The Vampirists Page 7

  Which brings me to some of the other emotions, like anger at her for not telling me right off the bat, annoyance that the Movement apparently has weird rules that she obeys, and more fear–but directed toward the Movement in case they want to harm me now that I know. And underneath it all, I sense that maybe I’m a little curious. That’s dangerous. That could get me in a lot of trouble: It kills cats and causes people to tumble down rabbit holes–go ask Alice.

  I decide to do the only thing that I can: try to exhaust myself to the point where I can’t really think of anything. I don’t want to unlock my door to hit the pull up bar, so I drop down and start banging out pushups. I’m well past the usual first set limit and the floor boards are creaking rhythmically under my exertions. Good, this feels good. I don’t think of much except about going up and down and the pain in my arms and chest. I don’t mind this pain: It is making me stronger.

  Arms trembling, I find my max for one go (62: not bad at all considering what I could–or rather could not–do in high school). I collapse on the floor and feel the sweet burn roll through my pecs and triceps. Strangely, the rhythmic sound continues. With a start, I realize that it’s a tap-tap at my window. At my second floor window, which is definitely over 10 feet off the ground and definitely out of the reach of, well, everyone without a ladder. Or vampiric abilities.

  Cautiously, I approach the window. It’s either Vera or another vampire, and if they are after me, I figure that I should know now rather than later. I’m pretty sure that as long as I don’t invite them in, I’m safe. At least, that’s what the internet says. Oh boy. I pause at the curtain and inhale deeply to brace myself and gather my courage.

  She must have heard me because the next thing I know that sweet, angelic voice flits through the window. “Adam, open up, I just want to talk,” Vera says. Her voice is soft, inviting, appealing. I’m reminded of the beautiful elves from that famous epic fantasy film. I can tell she is smiling as she says all this to me from the other side, though I can’t see her at all through my curtains.

  Again drawing on the band aid mentality, I pull back the curtains quickly and fully expose the partially-opened window. I attempt to look down and avoid her eyes, but she is so radiant and full of life that I instantly forget to do that.

  “Adam, I just want to talk. I didn't like the way our conversation ended. Can I come in?” she asks.

  I know this trick. “I don't think I want to invite you in.” I try to say this with some conviction, though honestly, even now I’m wavering. She is so beautiful, so innocent looking, how could she ever hurt me?

  As if reading my mind, she says, “If I wanted to hurt you, I could've done it a million times by now. Don't be so dramatic.” She gives a pretend exasperated roll of the eyes and smiles again, but I get the sense that she really is actually worried that I might not let her in. Like she cares if we have this talk or not and can work things out. Like she’s maybe even a little vulnerable emotionally.

  Or maybe she is just really hungry.

  I decide to keep the conversation going for a while to see if I can figure out which it is. “Dramatic? And floating outside my bedroom window like a … vampire … is not dramatic?” She looks down as if she hadn’t really considered the effect this might have on me, as if she were trying to see what is strange about her position.

  “I thought you'd be more comfortable talking at home,” she says, wounded. “And I'm not quite floating. My feet are holding me on.” I glance down. Yes, her feet are connected to my wall. But there is nothing really for her to grip on, the wood paneling is pretty smooth. So no, a human could not do what she is doing at the moment: I’m not sure she managed to absorb exactly what is freaky about all this.

  “How–,” I start to ask, intending to find out how this whole vampire-defy-gravity thing works. But she cuts me off.

  “It's just one of the things we can do,” Vera says emphatically. I get the sense that this part of the conversation is over. “Now can I come in? Or do I have to do something really dramatic?”

  I have no idea what this means. I’m not sure I want to find out, but still, I’m not ready to let her in.

  “What if I stripped?” Vera asks. She looks around behind her as I try to absorb what she just said. “What would your neighbors say?” This is definitely not what I thought she meant by being dramatic, but I think it is a good turn of events. I look out over and past her at the nearby windows on other houses: no sign of neighborly noses or prying eyes. But I’m sure she knew that already.

  A shirt sails in and hits me in the face. Vera giggles. “Better let me in,” she teases. I glance around my room and notice the state of it. Far from being comforting, in this moment the clutter has become embarrassing. What will she think? That I’m a mess? My room hasn’t changed much since high school and looks rather juvenile to my very worried eyes; will she notice? I snap out of my reverie and realize that there is a semi-topless vampire outside my window. I guess I have bigger problems than the videogames piled in the corner.

  “This is crazy,” I tell her. But I know my resolve is gone. My body cannot really process the girl in front of me as anything other than an alluring angel. The small part of my mind beeping “Danger, Danger,” over and over again is fading into the background and being replaced by a raging horde of hormonal butterflies.

  “You promise you won't hurt me–or my dad?” I ask, hoping vampires take promises more seriously than most humans.

  “Promise,” she says simply.

