Still in a daze, happy to be alive, I passed the schoolyard. There weren’t any suckers there anymore, only a pile of human bodies, the remainder of the onslaught. I turned my face away, not wanting to be confronted with dead people I had known. On automatic pilot, I turned into the shadows at the back of the main building. Unconsciously, I was on my way home.
“Kate, is that you?” came an unexpected voice. It seemed to come from out of the dark.
The air felt cold in my lungs as I halted and inhaled sharply. No, I must have been mistake.
I knew that voice though.
I lifted my head, and I saw the silhouette of my sister Julie walking toward me. I thought I was dreaming. A group of young women followed behind her. I hardly recognized my sister as she was wearing a long overcoat, covering most of her body. For the last three years I had only seen her wearing the shortest of shorts, and skirts for that matter, much to our parents’ annoyance. But her voice and overall posture were definitely Julie’s.
“Kate, it is you.” She was close enough for me to see her smile now.
After a moment of initial relaxation, a new wave of panic crept over me. Was she turned or not? I was confused about what to do. Flee or fight? If I had been an animal, I would have probably started preening myself. Instead, I resisted the urge to pull up my socks.
As my sister and the women approached, I saw blood smears on their faces and on the necks of some of them. They were suckers.
I threw a glance back toward the sunlight that lit the ground past the building, but, due to my contemplations, my sister and her company were now too close for me to turn around and run. I put my hands in the pockets of my jacket and hitched up my shoulders in a sad attempt to protect my neck.
“Hi Jules,” I greeted my sister. “They turned you too?”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Didn’t stand a chance but doesn’t it feel great?”
The other girls all exclaimed positive remarks in reply.
My eyes squinted as I took the situation in. I knew I had to go with the flow if I wanted to survive. “Yeah, never felt better,” I said, copying the feeling of exultation in the group.
Suddenly Julie tried to pull my jacket collar down. My survival instinct kicked in, and I pulled away from her, pushing her arm away from me.
“Ooh, touchy, sister?” She laughed.
“Yeah, you could say that again.”
“Don’t you worry. Once your fangs have dropped, the pain will stop.”
Phew, now that’s a convenient inconvenience.
“Right,” I said.
She didn’t persist trying to look at my neck, but her frown told me she wasn’t totally convinced yet.
“It just happened, you know,” I said, attempting to lessen her doubt.
“No shit? Then where’s your pack?”
I had no idea what she was on about, so I just lifted my shoulders.
“Never mind. I’ve picked up a stray here and there along the way. Anyway,” and she exposed two round scars in her own neck. “You will be proud of your marks later, you know.”
“Just give me some time. I’m sure the feeling will kick in shortly.”
“That’s okay, sis. I understand. I love you, you know. I’m so glad I found you.” She stepped forward and gave me a big hug.
Those words and the hug combined suddenly overwhelmed me with emotion, and I so wanted to hug her back right there and then, but I was afraid I would expose myself for the fraud that I was. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the memory of Caleb popped up, but I had no time to dwell on it. Survival was stronger than any other emotion at the moment.
Julie turned around and introduced me to the other girls. “Everybody, this is my sister Kate. Please make her feel welcome in the pack.”
The other girls smiled, said ‘hi’, ‘nice to meet you,’ and some gave me pats on the arm, uttering more welcoming words.
I smiled back at them. “Thanks, guys.”
Girls, Kate. They’re all girls.
It seemed the girls all followed Julie as she took the lead. “Okay, ladies. Let’s go and find a place to sleep the day away.”
That just sounds weird.
There was no way I could get away from the group at this very moment, so I decided that helping them would be my best chance of survival, for the time being. As long as Julie didn’t find out I wasn’t turned, I reasoned I'd be safe. We were standing next to the back of the main school building, and my science classroom was on the third floor. I told Julie the room had blackout curtains, to aid light experiments, and that the school very likely wouldn’t be used in the foreseeable future, knowing that a gathering and feeding had just taken place in the schoolyard. Julie agreed it was a good location to make camp for the day.
