by Ian Hall
Alan lay in my arms, either very dead, or dying before our eyes.
Trust me, for all my inattention at first aid classes, I felt certain.
In two minutes he’d bled out totally. I knelt in his shiny red-ochre, and probably ten others stood in the same growing pool.
Then, bursting through the silence like a firework on the Fourth of July, Grant Porteus hit the first notes of ‘Last Post’ on his cornet. I knew it would be Grant without looking up. Alan was pretty well liked, and Grant was the kind of guy who knew instinctively the right thing to do - always.
For all the hundred or so kids on the concrete, you could have heard a pin drop as Grant’s plaintive tune rang out into the evening.
The ambulance eventually came. Its siren pierced the silence, and the band parted reluctantly to let the paramedics through.
They didn’t attempt resuscitation, though, they just nudged me out of the way, wrapped him up, lifted the body onto a gurney, then left.
The police came and like school kids all over the country, the band kind of dispersed, standing in guilty groups, most having nothing to say.
A few did something very strange, and they all did it in the same way. In the midst of all this weirdness, it got suddenly weirder.
They bent down to the pool of blood, ran their forefinger in it, and licked it clean. I counted them; six altogether. I knew them all; counted them as quasi friends; friends by association with Alan, no more.
I didn’t ask. I just observed. But I took mental note of the names of ‘the six.’
Soon, a cop tapped me on the shoulder and asked me questions.
“Mandy something,” I answered. I wanted to mention her tits, but I just closed my eyes and remembered them.
“Do you know her?”
“She came to school once.”
“Here? To Gregor Academy? When?”
“Last week. I don’t know.” I must have looked like a real wacko, but he took my name and told me they’d be back for more questions later. “Alan spoke to her. That’s all I know.”
With the front of my shirt and my jeans all covered in his blood, I kinda wandered around aimlessly after that.
“Tonight’s Game is Postponed,” the big electronic scoreboard read ten minutes later.
I looked around for a friendly face, but found none. Girls were crying, but each of them seemed to have someone with them, and I wasn’t bold enough to intrude.
I looked for ‘the six’, but they were conspicuous by their absence.
In the depths of my loneliness, I decided to go home. I set out for the gate. I walked past the school sign when I spotted Dorothy Squires sitting on the curb. She’s one of our cheerleaders, and sat so low, her knees were high in the air, her already-short skirt bunched up at her waist. She wasn’t crying, but she looked pretty beat-up.
“You ok?” I asked.
Okay, I’d blurted out the dumbest thing, but I wasn’t really expecting an answer anyway, she’s a cheerleader, and they don’t talk to the likes of me.
She looked up at me and presented a grim smile, lips closed. Then she stuck her legs out onto the road, and smoothed her skirt down. It was too late for that kind of modesty; I’d already seen her white knickers lots of times on the field. She’s a cheerleader for goodness sake.
“Hi, Lyman,” she sniffed, then pointed up to my bloody clothes. “You’re covered in his blood.”
Lyman, the name hit the back of my brain in microseconds. She hadn’t called me ‘Red.’ No one called me Lyman, except grown-ups.
“You need anything?” I asked, hoping a grope wasn’t out of the question. I had nothing else; no cigarettes, no gum.
Dorothy got unsteadily to her feet. “You guys were close, huh?”
My tears started without warning. I felt a fool until she came close and hugged me. I was bloody from head to toe, but she still pulled me close. Not to lose a chance to feel those goodies against my chest, I hugged her back, but the tears didn’t stop, even though I wanted them to.
My friend had just died, and here I stood, getting farther with any girl ever. And Dorothy Squires was a cheerleader!
She held me, then, stepping back, looked up into my eyes. Man I thought we were going to kiss. I moved forward like the awkward geek, and she instantly held a waving forefinger in the air between us.
No kiss then.
She shook her head slightly, but for some reason I focused on the swaying finger.
Yes, it was the bar to our kiss; but it was more.
Her nails were manicured, her fingernails varnished white.
