The sound of clanging bells interrupted. Not the tinkling of bells signaling my arrival into the Underworld, but rather a railroad crossing warning of an incoming train, signaling the end of my overactive imagination. The bus was stopped in front of a railroad track. A toddler in the seat across the aisle from me waved excitedly as the black engine approached.
"Chug-a-chug-a-choo-choo!" he exclaimed. "I want to be a conductor," he proclaimed to his mother.
I, too, stared as the conductor waved his blue hat while the train began to pass us. Instead of new boxcars whizzing by us, a string of dilapidated, graffiti-laden freight cars lagged in front of us. Like the toddler across from me, who was likely dreaming of the glamorous life of a conductor—too naive to realize the demands of the job, isolation, long hours, and little pay—I, too, wondered if my dream of becoming a vampire was more romantic than its reality.
I was stepping into a world of the unknown, knowing only one thing: I had to find Alexander.
The official welcome sign to Aunt Libby's town should read, "Welcome to Hipsterville—Inhabitants must check all golf pants at the city limits." The small town was an eclectic mix of hip coffee shops, upscale secondhand stores, and indie cinemas where all forms of cool people presided— granola heads, artists, goths, and chic freaks. Every kind was acceptable here. I could see why Alexander and Jameson might have escaped to this particular town. It was in close proximity to Dullsville and they could easily blend in with the smorgasbord of other motley inhabitants.
I could only imagine what my life would have been like if I had grown up in a town where I was more accepted than ostracized. I could have been on the A-list to Friday night "haunted" house parties, been crowned Halloween Queen, and received straight A's in Historical Tombstones class.
Dad and Aunt Libby had both been hippies in the sixties, but while Dad morphed into a yuppie, Libby stayed true to her inner Deadhead. She had moved to Hipsterville, majored in theater at the university, and now worked as a waitress in a vegan restaurant to support her acting. She was always performing in an avant-garde play or a performance-art piece in some director's garage. When I was eleven my family watched her stand onstage for what seemed like days, dressed as a giant snow pea and speaking in broken sentences about how she sprouted.
When I arrived in Hipsterville, I wasn't shocked to find that Alexander wasn't waiting for me, but I was surprised my aunt wasn't. I hope she isn't this late for her curtain calls, I thought, as I waited at the bus stop in the hot sun beside my suitcase. Finally I spotted her beat-up vintage yellow Beetle sputtering into the lot.
"You're so grown up!" she exclaimed, getting out of her car and giving me a huge hug. "But you dress the same. I was counting on that."
Aunt Libby had a youthful face, decorated with sparkling purple eye shadow and pink lipstick. She wore red dangly crystal earrings beneath her auburn hair, a sky blue halter dress spotted with white beads, and beige Nairobi sandals.
Her warmth spilled over me. Even though we differed in our tastes, we immediately bonded like sisters, talking about fashion, music, and movies.
"Kissing Coffins?" she asked when I told her what I recently watched. "That's like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. I remember going to the midnight show and dancing in the aisles. 'Let's do the time warp again,' " Aunt Libby sang, as passersby gave us strange looks.
"Uh, Kissing Coffins isn't a musical," I interrupted before my aunt got a citation for disturbing the peace.
"Isn't that a shame. Well, I've got a great place to take you," she raved, and led me around the block to Hot Gothics.
"Wow!" I shouted, pointing to a pair of black patent-leather boots and a torn black mesh sweater. "I've only seen this store on the Internet."
I was in goth heaven, and it was beautiful! Wicked Wiccas T-shirts, Hello Batty comics, and fake body tattoos.
The multipierced fuchsia-haired clerk in black shorts over black leggings, three-inch-heeled Mary Janes, and a gray mechanics shirt that said "Bob" walked over to me. She had the kind of style that in Dullsville could be seen only on satellite TV. And instead of my usual retail experience of either being ignored or seen as a potential thief, she greeted me as if I were a movie star at a Beverly Hills boutique.
"Can I help you? We have tons of stuff on sale."
I eagerly followed her around the store until I was exhausted from rack after rack of gothic clothing.