  Well, here goes. I hope I’m not the stupidest human alive. Or more specifically, the stupidest human about to not be alive.

  “Okay. You may enter,” I say somewhat formally. Not sure if this will be good enough (who knows exactly how this stuff works?), I add, “I invite you in.”

  Vera smiles what I’m sure she thinks is an encouraging smile meant to relax me. And it does, though a part of me can’t help but think about the smiles on cartoon crocodiles. Before I know it, she is flowing gracefully into the room. I’m not really sure how else to describe it: A human would have to scramble up and awkwardly pull themselves over the window sill while Vera manages it with ease and aplomb.

  With her feet planted firmly inside my room, she takes a quick glance around. I try to see it through her eyes: the light blue sheets on the bed, the years of accumulated junk giving clues to my youth, the posters that have seen better days. I wonder how it compares to her room–do vampires decorate their rooms? Do they even have rooms? Come to think about it, most older movies just show vampires in creepy lairs and coffins–is that how Vera lives (or un-lives)?

  I study her face for a reaction to my room, searching for some sign that she doesn’t like what she sees. I can’t see anything that registers one way or the other, her expression is that of a curious scientist taking in a new environment. She re-centers her gaze on me and seems to remember why we are here. I guess maybe my gaze doesn’t exactly meet her eyes evenly. She notices where my eyes repeatedly wander and smiles again.

  “Human males are so easy to manipulate,” Vera says. I’m not sure how to take this and can’t think of an appropriate response. There is no use in denying it, but somehow I don’t want to entirely acknowledge that I just rationalized letting a vampire into my house because of hormones. So I just stand there nervously, muscles tensed in case of a need for flight or fight. Not that either would probably work against her if she tries anything.

  Vera begins to walk toward me. My legs become very heavy and feel like they are rooted to the ground. Like in a nightmare where you can’t escape from those chasing you. I hear a weird sound and realize it is my heart beating loudly, furiously pumping blood through my body. I hope she doesn’t notice it, and if she does, that it doesn’t sound like a dinner bell. Horrible images from wild-life nature
shows flicker through my mind, and I start to really regret my decision to invite her in.

  Still, she continues to approach slowly with a determinedly measured pace, as if she is fighting some internal battle of her own. She seems drawn to me against her will. I can’t tell if this is good or very, very bad. She pauses when just a foot away and looks at me almost emotionlessly, studying me as she studied my room before.

  “You made a promise,” I remind her weakly.

  “I know.”

  Vera slowly reaches out for me, perhaps still trying to resist something inside. I’m completely frozen; I’m petrified like a deer in headlights. For a fleeting moment that feels like infinity I think that this is it–that I’m a goner.

  But then ….

  Our hands touch ….

  And it’s like everything else just fades away into the distant blurry background. All I see, all that matters, all that exists for me right now–is her.

  Whatever battle was raging inside her mind has also been decided, I guess in my favor, because before I know it we are embracing and squeezing each other tightly. Like I’m trying to squeeze her inside me. Somewhere in a tiny side part of my brain something registers how very strong she is and how her embraces seem to be a little bit more controlled than mine, but then our mouths find each other and all other thoughts slip away.

  We kiss and time disappears.

  We kiss and all my tension disappears.

  We kiss and all my doubts about Vera disappear.

  This is right, so very right. This is what we live for, to feel this feeling right now. Maybe it’s just the hormones, but I know that this is what I’d climb over mountains for, fight for, and if necessary, die for. And all the other stuff, the things that maybe other people would be horrified by, or turn away from, are just things that we’ll have to work out.

  We pull apart breathless and I take the opportunity to suck in much-needed air. Vera looks at me with pained sincerity in her eyes. “I'm sorry about earlier,” she says. “I wasn't really expecting to have the Hi-I’m-a-vampire talk until much later.” As an afterthought she adds, “I guess you probably have more questions.”

  Of course, I do. Vera suggests we head down to the kitchen so I can get a drink. I agree, startled to realize both that now that my earlier terror has subsided I’m actually very thirsty and also that she noticed before I did. Being scared witless has left a dry patch in my throat: Either she can sense that or else she has some serious experience in scaring people. Then again, we were just kissing. I guess that could have given her some indication of the inner state of my mouth!

  She puts her shirt back on over her bra (I’m sad to see it disappear), and I give her the very short tour to the kitchen. Not seeing too much else appealing (I’ve been neglecting shopping lately in the midst of this whole freaking out about vampires thing), I open a beer from the fridge and lean back against the counter, pondering what my first question should be. She seems to be waiting for me to shoot, but I feel like I should explain that we are safe to talk here.

  “My father–” I begin.

  “–Is sleeping soundly in the living room,” she says, cutting me off. “I can hear him breathing heavily and his pulse indicates that he is deeply asleep.” Okay, at some point I’ll definitely have to find out more about her abilities.

  I decide to start with something I hope is less personal to ease her into it. “So, how many of you are there?”