But under the nail, arcing back and forth like a metronome, winking at me like a sliver moon, lay a wet ridge of crimson.
The white-nail part had been licked clean, but under her fingernail, Dorothy Squires had Alan McCartney’s blood.
Okay. Back to me - Mandy.
There are lots of things humans think about vampires that are just totally false. Let’s get them out of the way right now.
First myth: Vampires like, totally “disintegrate” in the sunlight. Give me a break. Really? You’re telling me that you believe if this supernatural predator came at your throat, all you’d have to do is raise the shade and kill it off?
Not so much. Vampires troll the nights when they need to feed only because we’ve got amazing see-in-the-dark vision and humans don’t. It’s much stealthier to catch prey that can’t see you back. But yeah, we can totally come out during the day, too.
Oh…and garlic. Kind of one of my faves, people. Especially with pasta and mushrooms. So, that’s another myth I’d like to shoot down. Crosses don’t burn us. We don’t wear black capes, we don’t have unfolded wings on our backs, or turn into bats.
All that’s totally bogus.
I’m doing you a favor by telling you all this, by the way. I mean - I could just let you clutch your garlic and wait for the sun to come up then snatch you as you bend down to get your morning paper. So, now you’re not really any safer but maybe a tad wiser.
So…after that totally bizarro introduction…
Alan started coming to see me. A lot. He kept saying stuff like, “I’ve never met anyone like you before.” I totally thought he meant ‘cause I’m so smart and all that; but, turns out he was just really into my ass.
Not to be stuck-up or anything, but I did gymnastics for like, eight years and then cheerleading for three; so yeah, my ass is pretty killer. And, I have to admit, I dug the fact that this vampire dude was into me.
Mom used to tell me all the time that I have some “bad boy complex.” Like, whatever, Mom. Rolling eyes.
Anyway…he’d been coming around for a couple weeks. We’d sit in the gazebo under the moonlight, listening for cats. That dude could hear something like a block away. When he got one, I’d just have to close my eyes and pretend I was in the rainforest or something. Once he’d gotten all fed and mellowed out, we’d have some really nice conversations.
I remember one of those talks like it happened yesterday…
“Mandy?”
I’d been waiting out there for a while. Right when I was about to give up, Alan came.
He had this really sexy voice. It sounded like violins playing through the pouring rain. Dreamy-like. When I heard it, I felt suddenly warm.
“Hey,” I replied. “Thought you would never show up.”
”What is it you humans say? Wild horses couldn’t pull me away?”
I felt confused. “I never say that.”
In addition to that melodic voice, Alan had an angelic face. Kinda round like a baby’s - but his eyes were deep and intellectual. I could tell he’d already fed plenty that night ‘cause his cheeks were super pink and his lips rosy and glossy. Kissable for sure.
“What kept you?” I asked.
“Just some vampire business to take care of. You know how it is.”
“Nah. Not really.”
Just then he kinda brushed my bangs out of my eyes. He had an icy touch but his skin felt so sof
t. I remember him tracing my mouth with his finger. I thought at that point he was going to finally kiss me. Instead, he got all sullen and just stared out to space.
“You’re lucky you don’t,” he told me. “Things can get a little gory on my side of the fence.”
“What? Did you like, kill somebody tonight or something?”
I forced a laugh into my words, but deep down I really dreaded the possible answer. Alan turned me on; I can’t even begin to lie about that. But, truthfully, he kinda scared me, too.
My question caught him off guard. He looked at me with this like, challenging expression on his peaches-and-cream face.
“What if I had, Mandy? What would you think of me then?”
I got all sick to my stomach. I totally didn’t want to give off the vibe that I was super down with this killing-people racket. But, I also didn’t want to piss off a vampire. So, I played it cool.
“You’re a vampire, dude…I guess that comes with the territory.”
His glaring look became a lot less intense. “I hate to say it, but sometimes it does.”
“So…is that what kept you? Did you…kill somebody tonight?”
