Once I felt like there was nothing left, or so I hoped, I brushed my teeth and kept my hand hanging down by my side, trying to ignore the fact that I had no clue about what was happening to me. I decided I was going to get into the shower and see what happened. Maybe something had gotten infected? Cleaning it had to help.
I stayed in the shower for a good thirty minutes. That was pushing it for me. Normally I tried to be in and out; I hated small spaces and we had one of those stand up showers and it drove me crazy.
I looked at my hand and the green slime had been reduced to a small amount of ooze, and I could clearly see the cut. Or gash, I guess, would be more appropriate. What had happened to me? I needed to ask my dad. There was some fuzzy memory trying to push its way up to the front of my mind, but it kept eluding me. And my head was still pounding.
I got out and dried my hair with the towel, then threw on my robe. I went out to the kitchen and asked my dad, “Do you know anything about this green stuff coming out of my hand?” I looked down at it as I held it out to him. Now that I was under the bright lighting in the kitchen, I saw that my formerly blue veins were now taking on an odd green color, which I hadn’t noticed when I woke up. Of course I had been completely oblivious, and now I was starting to freak out. The greenish tint ended abruptly about halfway up my arm. “This is really scary!” I said, looking down at my veins. “What’s going on?!” I started turning my arm around, looking at it from all angles. I looked at the other arm and it seemed normal.
“Audrey, calm down. Just- Come over to the table and sit down, okay? Then I can bandage your hand again.” He ran back towards his room, and I slowly lowered myself down into one of the chairs and stared at my arm in growing horror.
My dad came rushing back out and proceeded to bandage my hand up. “Do you remember anything, Aud?”
“Anything about what? I remember last night…Kirk…and then you and I fell asleep watching Contact.” I think I had gone into shock. Or my brain had been warped or something. That thought suddenly made something click. My brain being warped…
“Oh man,” I said, slapping my head and then flinching from the pain. “I’m turning into a damn zombie. What is wrong with me? Is this selective memory, or is it these stupid things eating away at my brain?”
My dad glanced up from taking care of my hand and said, “I think it has to do with the second thing you said, unfortunately.” He finished up and then looked at me with a concerned expression. “Well this time you didn’t forget for as long. Maybe that shower helped?”
“That’s true. I was in there for a long time and Agnes said the water caused the things to slow down their process. Maybe that helped clarify things a little more speedily this time? Plus I didn’t sleep too well. Ugh.” I laid my head down on my arms, and closed my eyes. “This sucks so much. And my head hurts.”
“Let me get you something.” He got up and grabbed the bottle of pain reliever from the kitchen, and brought me that and a glass of water. I gulped down the medicine and put my head back on my arms.
“Helloooo?” Bruce called out from the front of the house. “Are you two here?” He walked into the kitchen and I saw that he was still in his scrubs.
“I thought you were working the double?” My dad asked him.
“I got out of it! I conned my fellow R.N. Maggie into taking it this time. I told her I could get her free tickets to see Megadeth.” He pulled out a chair and sat next to me, and began rubbing my back.
“Megadeth?” I said, confused. “You hate metal! How do you get tickets for Megadeth, of all bands?”
“I hate metal, but Maggie loves it! And doll, if I limited my connections to people who could only get me things that I wanted, well, what would that do for me?”
My dad laughed and shook his head.
“I’m trying to understand what you just said. I’ll decipher it after the huge amounts of pain go away, okay?”
“Aww, I’m so sorry! What’s wrong, sweetie?” He looked at me innocently.
“Bruce. I know that you know. You don’t have to pretend.”
“Oh! Well, thank you for that! You know how much I hate lying to you, even if it’s a white lie.”
“What are you talking about? You lie to me all the time!”
“Excuse me?” Bruce said, looking affronted.
“You always con me into doing things for you! That’s also considered lying, Bruce.” I had sat up quickly as I said this to him, and I suddenly felt very dizzy and had to put my head right back down.
