The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten

by Harrison Geillor

  “We’ve only been here a couple of years,” he muttered, looking away.

  Now Gretchen looked me up and down, frankly. “We’ve got a live one over here, boys!” she shouted. She reached out, as if to caress my cheek, but Edwin grabbed her wrist and held it still. They stood like that, two figures in perfect, still tension, and then she relaxed. “Oh, Edwin, you never change. Still kinky for the live girls.” She looked at me. “You’re not the first, sweetie, and you won’t be the last.”

  All the blood drained from my face—another problem I wouldn’t have once I became a vampire. “What is she talking about, Edwin?”

  He opened his mouth, then just closed it and shook his head.

  “I don’t know you,” Gretchen said, “but I don’t have to. Because I used to be you. Edwin used to date me, you see—back when I was alive.”

  EVERYONE HAS A CRAZY EX

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BONNIE GRAYDUCK

  Gretchen kept smiling. “He promised me eternity, Edwin did. But he only likes his women with heartbeats. As soon as I got myself turned, so I could be with him forever and ever and always, well, he lost interest. I guess I didn’t smell so nice anymore.”

  “Don’t listen to her, Bonnie,” Edwin said. “It’s not like she says. Gretchen, I think you and your… entourage… should leave.”

  “Oh, we’ll leave,” she said. “It’s not as if I hold a grudge after all this time.”

  Argyle cleared his throat. “Ah. I suppose you three have some things to talk about. Jimmy, and, Queequeg, is it? If you’d like to come over to the house, perhaps take a shower, change your clothes?”

  “You mind, love?” Jimmy said. “I’ve still got bits of that old man we ate stuck in my hair, be nice to have a shampoo.”

  “Not at all,” Gretchen said. “I’ve been looking forward to having a chat with Edwin for ages, as you well know, and the opportunity to provide a cautionary tale for his latest living lover is a special treat.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I said as the others moved off. I walked over to the gazebo, thinking furiously, and sat down on the bench. Edwin came after me, and Gretchen sauntered along after that, smirking like only an immortal killing machine with boobs that were simultaneously big and perky could smirk. “Edwin… you told me you were a virgin!” I couldn’t believe he’d lied. Edwin’s various depths of pathos and bathos and other -thoses were evident, but I’d never gotten the sense he was a liar, and I’m usually good at spotting those. If he was playing with me, just using me to gratify some kind of live-girl fetish he had, like some kind of reverse necrophiliac… then I’d bury a stake in his heart myself.

  “Well, that may be true.” Gretchen plopped down on a bench across from me, her back to the plexiglass barrier. “I mean, I gave him a couple of hand jobs, but we’d been seeing each other for like six months before he dared to risk orgasm.” She rolled her eyes. “And he never returned the favor for fear of getting overly excited and tearing me apart with his ferocious teeth, yadda yadda.”

  “You said I was the first girl you’d ever loved,” I seethed, not looking at her, staring at Edwin.

  “You are!” he said. Then glanced at Gretchen. “I was… infatuated with her. Confused. She had a nice smell, I confess, but when she became a vampire, I realized her personality was a terrible match for mine—abrasive, contrary, crass, coarse—”

  “Stop, you’re making me blush,” Gretchen said.

  “Did you turn her?” I asked. I didn’t actually care if he had fucked her. It would’ve been nice for him to have a little experience before we slept together—screwing a virgin is like eating a green banana. But… “Did you make her a vampire?”

  “He never would,” she said. “I had to get another vampire to do it, and he made me an indentured servant for ten years as payment. I just got out of that contract recently. But if you’re hoping Edwin will punch your mortal-card, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Would a guy who’s got a thing for pre-op transsexuals pay for his lover to get bottom surgery? Of course not. Face it, sweetie, you’re just something for him to wank over. If he had a shoe fetish, you’d be a red high-heeled pump. You—”

  “Shut up, Gretchen,” Edwin said, narrowing his eyes at her. “The love I feel for Bonnie is deep and pure and true, and my family likes her, unlike you. They always hated you. Said I was just dazzled by your breasts.”

  She pulled the neck of her flannel shirt away and looked down at her chest. “They are pretty dazzling.”

