The Vampire Sextette

by Marvin Kaye

  Could the witness confine himself to—

  —Brother Thompson was even there, and he was handcuffed to a gravestone,

  and these motorcycle bitches were prodding him with cigarettes, and he was all

  moaning.

  —That's enough, Mr. Kindred. Counselor, instruct your witness to get to the

  point.

  —So, Jeremy, you, ah, made a pass at your best friend.

  —Well, not exactly. It was more like this: I swallowed a couple of mouthfuls

  of that blood-cocktail thing, and everything went all misty… well, okay, and I felt

  like my veins were on fire… like this burning sensation, this tingling, everywhere,

  especially, you know, down there… and the next thing I knew, I was on Jody's

  leg, like a dog or something, rubbing myself up and down on it. But he wasn't

  getting horny off that blood at all. It wasn't affecting him the same way. Even

  though there was couples, threesomes, getting down every which way, in the light

  of the moon, with a dark, pounding music pouring out of a ghetto blaster

  somewhere… like one of them imperial orgy scenes in Caligula, you know?…

  Jody wouldn't have none of it. He shook me off of him like you'd shake off, well,

  a dog. "Don't," he said. "You're like all them others. To me the blood feels

  different. I think maybe I ain't the same kind as you, maybe I don't belong with the

  likes of you. What you're all doing seems so empty to me. Blood sings a different

  music to me. When I look into the dark, I look right past all of you and all your

  sleazy thrills, your wanna-be games, I see you all just flirting with the darkness…

  not willing to embrace it… to become a part of it… no, you're not like me after all,

  and it makes me sad because you've been a good friend to me, Jeremy, all these

  years when no one would talk to me because I'm like the school outcast, the

  mutant in the hallway… today I'm starting to learn who I really am."

  —So the defendant had, as it were, an epiphanic moment from the drinking of

  human blood?

  —I don't rightly know what that means, sir.

  —Doesn't matter. That evening changed him, didn't it?

  —Maybe so. What he said to me, though, was he found his true self.

  —And his true self was what? A vampire?

  —Won't that simple, sir. But anyways, I didn't have time to listen to him

  ranting on at that point, because, as I said, I was thinking with my dick. And soon

  my dick found something to play with. There was this mousy girl, no one anyone

  would look at twice in the daylight… her name was Constance Thorpe… and the

  only time I ever spent more than five seconds in her company was when me and

  her was paired off cutting up rats in biology lab one time. You know, she always

  used to make me nervous. She had nerd glasses, and she had a way of pulling out

  them rat intestines that made it look like she was enjoying it too much. And she

  dressed like a refugee from the sixties, parents must've been hippies or something

  and she forgot to rebel. Well, I saw her leaning against a tombstone, and she

  wasn't the same bitch at all, lemme tell you. She'd lost the glasses and she even

  had a spot of makeup on. But I didn't really give a shit, because of whatever it was

  in that blood; all I cared about was that she made a beeline for me and kinda nosedived toward my crotch. Before you knew it she'd unzipped me and she was all

  up on me like a noisy old vacuum cleaner. I mean, I wouldn't have been seen dead

  with her normally, but you should have seen her suck, I mean, that girl could suck.

  She was wild, too, licking up a storm on my balls and even thrusting down past

  them, I think she'd have stuck it up my butt if my pants had come all the way

  down, but the zipper was all tangled in her hair. Must've hurt, it yanking on that

  hair like that, sir, but she sucked with a will, like her life depended on it. So I sorta

  leaned back against a gravestone, closed my eyes, and slipped into like a kind of

  trance, just letting myself go with the flow of it… then I sort of came to with a

  shock because I could feel this pinprick, this sharp pain that wouldn't go away. I

  looked down and she had pulled out a syringe and she'd stuck me right in the

  shaft, and you know how much blood gets down there when you got a boner. I

  guess I kinda panicked, even though I knew that these people have a thing about

  blood, and I drew back, and well, I knocked the syringe out and I jizzed at the

  same time, and there was blood and cum everywhere… well, Constance was

  going crazy now, lapping up everything, sperm, blood, sweat, I could have pissed

  on her face and she'd've drunk it. Holy shit! I didn't like it. The high of the vanilla

  blood was coming down now. I was all dizzy. This wasn't how I thought it would

  feel. I felt all dirty inside. That's when I decided to go looking for Jody. I sorta

  pushed Constance out of the way. She was on all fours, the fucking nympho

  bitch, and already sniffing for a fresh piece of meat to chew on. I kept calling

  Jody's name, asked a couple people where he was, and they kept shrugging or

  being too involved with their own shit.

  —And where did you in fact discover the defendant to be?

  —Well, I'm getting to that, sir!

  —Good. I see that the prosecution has become too, ah, involved in its prurient

  fascination with the material to object any further…

  —There's no need for the defense to snipe, Your Honor, when it is clearly

  burying itself with every word this so-called witness utters.

  —Be that as it may… Mr. Kindred?

