The Vampire Henry

by Michael S. Walker

  “Dear Mr. Lovell,

  We at Mockingbird are very pleased to inform you that the six poems you sent us will be printed as the centerpiece of our second volume of prose and poetry. We find that your voice, your images, are both overwhelmingly passionate and unique. Mockingbird is a new magazine, but we have received a great amount of words in that time. Frankly, the things you are writing are head and shoulders above what we usually see here. Bravo…”

  It went on and on. I opened the book to the table of contents and there was my name at the very top: Henry Lovell—Poetry. I leafed through it, drinking my beer, now feeling very good about myself. I WAS a writer. I didn’t give a shit that there wasn’t a check attached to my debut on the printed page. There were my words in black type, my words on glossy pages. I went to the window in my apartment--this big picture window that stretched across one wall--and I stared down at the crooked street, at a small crowd standing outside the bar. I saw my landlord down there. He was the owner of the bar: this short, baby-faced shit whose eyes seemed to always glint with dollar symbols. Just that morning he had accosted me in the hallway because I was late on the rent. He had shouted at me until his face had turned red while I stood there taking it with hunched shoulders and a sheepish expression on my face. Suddenly, I opened a section of the window and waved my copy of Mockingbird above their stupid heads.

  “Hey motherfuckas, guess what? I am a writer now, so KISS MY ASS!”

  Everyone looked up at me and started laughing. My landlord shouted up to me to shut the hell up and come down and pay my rent.

  I sent more of my poems to Mockingbird and then I began a correspondence with its editor, Emily Diller, who kept telling me over and over that I was a genius, possibly the best poet she had ever read. She published her own poetry in Mockingbird and I wished that I could have returned the praise. But I just did not get her stuff. And I tried. Lots of death imagery. Lots of stuff about blood and darkness. It just seemed that she was playing mostly with the sounds of words, amusing herself with the way words contrasted with each other on the page rather than using them to say anything. I tried to be diplomatic and not talk too much about her “work.” Instead, I asked her to send me a picture of herself. She replied that she would if I would. I was hesitant about that because I’m not what you would call a looker. I have a sallow face, a big nose, acne scars across my cheeks, hair in my ears. I told her I looked like a wounded lion. She wrote back and told me she weighed 250 lbs and had a condition, an allergy called urticaria, that prevented her from going out into the sun. I wrote back that we were both wounded. And then I sent her the least flattering pic I could find of myself to prepare her--I think it was my high school yearbook photo or some such shit. She sent back a black and white of herself, obviously recent. She was on the big side and she didn’t seem to have any neck at all. But I liked what I saw. She had soft dark hair cut in bangs and a heart-shaped face. Her big body was squeezed into some kind of corset and her tits, which had to be Ds at least, were straining, begging to be touched, begging to be freed.

  I wrote and told her we should get married right away.

  She laughed at that and told me she would think about it. In the meantime, I should get my ass out to San Diego and visit her.

  And that was what I did.

  Emily met me at the San Diego bus station. It had taken me three days to get there and in that time I hadn’t really bathed and I hadn’t had a drink. The bathing was not so big a deal, but the lack of alcohol in my system was beginning to put me over the edge. I hoped that Emily had a well-stocked bar in her place.

  Emily had told me in one of her many letters that she was pretty rich. Her daddy had been an oil man in Texas-- in addition to several lucrative wells, he had made money from patents on drill bits or some such thing. When he died (prematurely) from rectal cancer, Emily inherited everything. The first thing she did was get the hell out of Texas. The second thing she did was found Mockingbird. She had always wanted to be a writer, since she was a little girl, and creating a magazine seemed like the easiest way to jump-start that idea.

