by Joe Humphrey
Charlie fell into a memory. In it she was Bruce, laying on a bed, arm around a woman, his face in her hair. Sunlight filled the room and she could hear the sound of children playing in another part of the house.
She slid out of that memory and into another. Sitting in a booth in a diner, eating pancakes and bacon. A waitress refills his coffee. Charlie drifted out of this memory as well.
In another memory, she was a teenager in a bathroom, looking at a copy of Playboy magazine. The oddly familiar feeling of masturbating yet not masturbating was strange. Charlie felt guilty sitting in this memory, though she lingered longer than she meant to. It was just so interesting.
For the next six minutes, she dipped in and out of Bruce’s mundane and mostly boring memories. He was a man who led a predictable and perfectly pleasant life, and Charlie felt terrible about the way they’d so rudely interrupted it. Especially the part when she’d broken some of his bones.
“Hey. Hey, that’s enough,” Caroline was shaking her shoulder. When she let go of Bruce’s wrist, the warm glow of the truck’s cabin filled her vision and she was back in reality. There was a vitality and energy in how she felt after drinking Bruce’s blood that she hadn’t felt in Reggie or in the blood Caroline brought her in the thermos.
“Leave some for him, doll!” Caroline said, patting her on the back.
“That was so much better than Reggie,” Charlie gasped, licking blood from her lips and chewing on its oily taste.
Caroline nodded.
“Definitely. Reggie was a sick, old man. His blood was tired and slow. His liver was failing and his body was poisoned. You should see the difference it makes when you find someone who doesn’t eat fried pork at every meal,” she said, hooking a thumb at the now snoring Bruce.
“What’s going to happen to him?” Charlie asked, feeling protective of Bruce. Having been through his mostly pedestrian and innocent memories, she felt even worse about what they’d done. He loved his wife and his kids and did his best not to bother or hurt anyone. He was a good guy. He’d tried to help them.
Caroline shrugged.
“He’s going to wake up tomorrow with a broken wrist and maybe a few cracked ribs and wonder what the hell happened the night before. He’ll have to catch a ride back to town because he can’t drive with his arm like that.”
Charlie looked at his wrist. His hand was twisted in a way that was unnatural at best. She must have really kicked it. Caroline leaned forward and took his hand and yanked it with a sickening crunch.
“What did you do?!” Charlie asked, confused.
“I set it. Sort of. It’s set better than it was, anyway. It’s going to be a few hours before he wakes up and hopefully, he won’t break it any worse than it already is. Anyway, we should get moving.”
- 17 -
Caroline’s heels clopped on the highway as they made their way back to the truck stop where the Cadillac was parked. Charlie could feel that it was cold but at the same time, she wasn’t uncomfortable. She carried her shoes and walked barefoot, less concerned about getting dirty than Caroline. Occasionally they would hear the rustling of some animal in the brush, but otherwise, the night was quiet.
“So obviously we need to talk about what happened,” Caroline said. Charlie didn’t look at her but nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me you’ve learned something tonight,” Caroline said. Charlie looked up at the sky and scrunched one eye shut, trying to decide what to say.
“Yeah, I think so. I learned a lot of things, but I guess the main take away is that I shouldn’t beat up somebody we’re feeding on,” she said, looking up at Caroline. In her heels, Caroline was over a foot taller than Charlie. She laughed.
“Yeah! I’d say that’s a damn fine place to start!”
They laughed together, and a weight lifted from Charlie’s chest. She’d been terrified that she was in trouble. Though Caroline never said it, or even implied it, the fact that Charlie had nowhere else to go loomed dark behind her, always. Her mother was gone and Caroline had made her into whatever it was she was now. Not only did she have nowhere to go, but her understanding of how to survive in this new life was limited at best. The fact was, if Caroline decided it wasn’t working out, she was completely fucked, and she knew it. So impressing Caroline and learning everything she could about keeping herself alive was imperative.