  —Okay. Well, there's this big old structure bang in the middle of the cemetery,

  see, and it's the oldest monument there. I think it dates to long before the war.

  —You mean the Civil War.

  —Yes, sir.

  —I think most of the jury are familiar with the monument you're referring to.

  It's the Forbin-St. Cloud Memorial, right? Built by a prominent French family, in

  the days when our little city was booming. Which times, since the banning of

  hemp cultivation, are long past. A bizarrely incongruous Gothic monstrosity,

  surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with strange-looking gargoyles on top,

  rumored to have underground passageways, under whose sheltering eaves the

  homeless of this town often rest, as the local police force rarely bothers to kick

  them out, rarely even patrols this area because of the mysterious death of Police

  Sergeant McKinley, found garroted and disemboweled and spread-eagled over

  the—

  —Why is the defense now regaling us with a history lesson, Your Honor?

  Objection!

  —I'll stop, Your Honor. I just thought the local color would be helpful. The

  Forbin-St. Cloud monument has… vibes. I want the jury to understand that. Since

  all of them heard the ghost stories when they were kids, and few were brave

  enough to go there. I know the prosecution is anxious to get back to the dirty bits.

  So how about it, Mr. Kindred? Let's have 'em. The dirty bits.

  —Like I said, sir, I thought I saw the back of Jody's head, and he was

  squeezing through the iron bars into the Fo-for-… well, we don't call it that, sir.

  —What do you call it?

  —We call it the Hellhouse.

  —Why?

  —Well, sir, on account of… it's bi
g enough to be a house, what with all the

  underground passages it's supposed to have… and it's got this entranceway…

  well, a fake entranceway… that looks like the mouth of hell… a big old demon's

  jaw in stone with a stone door that can't be opened. Well… I didn't think it could

  be opened. But then… I saw Jody sort of standing there… at the stone mouth…

  you could see the sculpted flames of hell there… and he was just standing there.

  Just staring. Like he'd seen something… supernatural. Well, I kind of snuck up

  behind him. I guess I startled him because when he felt me breathing down his

  neck he screamed up a storm. I mean he had like a panic attack, and I hadn't never

  seen him lose his cool before. I got him calmed down. I kept saying, It ain't so

  bad, Jody, nothing bad's happened yet, maybe we just lost a bit of blood is all.

  Maybe we're a bit weak from that, you know, dizzy, seeing things. When you lose

  blood you see things. We learned that in school. But he was all, I saw what I saw.

  I said, What did you see? and he said, Nothing. Fucking nothing, and don't ask

  me again. I ain't crazy. I said, Nobody said you was. Just tell me what you seen

  there.

  —And did the defendant respond?

  —Yeah.

  —What did he say?

  —He more than said, sir. Well, at first he just murmured, They went through

  the doorway, they just up and walked right on through there like it was air, I can

  feel them inside there, feel the heat of their souls inside the dead, empty space…

  but pretty soon he was a-banging on that stone with his fists, like he should have

  been able to melt right through it. Well, what do you know? The wall started to

  give.

  —He shattered a mausoleum wall with his fists?

  —Not hardly, sir. I mean the wall and him seemed to kind of meld together,

  and he was sort of sinking into it.

  —What did you do, Jeremy?

  —I thought he was going to die. I mean, getting sucked into a Jell-o kind of a

  wall, it was one of them Poltergeist-style special effects, like you see in movies.

  So I guess I grabbed on to him, and that's how I ended up getting pulled inside,

  too. The stone felt mushy. Oily, you know. It made my flesh crawl. But the wall

  closed right up again as soon as we got through, and it was dark as shit in there,

  and won't no way to get back out. I almost shat my pants, I don't mind telling you,

  sir, it was that scary. The air was all moist and stale-smelling. I don't know how

  dead people are supposed to smell, but I could feel death there. Well, after a time,

  you could start to see a bit of light. Water was dripping. Where we were was a

  kind of corridor leading downward. And we heard voices. From down below. I

  was shaking, sir. And then Jody said the strangest thing. He said, Jer, we been

  buddies for a long time, but there's places you weren't meant to go… places I

  have to go alone. You weren't meant to pass through to this place, but you held on

  to me, and maybe that's good, because if anything ever happens to me, you can

  bear witness one day, you can speak the truth about me, shout it out, even if

  nobody ever believes you, or even understands what you say. I ain't long for this

  world, Jer, but I'm meant to go out like a comet, not like a lil' old candle. You

  know that, don't you? I've always been different… like everyone's born facing the

  same way, their butts to the past, their faces to the future, but not me, I go

  sideways, past and future are a sidestream to me, a path I can never tread.

  —Quite a speech for a teenager, don't you think?

  —Objection! Calls for speculation.

  —Ah, I see that the Madame Prosecutor has awakened. Sustained.

  —That's all right, Your Honor, I was only being rhetorical.

  Mr. Kindred… Jeremy… I'll say it a different way. Did your friend, the

  defendant, often make long speeches like that?