  She chuckles, not surprised apparently. “I don't know exactly, but a lot. More than you might think,” she says. That’s probably not hard to achieve given that a short time ago I thought there were exactly zero. But if there are so many, why don’t humans know? You’d think there would be evidence left behind, signs and corpses pointing to the conclusion that there are bloodthirsty vampires hiding among us.

  “Do you guys kill to feed?” I ask next. I flash on being a kid grossed out by my dad’s bloody steaks. There’s still some of that kid left in me.

  “I suppose some do. But many don't think it's very practical anymore,” Vera explains. I feel my face show visible signs of relief. Very good to know that there aren’t raging hordes of killer vamps out there. “Lots of little bites here and there will do just fine for us to survive,” she continues. I cringe a bit–and she notices.

  “And we have hospital hook-ups, of course,” she adds quickly, obviously to mollify me. “They help us source most of the blood we need nowadays.”

  Okay, that’s a lot better. I can handle that, I think. It’s probably their equivalent of drinking packaged juice boxes. No big deal. No harm, no foul and all that.

  Without really thinking, I blurt out my next question: “Do you have a soul?”

  She seems surprised. I guess I am, too. There’s a bit of an awkward silence while she considers this. I instantly kick myself for popping that so soon, I hadn’t really planned on it. But I have to admit that I’m curious. Historically, I’ve never been very religious, especially not when horrible things can happen to good people like my mom without any sort of divine intervention to save them–or even divine retribution (her killers are still unpunished as far as I know). So I hadn’t realized that this was secretly nagging at me. Yet, somewhere deep inside, I guess that’s at the root of whether or not I believe that Vera won’t hurt me.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” she finally responds quietly. She soon continues on, “Do you have one? Does anyone?” I shrug, realizing that I do not have a solid answer either. “I guess it all comes down to whether or not you believe in God, and if you think vampires are inherently evil. But I’ve never seen or heard anything definitive to prove God exists one way or the other,” she admits. Then she adds on, “It’s possible, given that we exist.”

  “No angels or demons in your past?” I ask, only half joking.

  She shakes her head and I nod, taking this in. I suppose that would have been too easy–finding out that this hidden community somehow held the answer to one of life’s great questions. It’s tempting to assume that if vampires are real, so is God. But then I think about how many “supernatural” phenomena have eventually been explained by science. Maybe Vera’s existence is no different.

  “So as for my soul, what do you think?” she asks me with a small smile. “I have a reflection,” she says, referring to that old myth. She gestures with a slight nod of her porcelain head and sculpted neck to the window in which I can see her Goddess-like figure having a conversation with a very tired-looking male youth. “And you're still talking to me, still invited me in,” she continues. “You kiss me ….”

  In a flash of vampiric speed, she blurs over and appears in front of me, lips hovering an eyelash’s distance away. For a second, I’m in shock of her speed and recoil defensively a tad, but milliseconds later I’m leaning forward automatically to meet her mouth and address more pressing needs. We kiss and it’s as before: world-shattering.

  After a few seconds … a few minutes … a lifetime, she pulls back a bit.

  “So?” she asks deviously. I can only smile and try to catch my breath. Victorious, she takes a few steps back and relaxes against the opposite counter with her arms folded. “I'm still me. I mean, I feel like me before, when I was human, only different,” she says.

  I want to know more about Vera as a human (who was she … what was she … when was she?), but I table that line of inquiry for now and instead ask, “Different how?”

  “Well, everything is heightened: my senses, my emotions–the good and the bad,” she says. “And then there are the powers ….” She pauses dramatically with eyebrows raised.

  I bite. “What powers do you have?” I ask.

  She smiles slyly, “It's more fun to show you those little by little.”


  She is really going to milk this. I guess a vamp’s gotta find her fun where she can. Fair enough.

  “It must be cool to be immortal,” I admit.

  “It definitely has its pros … and its cons,” she responds. “But Adam, don’t get confused, I’m not immortal by any means. There are still ways I can get sent to the neverend. They’re just way harder for me than for you, human.”

  “Like what? What can hurt the invincible Vera? What keeps you up at night?” And then remembering who/what I’m talking to, I add embarrassedly, “Um, so to speak ….”

  “Nice try, Adam, but no dice. Trade secrets and all,” she says with a trace of humor. But I detect a firmness there that lets me know not to press the issue.

  I continue on. “Well, if we're gonna date, what else should I know about?”

  She smiles slyly again, and I instantly see that I set myself up a bit. “So, we’re going to date are we? Doesn’t a guy usually ask a girl out or something like that? Or do modern human males just assume things and tell us gals when we’re dating?” she teases.

  “I just … I mean … I thought–” I fumble around for words. She followed me home and threw her shirt in my window, after all. Before the blush can fully reach my cheeks, her lips are at mine again. Contented for another few minutes, we part and she smiles innocently.