There was the problem of how to get inside the building. The sun was rapidly rising and we couldn’t go around the corner to get to the entrance without getting a bit of a suntan. I had always wanted a suntan, but pushing for one now didn’t seem like a good idea health-wise, and the danger didn’t lie in the sun’s rays. My sister had said she loved me, but I still didn’t know how much she really loved me now she was turned. As for the other girls, I didn’t know or trust them at all, and crossed my fingers they wouldn’t smell my ‘unturned flesh.’
I jumped when I heard glass shattering. It appeared one of the girls had picked up a rock and had thrown it through a school window. It made everybody tense for a few seconds.
“Good thinking, Ellie,” my sister said to the girl who had thrown the rock. Ellie, a short, plump, blond girl beamed a broad smile back at us. Julie began to clear away the glass from the window frame so we could climb through.
Never you mind, Ellie. It’s only Mr. Finkle’s room, and I am sure Charlie wouldn’t mind when I tell him you did this to his room. If I ever see him again.
Thinking about Charlie’s fate made Joy leave the building.
Once all the girls were inside, I showed them the way to my classroom. This meant we had to go through the hallway with windows letting through sunlight. I knew glass filters out UVB rays, but not UVA, and as such the windows formed a hazard. I guess Julie had already figured this out before and told all the new suckers, including myself, to keep our skin and eyes covered while walking past the windows. Of course, I couldn’t resist the urge to keep an eye on everybody, so I peeked between my fingers. To my surprise, some of the girls positioned themselves in front of the windows. They had their hoods over their heads, held their long coats open with gloved hands, and stood there with their backs turned toward the sun until the last girl passing pulled them along. I was actually glad they did this as seeing the sun-rays further up the hall hurt my eyes after spending a whole night in the dark like a bat.
When we made it to my classroom, I hit the button to close the blackout curtains, turned on the neon lighting, and we all relaxed. We cleaned ourselves up at the sinks of the science desks. As I was waiting for my turn, my eyes fell on the door to the storeroom. My thoughts drifted to when I was here with Charlie. Thinking of him felt like somebody dropped a brick in my stomach.
Did he find a way to escape the sucker attack? Would he know I was still alive, and human? Would he still be alive?
My breath turned shallow and unconsciously, I began picking the loose bit of laminate of a desk, something I always had to tell the kids to stop doing. I was rescued from my thoughts by one of the girls when she tapped me on my shoulder.
“Here,” she said as she handed me something from a bag she was carrying. “I bet you forgot to bring one.”
I looked at the object in my hand. She had given me a roll-on deodorant.
That’s not the brand I normally use.
I was lost for words, so I just smiled at her in thanks and pocketed the deodorant.
Explanations
Once I had cleaned myself up and used the deodorant, I sat down next to my sister, who sat leaning against the front desk facing the room.
“I’m afraid there’s nobo
dy in the building to feed on,” I said to her. I hoped she didn’t hear the tremor in my voice. As far as I knew, I wasn’t lying, but I wasn’t sure I was right either. I didn’t want her to go looking, just in case someone was indeed hiding somewhere in the school that I wasn’t aware of.
Possibly Charlie.
“It’s okay, sis. We had a drink on the bus on the way over.” Her own words made her giggle.
How can she live with herself?
I couldn’t understand how an average, peace-loving person, like I knew my sister was, turn into such a vicious killer. She had never hurt a fly. Sure, there had been the odd girlfriend bitchiness, but that was Julie for you. She never shied away from speaking her mind. Most of the time she was right too. I couldn’t figure out why she didn’t have a problem with ripping somebody’s neck open all of a sudden. Why did all these girls, who seemed so nice, have no objections to killing others? I had to know. As I was too impatient to beat around the bush, I decided to be straight to the point. I figured I’d be safe with Julie being my sister and didn’t think she would bite my head off over a question. I hoped she hadn’t changed that much.
“Julie?”
“Yeah?”
