The Scribbled Victims

by Robert Tomoguchi

  I knew I hadn’t scribbled children for Yelena. “Who are these people?” I asked.

  Berthold answered me as he lifted, rather than dragged, the first child’s body out of the trunk. I didn’t know if he did that out of some kind of sorrowful respect or if they were just simply light enough to lift out. “I don’t know who they are. I rarely do.”

  I should have been horrified. I should have been repulsed that the woman I was fantasizing about being my mother could have killed two children. But, to be honest, I didn’t feel this way at all. I looked at the two children wrapped in plastic and knew they were just kids like I was a kid, but as for their deaths I saw them only as two children who were now as dead as I would soon be myself. I didn’t feel bad for them. I didn’t feel anything. No horror. No sympathy. I felt no relation to them. Berthold must have thought I was repulsed, however, because he quickly added, “I know Yelena didn’t kill the woman and kids, if that’s what you’re thinking. She said it was Hisato and his girls, and I believe her.”

  Even though Berthold had been wrong in what he assumed I was feeling, there was still some comfort in knowing Yelena didn’t kill them. It meant she didn’t surprise me. She was still the woman I believed her to be—full of guilt and regret and trying to do the best she could to feed only on those I told her deserved it.

  All four bodies now lay atop the dirt. Berthold walked across the barn and mounted the backhoe. He fired up the engine and turned on the headlights before driving it over to where the bodies were. He was clearly adept at using the equipment, maneuvering it around the car and bodies and using the scoop to dig into the earthen floor. In no time at all a deep grave was dug. He shut the engine and got out.

  “You sure you don’t want to wait in the car?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. I wanted to stay and see everything.

  He dragged the smallest of the bodies to the edge of the grave. He knelt and rolled the body to unwrap the plastic. Once the plastic was removed my eyes widened on the little girl laid out dead on the dirt. She was so pallid that it was obvious she had been drained completely until bloodless. Berthold glanced at me and my eyes met his. He didn’t look sad either. He was just doing the work Yelena required of him. He remained on his knees and gently rolled the child’s body into the grave. She landed face up.

  He did the same with the other bodies, starting with the boy and then the wife. They all landed face up. Berthold must have known how to ensure that. The grave he dug was wide enough for the three of them to be laid side by side, straight and at peace. His manners changed when he got to the body of the tourist; he used his boot to push the body into the open hole. The father’s body crumpled into the grave, laying twisted over his former family.

  Berthold climbed back onto the backhoe, started it, and began to scoop the soil he had unearthed, depositing it over the bodies. Once the hole was filled, he expertly used the scoop to pack the earth over them and tamp the dirt flat.

  He drove the backhoe to where it had been when we arrived. He walked back to the car and opened the passenger door. He had a small towel in the car and a few bottles of water. He gave one to me to drink, drank one himself, and then asked me to turn around. He undressed and soaked the towel with water and washed his body and face as best as he could before putting his suit and dress shoes back on.

  He locked the barn after we had driven out. I sat in the front seat again. I told him I’d try to stay awake this time but he told me we wouldn’t be back in Los Angeles for over three hours. The desert landscape passing by outside my window quickly made me sleepy again, so I took off my seatbelt and turned in my seat and reached around to the pocket and retrieved his scribble. I sat back down and refastened my seatbelt. I turned to Berthold and picked up where I left off with him. He looked over at me.

  “Are you looking into my soul again?” he asked.

  “I wouldn’t really tell Yelena what I said I would. About you jacking off to me or me being naked. I just wanted to come here. I wanted to see what happens to my scribbles. You know?”

  He just nodded his head and took another sip of water from a bottle. I don’t know if he believed me.

  “Don’t hate me, Mr. Berthold. Because I like you.”

  “I don’t hate you, Orly.”

  “Maybe not hate. But I don’t think you like me like I like you.”

  “It’s not that. Believe me.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “I’m afraid of you.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know how to answer that.”