“Well we can clearly see that your ailment is altering your memories a bit. Your dad warned me about this side effect.” He laughed airily and started to get up to go to the kitchen.
“So you’re telling me that one time, when you said doing your laundry would get me in good with Santa Claus so that he would get me that pony I had been begging my dad for, was not a con?”
“Oh come on!” he said, scoffing and waving his hand at me, “That was character building!”
“And how about the whole Shirley Temple experience? How you told me that if I learned how to make one, I would actually get to meet her?” I looked him in the eye, becoming more and more annoyed.
“Hey, that helped you become the best Shirley Temple maker in town, did it not?” He looked at me, feigning innocence.
“You’re insane! After I learned how to make them you told me she had died. And I actually believed you!”
“It’s not my fault you can’t do proper research on people!”
“My favorite,” my dad said, chiming in, “was the time you told her the colony of Keebler Elves lived in our tree out front. And she would bring them snacks every day and sit out there for hours.”
“Oh now that was just for pure entertainment.” They both began laughing at this.
I glared at the two of them and muttered, “Unbelievable,” and put my head back down to rest.
“Oh Audrey, we love you! And you were so cute out there, talking with the little invisible elves.”
“You said if I talked to them every day I could eventually see them!” I made a frustrated sound and frowned at him.
“Alright,” my dad said, still laughing a little, “let’s let her rest and you and I can discuss what you’re going to do with Agnes.”
“Oh I love this!” Bruce said, clapping his hands together. “I feel like some sort of supernatural Dr. House or something!” He gently brushed my hair back from my face and said to me, “Audrey there is no need to worry! Now that I can help, we will have you back to normal in two shakes, okay?”
“Your enthusiasm is great, but I have my doubts,” I mumbled.
“Shh…just rest now.” He patted my shoulder and turned back to my dad.
“Okay so I think we should call her and see if she can come over here. That way we don’t have to leave Audrey alone,” my dad said.
“I can take care of myself for a couple of hours, Dad,” I said, becoming frustrated.
Bruce looked back and forth between the two of us for a moment and then said, “Well okay then! This all sounds good. Now, you should actually go and call her.” He fluttered his hands towards my dad, urging him to get up to make the phone call.
“Alright, you get some food and I’ll be right back.” He got up and lumbered off to his bedroom to make the call, and Bruce began puttering around in the kitchen.
“Are you hungry, doll?”
“No,” I said shortly.
“Well, okay then! A wee bit grumpy…which I totally get,” he finished quickly. “I’ll just, be quiet.”
“Please do that.”
“No need to be rude now!” He stopped his breakfast preparations momentarily to stare at me, offended, and then said, “But, I will rise above that and pretend it didn’t happen.” He began humming some random tune to himself and it started to relax me. He used to hum me to sleep all the time when I was little and I couldn’t stay awake long enough to wait up for my dad. He always said that if “those TV singing competitio
ns” auditioned people who could hum, he would have won years ago, hands down. I didn’t want to fall asleep though, so I sat up and watched him cook.
“Why don’t you take a nap, sweetie? You look horrible!”
“Wow…subtlety has no meaning to you, does it?” I was feeling worse and worse and I knew I was taking it out on Bruce, but right now I didn’t care.
“You know what I meant, Audrey.” He looked at me now, with a little more concern, and said, “Why don’t you just go and lay down on the couch or something? I’ll bring you a cup of tea! Sound okay?”
I sighed and said, “Sure, whatever. Tea sounds wonderful.” I rolled my eyes and got up slowly, heading for the couch.
I was struck by a huge wave of dizziness after my third or fourth step, and I started tilting to the left, losing my balance. After a few seconds of wobbling in place I felt Bruce’s strong grip on my arm, and he guided me over to the couch. I sat down slowly, with his help, and then lay down all the way. I stared up at his face and felt a sudden wave of love for him, while he smiled at my sympathetically.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, falling asleep.
__
“Audrey…” I heard my dad’s voice, calling me from a long distance away.