“Why don’t you have a problem killing people?” There, the question was out. I didn’t know if I should have known as I was supposed to be turned, but I had to find out.
“That’s quite a question you’ve got there.” She didn’t look at me at first, but after a few moments, she answered. “It’s something to get used to for sure, but you have no choice, really.”
I was relieved I hadn’t given myself away with the question. “What do you mean, ‘no choice’? Can’t you just not do it?”
Julie stood up, and for a moment I thought I’d blown it, but she only took off her coat and sat down again. All the while, I could imagine the cogs turning in her head.
“Once you’re turned,” she said, “you’re not the same person anymore. The hunger takes over, and you must do it to survive. At first, your mind doesn’t want to. It’s the thirst that drives you. You’ll notice yourself when it kicks in. However, as soon as you sink your fangs into a neck and taste that sweet, sweet blood, it’s so fucking good.” Her whole face lit up, erasing the gloominess that was there a few seconds before. “And then when you’re changing, you just know you’re becoming a better person. The old you was weak and insignificant. We are a superior species, Kate.” She almost sounded like a preacher, having reached her revelation.
Um, no, you’re not. You need a different number of chromosomes to be a different species.
It was scary to listen to her, as if she was high on drugs. This drug, bug, or whatever was causing this pandemic, was eliminating rational thinking. It had to be. My sister had never believed in ‘better’ people. She had always gone by the motto ‘live and let live’ and had been dead against those who thought they were better than others. I worked hard to get a smile on my face, to pretend I was looking forward to my change.
“Come, let me have a look at your marks,” she said out of the blue.
I nearly died.
She smiled the sweetest smile at me and put a gentle hand on my arm. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. It’s just that I have to make sure you don’t get an infection.”
As it was clear from her voice she wasn’t going to take no for an answer, I reluctantly resigned myself to the fact that I was surely going to be found out this time. What else was I to do in this room full of suckers? From a pocket of her large coat, Julie retrieved a packet of sterile gauze swabs and a bottle of disinfectant. She told me to open up the zipper of my jacket. I was holding my breath as I turned my head so she could have a good look at my neck. I strained my eyes to watch her face, trying to detect the first hint of hostility.
“You were lucky. It looks like a clean bite,” she said and applied some of the disinfectant to my wounds. The sting of it made me gasp. “Alex there wasn’t so blessed.” Julie pointed to one of the girls in the far corner. “She nearly got half her throat ripped out by some idiot.”
I looked at Alex and saw she had a bandage around her neck. I couldn’t help thinking it was the result of an encounter with Mr. Ugly Sweater. He seemed like a person who didn’t care about making wounds like that.
While Julie was sticking two round Band-Aids on my ‘marks,’ I asked her why she was in Bullsbrook.
“I came looking for you, silly.” She had a huge grin on her face. “I wasn’t going to let you stay unturned now, was I?”
I smiled back at her. I couldn’t help but feel loved.
“Thanks so much for thinking of me, but you were too late,” I lied.
“Yeah, but at least I found you. I hadn’t been able to find Mom and Dad. When I went to your house, I was afraid you had been taken when you weren’t there. I’m so glad I’ve found you alive… and not with any of the other packs…” She looked uneasy when she let those last words trail. I didn’t give it much thought. I was too eager to know more about how the girls were able to stand in the sunlight. As Julie prepared another disinfecting gauze swab, I asked.
“Jules, about this sunlight thing. I saw earlier that it was possible for some of the girls to stand directly in the light. Why didn’t they get a seizure? Isn’t it true what they told us on TV?”
Julie treated my grazed hands and knees while she explained. I had to bite my lip when she put the disinfectant on the wounds. When she wiped the graze with the gauze, touching every exposed nerve ending in the process, tears welled up in my eyes from the pain. Julie was too occupied to see it, and I refused to stop her as I was too eager to hear.
