Forever 51

by Pamela Skjolsvik

  Veronica leaned towards him and whispered. “But, didn’t you have to…”

  “Kill people?” Eddie smiled and smoothed back his hair. “I was already in that line of work. After my encounter with you, I just felt the need to clean up the mess before I left the room, if you know what I mean. That’s what gave me the idea for my business, The Clean Team.”

  “So, were you some big tough guy for the mob or something?” Mary rested her head on her clasped hands like a school girl.

  “Yeah, something like that. I’m not real proud of my affiliation, but yeah. I’m out now. Obviously.”

  “Let me get this straight. You’re a vampire and you clean up murder scenes?” Jenny laughed. “This shit just keeps getting weirder.”

  Eddie shrugged. “It’s not weird. Bio-hazard cleaning is practical. Detroit was the murder capital of the world for a good stretch, and you’d be surprised by how many people kill themselves at home. Someone needs to clean it up. Might as well be me.”

  “I could never do that,” Mary sniffed.

  The waitress approached, depositing a thick, deep-dish pie in the middle of the table. “If you need anything else, including breath mints, just let me know. Enjoy!”

  “What do you mean?” Eddie dished out a slice and handed it to Jenny.

  “Old smelly blood. I don’t know. For me, it has to be fresh, like with the person’s heart still beating. I used to, um, you know, but I’ve learned how to get my food without decimating the local population.”

  Eddie chuckled. “After I encountered Veronica, I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that after I killed someone, I wanted to drink their blood.”

  “Dude, we’re about to eat. This is so not a dinner conversation.” Jenny scrunched up her face. “It’s disgusting.”

  “I know, right?” He laughed and leaned back in his chair. “The people I worked for caught me lapping up some poor guy’s blood after I’d shot him. They started calling me ‘The Licker.’ I had quite the reputation after that. Can you imagine? Not only would I kill you, but I’d lick up your blood afterwards.”

  “Ooh, The Licker. I like it,” Mary cooed.

  “Get a fucking room,” Jenny said, and inhaled a slice.

  Eddie picked up his fork, speared a dainty morsel of pizza, and carefully brought it to his lips. “Here goes nothing.”

  “So, after I turned you, did you go out during the day?” Veronica leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table.

  “Yeah, of course. I didn’t know it was a thing.” He brought a forkful of cheese to his lips. “By the look on your face, I’m guessing for you it was a thing.” Eddie smiled and shoveled a mound of deep dish into his mouth.

  “Oh, it was definitely a thing. I orchestrated my entire life around avoiding the sun.” Veronica felt that old familiar desire to punch Desmond in the face.

  “That must have been a pain in the ass to live like that. Honestly, I had no idea what had happened or what I’d become, so I kind of figured out what I could and couldn’t do by trial and error.” He wiped his lips. “Damn, this pizza is so good!”

  “I’m sorry about that. I was such a horrible person to just leave you there and not explain anything.”

  “How could you? I wouldn’t have remembered. I was drunk off my ass and laying in the gutter. That next morning, I woke with a wicked hangover and a thirst for blood, but honestly, it wasn’t that much of a change for me. It wasn’t until Linda…”

  “Who’s Linda?” Mary frowned.

  “Linda was my wife. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in the 70s and I took care of her until her passing in…” He looked up at the ceiling, tonguing the space where his front tooth should have been. “83, I think it was. That’s when I tried to end my life.”

  “Oh.” Veronica cringed. “Shit.”

  Jenny belched. “You guys are so emo. It’s giving me Hot Topic flashbacks.”

  Veronica rolled her eyes. “I don’t even know what that means.” Her gaze drifted back to Eddie. “How did you do it?”

  “The first time I used a thirty-aught-six under the chin, but as you know, it didn’t take long to put my pieces back together.”

  “Is this a thing? I’ve never tried to end my life. I love my life!” Mary exclaimed.

  “Have you ever loved someone, Mary?” Eddie’s voice cracked.

