Black Ambrosia

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  Silliness, Angelina, I scolded myself, and gentling the boy again with my music, I stepped up on the lower bunk, cringing as it squeaked, and I kissed his neck and smelled his maturing manhood. It was a delicious smell, and I kept my nose in the hollow between shoulder and neck for a long while, not quite daring to taste.

  I felt the night wane. I would survive the night without feeding; I would not survive without shelter from the day. Reluctantly I left the boy, deeply pleased that two perfect children slept in my new home.

  I closed his door and stepped across the hall. The master bedroom. The parents’ room. I stooped to examine the wallpaper. My blood spot was still there, faded to no more than a little dirty smear, but there it was. I remembered that night as clearly as if it had been this very evening. Had that smear of blood called me back to this house?

  Their door was closed. Slowly I opened it and stepped in.

  The woman slept naked, the sheet and blanket wrapped tightly around her husband, leaving her barely enough to cover one leg and one arm. Her body was slim and conditioned, the hair on her head an auburn shade, much lighter than the semen-encrusted hair between her legs. The stench of sex hung thickly in the air. The husband, with dark greasy hair curled around his head and black beard stubble gracing his ample jowls, slept noisily in striped pajamas.

  She was beautiful, the woman, just as beautiful as her children. I walked to her side of the bed and played the music for her as I gently touched her, touched the portions of a woman that I had never touched before, never even seen before. I saw her through the eyes of eternity; I stroked her flesh, absorbing the warmth, as I watched her body mature and grow old right before my eyes. I gently tickled, pinched, and probed, and in spite of myself, the music changed and she began to respond.

  I knew I was treading dangerous ground, but I felt I had teased my nature beyond any reasonable amount of restraint this night, and I urged her responses, and swallowed as saliva threatened to overflow.

  And then I heard the voice. It was my own voice this time, clear and sweet. “Angelina, the dawn is upon us,” and it was true, I could see my own shadow over her as the sky began to lighten.

  Reluctantly I pulled back, kissed her lightly on the breast, and vowed to return. I made my way with weakening steps back downstairs, consciousness falling away, willing myself one more minute and one more, cursing myself for being so foolish, and I crawled under the stairs with the dirt and dust and crispy insect carcasses, and I stretched out and slept.

  SONJA HARDESTY: “It’s all my fault. Oh God, I knew it was down there in the basement, I knew it. I felt it. I—I almost saw it.

  “Okay. From the beginning. Right about when all those murders started happening, I started having these erotic dreams. So did my husband, but not quite as much as I.

  “I thought it was some kind of sexual-identity stage I was going through. Al least I hoped it was . . . and yet I thought maybe it was something else too, something real, a physical force that was doing something to me late at night while I slept. I was so scared . . . I would sit at Amy’s bedside for hours and wonder if it was real enough to affect her and Will, and still I hoped it was just me, a stage I was going through, a mid-life crisis or something.

  “But all the while, I was kidding myself because I knew about that—that feeling in the basement.

  “And I wasn’t surprised when those sexual things kept going on with me, night after night, and all the time those terrible things were happening in Wilton, all the doors were locked and everybody was so afraid . . . I began to wonder about myself I thought maybe I was just discovering that I was, you know, one of those kinds of people who get turned on by grisly neighborhood murders . . .

  “Anyway, I was so scared that I pretended it wasn’t true. I wanted to believe I imagined it—I would rather believe I was perverted than to really think that the murderer was in my basement, so I never said anything to anybody.

  “Some mother, huh?

  “Oh God, the worst is that I thought if I said something to somebody, it would be over, and somewhere deep inside myself, I didn’t want it to stop. I thought, being middle-aged and having two kids, that sex was kind of over, well, not really over, but not what it used to be, and this was so . . . tender, almost. Loving. I was afraid and reassured at the same time. Sounds weird when I say it.

  “So you see, I barely gave a thought to what could possibly happen to Will, or . . . or Amy . . . God, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

  34

  When my eyes opened and consciousness wavered for the briefest of moments, then slid into focus, clear and serene, I had the answer to my difficulties.

  Children. Sweet, innocent children. They smelled so fresh; they would taste tender, rich, soft, unspoiled. Children had not poisoned their bodies with drugs and chemicals; they had not hardened their hearts against the travesties of life; their lives had been brief, their aspirations limited. I could live with the knowledge and consciousness of children—I could live with the optimism of children—far better than I could live with the bitter draught of adult memories.

  And two perfect children lived right up the stairs. My nest egg, my reserve.

  The house above was full of activity. The floorboards over my head squeaked as footsteps traversed them, and I tuned in and recognized the vibrations of voice. The evening was young—dinner preparations were in the making. Someone could hear me, or see me as I left the cellar. Must I wait until they bed down? I looked around the dismal cellar. I could not.

  I arose and pulled cobwebs from my hair, brushed dirt from my clothes. It seemed from my experience with the two hitchhikers and the cat that there were limits to my mind-­clouding; I could not mesmerize more than one person at a time. Maybe, though, I could surround myself with the music as I had surrounded the car when I slept therein. Maybe I could cloak myself, become as a shadow to their eyes for the briefest of moments—that’s all I would need, a moment—and then I would be on my way and they need never know another thing.