  “But Edwin,” I said, “you told me yourself, what attracted you was my smell. If I did become a vampire, and I didn’t have that smell anymore… why would you still want me?” I hadn’t considered this possibility. I’d assumed we’d be together forever once I managed to get myself turned (by Edwin or someone else), but now Gretchen had raised doubts.

  “No,” he said, firmly, taking my hand and gazing into my eyes. “It’s not that. Yes, I was initially attracted by your delectable odor, but I didn’t eat you, did I? It’s like, if a mortal man sees a woman across the room, the thing that first attracts him might be her hair, her beautiful eyes, her—”

  “Tits and ass,” Gretchen said, in a helpful tone.

  “—other physical attributes,” Edwin said. “But that’s not enough to create love. That comes later. And even if the looks fade, when the woman, ah—”

  “Gets in a disfiguring car wreck?” Gretchen said.

  “—passes beyond the blush of youth,” Edwin continued, “then that love doesn’t fade, as it has transcended the merely physical. Once I got to know you, started spending time with you, found out how funny and sharp and smart and witty and brave you are, that’s when I fell in love. And that’s where I still am. In love, with you, Bonnie Grayduck, until the stars grow cold and the universe breathes its last.”

  “Huh,” Gretchen said. “You know, Bonnie, I kind of believe him.”

  That startled me. “Really?”

  “Yep. I don’t have lie-detection powers—my abilities are if anything kind of the opposite of that—but I mooned around after him for the best part of a year, and I know him pretty well. He’s radiating sincerity, and he’s not staring at your boobs, which was all he ever did to me—back then I was dumb enough to find that flattering. So, yeah, I think he really loves you. Which kind of spoils my plan, which was to turn you into a vampire, and show you what an asshole he is. But now I’m afraid, if I do that, you two really will ride off into the sunset—or the heat death of the universe, same difference—together.”

  God. Damn. It. If Edwin had sounded just a bit less sincere, I could have gotten myself turned into a vampire! Yes, it would have been disappointing if Edwin lost interest in me, but I’d take consolation in the fact that I was immortal and full of supernatural power. The joy of being a vampire would do a lot more for a broken heart than a pint of Häagen-Dazs and a Sarah McLachlan playlist ever could.

  “So I guess I need a new plan.” Gretchen gave a big sunny grin and stood up. “Be seeing you around, Bonnie. Take care of yourself, Edwin. I’m going to go get a shower, and then, if your little vegetarian cult hasn’t successfully brainwashed my boys into eating tofu soaked in hamster blood, we’ll all be on our way.”

  Edwin frowned. “Gretchen. Are you… angry with me?”

  “Ten years,” she said, pausing in the entryway to the gazebo. “That’s how long I had to be indentured to the vamp who turned me, because you wouldn’t. I didn’t think it would be so bad—what’s ten years when you measure it against an eternity with the person you love? I was so happy when I told you—my master let me have two weeks to spend with you before my service began, do you remember? I thought you’d be so happy. But you just told me you were disappointed in me, that I’d made a terrible mistake, and after three days you told me maybe we’d better go our separate ways. So I went back to my master and began to repay him… I had no idea how terrible those ten years would be, Edwin. The things I’d be made to do. To witness. To allow to be done to me. It wasn’t
worth it. Even if you had loved me, embraced me, made me part of your ridiculous granola family, it wouldn’t have been worth it. And since I didn’t even get the consolation of having the boy I loved love me back…” She shook her head. “I’m not angry. Angry’s not the right word. Calling me angry is like calling the sun a little warm, a glacier a little chilly, the moon a good little ways away. I’ll be seeing you, Edwin. But you might not see me.” Another grin, this one a quick flicker, like a striking snake or one of those fish who shoot bugs out of the air with their spit. Then she sauntered off.

  “Fuck,” I said.

  “Fuck,” Edwin agreed.

  “She’s going to kill me, isn’t she?” I said.

  “That would be my guess,” Edwin said. Then he scooped me up in his arms and began running towards the woods at, I’d conservatively guess, about sixty miles per hour.