“Sunlight does have an effect on us, but it changes,” she said. “At first you are very sensitive and you have a seizure as soon as you see daylight, you don’t even have to touch it. But as time goes on, your body adapts, and the effect gets less. The oldest of us, including me, are hardly affected by it at all now. When we get close to sunshine we slip into this aura and are slowed down, but it doesn’t make us have a full seizure unless the sunlight hits our skin. It serves as a warning sign and lets you get away from wherever you are, away from the light.”
My mind drifted off to Sasha, and how she had just stood there with sunlight on her clothing, frozen. I realized Sasha was one of the older suckers, and that she must have stayed with us to warn Caleb of the coming sun instead of going off to feed as she was told to do. Then Julie’s words sank in.
“What? Wait. I don’t get it. You say you’re one of the older ones? But you live near here, don’t you? Did you move to Portland and forget to tell me about it?”
Julie’s eyes flickered up reproachfully as she pulled one leg of my jeans down. “No, I didn’t move. I was on a business trip in the city with my boss when it happened.”
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you accompanied your boss on business trips.”
“I didn’t.” She yanked the other leg of my jeans down. “My boss had other reasons for bringing me, more to do with occupying his wandering hands. As soon as I was turned, I made sure they never wandered again. Not on me, not on anybody.”
I could tell there was no love lost there and more to the story. However, it wasn’t a story I was interested in at the moment. “Tell me more about what it’s like being bitten.”
“There isn’t much more to tell,” she sighed. She sat down again next to me, leaning against the desk.
“Are you superwoman now?” I joked.
“Yes and no,” she said.
I eyeballed her in disbelief.
“Get out of here! You can fly?”
Julie laughed.
“Of course not! At first, you will even be weak,” she said. “Your body needs time to adapt, and that’s why you have to feed a lot. Your muscles will grow at a rapid pace and to be able to do this, they need nutrients, lots of blood. You will also want to sleep for long periods, but, like the need for feeding, it will wear off. I’ve taken over this system I’ve learned from other packs. We hunt as a pack t
o provide for the young ones, who are too weak to hunt for themselves. We protect them during the day when they sleep to get stronger. I’m not sure when the transition is finished exactly, I’m still changing, but my body has adapted a fair bit. I’m as strong as an ox.” She beamed proudly and pumped her biceps for me.
I was in awe of the size of her muscles. Julie was never one to hit the gym.
“How ‘old’ are you?” I asked her.
“I have turned just over a week ago. I am not one of the oldest suckers around, but I am the oldest of this pack. I am the one taking care of these girls,” she said. She let her eyes wander around the room with a look I’d never seen on her before.
“Why are there no men in your group, um, I mean…pack?”
She looked back at me and grinned. “Because I haven’t met a man yet who will take instructions from a woman.”
We both giggled.
She began to tell me how she was turned. How the suckers had stormed the office building she was in, and how she had tried to protect some of the girls there while others just ran.
I think it took less than five minutes before my mind wandered off. She was still the same sister with the same storytelling habits she’d always had, drifting off into non-essential extras that made it hard to follow the storyline. It was another few minutes before she patted my knee.
“Go and get some sleep. I can see you need it.”
“Thanks, Jules,” I said, followed by a weak smile. She got up, and I tried to make myself comfortable on the floor with my jacket under my head. My eyes followed Julie as she went through the room, making sure everybody was okay. A fuzzy feeling warmed my body. I felt proud she was my sister.
Reflection
Sleep didn’t come right away even though I was exhausted. There’s just no rest for the guilty. When I closed my eyes, I saw images of Sue and Charlie. Sue’s smile morphing into a scream as she was being dragged away by suckers. Charlie tickling me, but when I turned around to laugh with him, he wasn’t there. The feeling it gave me was similar to the sensation of falling into a bottomless pit. I couldn’t handle the images, so to escape them I opened my eyes and looked around. I didn’t dare to close my eyes again. Unfortunately, even awake, I couldn’t escape the feeling of how I wished I could have saved Sue. Whatever I did, I was reminded of the fact that I had survived and she was gone.
Living Like A Vampire Page 8