Donor

by Elena Hearty

  “Oh really? Really? What do you call it, then?”

  “I don't know. Why do I need to call myself anything at all? Oh, wait. You know what else irritates me, while we‘re on the subject? Don’t call yourself ‘human‘, like implying that I‘m NOT human. We‘re both human. I've just been turned, and you haven‘t been turned. It‘s as simple as that.”

  “Turned and not-turned.” She paused and mouthed the terms to herself, trying them on for size. “Okay, here are my questions: you can’t transform into anything, can you?”

  “What? Like a bat? How would that even work?”

  “What about sunlight?”

  “We don’t like it.” What did that mean, exactly?

  “Stake through the heart?”

  "Oh, the death ones are tricky. I mean, I'm not dead so how would I know?"

  “Silver?” Silver had to be important. Important enough for Richard, of all people, to make such a mess in an effort to find it.

  "Ugh. You want to know about silver." Paul rolled his eyes and groaned like she had just asked him for his checking account number. "We're allergic to it, but I wouldn't say we can really be hurt with it; not badly, anyway. Hey, do you remember what my hand looked like on the night that you met me?"

  Lenore thought back to the burn on Paul's forearm. “Yeah. It was burnt, right?”

  Paul placed his fully healed appendage on the table for examination. Only a faint scar remained. “It wasn't really burnt. It was just irritated is all. Angie came at me with a silver knife that night, and I think she was pretty disappointed when I didn't burst into flames. Silver's about as dangerous to us as poison ivy.”

  “I see,” Lenore said, sharing in Angela's disappointment. As far as she knew, poison ivy was only deadly if inhaled.

  Paul pursed his lips, thinking. "Look, Rich goes apeshit over the silver thing, and I think he blows it completely out of proportion, but if you want to stay alive past the next feeding, don‘t mention silver to him. Not as a joke, not as a question, just don‘t even say the word."

  Lenore nodded, stirring her coffee out of habit. “Can you read minds?”

  “Let’s find out.” Paul lifted his spoon and pointed it at her, assuming the demeanor of a game show host. “Think of a number between one and ten. Got it? Nine?”

  She shook her head. “Horrible. Not even close.”

  “Cheater,” he said. “I'll bet you weren't even thinking of a number in the first place.”

  Lenore smiled involuntarily. “How did you know?”

  “Maybe I'm psychic. Or maybe I've played this game before, and I never think of a number either.” This information would turn out to be quite useful later on.

  “I‘m moving onto my next question. Do you use the bathroom?”

  Paul dropped the spoon and snickered. “What are you, five? Who asks that?”

  Lenore shrugged and stuck out her tongue.

  “Okay, check this out: if I eat food it comes out the other side, but I don’t have to eat food, so I don’t. I guess the short answer would be ‘no’.”

  “Really? I’d probably still eat, just for fun.”

  “Nah it’s not the same because it isn't really food anymore. Like, it would be like shoving this napkin in your mouth and trying to swallow it.” He lifted the napkin in front of him for effect.

  “But…I look like food to you?”

  Paul took a deep breath. “It's a lot more complicated than that. You only look like food to me when I'm hungry. And it's not even the way you look, it's the way you sound. Especially when you’re scared and your heart starts racing; it drives me crazy. All I can think about is making it stop.”

  Silence.

  He leaned forward. “Have you ever seen those old tweety bird cartoons where the cat will be talking to the bird and then all of a sudden he’s talking to a big chicken leg? Because that‘s all that‘s on his mind?”

  The waitress burst out of the kitchen holding two plates, and Lenore moved her hands off the table to make room for her order. As the waitress turned to leave, Paul troubled her for an empty cup, presumably to share in Lenore's pot of coffee.

  When the waitress was gone, however, he slid the cup across the table and said, “I hate to do this to you, but all this talk about eating has made me really hungry. Can you hook me up?”

  Unsure of how, or if, she could decline, Lenore reluctantly began rolling up her sleeve. What would happen if she refused? Paul might be friendlier than Richard, but he was still just as likely to kill her.