Alan’s cool eyes got real narrow and he pulled his gaze from me and stared down at the ground. I was scared for sure; but, I also just felt really bad for the guy. I mean - what must that be like? Having to kill people just to survive?
I put my hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Whatever you’ve done…”
And then the big dork shot this fangy grin up at me. “Gotcha, sucker! It was midnight madness bowl - unlimited games from eleven to two at Ten Pin. Me and the guys dominated the alley.”
That kind of pissed me off. I mean, I thought we were having a bonding moment. So, I swatted him on the head.
Of course, it wasn’t until afterward that I realized I’d just like, totally hit a freaking vampire. Seriously- I almost wet myself. Luckily, he laughed.
That’s when we started to get all cuddly; for the first time he really put his arms around me and it felt awesome. We were quiet for a while. Probably would’ve been best if I’d just let it stay quiet, but I can be a dork that way. After a while I asked the question that had been floating around in my brain.
“So…have you? Ever killed a person, I mean?”
He didn’t really say yes or no; kinda danced around the subject if you ask me.
“Death is just one more state of being, Mandy Cross. A mortal losing their life is no more tragic than a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. It’s not gone; just turned into something else.”
“You mean if I died you wouldn’t be even a little sad? You just be all, ‘Oh… there goes Mandy; now she’s a butterfly.’”
Alan laughed. It sounded like those wind chimes that are made out of seashells. “Don’t you worry about that, Mandy Cross,” he told me. “When you’re ready to become a butterfly, I’ll be the one who teaches you how to fly.”
“What do you mean? Like me becoming…one of you?”
“If by ‘one of me’ you mean immortal and invincible, then yeah. I mean - if given the choice…why wouldn’t you?”
“What about all that ‘gory side of the fence’ stuff?”
“I was screwing with you! Trust me - if you ever really want to learn how to live, you’re gonna have to learn how to die first.”
The Gregor Six
I went around to Alan’s house the next day just to say ‘hi’ to his mom, but I couldn’t walk up the path to the front door. I stood for a few minutes, tears welling up in my eyes, looking at the hundreds of flower bunches tied to the white fence, then I left.
It was all very sad.
I still had a couple of Alan’s CDs and felt guilty about not returning them, and I had one of his, you know, girlie magazines. Well-thumbed, handed down for years.
I hung around our coffee shop, either to get a private moment or to meet Dorothy Squires. I’m not sure which. Either one would’ve been good in my book. Whatever I was there for, it didn’t happen, and I had to go home on Saturday night alone.
My mom made macaroni and cheese with bits of bacon and onion, just the way I like it, with sliced tomato on top. I knew she’d done it just to comfort me, but I didn’t care. I loved her mac ‘n’ cheese.
But whatever happened over the weekend, I still had the image of Dorothy Squires’s bloody finger. Whatever strange club they belonged to, suddenly ‘the six’ were seven in number, and I felt determined to get to the bottom of it.
Monday at school, we were all given a speech at assembly, then the nearest and dearest got a roster of times to be at the school nurse’s office; seems like a grief counselor had been brought in, and we were ordered to attend.
I went through the morning classes with little thought. Cafeteria lunch headed towards a similar mediocrity, until Squires approached my table.
“Can I sit down?” she asked.
It was quite the honor to get a cheerleader at your table, and I dreaded the imminent grief counselor, and I would take any distraction. “You’re a cheerleader, Dorothy,” I said sarcastically. “You can sit anywhere you like.”
She waltzed past my chagrin and sat down anyway. “How you doing, Lyman?”
Her breasts giggled when she sat, and I must admit, I looked around at the guys looking at me enviously. “I’m fine, Dorothy. It’ll just take time to get used to, not having a best friend anymore.”
“Yeah, Alan’s a hoot.”
Wow, she still spoke of him in the present tense. Man, that just sounded weird.
I allowed my lunch to get cold, just sitting opposite her. I felt I could almost get a hard-on watching her talk. Dorothy was a very pretty girl, not shallow-skin pretty, but real nice.
A bona fide girl-next-door.