“Oh look she’s waking up!” Bruce said from somewhere above me.
I felt my eyelids wanting to open, and I could tell that it was still bright, because the light was trying to penetrate my eyes at the moment. It was seriously blinding, so I said, “What’s with the light? Am I being abducted?”
“No silly!” Bruce said, “We’re about to start your operation!”
Okay. Maybe I hadn’t heard that correctly. “My what?” I asked.
“Your operation, Audrey,” my dad said from the kitchen. “I’m just getting all of the utensils prepared. Some of them still have some polishing needed, but they’re coming right along!”
My eyes flew open now and I realized that the bright light was coming from two hot lamps, propped up on two large crates. I had no clue where any of this stuff had come from. Bruce was hovering nearby, dressed in his scrubs still, and he was talking quietly with Kirk and some woman, I didn’t know who she was though. She definitely wasn’t Agnes. She looked sort of familiar, but any thought I tried to give it was ripped away by the fact that my dad had said he was polishing utensils for my operation? I tried looking around but I couldn’t see what my dad was doing. He was hidden in the kitchen or something.
Kirk walked over to me and sat down, taking my bandaged hand in his, “Hey Audrey, we’re going to take care of you now. You’ll be good as new in no time.”
“I don’t get it. What are you guys going to do?”
“You’ll see.” He smiled sweetly and then got up and walked away. I tried to get up and go after him, but I couldn’t move for some reason.
I heard something coming over to me, and I started to become even more scared than I already was. It sounded like a rickety old cart. I looked to my right and saw a wooden table being rolled up next to me by my dad. It had a large cutting knife and fork on it, the kind you use on a turkey or a roast during the holidays.
“Soo…what is that for, exactly?” I asked nervously.
“Your surgery, of course! Only the best for you, Aud.” My dad dropped me a wink and picked up the cutlery, making them flash brightly in the lights.
“Okay seriously, what is going on? You’re not cutting me open with a carving knife.”
“Audrey,” he lowered the knife and fork, sounding incredibly disappointed and he gave me a very sad look, “Are you saying you don’t trust me now? We’ve been prepping all day! I spent hours chopping all of that stupid celery.”
“I’m not a friggin’ turkey Dad!” I looked at him in shock, not knowing if this was some sort of joke to maybe jolt my system or something; maybe some sort of scared straight crap or whatever for the Zomorwai? “This is a joke, right?” I looked at my dad and then over at Kirk, Bruce and Agnes, then at the strange woman pleadingly. “Please tell me you guys are playing some sort of cruel prank on me?”
“We don’t fuck around when it comes to this stuff, sweetie.” Bruce flashed a humorless smile at me and came over to stand near my dad.
I looked at him in shock and then over at my dad. He was moving my arm, the one with the bandaged hand, to lie out on the wobbly wooden table. I tried to resist him but I couldn’t move, or do anything else.
“Kirk! Please! Can you do something?!”
“Nope.” He leaned over the couch and looked at me, saying, “I just came for the show, actually. And for the scraps.” He smiled again and this time flashed his fangs at me, and then watched hungrily as my dad began to cut into my arm. I turned my head quickly to look at what was happening and then began screaming at the top of my lungs.
__
“Audrey! Wake up!” My dad yelled, shaking me.
I could feel myself wanting to scream again, but I held it in, and slowly opened my eyes and looked at my dad. “You were carving me open like a holiday roast,” I said breathlessly, grabbing my bandaged hand, holding it to my chest. I closed my eyes gratefully when I realized my arm was still intact and breathed a sigh of relief.
My dad and Bruce both laughed at this, and Bruce said, “Well that explains why you suddenly started screaming, ‘I am not a turkey!’ over and over.”
“You know, you wouldn’t be laughing if you had been in my dream just now.”
“I could say the same thing to you, doll. Trust me. My dreams are dangerous territory.” He smiled wickedly at me.
I ignored him and asked, “How long was I asleep?”
“Only for a few minutes, Aud,” my dad said.
