by L. J. Smith
“Hearing is the last sense to go,” he snarled in Phillip’s ear. “She may be able to hear you.”
Phil wrenched free and ran toward the living room. He didn’t know what he was doing, he only knew that he needed to destroy things. Poppy was dead. She was gone. He grabbed the couch and flipped it over, then kicked the coffee table over, too. He snatched up a lamp, yanked its cord out of the socket, and threw it toward the fireplace.
“Stop it!” James shouted over the crash. Phil saw him and ran at him. The sheer force of his charge knocked James backward into the wall. They fell to the floor together in a heap.
“You—killed her!” Phil gasped, trying to get his hands around James’s throat.
Silver. James’s eyes blazed like the molten metal. He grabbed Phil’s wrists in a painful grip.
“Stop it now, Phillip,” he hissed.
Something about the way he said it made Phil stop. Almost sobbing, he struggled to get air into his lungs.
“I’ll kill you if I have to, to keep Poppy safe,” James said, his voice still savage and menacing. “And she’s only safe if you stop this and do exactly what I tell you to. Exactly what I tell you. Understand?” He shook Phil hard, nearly banging Phil’s head into the wall.
Strangely enough, it was the right thing to say. James was saying he cared about Poppy. And weird as it might sound, Phil had come to trust James to tell the truth.
The raging red insanity in Phil’s brain died away. He took a long breath.
“Okay. I understand,” he said hoarsely. He was used to being in charge—both of himself and of other people. He didn’t like James giving him orders. But in this case there was no help for it. “But—she is dead, isn’t she?”
“It depends on your definition,” James said, letting go and slowly pushing himself off the floor. He scanned the living room, his mouth grim. “Nothing went wrong, Phil. Everything went just the way it was supposed to—except for this. I was going to let your parents come back and find her, but we don’t have that option now. There isn’t any way to explain this mess, except the truth.”
“The truth being?”
“That you went in there and found her dead and went berserk. And then I called your parents—you know what restaurant they’re at, don’t you?”
“It’s Valentino’s. My mom said they were lucky to get in.”
“Okay. That’ll work. But first we have to clean up the bedroom. Get all the candles and stuff out. It’s got to look as if she just went to sleep, like any other night.”
Phil glanced at the sliding glass door. It was just getting dark. But then Poppy had been sleeping a lot these last few days. “We’ll say she got tired and told us to go watch TV,” he said slowly, trying to conquer his dazed feeling and be clearheaded. “And then I went in after a while and checked on her.”
“Right,” James said, with a faint smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
It didn’t take long to clear out the bedroom. The hardest thing was that Phil had to keep looking at Poppy, and every time he looked, his heart lurched. She looked so tiny, so delicate-limbed. A Christmas angel in June.
He hated to take the stuffed animals away from her.
“She is going to wake up, isn’t she?” he said, without looking at James.
“God, I hope so,” James said, and his voice was very tired. It sounded more like a prayer than a wish. “If she doesn’t you won’t have to come after me with a stake, Phil. I’ll take care of it myself.”
Phil was shocked—and angry. “Don’t be stupid,” he said brutally. “If Poppy stood for anything—if she stands for anything—it’s for life. Throwing your life away would be like a slap in her face. Besides, even if it goes wrong now, you did your best. Blaming yourself is just stupid.”
James looked at him blankly, and Phil realized they’d managed to surprise each other. Then James nodded slowly. “Thanks.”
It was a milestone, the first time they’d ever been on precisely the same wavelength. Phillip felt an odd connection between them.
He looked away and said briskly, “Is it time to call the restaurant?”
James glanced at his watch. “In just a few minutes.”
“If we wait too long they’re going to have left by the time we call.”
“That doesn’t matter. What matters is that we don’t have any paramedics trying to resuscitate her, or taking her to the hospital. Which means she’s got to be cold by the time anybody gets here.”
Phil felt a wave of dizzy horror. “You’re a cold-blooded snake after all.”