  The trip wasn’t exactly pleasant. Even with my face buried in Edwin’s chest, the force of the wind pressing against me as he ran was tremendous, and I thought my hair would be ripped out by sheer velocity alone. He stopped running so abruptly that I jerked whiplash-hard against his immovable grasp, and as he turned his head and spat out bugs and leaves and other crap that had blown into his mouth while running, I confess, I found him somewhat less attractive than usual. He put me down gently, and I wobbled on my feet, feeling truly clumsy for once. We were in the woods—shocker—alongside another rutted dirt road. A mud-colored old SUV came bumping and thumping along, and I tensed up, but Edwin raised his hand, waving.

  The SUV pulled alongside us, and Pleasance was there behind the wheel, looking tiny and harmless, though I knew she had the same core of steel and venom Edwin did. Hermet was in the back, looking rather less harmless. “Hi, guys,” Pleasance said. “Climb in.”

  “I’ll drive,” Edwin said, and Pleasance rolled her eyes but climbed into the back seat with her brother. I got into the passenger seat and pulled the seatbelt on. My brain was whirring, in overdrive, overclocked.

  “Uh, so…” I said. “What’s the plan, exactly?”

  “Drive,” Edwin said. “Stop driving in a thousand miles or so. Then reassess the situation.” He started down the road at high speed, hitting bumps hard enough to make me fly up against my harness. Before long we turned onto a paved road, and began picking up speed. I was surprised a vehicle that looked this old and innocuous could hit speeds like this, but I shouldn’t have been—these were people who were used to having to move fast, I guess.

  “Turn left up here, Edwin,” Pleasance said.

  “Um, okay,” I said. “So, this is kidnapping, then?”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Edwin snapped. “This is rescue. If we don’t get you well away, and quickly, Gretchen will come for you.”

  “You really should’ve disclosed your crazy ex before we started going out,” I said. “But that’s another issue. I don’t think I’m being kidnapped—but some other people might take it that way. Like my dad, for instance. He knows I went to your house, and he’s expecting me to come home. Now, being police chief of Lake Woebegotten doesn’t exactly come with attack helicopters and hot and cold running SWAT teams, but Harry’s a friendly guy, well-liked, and I know he plays Left 4 Dead 2 online with a guy high up in the state police. If his only daughter disappears, he’ll start making calls. Are you okay with having that kind of heat on you? Your family will have to pull up stakes, leave Lake Woebegotten, everything.”

  Edwin drove on, grimly. “We’ve been fugitives before. We’re adept at burning up our pasts and forging new identities for ourselves.”

  “Okay. That’s cool. So you’re planning to make me a vampire, then?”

  His eyes flicked over toward me. “What?” That tiny movement of his eyes was enough to tell me I had his whole attention.

  “Well, you’re effectively ending my old life,” I said reasonably. “I won’t finish high school, right? Going to college is going to be tricky. Getting a job. All that stuff.”

  “I can support you.”

  I snorted. “As the one living girl in a house full of vampires? I don’t want to be a house pet, Edwin. I’ve got ambitions, you know that. I’d be perfectly happy to join your family, but only as a full member. Otherwise, if I have to be mortal, I need the freedom to do mortal stuff.”

  “This—that—I can’t—”

  “Pull over, Edwin,” Pleasance said from the back seat. “We need to think this through.”

  “What? No! This is Gretchen, Pleasance, she was always cruel, and she’s a better natural hunter than any of us. Plus, she’s motivated. She won’t lose interest, or get bored, or change her mind. She wants to hurt me, and Bonnie is my most vulnerable place.”

  “Pull the fuck over, bro,” Pleasance said, rather pleasantly. “We’re going to talk this out.”

  I found myself liking that girl more and more.

  Edwin made a noise of frustration and slowed down, cutting over to the shoulder. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said. “My past coming back to haunt me.”

  Vampires. So prone to brooding and melodrama.

  “Not to point out the obvious,” Hermet said, “but maybe it needs doing. There are six of us—vamps, I mean, Bonnie, no offense—versus three of them. And to be honest, I’m worth any two of them in a fight. Plus, I’m not sure Jimmy and Queequeg want any part of this. I say we stay and fight. I was a bushwhacker in the War of Northern Aggression, Bonnie, and I like to fight. You know what else I like? I like it here, and I don’t want to pull up stakes just yet. I think we can take them. We should’ve dealt with this Gretchen thing a long time ago.”