"Feel free to ask, if you need anything else," she said.
I had my arms stuffed with fishnet stockings, knee-high black boots, and an Olivia Outcast purse.
Libby modeled a black T-shirt that read "Vampires Suck."
I felt a pang in my heart and a lump in my throat.
"I'll buy it for you," she insisted, taking it to the cash register.
Normally I would have screamed with delight at a shirt like that. But now it only reminded me that Alexander was gone.
"You don't have to."
"Of course I do. I'm your aunt. We'll take this," she said, handing the clerk the shirt and her credit card.
I held my gothic goodies. Everything reminded me of Alexander.
"I'll just put these back," I said. But then I thought about how sexy I'd look in boots and black fishnets, if I found him again.
"We'll get these, too," my aunt said, seeing through me, and handed the clerk my merchandise.
Aunt Libby lived on a tiny tree-lined urban street with skinny row-house apartments from the 1940s—a sharp contrast to my contemporary suburban house and neighborhood in Dullsville. Her one-bedroom apartment was small but cozy, with a bohemian feel—flowered rugs, pillows, wicker chairs, and lavender potpourri filled the living room. Italian masks decorated the walls and Chinese lanterns hung from the ceiling.
"You can crash here," Aunt Libby said, pointing to a paisley futon couch in the living room.
"Thanks!" I said, excited about my new digs. "I appreciate you letting me visit you."
"I'm so happy you came!" she replied.
I placed my suitcase by the futon and glanced at a Pink Floyd clock hanging above the antique "just for show" fireplace, which she had filled with unlit candles. I had only a few hours until sunset.
Libby poured me carrot juice as I unpacked. "You must be hungry," she called from her tiny art deco kitchen. "You want an avocado wrap?"
"Sure," I said, plopping down at her vintage weathered-yellow dinner table with a beaded napkin holder and a wobbly leg. "I bet you have a hot date tonight," I hinted, as she topped my sandwich with sprouts. "But that's okay. I can take care of myself."
"Didn't your father tell you? I guess he wanted it to be a surprise."
"Tell me what?" I asked, envisioning Libby handing me VIP passes to the Coffin Club.
"I have a show tonight."
A show? I didn't travel all the way to Hipsterville to spend three hours sitting in a garage.
"It's downtown," she said proudly. "We're having a private performance tonight for the town's senior citizens, so I'm sorry to say you'll be the only one there without gray hair. But I know you'll love it." She grabbed an envelope hanging on her fridge by a rainbow magnet.
She opened the envelope, pulled out a ticket, and presented it to me.
THE VILLAGE PLAYERS PRESENT
Dracula
The Village Players performed in a former elementary school. The actresses' dressing room was a classroom that still smelled of erasers, and the large windows were covered with heavy shades. Mirrors replaced the chalkboard, and a long vanity lined with makeup cases, flowers, and congratulations cards sat in place of a teacher's desk.
As Aunt Libby applied her makeup and squirmed into her white Victorian dress, I spun a forgotten globe in the corner, letting a black-painted fingernail come to a rest on Romania.
Of course, under any other circumstances I would have loved to see a performance of Dracula. I would have gone every night, especially to see my aunt as an admittedly old, but I'm sure convincing, Lucy. I would have ordered front-row se
ats. But why would I want to see a fake Dracula when I could see the real thing sipping a Bloody Mary down the street at the Coffin Club?
The stage manager called from the hallway, "Five minutes."
I hugged Libby and told her to break a leg. I hoped she wouldn't notice my empty seat during the performance, but I couldn't worry about that as I hurried up the aisle to the back of the theater.
I pulled aside an elderly usher who looked like he might be one of the undead. "Which way to the Coffin Club?"
Some people spend all their lives searching for their soul mates. I had only an hour and a half to find mine.
5 The Coffin Club
I turned the corner to a sight I'd never seen before: More than a dozen young goths waiting in a line. Spiked, dyed black-and-white hair, purple floor-length extensions, billowy capes, knee-high black boots, and Morticia dresses. Lips, cheeks, tongues, foreheads pierced with metal studs and chains. Tattoos of bats, barbed wire, and esoteric designs covered their limbs, chests, and backs and, in many cases, their entire flesh.
