got complicated. Legal stuff.” He waved a hand. “There were no charges, but it wasn’t pleasant. I didn’t want to hang around any longer. Thought I’d travel a bit. Get out, experience some of the world.”
“So you came here?”
“Well.” Jason shrugged and grinned. “It sounded exciting. With my unblemished record and past in combat training I was the perfect candidate. They were expanding the security force here in Symbiosia and so I applied.” He leaned back in his seat and took another long drink of coffee. “It’s been nice. Nice to be away from conflict.”
Away from conflict. It was almost humorously ironic. “They have a security force here in Symbiosia?” I probed curiously.
“Sure. Why wouldn’t we? Every town needs its policing force, even one as small as this. To protect against internal and external threats alike.”
“Internal . . . .”
He glanced at the surrounding tables; none of them were occupied. “In case something happens,” he confided in an undertone. “The tests are painstaking and the screening is ridiculously thorough, but there’s always a chance.”
I leaned forward and dropped my voice, too. “So are none of the security guards vampires, then?”
“Oh, no––there are vampires too. The point of Symbiosia is equality and harmony; it’d be impossible to uphold that standard if it was one-sided. But the point is that we have humans––” he tapped his chest “––who know how to handle themselves in a situation. And then there’s always the possibility of threats from outside, too.”
“SCHNUET?” I asked.
Jason nodded. “And the LDV.”
“Naturally.”
He slid his empty plates into a stack and stretched. “Sorry I have to go so soon, but, you know—duty calls.”
I shook his hand again. “Nice meeting you. When do you get off?”
“Lunch at noon for an hour. Then I’m on till dusk.” Standing, Jason shrugged into his coat.