  She had told me that I would have to come to San Diego at night because of her allergic condition. I should have known then that something was amiss, but I wasn’t thinking much. Maybe I was thinking with my little head more than anything. In our last few letters, Emily and I had gotten pretty intimate with each other. She had sent me another picture of herself--this time a topless one--so she could show off her tattoo work and piercings. There were those magnificent tits, free of that corset, drooping down almost to her stomach. They were covered with delicate lolling blue waves, like you see in a Japanese print or something. And she also had her nipples pierced--little silver barbells were threaded vertically through those stiff buds. I hadn’t been laid in about two years so I have to tell you that picture got me drooling. I wanted to push those barbells around with my tongue in the worst way possible.

  As soon as we got to San Diego, I dragged my sorry ass off the bus. And there was Emily, waiting for me. She looked pretty much like her pictures. Except she had dyed her shoulder-length black hair blue and was wearing a lot of make up. But she still looked good.

  “Emily,” I said.

  “Lovell,” she said.

  She held her arms open for me.

  “Hmmm…Don’t know if you really want to do that right now Emily. I’ve been on a bus for the last three days. I don’t really smell all that wholesome.”

  “Don’t be silly. C’mere and give me sugar.”

  So I went to her and hugged and kissed her for a long time.

  “Yeah Lovell…you are kinda rank,” she said, drawing back and looking at me with large black eyes. “Let’s get you home so I can give you a bath.”

  “Can I have a drink first?” I asked.

  Sex with Emily was great. It was even better than I imagined it would be.

  She was very passive in bed, very submissive. She would let me do whatever I wanted to her, whenever I wanted. And let me tell you, after all those years of self-abuse, I was a crazy man in bed. I exercised my tongue on those little silver bar bells and more. I wrapped those giant tits of hers around my cock and fucked them until I came all over her heart-shaped face. I took her doggie-style, spanking her big curvy ass until she cried out. I was the champ once again. And let me tell you, she loved every minute of it. Or so it seemed.

  The first night, after we fucked, she took me to some fashionable shop in La Jolla and bought me a new suit. I kept protesting that I didn’t need a suit, my clothes were fine, but she said every man should have one sharp suit, and she did not plan to be seen in public with me if I was wearing my Salvation Army rags. So I acquiesced. She was my editor and my patroness after all.

  I spent a week in San Diego, fucking Emily, drinking with Emily, entertaining her with my bullshit stories, reading a whole new batch of poems for her applause. Nothing seemed really amiss that first week. It was strange that she could never go out into the sun ever, that she slept most of the day, didn’t get out of bed at all until five or six in the PM. But I was pretty nocturnal myself. It was strange that we would always go somewhere to eat and she would order a salad or something and then leave most of it on the plate. Or order one Bloody Mary to drink and sit there staring at it while I proceeded to get mind numbingly drunk. But I have never been too much for putting two and two together. I was with Emily. The drinks were flowing. Life was good.

  One hot night, I woke up in Emily’s bed. I thought about padding out to the refrigerator for a beer but I also had a huge erection tenting against my boxers and that got the upper hand. I turned over to paw at Emily’s big body only to discover that her side of the bed was empty. Where the hell was she? Maybe she was in her office getting together the galley proofs for the next issue of Mockingbird, maybe pounding out one of her godawful poems on her computer. Her writing WAS becoming a sore spot in our otherwise spotless relationship. She was pretty certain she was good at the game and I…wasn’t. I was pretty
certain I would have to be hitting the road again.

  But not just yet.

  “Emily?’ I said, walking out into the kitchen, getting that beer out of the fridge. The clock above the electric range read 4:30 in the AM. Where the hell was she? I wandered through the house calling her name. She wasn’t in the living room; the TV room; her office; the guest bedroom; the basement. She wasn’t anywhere in the house. Maybe she had taken her car and drove down to the ocean or something. She was a nut for sitting and staring at the Pacific Ocean. And though I have to admit it’s a pretty impressive-looking drink, in those days I liked staring at the ice in a Dewar’s and soda even better.

  I had just returned to the kitchen to finish off my beer when I heard from outside the most horrendous painful noise I have ever heard. It sounded as if someone was out there cutting a dog in half with a circular saw. It was then that I noticed that the sliding door in the kitchen, the door that opened out on to Emily’s spacious backyard, was pulled all the way open. Shit. What was happening?