  I walked to the outside door, feeling the cold through the cracks. I turned the knob, and as I did so, the kitchen door at the top of the stairs opened, throwing noise down; a bare bulb that hung over the stairs flashed to life, illuminating everything that wasn’t in the shadow of the stairs. Feet encased in soft shoes trotted lightly down the wooden risers.

  I crouched, feeling the hair at the back of my neck prickle. A feral growl waited at the back of my throat. The woman came into view, tall, slender, wearing jeans and a white T-shirt, her long auburn hair brushed and dazzling. She stopped before the stacks of canned goods, her back to me. She began to sway as she considered the array, making a mealtime decision.

  If she turned around, she would see me.

  She picked up one can, and then another, replaced the first, and still she scanned the assortment. I began the music, not directed toward her, but to raise the level of my own vibrations, to render my flesh safe from prying eyes or dangerous discovery.

  The woman stopped swaying. She slowly turned toward me, and her eyes flicked across the expanse of cellar, resting for a long moment on the cellar door. She did not see me, but she sensed me. Her slim fingers rubbed her arms, and I could smell the acrid scent of fear. She looked quickly at the can in her hand, grabbed another almost without looking, and ran up the stairs, flicked off the light, and slammed the door behind her.

  Relief weakened me. It had worked, but only to a degree. She knew I was there—she may not have known the nature of my being, but her instincts had found mine, and so my time must be short here, short and cunning.

  The cellar door opened with little noise, and I was again standing in snow.

  I walked through the backyard, alongside the neighbor to the rear. I turned north on the next street and headed for town, beyond town, for the nicer neighborhood, for the upper class of Wilton, where they fed their children butter and sweet crea
m, where the children were plump and tender, pinchable and delicious.

  I moved quickly through the early evening, keeping to the shadows and along the walls. I wanted no one to stop me and inquire about my business—maybe even recognize me from my childhood. With the cane, I could walk lightly, and so I did, across Main Street and up into the brightly lit neighborhood on the knoll.

  This neighborhood, for all its costliness and prestige, had very small front yards and virtually no space between the houses. I knew there were large yards to the rear; many of the homes here had swimming pools. But the homes all stood shoulder to shoulder at the street, as if guarding their privacy to the rear.

  I walked slowly along, letting memories slide across my mind. I had schoolmates who had lived in these houses. Where were they now? What were they doing? Who was living and who was not? Who was successful? Who had babies? Who was alcoholic and who was adulterer? Who embezzled and who abused themselves? Such a nice neighborhood must mask a multitude of perversities.

  The winter evening was earlier than I thought. Boys, dressed in snowsuits and armed with snowballs, played with each other in the streets. They all stopped and watched me as I passed, and I listened to their whisperings. They wondered at my lack of winter clothes; they speculated about my cane; they dared each other to throw a snowball at me, but none did. I kept my head down, assuming the posture of a crone, and kept on, slowly on. I no longer felt the cold. I only felt the children’s warmth as I passed.

  The homes were lit with warm colors; yellow light poured out of their windows into the black-and-gray evening. I walked the length of the first street, then turned up a block and walked the length of the next. Through open draperies, I watched the neighborhood as dinners were served, then kitchens cleaned and televisions turned on. I walked and watched, hearing my boot heels on the icy sidewalks.

  And then I saw her. Standing at the picture window of her living room, hands cupped to look past the reflection of the fire, out at the night. Out at me. I stopped and watched her, thrilled by her tiny beauty. Miniature black pigtails held up by lengths of bright red yarn stood out from the sides of her head. She wore a little white dress with red hearts on it; I felt as though she’d just come back from a trip to Grandma’s, or somewhere equally as special and important, and was up late because she was too excited to go to sleep.

  She couldn’t have been more than four, and little baby teeth grinned at me as I watched her. She waved at me and then turned and ran, and a moment later an older sister pulled the draperies closed.

  I walked around to the side of the house, afraid that the next light to go on would be on the second floor, but I was wrong. The child had a ground-floor bedroom.

  I watched her change into red pajamas, her round little tummy smooth as a drum above the little red-and-white underpants. I saw her mother come in and together they knelt by the side of the bed and said prayers, then the little one crawled into bed while the mother read a story.

  I stood outside, feet firmly planted in the snow, fingers gripping the outside edge of the windowsill, and watched. I watched the love and joy transpire between them, knew the child was well nourished, and my impatience grew.

  At last the mother kissed the child, turned out the light, and left the room. I began to examine the framework of the windows.

  The outside was a storm window, held on by little screw-in catches. I thumbed them down and lifted the window to the ground. The inside window was locked, so I began the music, quietly, gently.

  Within a few moments, the child opened her eyes, and I spun for her the music of a circus, of Mommy’s approval, of excitement and fun, a special treat for being such a marvelous little girl. She came right out of bed and over to the window, then had to go back for a little chair to stand on in order to reach the catch. She wrestled with it. Her little cherub face grimaced with the strain, then she smiled as the half moon slid around.