“Good. I don’t want to know what would have happened if it had gone on any longer.” I shuddered and my dad rubbed my shoulder.
“Well Agnes should be here shortly,” said my dad, “so hopefully we can start coming up with something to help slow this down more. Or reverse it completely, if we’re lucky.”
“I haven’t had much luck lately. I’m not going to hold my breath,” I said.
“Sounds to me like you had a little bit of luck last night,” Bruce said, wiggling his eyebrows at me.
I glared at my dad and he began sputtering, and then finally held up his hands defensively. “Hey! I didn’t think- I’m sorry Audrey.” He looked over at Bruce and said, “Thanks a lot, man.”
“I can’t have any secrets, can I?” I lay back down on the couch, feeling totally embarrassed.
“Oh my gosh, you were going to keep that a secret from me?” Bruce screeched. “No, no, no, doll! You need to spill!” He ran over to the couch and shooed my dad away, then lifted my legs up and sat down, placing them on his lap. “Well?” He looked at me eagerly.
I couldn’t help but smile at him. He really was hard to be annoyed with, especially when I really had no good reason to be mad at him, except for things he’d done in the past. And I had forgiven him long ago for messing with my naïve mind in my early childhood years. Well, sort of. But Bruce was just…Bruce--impossible not to love and unbelievably charming. He even charmed my dad in the same way, which was hilarious to watch.
“Okay, okay.” I glanced up at my dad, who was still sort of hovering nearby. “Did you want to hear this too?”
“I think I’ll let Bruce handle this one,” he said, heading over to the kitchen. I knew Bruce would just end up telling him everything later anyway.
Bruce gave me his full attention and made me repeat the part about the actual kiss, detail by detail, three times. He said each little gesture could have tons of meaning behind it. This was a bit overwhelming. And I kept wondering to myself, did it mean something different if the boy in question was a vampire? I figured I would find that out eventually. Either way Bruce was completely entertained and by the time we were done he had convinced me that Kirk and I would be married with two children by the time that I was twenty-four.
“Thirty,” my dad said from the kitchen.
&nbs
p; “Aren’t you not supposed to be listening?” Bruce chided.
“I can listen to anything I want to in my own house, especially if it consists of you giving away my daughter in marriage. And I’m just saying, she shouldn’t get married until after twenty-five. Anytime before that is too soon. She needs to go to college and have time to live a little, and actually be in a steady relationship, to see how she likes it.” He seemed kind of worked up and after he finished talking he looked at me and said, “I’m not trying to run your life after you turn eighteen Audrey, but I just want you to have a good one. And hopefully you make it, and it all turns out that way.” Now he looked away quickly and then walked off to his room.
Bruce and I were both quiet for a few seconds and then Bruce said, “Geez, way to ruin a good time.”
I giggled a little and swatted his leg. “He’s just worried, is all.”
“And what about you? How are you holding up with all of this?”
“I don’t know.” I thought about Kirk’s offer from the night before, and about how Agnes and now Bruce were going to try and help me out. “I think things are going to work out, one way or another.”
There was suddenly a sharp knock on the front door and we both shouted out simultaneously.
“Wow! Talk about being on edge,” Bruce said. “I’ll go get that, it’s probably Agnes.” He got up and walked away to get the door, and I started thinking about Kirk again. I was wondering if there really was anything else behind the kiss, or if it had just been an “of the moment” type of thing, when I heard Bruce call out, “Audrey…maybe you should go get your dad.”
I jumped up from the couch, becoming concerned at the tone of his voice, and went over to the front door to see what had caused him to sound that way.
What I saw startled me. It was a wizened old man, holding a large wooden staff, wearing a tattered blue cloak. He was hunched over and this made him look incredibly frail, but when he met my eyes suddenly with his sharp blue ones, I could see there was nothing frail about him mentally. He seemed to flinch though when he made eye contact with me, and then he said, “It’s you, isn’t it?”
Who is Audrey Wickersham? Page 8