I can’t remember much of the conversation, really. But I know when she left, she touched my hand and it sent shocks of electricity into me.
We had a date.
Coffee; six pm that night.
At my allotted time I sat outside the nurse’s office waiting for the grief counselor. When Billy Tankard came out, as white as a sheet. He nodded to me, “Red,” but breezed off without further comment. I shivered slightly, Billy was a member of ‘the six/seven.’
“Next!” A shout came through the open door. After I’d sat down, he said in a very bored voice, “My name is Marc Brennan. I’m here to offer you counseling regarding the recent events at Gregor Academy.”
Go Hawks.
Marc Brennan turned out to be not your typical grief counselor. For a start, the lights were out and all the shutters were closed against the bright daylight outside. It was pretty dim inside. “Lyman Bracks?” he read from a sheet.
“Yes, sir.” I had no idea that people could read so well in the dark.
“Lyman, were you a good friend of Alan’s?”
“Yes, sir. We were the best of friends.”
He leant back and suddenly pulled the shutters open. I blinked at the unexpected light, but just about fell back off my chair when Marc sprang forward, looking carefully at my eyes.
“You can tell a lot from a reaction to light,” Marc said, but I stared at his manic look, unconvinced of his motives. “Grief manifests in a myriad of ways.”
“You don’t say.” Ok, it wasn’t the most polite answer, but he was behaving very weird.
“Hot flashes?”
“No.”
“Feeling depressed?”
“No.” I paused. “Apart from my best friend being ripped apart and bleeding to death all over me.”
“Hmm. So you rushed to his aid?”
“No one else did. He died in my arms, and Everton bitch Mandy fuck-stitch was no-where to be seen.”
“She’s the one who….”
“Ripped Alan’s neck off and left him to bleed to death!” Anger grew within me. I was getting a little pissed at this man pretty quickly.
“And how do you feel about that?” He sat back in his chair, as if he’d just asked the golden questi
on.
But his look of triumph slipped past his straight face, and I suddenly ‘got it’. I’d been played like a violin. We’d got to the point where I’d break down and ask for a hug.
He looked into my eyes for the great answer, the one that would prove from his ‘myriad’ of textbooks if I was grieving correctly or not. I decided that I wasn’t going along with his little play, and determined to de-rail the process.
“Man, she had good tits.”
He looked at me up and down, shook his head, then handed me a business card.
“Get out.”
I even smirked as I left the office.
For the first time in my life, I’d been ever-so-slightly badass, and it had been so much fun.
Alright…I’m going to fast-forward a couple weeks to July ninth. Alan and I had been just hanging out in my backyard up ‘til this point. Lots of talking, absolutely no necking, and definitely nothing more interesting than that.
That night was a big deal to me ‘cause of the party at Jackson Cole’s house; the first time any of my friends had remembered my existence since Craig dumped me for Cami. Not that Jackson and I were tight or anything, but we moved in the same circles. His party would prove as good an “in” as I figured I would get for a while.
If I intended to face my senior year with any dignity, I had to show my face at Jackson’s house. Besides, I felt pretty sure that if Angelina Hanklin and Myra DeSuza were around, I could totally start a rumor that Cami gave Craig syphilis and have it spread all over town by dawn. The rumor, not syphilis.
Only thing - I didn’t want to have to go alone. So I figured, what better revenge than to show up with some hot, mysterious guy from another school? Everybody’d be all like, “Whoa, who’s that?” and “Check it out - Mandy’s totally moved on and traded up.” I could even play Alan off as a college guy and get away with it. I mean, since he’s a vampire, he’s definitely way older than me anyway.
So, we got to Jackson’s house around ten-thirty. Alan had to make sure he’d sucked down a couple cats so he wouldn’t be tempted by a roomful of drunken teenagers. But, that was fine; I didn’t mind being late ‘cause then I didn’t look desperate to be there. It all worked out.
Everything was pretty much as I figured it would be when we walked in. Lucy Crain had her tongue hanging to the floor, drooling over my date. Same with Jennifer Spivy and Della DiMaggio.