“I’m just practical,” James said wearily, as if speaking to a child. He touched one of Poppy’s marble-white hands where it lay on the bedspread. “All right. It’s time. I’m going to call. You can go berserk again if you want to.”
Phil shook his head. He didn’t have the energy anymore. But he did feel like crying, which was almost as good. Crying and crying like a kid who was lost and hurt.
“Get my mom,” he said thickly.
He knelt on the floor beside Poppy’s bed and waited.
Poppy’s music was off and he could hear the TV in the family room. He had no sense of time passing until he also heard a car in the driveway.
Then he leaned his forehead against Poppy’s mattress. His tears were absolutely genuine. At that moment he was sure he’d lost her forever.
“Brace yourself,” James said from behind him. “They’re here.”
CHAPTER 11
The next few hours were the worst of Phil’s life.
First and foremost was his mother. As soon as she walked in, Phil’s priorities changed from wanting her to comfort him to wanting to comfort her. And of course there wasn’t any comfort. All he could do was hold on to her.
It’s too cruel, he thought dimly. There ought to be a way to tell her. But she would never believe it, and if she did, she’d be in danger, too….
Eventually the paramedics did come, but only after Dr. Franklin had arrived.
“I called him,” James said to Phil during one of the interludes when Phil’s mom was crying on Cliff.
“Why?”
“To keep things simple. In this state, doctors can issue a death certificate if they’ve seen you within the last twenty days and they know the cause of death. We don’t want any hospitals or coroners.”
Phil shook his head. “Why? What’s your problem with hospitals?”
“My problem,” James said in a clipped, distinct voice, “is that in hospitals they do autopsies.”
Phil froze. He opened his mouth but no sound came out.
“And in funeral homes they do embalming. Which is why I need to be around when they come to pick up the body. I need to influence their minds not to embalm her, or sew her lips shut, or—”
Phil bolted for the bathroom and was sick. He hated James again.
But nobody took Poppy to the hospital, and Dr. Franklin didn’t mention an autopsy. He just held Phil’s mother’s hand and spoke quietly about how these things could happen suddenly, and how at least Poppy had been spared any pain.
“But she was so much better today,” Phil’s mother whispered through tears. “Oh, my baby, my baby. She’d been getting worse, but today she was better.”
“It happens like that sometimes,” Dr. Franklin said. “It’s almost as if they rally for a last burst of life.”
“But I wasn’t there for her,” Phil’s mom said, and now there weren’t any tears, just the terrible grating sound of guilt. “She was alone when she died.”
Phil said, “She was asleep. She just went to sleep and never woke up. If you look at her, you can see how peaceful it was.”
He kept saying things like that, and so did Cliff and so did the doctor, and eventually the paramedics went away. And sometime after that, while his mother was sitting on Poppy’s bed and stroking her hair, the people from the mortuary came.
“Just give me a few minutes,” Phil’s mother said, dry-eyed and pale. “I need a few minutes alone with h
er.”
The mortuary men sat awkwardly in the family room, and James stared at them. Phil knew what was going on. James was fixing in their minds the fact that there was to be no embalming.
“Religious reasons, is that it?” one of the men said to Cliff, breaking a long silence.
Cliff stared at him, eyebrows coming together. “What are you talking about?”
The man nodded. “I understand. It’s no problem.”
Phil understood, too. Whatever the man was hearing, it wasn’t what Cliff was saying.
“The only thing is, you’ll want to have the viewing right away,” the other man said to Cliff. “Or else a closed casket.”
“Yes, it was unexpected,” Cliff said, his face straightening out. “It’s been a very short illness.”
So now he wasn’t hearing what the men were saying. Phil looked at James and saw sweat trickling down his face. Clearly it was a struggle to control three minds at once.
At last Cliff went in and got Phil’s mother. He led her to the master bedroom to keep her from seeing what happened next.