  Mary shifted in her chair. “You mean the kind of love when somebody loves you back in the same way that you love them?” Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Yeah. Like that.” He swallowed hard and met her eyes with his own.

  “No, but I keep hoping I’ll find them.”

  “So, you said ‘the first time.’ You mean you tried again?” Jenny interrupted.

  “Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “The next time, I jumped from the roof of a ten-story building. I figured, I had to go really big to go home. That one hurt.”

  “And?” Jenny tapped the table with her fingers.

  “And then, one night, I parked my car in the garage and kept the engine running. I played “The Sound of Silence” over and over again. I kept dying and coming back, but I liked the song so much, I didn’t mind.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I had no one to ask for help. I thought I was some rare, one-of-a-kind creature. And then this guy Seamus showed up.”

  “That night? In your garage?” Veronica yelped.

  “No. About a week later.”

  35

  New Orleans 1974

  Seamus Sansbury was a recruit for the Central Intelligence Agency when he was attacked by a stranger in New Orleans. Peeling himself up from the vile Sunday morning pavement, his head pounded from dehydration, the heat of the morning sun and the stifling humidity. As he staggered down Bourbon Street trying to recall his hotel’s location, drunk tourists parted like the Red Sea upon his approach. Looking down to assess the damage, he found that his polyester suit was soaked with blood. He immediately checked his coat pocket—his watch and wallet remained untouched—their presence miraculously reassuring, considering he’d been passed out for hours on a high traffic street corner. As much as he tried, he couldn’t remember any specifics of the attack. All he knew was that he was alive. At least he thought he was.

  When he couldn’t see his own reflection in the hotel’s bathroom mirror, troubling thoughts bubbled to the surface. According to the maid who interrupted his nervous breakdown, his bloodied throat was neither cut nor bruised. With a horrified expression, she backed out of his room clutching a handful of bloodied towels. Closing and bolting the door with a thud behind her, he palpated every inch of his neck in disbelief. There had to be a logical explanation. He vaguely remembered a knife, the initial pain of sliced flesh and a gush of blood that rushed down the front of his shirt—but what transpired afterwards remained a blur. There was the distinct possibility that the blood was not his own. He had been drinking. A lot.

  Even though he wore his increasing uncertainty and shame like a cheaply made suit, back at work, his coworkers treated him as they always had—by largely ignoring him. When they did manage to acknowledge his presence with a passing glance or a nod in the hall, he fretted over the possibility that he looked different. It would only be a matter of time before they would take note of that imagined scar on his neck, his consistently crooked tie, or his messy hair. When they failed to notice, he figured it had to be his staggering IQ and faultless work ethic that kept them blinded to what he had surely become, even though he wasn’t quite sure what that looked like.

  Each morning as he walked past the carved Biblical quote on the lobby wall—And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free—it fueled his internal fire for fact. But as the seemingly endless days drew into worrisome weeks without any concrete answers, his caution and control began to wane. Whenever a secretary or librarian would pass by his tiny office, he could tell by the tiniest whiff of stirred air whether they were menstruating. Even cloaked in the sickeningly sweet smell of Charlie
perfume, they were never able to mask the aroma of their wasted blood. He obsessed about the one thing he wanted, the thing he could no longer live without. It was everywhere, pulsing warm and steady below a thin layer of skin, yet it was nowhere readily accessible.

  On the third floor, a cleaning lady discovered him sucking the hours-old contents of a sanitary pad in an unlocked bathroom stall. The following day, he was called in for a private lunchtime meeting with William Colby, the director of the CIA. He debated about just leaving and disappearing somewhere, but he worried they’d locate his whereabouts and ship him off to some private hell that only they could concoct. As God, and Juanita, were his witnesses, he had hit bottom in the ladies’ room and there was nowhere to go but up.

  The minute he sat down, Mr. Colby pushed a metal thermos towards him. Seamus didn’t know the protocol or at least the etiquette for this kind of indoor picnic scenario.