  “I hope I haven’t made you uncomfortable,” he said, watching her fill the container. “This isn’t why I brought you out here, you know. I’m not trying to take advantage of you or anything.”

  Nodding insincerely, Lenore looked at the food in front of her and discovered that she had lost her appetite. Richard would still need to be fed when she returned. How much blood could she stand to lose in one evening? To Lenore’s consternation, she found herself on the familiar brink of tears.

  “You’re clenching your jaw again,” Paul said. He sipped her blood slowly as if it were a hot beverage. “Are you pissed off at me again? I thought this had been going so well.”

  Tears were starting to emerge. “I think I want to go back,” she whispered, hastily wiping her eyes.

  He shook his head. “I don’t think you want to go back there right now. Rich is killing someone tonight. I thought you’d want to be out of the house for that type of thing.”

  Lenore stared blankly at her pancakes. There was a guilty relief in the knowledge that she would not have to feed Richard upon her return.

  “Well?” he asked. “Was I right? You don’t want to go back there, do you?”

  “No,” she replied, tears stifled. And then a thought occurred to her. “Does this have anything to do with the homeless man in the basement?”

  Paul chuckled. “Totally. I was wondering if you’d put that together. Rich is like one of those trapdoor spiders. You know the ones I’m talking about? They build these caves.” Paul cupped one hand on the table to represent a cave. “And then insects come walking by.” He walked the fingers of his other hand around the cave entrance. “And then when one gets too close, WHAM.” The cupped hand grabbed the fingers and carried them down beneath the table.

  “I just don’t understand. You gave him twenty dollars. Why would you have done that?”

  “Oh. It’s this game that Rich and I play. He’ll give me the twenty back later tonight. It’s like a little joke that got started a while back. I know it sounds immature.”

  “It sounds mean.”

  “Jesus. That probably wasn’t a good story for mixed company. Look, we’re already killing people. You throw practical jokes on top of that and it’s like pissing in the ocean. Besides, I probably made that guy's night when I gave him the money.”

  Silence.

  Paul rolled his eyes in frustration. “You need to lighten up. You realize that if Rich doesn’t feed off other people you’re going to die, right?”

  She nodded.

  “Then chill out. You don‘t know him, and neither do I.” Paul resumed his amiable countenance, taking another drink of blood. “This really bothered you didn’t it?” he asked, gesturing to the cup in hand. “I won't ask you for more.”

  Lenore despondently ran her finger over the outline that the catheter made through her sleeve. “I’m less worried about it now that I know Rich is supplementing tonight.”

  “Hah is that what he‘s calling it these days?” Paul slammed his hand on the table. “That’s too funny. I couldn‘t figure out what your problem was, but you thought you were overextending yourself, huh?”

  “It's more than that,” Lenore said, determined to maintain composure. “I was really enjoying our conversation, and I guess just being out of the apartment. It made me forget my situation for a while, which is stupid because that‘s all we‘ve been talking about. But I felt like it wasn‘t happening to me—like it was happening to someone else—and that
I was just having coffee with a friend. But then you asked me to fill your cup and I remembered that you‘re not my friend and that this is my life. And I realized that you're just…” She looked up at him and scowled.

  “Just what?”

  “You're just playing with me.”

  Paul's grin widened, and Lenore felt as though she might fall in. “Sure. Maybe a little. But what else am I supposed to do with you? It isn't like I've lied to you, and I hope I haven't given you a false sense of security. I'm playing, but I'm playing fair, so to speak.”

  “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “You play back,” he said, reaching over the table and punching her lightly on the shoulder. “I get you out of the house when Rich kills someone, and you fill my glass. Everyone's a winner. That's not such a bad game, right?”

  She eyed the half-filled cup of blood on the table. "How am I supposed to recover if you're bleeding me?"

  “Well, that's the trick, isn't it? But—and I mean this with all due respect—you don't really think it's going to matter, do you?”

  Paul was right, of course. It wasn't going to matter. Richard would probably kill her long before she ran out of blood. “Does he know?” she asked.