  I ran out into the backyard wearing nothing but my boxers. It was actually pretty light out there because the moon was completely full and so large. It looked like some cowboy had lassoed it and pulled it down to the earth. I ran across the yard wondering if I should grab a brick or a stick as a weapon. The animal noises continued unabated-- high-pitched, hysterical. Could it be Emily? What the FUCK was it?

  Emily’s backyard was enclosed by a high redwood fence. And when I reached the edge of the yard I noticed that the back gate, like the sliding door, was wide open too. My heart was beating hard in my chest. But if Emily was out there being murdered or raped I was not going to turn away from helping her. I am many things but a coward is not one of them.

  I slipped through the open gate. Beyond Emily’s property was a wild uncultivated area full of pine and brush. The foothills of some pretty decent mountains.

  “Emily?” I cried.

  And froze.

  I have seen some pretty fucked up shit in my life-- both before I became a vampire and, certainly, afterwards. But what I saw then has been burned into my remaining brain cells for all of eternity.

  There was Emily, my Emily, totally naked, crouching on her pale haunches like a tattooed frog or something. In her hands she was holding what at first I mistook to be a dog. Maybe it had been shot or something and she was trying to help it. Then I realized it wasn’t a dog at all--too slim, too feral looking. It was a coyote. And then I realized that Emily was the one causing it to cry out in pain. She was holding it hard by the scruff of its neck and she had her face and her mouth deep in its matted fur, as if she were giving it a sensuous kiss or something.

  I shook my head.

  “Maybe I’m still back in bed. Maybe I’m just dreaming this,” I thought.

  And then, for some inexplicable reason, I started to laugh. It was all too much for me to take. I stood there under that impossible moon, in my boxer shorts, and laughed at my Emily and her wild prey.

  When Emily heard me laugh, she looked up and hissed. Her eyes--those big black eyes of hers--flashed red, like you see lots of times in flash photos. And I noticed that her broad luxurious mouth was smeared with blood. Blood from the coyote.

  In a second she dropped the (now) limp body of the coyote. And in a second she was on me. It was amazing how fast, how preternaturally fast, she moved. Her body was a blur as she ran to me--a smear like a picture you sometimes see of traffic moving at night. She held me tight in her huge arms, no longer my passive plaything. No longer my editor and patroness.

  Something else entirely.

  “So, you think this is funny, Mr. Boy Genius?” she rasped, the blood from the poor coyote still staining her lips. “Well then, let really GIVE you something to laugh at…”

  And with that, she raised me up in the air, at least a foot off the ground. And she opened her mouth wide. I noticed that her canine incisors were long and sharp. Like fangs.

  “Emily…” I grunted

  And then, with one swift plunge, she locked her mouth, her teeth, her very being it seemed, on to my neck. She plunged those sharp teeth in to my flesh, puncturing my jugular. There was no pain though. It was pleasure beyond pleasure. As Emily feasted on me, as she drank down my blood, I could hear her heartbeat, my heartbeat, playing the greatest duet of all time. And then that duet became a solo. One strong beautiful cadence. It was the greatest fucking orgasm of all time. And then…

  I blacked out.

  When I woke up, my mouth was burning and my eyes felt like someone had been trying to poke them out with a stick. It was like the motherfucker of all hangovers.

  I shook my head. Coughed. Where the hell was I?

  What the hell had happened?

  I was lying on my back and I stirred painfully to a sitting position, blinking like crazy, trying to extinguish the flash fires in my eyes. I was back in Emily’s bedroom. That was certain. It was very dark in there; it might have been night. I didn’t know how long I had been out. Minutes? Days? What the HELL had happened? An image came to my fuzzy mind: Emily lifting me off the ground, fixing her mouth to my throat, sucking my…sucking my blood. Had that, had that really happened?

  “Henry?”

  And there she was, sitting in a kitchen chair by the side of the bed, looking at me with those big black eyes, her brow furrowed with worry. She was no longer naked. She was wearing some flimsy teddy-bear nightgown. Her hair was a wreck. No make up this time.