  “That’s for you, Mr. Sansbury. It should still be warm.”

  “That’s very thoughtful of you, Mr. Colby, but I’ve already eaten.” Self-consciously, he folded his hands on his lap.

  “Yes. I heard about your incident in the restroom.” He pointed at the thermos. “Go ahead and open it.” He smiled. “I’m surprised that your senses haven’t awakened by now. They still seem rather dull.”

  Seamus looked around the sparsely decorated room, feeling as if someone were watching and recording his every movement. “I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about, sir.”

  “Open it.”

  With trembling hands, Seamus unscrewed the lid from the thermos. When the intoxicating aroma reached his nose, his teeth shot from his gums, stabbing the back of his slightly opened lips.

  “They tell me it’s O positive, which apparently is the preferred type. Not that I’d know the difference.” Colby leaned forward with a wicked grin on his heavily lined face. “Well look at that. You got your teeth, young man.”

  Seamus worried over his pointy canines with the tip of his salivating tongue. “What ith thith?” He wiped the drool with the back of his hand.

  “It’s your lunch, Mr. Sansbury.” Colby leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms behind his head. “I was wondering how long it would take before you broke. You’ve got some willpower, young man, and I appreciate that you’re ethical. I value that above all else, but I can’t have you sneaking around sucking on used tampons. It makes us all look bad.”

  “You knew about this?” The smell of fresh blood was making him giddy, despite the admonishment from his superior.

  “Mr. Sansbury, I’m the director of the CIA. Of course I knew. But the question I really want answered is, do you know?”

  “Do I know what?”

  He clasped his hands on the desk and pointed at the thermos once again. “What you are or what that is.”

  Seamus brought the thermos to his lips, sipping tentatively at first, as if his ingestion of this liquid gold were a test of his self-control. A feeling of euphoria washed over his senses and he greedily gulped the remainder of the warm, red fluid.

  “I have no idea what I am, Mr. Colby, but I do know that I want more of this.”

  “Don’t you worry, Seamus.” He reached across his mahogany desk to retrieve the thermos. “May I call you Seamus?”

  “Yes, sir. You can call me whatever you want, just don’t call me late for dinner.” Seamus guffawed, exposing flecks of coagulated blood clinging to his poorly brushed teeth.

  “There’s plenty more where that came from. You’ll be well supplied if you keep your nose clean. No more tampons, Seamus. Are we clear?”

  Seamus closed his mouth and nodded as sincerely as he could.

  Colby opened a folder, removed a sheet of paper and pushed it across the desk. “Due to your fortuitous incident in Louisiana you are now the head of a very elite unit of the CIA. We’ve been following people like yourself since 1947 and we’re very close to deciphering a document found in…”

  “Let me guess. Transylvania?” Seamus chuckled, licking the remnants from his teeth.

  “Albania. Sign that, Mr. Sansbury. I’ve got a twelve-thirty.” Colby flicked his Montblanc pen across the desk.

  Seamus quickly scanned the document. “This just looks like a standard non-disclosure agreement. Didn’t I already sign one of these?”

  “Yes, but now you’re different. You’ve changed a bit. Go on. We haven’t got all day.” Colby pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Different, huh?” Seamus smiled and carefully positioned the pen beside his typed name on the document.

  “Very different. Your job from now on will be to locate the North American undead.”

  “Am I dead? How is that possible?” Seamus slowly studied the movement of his hand as muscle memory kicked in. The pen seemed to remember every flourish and flare as red ink soaked the thin paper.

  “That, I’m afraid is top secret information.”

  “And how am I going to find these undead if what I am is a secret?”

  “That is the conundrum, Mr. Sansbury. People like yourselves tend to be lone wolf types, prone to isolating due to fear and ignorance of what they are and what their bodies are capable of. Remember Brad Jameson, that kid back in sixty-six? It was all over the papers.”

  Seamus nodded enthusiastically. “Who doesn’t remember that freak?”