Above the line of ghoulish goths, two coffins were outlined in red neon on the black brick building.
Impatience being my virtue, I snuck in front of a girl who was tying up loose corset laces in her medieval gown.
A Marilyn Manson look-alike standing in front of me turned to face me. "You from around here?"
"I don't think any of us are from around here, if you know what I mean," I said, all knowing.
"I'm Primus," he responded, extending his hand. His fingernails were longer than mine.
"I'm Raven," I replied.
"And I'm Poison," a girl in a tight black-and-red-striped rayon dress snapped, grabbing Primus's hand away.
The crowd continued moving forward. Primus and Poison showed their IDs and disappeared inside.
A bouncer in a Nosferatu T-shirt scrutinized me, blocking the black, wooden coffin-shaped door.
I held my card proudly. But when the devilish-looking bouncer started studying it, my confidence waned and my heart began to pound.
"This looks like it was taken yesterday."
"Well, it wasn't," I said with a sneer. "It was taken today."
The bouncer cracked a smile, then laughed. "I haven't seen you here before."
"Don't you remember me from last time? I was the girl in black."
The bouncer laughed again. He stamped my hand with an image of a bat and wrapped a barbed-wire-shaped plastic bracelet around my left wrist. "Here alone?" he asked.
"I'm hoping to meet a friend. An older dude, bald with a gray cloak. He was here recently. Have you seen him?"
The bouncer shrugged. "I only remember the girls," he said with a smile. "But, if he doesn't show, I'm off just before sunrise," he added, letting me pass and opening the coffin door.
I stepped through and entered a dark, crowded, smoke-filled, head-banging Underworld. I had to pause to let my eyes adjust.
Dry-ice fog floated over the clubsters like tiny ghosts. The cement walls were spray-painted black, with flashing neon headstones. Pale mannequins with huge bat wings hung from the ceiling, some bound in leather, others in Victorian suits or antique dresses. The bathroom doors were shaped like giant tombstones; one read MONSTERS and the other ghouls. Spiderwebs clung to the bottles behind the bar. A sign underneath a broken clock read NO garlic. Next to the dance floor a mini gothic flea market was set up on folding tables. A vampire clubster could buy anything from fake teeth to body tattoos and tarot card readings. A balcony loomed above the dance floor, accessible by a spiral staircase. Clubsters, with blood-filled amulets dangling from their necks and grimacing vampire teeth, seemed to be a mix of harmless outcast goths and maybe a few truly deranged. But if I had to bank that there were real vampires in this part of the world, some had to be mixing it up here, where they could walk hidden among the masses. The thrashing music of Nightshade blasted from the speakers. I could feel the stares as I walked by. Instead of the usual glares I was used to enduring whether walking down the halls of Dullsville High or sauntering past Prada-bes milling about town, I felt self-conscious for a different reason—I was being checked out. Hot Goths, Gorgeous Goths, even Geeky Goths were eyeing me as if I were a gothic Paris Hilton catwalking down a medieval runway. Even girls, sporting shrunken T-shirts that read SIN or pretentiously exposed their concave, multipierced bellies, scrutinized me territorially, as if threatened by any other single female with black eye shadow in a tight black dress. I fingered my raven-colored hair nervously, trying to be careful whom I made eye contact with. Were they real vampires smelling the scent of a mortal? Or just goths looking for a ghoul?
I pushed my way to the bar, where a longhaired bartender wearing lipstick and eye shadow was pouring red liquor into a martini glass.
"What can I get for you?" he asked. "Blood beer or an Execution?"
"I'd like an Execution, but make it a virgin," I replied with confidence. "I'm driving. Or should I say flying."
The grim bartender broke into a smile. He took two pewter bottles off the shelf and poured them into an iron-maiden-shaped glass.
"That'll be nine dollars."