  “Henry?” she said again. “Oh, thank God…I thought maybe I had…”

  “What the HELL time is it?” I said, my voice sounding like someone had just cut it to shreds with scissors. Jesus.

  “It’s a little after dark. About 7. You’ve been out all day, honey. Oh, Jesus, Henry… I didn’t mean to…”

  “Christ…I need a drink,” I said, rolling out of the bed, rising unsteadily to my feet. Had all that stuff been a dream? SOMETHING had happened.

  I felt the side of my throat where Emily had…yes, there was definitely a wound there. But maybe I had been drunk and cut myself shaving.

  “I really need a drink.”

  I walked out into the kitchen. I was still wearing my boxers. My eyes were starting to feel a little better. But it was as if I were trying to peer through gauze. Everything seemed cloudy and very far away. With difficulty I made it to the refrigerator, opened it, grabbed the last beer.

  “Henry…I would not drink that if I were you.”

  Emily had followed me into the kitchen and was practically shouting at me.

  What the hell?

  I opened the bottle and took a huge swig of beer.

  It was as if I had just swallowed a mouthful of gasoline or something. My mouth was on fire. I couldn’t get the shit down. I choked and regurgitated the beer on to the spotless white linoleum. Not being the smartest tack in the box, I tried again. And the same thing happened.

  I turned to Emily in a rage.

  “What the FUCK did you do to me bitch?’ I said, trying to shout above the pain in my throat.

  Emily started babbling away, tears coming from her eyes.

  “I couldn’t do it, Henry. I couldn’t kill you. I love you. I really do. And when you came outside…And when you caught me feeding…Well I was gonna do it. But I couldn’t. And I turned you, Henry. You’re the same as me.”

  “What the FUCK are you talking about?” I said, sitting down at the kitchen table, looking at the beer all over the floor. I put two fingers to my forehead, trying hard to think.

  “You’re a vampire now, Henry. I’m sorry. It’s true. You’re a vampire.”

  I shook my head trying to clear it, trying to assimilate everything the crazy bitch was telling me. She had to be insane.

  And on top it all I still needed…

  “I’m thirsty…I’m really…thirsty, Emily,” I croaked.

  She brightened at that, gave me a half smile.

  “I can help you with that, Henry. I can. You just have to trust me.”

/>   What the hell else was there to do? I was feeling pretty damn bad. Granted, it was all her fault.

  “OK.”

  “Follow me, Henry. I’ll give you what you need. Mamma’ll give you what you need.” It sounded as if she was trying to get me into the bedroom for a round of sex or something.

  I got up and trailed Emily through the house, wobbling, treading through an ocean of fog. She took me to the cellar door and we went downstairs.

  “What the hell’s down here?” I said. My voice seemed a little stronger but I was still parched as hell.

  “You’ll see, Henry…”

  We got to the bottom and she led me to this old refrigerator she had sitting in the corner there, this old refrigerator that was painted army green. It had, oddly enough, a padlock on the steel handle. To tell you the truth I hadn’t even noticed it before and I had been down in the basement about a dozen or so times to fetch things for her.

  “Wait,” she whispered.

  She went and got a key, secreted on one of the window ledges down there, and then she unlocked the padlock. She opened the door to the refrigerator. Inside it there were two dozen bags of some kind of liquid. They appeared to be…they appeared to be…

  “Blood?” I asked. “Is that…?”

  She nodded and pulled one of the blood bags from the interior of the fridge. She handed the heavy cold bundle to me.

  “This is what you will you have to get off on from now on Henry dear. Go ahead. Drink.”

  I looked at the stuff. And rather than be repulsed, I could feel myself hungering. I could feel the saliva starting to churn in my mouth. It was like someone had put a beer down in front of me after I had been, involuntarily, on the wagon for a month or so. I craved that drink with my entire being.

  “Go ahead,” Emily urged. “You are going to need that.”