  “But the risk,” Edwin said. “What do you want to do, use Bonnie as—as bait? The problem with bait is, the fish eats it!”

  “Hermet is good at laying ambushes,” Pleasance said. “I think we could keep Bonnie safe.”

  “I have a suggestion,” I said. “Or is the worm on the hook not allowed to have an opinion?”

  Edwin sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Of course, Bonnie. What do you think?”

  “I think you should take me home—under guard—and let Harry know you haven’t stolen me away. That way, he won’t call the bigger cops, and your family won’t have to take off, and be forever remembered in these parts as weirdos who stole the police chief’s daughter. And then… you lay a false trail.”

  “How do you mean?” Hermet said.

  “I mean, I don’t have to be bait. Gretchen thinks Edwin is in love with me—knows he is—which is why she wants to kill me, right? So she’ll assume he wouldn’t leave my side.”

  “Because I won’t.”

  “But you should, Edwin.” I gently touched his face—so sweet, so cold. “That’s the point. She’ll think I’m with you. She’ll expect you to run with me. So she’ll pursue you. Take Hermet, too—she got a look at him, she knows he’s the biggest physical threat.”

  “Aw,” he rumbled. “You noticed.”

  “The two of you take off for wherever—Canada, the deep south where I’m guessing Hermet comes from, wherever. Gretchen will chase you. Kill her when you get a chance.”

  “But I can’t leave you here unprotected!” Edwin protested.

  Pleasance cleared her throat. “Rosemarie and Garnett and I can keep watch over her.”

  “I’m not so sure I’d trust Rosemarie to protect her,” Edwin said darkly. “After her little tizzy out on the hockey rink.”

  Pleasance shrugged. “Fair point. She can stay home. I’ll just have her whip up some fog or something to conceal Bonnie’s house… and us watching it. I believe we can keep Bonnie safe.”

  I could see him wavering. “But… to leave you…”

  “It’s to protect me,” I said. “Besides, you really should end things with Gretchen yourself, in person. It’s only polite.”

  He barked a laugh. “Pleasance, promise me, you’ll take care of her.”

  “Or you could turn me into a vampire so I can protect myself.”

  Edwin looked at me though
tfully. “Let’s table that for now, all right? Perhaps if you survive this, we can talk about whether I want to risk a two-in-three chance of killing you by trying to make you immortal.”

  That was the closest he’d come yet to a “maybe,” so I kissed his cheek. “All right. So it’s a plan?”

  “Call Rosemarie,” Edwin said. “Get her to whip up a concealing fog so no one can see you sneak Bonnie back home. And you, Bonnie, you don’t leave your house, tell Harry you’re sick.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said brightly.

  “You take the car,” Pleasance said. “You and Hermet. Get started on laying a false trail. I’ll pick up Bonnie and run her home on foot.”

  “Oh, goodie,” I said.

  SKANK CALL

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF BONNIE GRAYDUCK

  Pleasance got me home—but being carried at incredibly high speeds by a woman who weighs less than you do is a weird experience. She assured me she’d keep an eye on the house, with Garnett soon to join her, then faded back into the growing shadows of dusk. Harry wasn’t home yet, so I went upstairs and sat in a dark room (as ordered) and looked out the windows at the fog. Rosemarie was a bitch, but she was also a hell of a weather witch: I was used to fog in Santa Cruz, but this was a cloud so dense it looked chewy, and when I opened my window, swirling tendrils of white came in.

  I heard the door downstairs slam, and tensed, then forced myself to relax. If Gretchen was coming for me, she’d probably do so silently. Unless she wanted to taunt me. That was an unpleasant thought.

  “Bonnie?” Harry boomed. “You home?”

  I came downstairs. “Hey, Dad.” I did my best to sound casual. “I’m here.”

  He took off his hat and his gun belt and hung them on the coatrack, then ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Oh, good. I was afraid you’d be stuck at the Scullens. That fog out there is unreal. I’m going to have some car accidents to deal with, I bet, and I’ll be lucky if I don’t get into an accident myself on the way. How was your visit with Edward’s family?”