“The most important thing I can teach you, right now, is to be deliberate in everything you do. We’re out in the world, dealing with real people and real consequences. So what you do matters just a hell of a lot. You must think about everything you do before you do it.”
Charlie nodded. Caroline smiled at her, stopped walking, and held out her hands. Charlie stopped and took them.
“It’s okay. You’re learning, and you’re learning fast. You’re doing a good job, Charlie, but tonight was a pretty bad fuck up. That can’t happen again. I need you to focus and not let your emotions dictate your actions.”
Charlie nodded and felt her eyes sting with tears.
“I’ll learn. I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing and yes you will learn. You’re still new at this and it will get easier, I promise,” Caroline said, and Charlie realized for the first time that her accent was almost completely gone. She wondered if it was because it had been an act the whole time, or if she was adopting Charlie’s accent. That was also the first time she realized that she herself actually had a distinguishable accent, slight as it was.
“Okay,” she said, rolling the word around in her mouth, considering it. She was coming to understand that Caroline applied that deliberate, calculated approach to just about everything she did, including the way she spoke and dressed and carried herself. It was all completely intentional and designed to provoke a specific reaction. The reaction seemed to be to disarm and pacify whoever she happened to be talking to, including Charlie. Seeing the way people responded to Caroline, it was clear that the cheery ‘50s housewife with the Annie Oakley accent gave people exactly the right mix of maternal comfort and non-threatening sexuality. It certainly worked on Charlie.
More and more she was getting glimpses of other aspects of Caroline’s personality. Now that she was locked into this life and trying to learn the skills she needed to stay safe and unnoticed, Caroline was taking on more of a mentor role rather than maternal. The maternal stuff was still there, but on nights like tonight, it was in the background. Caroline’s stature as an authority figure was at the forefront and it made Charlie just a little uneasy. She had never been someone who responded well to authority but she was doing her best. The fact that Caroline also scared her just a bit helped keep the bratty, rebellious teenager in her at bay.
Also, she genuinely did want to learn and was willing to admit when she’d fucked up. Tonight, she most definitely fucked up, and had potentially put them both at risk, and Charlie felt terrible about it. It surprised her more than anything that Caroline wasn’t angrier at her. Though, she supposed, she was angry enough at herself for them both. Walking back to their car, Charlie was relieved that they’d gotten through her mistake, so far, without much blowback. She wouldn’t feel entirely safe until they were home, but the fact that Caroline seemed to be unconcerned helped immensely.
So when Caroline told her to be more deliberate in her actions, she took that advice to heart. She needed to do exactly that. It was working for Caroline and it would work for her. There was a deep desire inside her to impress Caroline. Even more than the debt she felt toward the woman who’d lifted her out of the disaster of her life, Charlie looked up to Caroline as a role model. She thought Caroline was just the coolest person she’d ever met, and she was terrified of embarrassing herself.
So far she wasn’t off to a great start. Caroline had scooped her up from her failed suicide attempt, covered in her own puke. Then she’d taken her out of the hospital, ragged, and manic, careening toward a total psychological breakdown. Now this thing with the truck dr
iver. No, Charlie didn’t think she was off to a great start, but she was determined, more than ever, to become the person Caroline seemed to believe she could be.
- 18 -
It took them nearly an hour to walk back to the truck stop where the Cadillac was parked. They talked as they walked, mostly about the philosophy of hunting as Caroline interpreted it. She explained it in a way that made Charlie feel almost comfortable with the whole thing. The fact that they’d let Bruce live went a long way with Charlie. She already felt bad for hurting him and was still confused about why exactly she’d freaked out. Caroline told her that she understood it, but wouldn’t explain further.