"Can I keep the glass?" I asked. I sounded like an excited kid at an amusement park instead of an underage teen trying to be cool at a bar.
I handed him a ten. "Keep the change," I said proudly, like I'd seen my dad do a thousand times. I wasn't even sure I was leaving a proper tip.
I took a sip of the red slush, which tasted like tomato juice.
"Was a bald man wearing a dark cloak here the other night?" I asked, shouting over the blaring music. "He made a phone call from the club."
"That guy's here every night."
I smiled eagerly. "Really?"
"And at least fifty guys just like him," he answered loudly.
I turned around. He was right. There were as many shaved heads as there were spiked ones.
"He has creepy-looking eyes and a Romanian accent," I added.
"Oh, that dude?" he asked, pointing to a skinny, bald man with a gray cloak, talking to a girl in a Wednesday Addams dress in the corner.
"Thanks!"
I quickly pushed my way through the crowd.
"Jameson!" I shouted, tapping him on the shoulder. "It's me!"
He turned around. But instead of actually being a senior citizen, he just looked like one. I fled before he could ask me to bond with him for eternity.
I scooted by the gothic marketplace, not having time to stop and purchase pewter, crystal, or silver amulets or have my tarot cards read.
But when I passed the last booth, a palm reader grabbed my hand. "You are looking for love," she said.
A single girl in a club looking for love? What were the odds of that?
"Well, where is he?" I challenged, shouting over the blaring music.
"He's closer than you think," she answered mysteriously.
I glanced around the packed club. "Where?" I hollered.
The reader said nothing.
I slipped a couple of dollars into her palm. "Which direction?" I asked loudly.
She looked into my eyes. "East."
"The bar?"
"You must look in here," she said, and pointed with her other hand to her heart.
"I don't need pithy sayings. I need a map!" I chided, and continued to make my way through the crowd.
I stopped at the DJ booth.
"Did you see a bald man here recently?" I asked the DJ, who was dressed in a white lab coat with fake blood splattered on it.
"Who?"
"Did you see a bald man here last weekend?" I repeated.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"He may have been wearing a gray cloak."
"Who?"
"The man I'm asking about!" The music was so loud, even I couldn't hear myself.
"Ask Romeo at the bar," he hollered back.
"I already did!" I grumbled.
As I returned to the bar, I spotted a dark-haired guy in jeans and a charcoal gray T-shirt l
eaning against a Corinthian column on the dance floor.
I pushed past the clubsters, my heart beating full force. "Alexander?"
But on closer inspection, I was confronted with a twenty-something wearing a BITE me T-shirt and reeking of alcohol.
Frustrated, I headed back to the bar once again.
"That wasn't him," I said to Romeo. "The guy I'm talking about made a phone call from the Coffin Club."
Romeo turned to his Elviraish counterpart, who was placing a tip into her bra.
"Hey, this girl's looking for a bald guy who came to the club the other night," Romeo said. "He made a phone call from here."
"Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar," she said.
"Really?" I perked up.
"I remember because he asked to use the phone. No one asks anymore. Everyone has a cell."
"Did he tell you where he was staying?"
"No. He just said thank you and gave me a twenty for handing him our phone."
"Was he with anyone?" I asked, eager to receive news of Alexander.
"I think I saw him hanging out with a guy in a Dracula cape."
"Alexander?" I asked excitedly. "Was his name Alexander Sterling?"
Romeo looked at me as if he had recognized the name, but then turned away to wipe down the bar.
"I didn't have time for introductions," Elvira said. She turned away from me and waited on a guy dressed in leather waving a twenty.
Jameson had been here! And possibly Alexander, in the cape he had worn on the last night I saw him.
I looked around the club for any signs that might help me find him. Maybe Alexander found this place completely bogus. Was this club just full of outcast goths like me, or were any of them real vampires? Then I remembered the way to spot a true vampire was by not looking at them.
I reached into my purse and pulled out Ruby's compact. Every fanged clubster around me reflected back. I had to think of another plan. I replaced the compact and headed for the door.
Suddenly I felt a cold hand on my shoulder.
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