  “Who? Rich? That I'm feeding on you? Oh, I think he has a hunch. He wouldn't care, though, if that's what you're getting at. Not unless I killed you, and you can rest assured that I won't.”

  “I see,” said Lenore, thinking back to how Charles first referred to her as a party favor.

  Paul winked at her from across the table. “Hey, cheer up. I don't know if this'll make you feel any better, but I want to tell you something: I enjoy you.” He smiled playfully. “And not just because you're delicious. I think you hold your own. I think you're going to be okay.” He studied her for a while before continuing. “I’m going to pay you back for the drink you gave me. What if I got you more medicine? That would help you out, wouldn’t it? One less thing to worry about? I can keep you supplied for the remainder of your time here. How does that sound to you?”

  Lenore raised her eyebrows. “It sounds like you’re trying to hand me a twenty dollar bill.”

  Paul looked surprised for a moment and then laughed, catching her reference. “That’s EXACTLY what I’m trying to do. Will you accept it? I can’t let you go, obviously. I can’t even kill you at this point—you belong to Rich—but I can get your medicine. What do you say?”

  “I’ll take whatever I can get. Thank you.” Lenore’s Xanax starved receptors stood in ovation. She felt her appetite return and grabbed a container of syrup from the condiment stand, drowning her plate of pancakes and attacking it with gusto.

  "Awesome," Paul said, clasping his hands together. "I'll talk to Charles. We'll set it up. Haha, why are you making that face? Not a fan of Charlie-boy, huh?"

  “You know I’m not,” she replied.

  Paul watched her wrestle a bite of pancake from the top of the stack. “Well, you're in good company. Rich can't stand him either. And don't take the way he's treated you personally. He's been supplying Rich's donors for years now, and I think he's upset that you didn't come through him.”

  Lenore chewed pensively. “Why's that?”

  “You're messing up the dynamic. He probably thinks of you as competition.”

  “Competition?” Lenore wrinkled her brow. “Oh, he wants to be turned.”

  “Of course he does. Jesus. Just look at him.”

  “Do you ever turn anyone, or do you just string people along? It sounds like you guys make a lot of empty promises.”

  Paul's lips curled into a half smile. “I'll let you in on a little secret about turning someone: they almost never survive. I don't know why some people make it and some don't, but it's practically a death sentence. I don't turn anyone I couldn't stand to lose, and Charlie's a pretty good Renfield—I’m totally making a reference to Dracula’s assistant here—“

  “I got it,” she said, wiping some syrup off her chin.

  "Okay, just checking. He's constantly running errands for me during the daytime. And then at night, he's kind of a God in the club scene, so he brings a lot of people my way."

  “Yeah Rich mentioned you‘re big into vampire clubs. That‘s how you know Charles?”

  “Uh huh. There’s a big weird hierarchy there. It’s like a pyramid, almost.” He drew an invisible pyramid on the table surface with his forefinger. “At the bottom are all the people who are more or less transient, and are just there for the feel of the Goth or S&M thing—and don't ask me what sex has to do with any of this, because I honestly don't know. Anyway, then you get people who are even more into it, and they're regulars and show up all of the time, and they might engage in a little deviant activity here and there, but not much; they‘re just experimenting. THEN you get the hardcore crowd. They're the ones who claim to be psychic vampires or sanguine vampires, and they're bleeding each other and fucking each other and pretending to suck each other's energy and what not."

  “I think Charles told me he’s a psychic vampire,” said Lenore, who was too busy eating to look up from her plate.

  Paul smirked. “There’s no such thing. Psychic vampires are part of the subculture, though, and it’s a pretty easy thing to claim. I mean, how can you prove he didn’t drain your aura? Anyway, there are an elite few that actually have contact with the real thing, and Charles is in that crowd. Now, if you go to these clubs, and you’re lucky—or maybe unlucky, depending on how you see things—you work your way up this little ladder and there’s a tiny possibility that you’ll be turned, but it comes with a price: you’re constantly finding us food. People go missing from the scene all the time, and no one does anything about it. I usually don‘t kill anyone, though. Charles will bring a couple of people to the back and I drink from them and then that‘s it. They even seem to enjoy it.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad, actually,” Lenore said. She grabbed another morsel with her fork and thoughtfully used it to mop up some syrup. “I’m surprised Rich isn‘t more into it. When he described it to me, he made it sound like a trip to the dentist‘s office.”