They were home by three and in bed by three-thirty. Caroline slept in the secret room with Charlie again. She was coming to understand the nature of their relationship. There was no actual sex at all, yet there was a kind of familiarity between them that went beyond friendship. They slept spooned together, Caroline’s arm draped over Charlie’s middle. The first time it happened, Charlie almost pulled away, feeling uncomfortable. When she realized Caroline had fallen asleep almost immediately, she relaxed and nestled into her pillow. She came to think of the position as pack animals nesting together. That was only on the nights that Caroline slept with Charlie, which became less and less frequent as time went on.
Over the next few weeks, they fell into something of a hunting routine. They rotated truck stops, diners, and rest areas within a thirty-mile radius and repeated the same basic story with different travelers and truckers. Usually presenting themselves as a mother and daughter on the run from an abusive boyfriend or husband. Occasionally they came across guys who wanted something sexual from them, but Caroline was good at diverting them. Most of the guys (and, on the odd occasion, women) they met fell into that intoxicating smell immediately and willingly gave up what they wanted within ten minutes of getting into the car or truck before turning around and driving them back to where they’d been picked up.
The majority of the experiences were surprisingly dull. Charlie was getting used to navigating the flood of memories and finding the ones that were meaningful or interesting. Sometimes they saw beautiful images. Sometimes highly disturbing things that were typically clouded in black, oily layers of guilt and shame. Those were easily avoided, but also morbidly fascinating. More than once, Charlie had found herself unable to keep from peeking into one of the darker memories. Usually, they were disappointingly mundane. Stealing money from the church donation basket, hurtful things said to parents or siblings, driving away from a scraped car in a parking lot. Sometimes they were darker though. More than once or twice, Charlie had abandoned a memory promising to stay out of the poisonous ones entirely, because what she’d seen was so upsetting. The abuse was depressingly common. Abuse of children, animals, elderly people, self-abuse.
Homosexual acts were often the most obscured and shrouded, but least offensive to Charlie. The amount of shame and guilt people piled on themselves for their nature broke Charlie’s heart. Somehow, seeing the self-loathing people put themselves through for behaving in the way they were designed to behave made Charlie feel better about what they themselves were doing. They weren’t hurting anyone. Why should Charlie hate herself for being who she was? Yes, they had killed the old man, but Charlie was surprisingly not bothered by Reggie’s death. She’d been given the tools to see, on the most intimate level, what kind of monster he was. Since she’d been given those tools, she felt it was her place to deal with him as she saw fit, and taking him out of the world was exactly the right thing to do. Obviously, those with legal oversight had failed to punish them, so why shouldn't they?
She was also learning how to link up with Caroline in the fog and enjoy it as a shared experience. When they were both in there at the same time, they could dip into the same memory and experience it together. Caroline seemed to be drawn to trips to the beach and riding in convertibles. Summer sun memories. Charlie was fond of memories involving children and babies. Holding them, feeding them, playing with them. And food. She was discovering that, more than the sun, she missed food. They took turns looking for happy places.
Once, they were feeding on a truck-stop waitress, and found a memory of her as a young woman, riding a horse across a grassy field, the sun high in the sky and a cool breeze blowing through her hair. It was the most genuinely happy Charlie had ever seen Caroline. When they broke away, Caroline quickly wiped her eyes on the front of her cornflower blue dress and smiled at Charlie.
At home, Charlie ordered new clothes from Caroline’s extensive collection of catalogs. She found a dress and sunglasses that reminded her of Audrey Hepburn’s Breakfast At Tiffany’s outfit and wore it often out on their excursions. She even found a long, silly-looking cigarette holder, and occasionally gripped it between her teeth at the side of her mouth, letting out a “wah wah wah” like The Penguin from the Batman TV show. Caroline didn’t understand the reference but laughed anyway.
The wonderful thing about the way they hunted was that it left their victim's memory blank. So it really didn’t matter how strange or out of place their clothes were, because those who saw them would eventually forget them anyway. Caroline and Charlie pretended they were New Orleans socialites or the wives of big Hollywood producers, halfway between home and grandpapa's estate in Aspen.