  I opened the window, and she looked at me with huge brown eyes. “Is it true?” she whispered with a tiny lisp, and when I nodded, she got off her chair and toddled back to her bed. She pulled the dark green blanket from the bed and held it up to her face—thumb securely in her mouth—and padded again to the window. She regarded me for a solemn moment, then released her thumb and held her hands up to me. I lifted her out the window and closed it.

  This was the warmth that my body required. I sat with my back to her house and hugged her tinyness to me, wrapping her dark blanket around us both. I continued the music for her, weaving a magic spell, taking her to the circus, the carnival, safe and happy, and she, with thumb in mouth, giggled gently against my chest.

  I nuzzled my face down next to her neck, plump and moist in that crease, and it was so perfect I couldn’t bear to destroy it, as famished as I was. The thought of biting, tearing, ripping, seemed inconsistent with my feelings, with my purpose, and as I tasted her, taking little licks, tasting her salty excitement, I thought maybe I could, carefully, suck up a large fold of skin and take one bite, piercing through, catching the artery just at the right point.

  I mouthed her neck, listening to little moans of pleasure from deep in her throat as she experienced the clowns and rides and delights of the ultimate childhood dream, and when I felt the pulse the strongest, I pulled a great amount of flesh up, then bit swiftly and carefully through with front teeth, and the blood began to gush.

  Oh, sweet melody. I hugged that child to my chest, she was so small I could hold all of her—I needed not to sit on her chest or wrestle with her, she came to me willingly and filled with trust. I put both arms around her in a passionate embrace as her living fluid drained into my warmth-starved body, and I knew her joys, her games, her childhood worries and cares. She was wonderful.

  When she was empty, I continued to hold her, I rocked her as her essence flowed through me, and I knew I had the answer to my life: innocence.

  Innocence. The feeling wrapped around my throat like a scratchy woolen muffler. Innocence. I had never had this. I had never experienced the blind trust that this child had evidenced in climbing out the window to me. I had taken her trust and sucked her dry, and only because she was innocent.

  Innocence was her crime. Innocence was her crime and my salvation. Could I better live with the innocence of my victims than with the warped and shattered dreams of the adults they would eventually become?

  Yes.

  I lifted the child, now a shell, a pathetic, limp rag doll, and tossed her to the side, seeing as I did, two precise slits in the side of her neck—my neatest work to date—and then her face was buried in the snow where she landed and I could see it no more.

  I wrapped the dark green blanket around my shoulders, hoping to hold in some of the warmth the small meal afforded, noticing that, with minor alterations, it would serve as a new cape. I brushed the snow from my back, found my cane, and was once again on my way.

  “I think Wilton kept it to themselves pretty well. They didn’t want to start any kind of a panic or anything, but if they’d only have been a little less private, if I’d known, I could have maybe prevented . . . well, I don’t know. A lot of kids died, though. Angelina was ruthless.

  “A monster is what she was, a monster. The stolen-car report didn’t connect from Pennsylvania to New Mexico until spring. And by that time . . .

  “Well, by that time, Angelina was warped beyond recognition. But I knew her.

  “I knew her.”

  35

  I made a fine home for myself in the cellar. I rearranged things under the stairs and in the dead of night I brought scraps of wood and things in to make a private space, a close, comfort­able, personal place. I built a place where I could escape from the worries of light, of discovery—where the gleaming ivory flesh of my face would not attract attention as I slept in the shadows. I built a box.

  My wardrobe improved as I scavenged here and there—I found great pleasure in roaming the
halls of the homes I infiltrated. I enjoyed the closets, the cellars, and the children of the occupants, rearranging the furnishings a little bit until they were more to my liking, resting and enjoying a book, sometimes, in the den, after breakfasting.

  None was so fascinating to me, however, as the family that lived upstairs. I dared not harm them, they were too close, too precious. My nightly visits to them became routine. I enjoyed the woman with a touch of perverse jealousy. She was so beautiful, so warm and complete, and she enjoyed an active and satisfying life with her mate in the sunshine. I enjoyed toying with her, and sometimes with him, learning about men and women, learning about what made them run. Particularly intriguing to me were their sexual responses, for this is what drives humans to reproduce.

  I would sit by the side of the girl child and smooth her hair back from her gently rounded forehead and give her nice dreams as I watched her breathe, watched the flickering of her eyes under the thin lids. In my mind, I gave her the name of Diana, Moon Goddess, goddess of the hunt, of all that is sacred.

  The boy I called Daniel, for he seemed fearless to me. Always he was on his guard, sleeping lightly, his consciousness sinking only when I played the music for him. I examined Daniel, as I did all the occupants in the houses I visited—except Diana, of course. Diana was purity inviolate. Daniel, I examined every night, touching, probing, watching his reactions, his responses. The music changed automatically, anticipating the necessities of his dreams, keeping his consciousness in a deep trance.

  I enjoyed this music nightly as I toyed with his flesh, and his sleeping smiles and soft moans of pleasure were counterpointed melody to my ears. Such symphonies we created together! I learned to play Daniel’s body like a musical instrument, and through his unconsciousness, we grew very close. I knew that he knew me; I had invaded his dreams and he knew me.