  —Not often. But more than any other kid I knew. If he got going, he could talk

  up a storm. Almost like a preacher, except it would be all about violence and death

  and dark things.

  —Are you aware that the defendant hasn't said a word since he was taken into

  custody?

  —I've heard that, sir.

  —So he's definitely changed.

  —Yes, sir. He ain't human no more.

  —Literally?

  —Well, sir, I was getting to that.

  —Proceed.

  —Well, like I said, there was voices. And the corridor leading downward. And

  the light, you see, the light came from down below. A flickering, red light, kind of

  like the flames of hell, I guess. And even though Jody told me, No, you stay up

  here, this is for me alone… well, I guess I couldn't help following him down there.

  I was curious, sure. But it was also creepy as shit, and I didn't want to be alone.

  —Did the defendant know you were following him?

  —Sort of. But you see, he was like in his own world. He really didn't pay me

  no mind at all. I was like a puppy dog or something… no, a shadow more like, a

  nothing.

  —To whom did the voices belong?

  —Well okay, we kept going down deeper and deeper, because the corridor

  ended in steps, and the steps led us deeper and deeper underground. Maybe we

  were going into the hillside, I don't know; I lost my sense of direction. Because

  now there were steps going up, and passageways leading sideways. It was like that

  story we learned in Mrs. Seymour's class one time, the one with the maze and the

  bullheaded man and the hero with his ball of yarn. The walls glowed. It was a cold

  light, millions of dots of light, you know, like you get in caves sometimes,

  phosphorescence I think it's called. I followed. After what seemed like a long time,

  it widened into a cave. I think it was part natural, this cave, but there was also a

  bunch of marble columns and statues of weeping angels and other cool gothic

  shit. The light came from flaming torches on the walls. Some parts of the walls

  had paintings, Egyptian stuff, guys with dogs' heads, other parts had been painted

  over. It was all coated with soot, and when the torches flickered, it looked like

  them pictures was moving. And at the far end, there were niches in the wall, and in

  the niches were dead people. I mean some were long dead, like skeletons, but

  some were fresh… and some of them I recognized. I mean, they went to my

  school. I mean, they weren't supposed to be dead at all. I mean, I would have

  heard of it if they'd died, I was in some of the same classes. Well, I wasn't that

  sure. Like I said, I was dizzy. And the sex thing hadn't totally worn off. I hid

  behind a big statue. An angel. The Archangel Michael, I think, with a flaming

  sword. The sword was metal and sort of attached to his hand with a leather thong.

  And a bronze cross around his neck. His wings were wide enough that I could

  crouch down and peep through a little chink where his elbow lifted up against his

  robe. Apart from the sword and the cross he was all marble, and cold. And, well,

  I wasn't dressed for the cold, so I was shivering as I huddled there, trying not to

  breathe too much.

  —What did the defendant do at that point?

  —He stood there, in a semicircle of light, facing all of them dead fol
ks, and I

  saw there was three coffins laying there, fine old coffins made of carved wood

  with all gold on them. The coffins are just laying there, and the middle one, the

  grandest one of them all, is closed, but the other two have their lids on the ground

  next to them, and they're empty, you see. And there's people here. They're hard to

  see at first, because they're all blended with the shadows, and it takes me a while

  to make them out. They ain't the same kind of people as the ones in the orgy up

  there in the cemetery grounds. They're, well, pale-looking. What was that word for

  the way the walls was all glowing? Phosphorescent. Yeah. That was in their faces,

  too. When you looked at one of them a long time you could see the cold light

  clinging to their faces. They all wore black. I don't mean all Dracula capes and

  stuff. I mean, some of them had capes, but there were clothes from olden times,

  and clothes you could see down at the Goth coffeehouse over in the next town.

  There was leather and fishnet stockings. There was black lipstick. Sunken eyes.

  Some had sweeping robes, you know, the kind that rustle when you walk. And,

  well, standing next to one of the empty coffins was Cat Sperling, and she was

  totally naked. And by the other coffin was

  … shit man, it's weird to think of it now, but it was Constance Thorpe, the little

  geek that done went down on me next to that gravestone up above. She was

  naked, too. She looked better than I thought she would. I couldn't believe it. The

  only two bitches I'd ever really messed around with, and they were standing

  around bare-ass naked in front of a bunch of ghouls in black. I gotta admit, it was

  making me, you know, all hot down there all over again. I watched my friend Jody.

  They didn't seem to notice him at first, them two girls, because they were busy

  staring into each other's eyes. I mean, I thought I was trapped inside of a lesbo

  porno. I mean, this was fucking wild. I never dreamed them two would have a

  thing for each other, I mean, the sexiest girl at Kramer High and some gap-toothed

  nerd with a thing for cutting up mice and frogs… secretly wanting to dyke it out?

  … I could see it in their eyes. Cat went without saying, but Constance looked

  different. A glow in her flesh. Gleaming. Maybe it was sweat. She had hard little