  “He says it gets old—which it does—I’ll give him that. He doesn’t have any interest in interacting with people who are so much younger than he is. That’s really the crux of it.”

  Vigorously munching on the last of her pancakes, Lenore emptied the pot of coffee into her cup. “How old are you, anyway?”

  Paul gasped in mock offense. “What a rude question. But I'll tell if you'll tell. Fair's fair.”

  “I’m twenty-seven,” she said, shrugging, “but I’ll be twenty-eight in a couple months. May 16th. Save the date.”

  “I just might do that.”

  “Well?”

  Paul bit his lower lip and smiled. “Why don't I tell you how far back I go with Rich instead? Are you curious?”

  “Sure.” Lenore leaned forward, elbows on the table, giving him her undivided attention.

  “Rich used to run a speakeasy out of that basement in the 1920s, and I was his bartender. We were…turned at the same time, so to speak. He's seven months older than I am, and—believe me—he was never a nice guy. I never figured I'd still be working for him after all these years.”

  “I'd been wondering why he has a bar in his living room.”

  Paul stared at the table for several moments, smiling, lost in reverie. “Old habits die hard,” he said finally. “I still love making people drinks, in case you hadn't noticed.”

  The waitress returned with the check soon after and asked Lenore if she wished to pack her steak and eggs, which she did. Watching Paul attempt to calculate fifteen percent of $17.50 in his head left Lenore under the distinct impression that his vampiric powers did not include a knack for restaurant math. He finally muttered something under his breath and left twenty-five dollars on the table.

  Getting up, Paul said, “We should do this again. Charles is bringing someone over for Rich in a few days. I can get you out of the house for that too if you�
��d like.”

  “That would be really nice,” she said, grabbing her meal.

  Lenore walked back to the apartment in silence, and briskly, as the wind had picked up and she was succumbing to the cold. When she reached the basement stair, however, she was overtaken by a strong impulse to run. Death was at the other end of that passage; it was only a matter of time. Maybe if she started moving toward the stairs she could double back and possibly flag down a passing car. Maybe if she timed it right.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Paul whispered, turning to her. “I can hear your heart pounding. Please don’t make this hard on me. Don’t make this hard on yourself.” He took her by the hand. “I have to take you back down there. I know you don’t want to go back, but this isn’t the last time you’ll see the outside of that apartment. I’ll get you out again soon, okay? Rich just fed—you’re in no immediate danger—but you could screw that up if I have to drag you through the door kicking and screaming, understand?”

  Unable to speak, she mouthed the word ‘yes’ as he pulled her toward the entrance. Slowly, they descended the steps together, and Paul did not let go of her hand until they had reached the very bottom. The homeless man from before, along with his sad puddle of belongings, had vanished without a trace, leaving behind a horrible emptiness where he once sat against the wall.

  Richard met them in the front hall with a bloodstained twenty dollar bill in his hand a smile on this face. Lenore briefly thanked Paul for dinner and then stepped out to spend the rest of the evening sobbing in bed.

  CHAPTER 5

  Dinner Theater

  Four days passed with nothing but the television to keep Lenore company. In college, she would have considered Richard the perfect roommate; he was clean, quiet, and never around. Under present conditions, however, the arrangement had its drawbacks; Richard was nowhere to be found, and Lenore was running out of food. Crumb filled containers were all that remained of the cereal, Toaster Pastries, and chips from the previous grocery run, and Lenore was now reduced to eating packages of Ramen noodles that sat in the back of the panty and claimed to have expired in June of last year. She decided that her best chance of flagging Richard down would be to sleep in the library next to his laptop as he was sure to check email.