What happened was that the two men went into Poppy’s room with a body bag and a gurney. When they came out, there was a small, delicate hump in the bag.
Phil felt himself losing rationality again. He wanted to knock things down. He wanted to run a marathon to get away.
Instead, his knees started to buckle and his vision grayed out.
Hard arms held him up, led him to a chair. “Hang on,” James said. “Just a few more minutes. It’s almost over.”
Right then Phil could almost forgive him for being a bloodsucking monster.
It was very late that night when everyone finally went to bed. To bed, not to sleep. Phil was one solid ache of misery from his throat down to his feet, and he lay awake with the light on until the sun came up.
The funeral home was like a Victorian mansion, and the room Poppy was in was filled with flowers and people. Poppy herself was in a white casket with gold fittings, and from far away she looked as if she were sleeping.
Phil didn’t like to look at her. He looked instead at the visitors who kept coming in and filling the viewing room and the dozens of wooden pews. He’d never realized how many people loved Poppy.
“She was so full of life,” her English teacher said.
“I can’t believe she’s gone,” a guy from Phil’s football team said.
“I’ll never forget her,” one of her friends said, crying.
Phil wore a dark suit and stood with his mother and Cliff. It was like a receiving line for a wedding. His mother kept saying, “Thank you for coming,” and hugging people. The people went over and touched the casket gently and cried.
And in the process of greeting so many mourners, something strange happened. Phil got drawn in. The reality of Poppy’s death was so real that all the vampire stuff began to seem like a dream. Bit by bit, he started to believe the story he was acting out.
After all, everybody else was so sure. Poppy had gotten cancer, and now she was dead. Vampires were just superstition.
James didn’t come to the viewing.
Poppy was dreaming.
She was walking by the ocean with James. It was warm and she could smell salt and her feet were wet and sandy. She was wearing a new bathing suit, the kind that changes color when it gets wet. She hoped James would notice the suit, but he didn’t say anything about it.
Then she realized he was wearing a mask. That was strange, because he was going to get a very weird tan with most of his face covered up.
“Shouldn’t you take that off?” she said, thinking he might need help.
“I wear it for my health,” James said—only it wasn’t James’s voice.
Poppy was shocked. She reached out and pulled the mask away.
It wasn’t James. It was a boy with ash blond hair, even lighter than Phil’s. Why hadn’t she noticed his hair earlier? His eyes were green—and then they were blue.
“Who are you?” Poppy demanded. She was afraid.
“That would be telling.” He smiled. His eyes were violet. Then he lifted his hand, and she saw that he was holding a poppy. At least, it was shaped like a poppy, but it was black. He caressed her cheek with the flower.
“Just remember,” he said, still smiling whimsically. “Bad magic happens.”
“What?”
“Bad magic happens,” he said and turned and walked away. She found herself holding the poppy. He didn’t leave any footprints in the sand.
Poppy was alone and the ocean was roaring. Clouds were gathering overhead. She wanted to wake up now, but she couldn’t, and she was alone and scared. She dropped the flower as anguish surged through her.
“James!”
Phil sat up in bed, heart pounding.
God, what had that been? Something like a shout—in Poppy’s voice.
I’m hallucinating.
Which wasn’t surprising. It was Monday, the day of Poppy’s funeral. In—Phil glanced at the clock—about four hours he had to be at the church. No wonder he was dreaming about her.
But she had sounded so scared….
Phil put the thought out of his mind. It wasn’t even hard. He’d convinced himself that Poppy was dead, and dead people didn’t shout.
At the funeral, though, Phil got a shock. His father was there. He was even wearing something resembling a suit, although the jacket didn’t match the trousers and his tie was askew.
“I came as soon as I heard….”
“Well, where were you?” Phil’s mother said, the fine lines of strain showing around her eyes, the way they always did when she had to deal with Phil’s father.