Charlie had no idea where Caroline’s money came from and she didn’t ask. She was free enough with spending it on Charlie, and that was good enough. She was taken care of, and that's really all that mattered in the end.
- 19 -
Charlie sat up on her mattress and twisted, grabbing her knee for leverage. Her back popped three times and she twisted the other way, working out one more for good measure. The room was completely dark, but she knew the layout of it easily by now and walked to the light switch. Standing by the door in her underwear, Charlie looked at the room and frowned. In a lot of ways, it was like a makeshift prison cell. While she didn’t think that was the intention of the room, it was something she was having trouble reconciling. There was so much that she’d had to work very hard to get comfortable with. The lifestyle they were living had its quirks, and while she was tolerating the suburban jail cell, it was something that was simply not going to work for her in the long term.
She left the room and pulled a fresh pair of underwear and a t-shirt from the drawer Caroline had cleared for her. When she’d first arrived, it only held a new package of plain white underwear and three pairs of socks. Over the months, with the help of Caroline’s catalogs, she’d filled it out with t-shirts, pajamas, more undies, and a few pairs of shorts. Her dresses and jeans hung in the closet opposite Caroline’s impressive wardrobe.
Charlie missed having her own room. The secret room was her space, in a way, but it had so little character. What character it did have was ugly and depressing. It certainly didn’t feel like Charlie. She wanted a place to put up posters and stretch out and read and burn incense and listen to records. It’s not easy to do that in a room with a concrete floor and a shower and bare, tiled walls. It was like trying to relax in the shittiest gym bathroom ever.
There was the other room, the one she’d woken up in on her first night in the house, but Charlie didn’t particularly want to take root there either. The months that she’d spent in the house hadn’t warmed her any toward that room. It still held the same unsettled, haunted feeling she’d felt initially. Perhaps if they took all the furniture and toys out and painted over those creepy cowboys it would be okay, but Charlie was in no rush to find out. Just being in the room left her feeling exhausted and drained, as though it were smothering her. The thought of actually going in there and trying to relax or even sit comfortably made her chest tighten with anxiety.
So she was resigned to the fact that, for the time being, the secret room was her space. Perhaps one day she would ask Caroline for the supplies to repaint it. Charlie’s room in Utah had been a bright canary yellow and part of her missed it. Remembering her room made Charlie just a little sad.
She didn’t regret leaving, but couldn’t remember what had compelled her to set fire to the house. From time to time she found herself remembering an article of clothing or a book or a stuffed toy and wished for it. There was so little left of her old life to remind her of who she was before she met Caroline. Perhaps it would be easier if she felt like she was being remade into something or someone new, but so much of her time was spent waiting around, reading, and listening to music. She never would have guessed that being a vampire would be so mundane, even boring.
When Charlie expressed her eagerness to get out into the world and explore, Caroline explained to her that because of their longer lifespan, they needed to pace themselves. They were in no rush, and overextending themselves could make them sloppy and lead to mistakes. That was easier said than done, and most nights Charlie found herself increasingly more frustrated with the lack of stimulation. While she understood what Caroline meant, intellectually, she was still a sixteen-year-old girl and wasn’t used to being cooped up in the house for weeks on end. She was beginning to feel like a dog desperately in need of a walk. They went out twice a week to feed, but otherwise, they didn’t leave the house. Charlie was coming to appreciate those trips out more for the simple fact of being outside than satiating her ever-increasing hunger.
More and more, she found herself in the front yard, wandering outside to get the mail or water the lawn and simply staying out there, standing barefoot in the grass in the dark, staring at the sky. Sometimes Caroline would come out and sit with her on the glider bench on the porch, and they would share a smoke in silence, listening to the subtle but persistent sound of nature trying to reclaim the land. More often though, she would tell Charlie it was time to come inside. Caroline was paranoid about drawing attention to themselves. A teenage girl who only comes out at night and stands on the lawn staring at the stars at two in the morning could be considered strange and might raise questions.