  “Undead. Just like you. Confessed to his priest that he’d killed his neighbor and her dog and then drank their blood. Four weeks at the county lock up and he died from dehydration. They force fed him, and you’ll discover if you haven’t already, that food will make you vomit. Those kinds of incidents drive the undead back into their hidey holes. And we need you to bring them out.”

  “Why me?” Seamus feared incarceration more than anything, especially now.

  “Who better to find others like yourself than someone who is living the same secret? I say go to where the blood is, young man. Make us proud.” Colby smiled, lifted the paper and slipped it back into the manila folder.

  Seamus had a million and one questions trilling around his brain, but none that seemed as compelling or important as where his next warm meal would come from.

  36

  Present

  “I don’t know what else to do.” Veronica drummed the table with her chipping nails. She knew that the likelihood of finding her fourth husband—a John Smith needle in the haystack of white-bread Nebraska—would be next to impossible without Seamus’s help.

  “You’re already on his radar, you might as well call him.” Eddie wiped his mouth with a napkin and stacked his empty plate on top of Jenny’s. “But just be aware: now that he knows what you know, you’ve moved up a level.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re more of a threat.” Eddie stretched his arms out and exhaled. “Most people, when they become like us, have no idea what they’re doing, what they’re capable of, or even what they are. They just figure out how to exist. I did.”

  Mary sat up straight; a look of concern wrinkled her unlined face. “Well, what are we? I mean, I’ve always kind of imagined that I was some kind of vampire or something. You know. The blood and all that, but maybe I’m way off the mark here.” Mary’s worried gaze darted between Eddie and Veronica. “Didn’t you immediately think you were a vampire? Okay. Maybe I’m crazy. What are we?”

  “I don’t know. We’re either nothing, candidates for the special forces, or terrorists—depending on who’s looking at the data.” Eddie rubbed his stomach.

  “I’m nothing?” Mary wilted in her chair.

  “What I mean is, when you don’t know anything and you’re hiding in a darkened room during the day because you’ve been told by a book, a Hollywood movie or an uninformed person that that’s what you’re supposed to do, you pose no threat to national security. There’s thousands of people just like us sprinkled throughout the world. We’re existing and thriving among the living and they don’t have a clue.”

  “I bet my ninth-grade alg
ebra teacher was a vampire. He was totally pissed off all the time and I never saw him eat.” Jenny said.

  “How do you know all this?” Veronica looked around the now-empty restaurant. The waitress had given up checking on them.

  “Seamus tried to recruit me for Operation Undead. He’s CIA.”

  All three women looked at Eddie with a mixture of awe, disbelief and amusement.

  Jenny smirked and cracked her knuckles. “Dude, you’ve got to be kidding me. Operation Undead? That’s ridiculous. What is it? Like Walking Dead without the zombies?” Jenny rubbed her forehead. “Wait a second. Are zombies real?”

  “No. At least not that I’m aware of. I don’t know about you guys, but zombies don’t seem very plausible. Rotting flesh, eating brains. Anyway, OU is more like The A-Team,” Eddie said without a hint of irony.

  “She’s too young to get the reference and I’m too old and set in my ways to fully grasp the magnitude of what you’re saying. The CIA knows about us? We’re weapons?” Veronica’s pitch grew higher with each word. “It all seems too fantastical to be true.” She reached into her purse and pulled two twenties from her wallet. “I’ve got lunch.”

  “Why wasn’t I approached by Seamus? I could totally be a weapon of mass destruction. I mean, in the right hands.” Mary flipped the thick strands of hair from her shoulder.

  Veronica felt the same as Mary. All this time she thought she was one in a million, but it was becoming abundantly clear that there were probably eight, or maybe even eight-hundred, of her in New York alone.

  “You as individuals don’t raise any red flags, and if you do happen to take someone out before cancer or heart disease gets them, it’s usually an undesirable that the government wants gone anyway. Nobody cares about the addicts or the runaways or the prostitutes that go missing.” Eddie stood. “I do, but they don’t.”