“Backpacking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Next time, I swear, I’ll leave an address. I’ll check my messages….” He began to cry. Phil’s mom didn’t say anything else. She just reached for him, and Phil’s heart twisted at the way they clung to each other.
He knew his dad was irresponsible and hopelessly behind in child support and flaky and a failure. But nobody had ever loved Poppy more. Right then, Phil couldn’t disapprove of him, not even with Cliff standing there for comparison.
The shock came when his dad turned to Phil before the service. “You know, she came to me last night,” he said in a low voice. “Her spirit, I mean. She visited me.”
Phil looked at him. This was the kind of weird statement that had brought on the divorce. His father had always talked about peculiar dreams and seeing things that weren’t there. Not to mention collecting articles about astrology, numerology, and UFOs.
“I didn’t see her, but I heard her calling. I just wish she hadn’t sounded so frightened. Don’t tell your mother, but I got the feeling she’s not at rest.” He put his hands over his face.
Phil felt every hair on the back of his neck stand up.
But the spooky feeling was drowned almost immediately in the sheer grief of the funeral. In hearing things like “Poppy will live on forever in our hearts and memories.” A silver hearse led the way to Forest Park cemetery, and everyone stood in the June sunshine as the minister said some last words over Poppy’s casket. By the time Phil had to put a rose on the casket, he was shaking.
It was a terrible time. Two of Poppy’s girlfriends collapsed in near-hysterical sobs. Phillip’s mother doubled over and had to be led away from the casket. There was no time to think—then or at the potluck at Phil’s house afterward.
But it was at the house that Phil’s two worlds collided. In the middle of all the milling confusion, he saw James.
He didn’t know what to do. James didn’t fit into what was going on here. Phil had half a mind to go over and tell him to get out, that the sick joke was over.
Before he could do anything, James walked up and said under his breath, “Be ready at eleven o’clock tonight.”
Phil was jolted. “For what?”
“Just be ready, okay? And have some of Poppy’s clothes with you. Whatever won’t be missed.” Phil didn’t say anything, and James gave h
im an exasperated sideways look.
“We have to get her out, stupid. Or did you want to leave her there?”
Crash. That was the sound of worlds colliding. For a moment Phil was spinning in space with his feet on neither one.
Then with the normal world in shards around him, he leaned against a wall and whispered, “I can’t. I can’t do it. You’re crazy.”
“You’re the one who’s crazy. You’re acting like it never happened. And you have to help, because I can’t do it alone. She’s going to be disoriented at first, like a sleepwalker. She’ll need you.”
That galvanized Phil. He jerked to stand up straight and whispered, “Did you hear her last night?”
James looked away. “She wasn’t awake. She was just dreaming.”
“How could we hear her from so far away? Even my dad heard it. Listen.” He grabbed James by the lapel of his jacket. “Are you sure she’s okay?”
“A minute ago you were convinced she was dead and gone. Now you want guarantees that she’s fine. Well, I can’t give you any.” He stared Phil down with eyes as cold as gray ice. “I’ve never done this before, all right? I’m just going by the book. And there are always things that can go wrong. But,” he said tersely when Phil opened his mouth, “the one thing I do know is that if we leave her where she is, she’s going to have a very unpleasant awakening. Get it?”
Phil’s hand unclenched slowly and he let go of the jacket. “Yeah. I’m sorry. I just can’t believe any of this.” He looked up to see that James’s expression had softened slightly. “But if she was yelling last night, then she was alive then, right?”
“And strong,” James said. “I’ve never known a stronger telepath. She’s really going to be something.”
Phil tried not to picture what. Of course, James was a vampire, and he looked perfectly normal—most of the time. But Phil’s mind kept throwing out pictures of Poppy as a Hollywood monster. Red eyes, chalky skin, and dripping teeth.
If she came out like that, he’d try to love her. But part of him might want to get a stake.
Forest Park cemetery was completely different at night. The darkness seemed very thick. There was a sign on the iron gate that said, “No visitors after sunset,” but the gate itself was open.