  But I looked where I was at in his scribble and I saw it. He was afraid that somehow I would replace him. Not in the way of serving Yelena as he did, but that I would become the biggest thing in her life and she wouldn’t look at him any longer. He recalled what it was like when he first met her, when Marcel was still in the picture. Berthold had impressed her in his representation of her in a land dispute involving the border of the expansive plot of land out in the desert where we had just dumped four bodies. Yelena should have lost the case if it weren’t for Berthold’s cunning in manipulating the law. Yelena approached him and offered him immortality if he would serve her for a period of no longer than ten mortal years. If he declined, she would make him forget the offer ever escaped from her lips. To prove to him her own immortal state, she produced a tintype photo of herself from the previous century. She looked as youthful in it as she did now. He doubted the authenticity, which pleased her, so she fed in front of him and he began to believe. The next night he returned to the Malibu house on the shore and accepted. But in those first couple of years Berthold was nothing more than a servant to her. All of her attention went to Marcel until the night he vanished. She mourned his loss and he comforted her and eventually his place in her life grew. She regarded him as a friend and he loved her deeply.

  “You don’t have to be jealous of me, Mr. Berthold,” I said. “She’ll be all yours again soon. I’m dying. Didn’t she tell you?”

  “Don’t say that, Orly. You’re still young.”

  “You’re nice, Mr. Berthold,” I said. And I leaned over and rested my head on his right arm and he continued to drive, steering with his left. “People lie to me all the time, you know? They tell me I just need to be strong. But I know what’s true and what’s not. I could be the strongest girl in the world but my blood is still gonna kill me.”

  After a moment he spoke. “I’m sorry, Orly. I’m also sorry that you know the truth. I won’t lie to you about it again.”

  I nuzzled into him deeper and, not long after, I fell asleep again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When I opened my eyes again, the sun was high above us. I woke in a sweat. I thought the sun must have been beating down on me through the windshield, but when I tried to sit up, it was difficult to do so, as I was again fatigued. I had to grip the door handle to pull myself up. Once upright, I felt dizzy. Outside we were passing tall buildings again but something was different. They all appeared yellowish in hue and were slightly blurry. The glass panes of the high-rises all seemed to lose their sharp rectangular shape; instead they were slightly rounded and looked like soap bubbles. It wasn’t the sun that had made me so warm. I was feverish like I had been in the ICU with my sepsis.

  “You okay?” Berthold asked me.

  I took a deep breath. It was difficult to speak. “Are we almost there?”

  “About twenty minutes. Is something wrong? You look scared.”

  “I don’t feel good,” I said, short of breath, and then rested my head on the window beside me and shut my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see a world outside that wasn’t making sense.

  “Orly, look at me again.”

  I opened my eyes and jostled my head until it fell over in his direction.

  “Smile for me,” he said.

  What a strange request, I thought.

  “Open your mouth. Let me see.” He placed his thumb on my lower lip and pulled down unti
l he could see my teeth. My gums were bleeding. It wasn’t until he told me that I noticed the taste of blood in my mouth. I knew it meant I needed platelets. He placed his hand on mine and squeezed it and right then I felt like I had to wipe my nose, which was also a struggle. It felt wet underneath my nose, and when I looked at my hand I saw it was coated in fresh blood.

  Berthold leaned over me as he drove and opened the glove box and removed a stack of mismatched napkins from various fast food restaurants. He handed them to me. I raised them to my nose, but it wasn’t long before even that seemed to require a great exertion of strength. I let my hand fall and I could feel the blood continuing to flow from my nostrils. All I wanted to do was lay down and I let my head slump onto the window again.

  Berthold thought quickly of what to do. At the freeway interchange, he changed directions. He knew he needed to take me to the hospital, but he also had to figure out his story as to how he found me, child fugitive that I was. It was still afternoon, and Yelena would be below ground, asleep. He might need a story for her whereabouts as well.

  *

  When I awoke again, I felt chilled to my bones even though I knew a blanket had been spread out over me. The room was dim but not dark. I could see fluorescent lights that were left off. They were bordered by those familiar ceiling tiles. I was in the hospital again. I was receiving a transfusion.

  I was alone in my room. Berthold was down the hall talking to the police. He told them he found me wandering outside of Yelena’s house and that I looked terribly ill and he drove me straight here. Yelena wasn’t at home at the time and he had only come by to drop off some legal documents. They believed him but continued to ask him a lot of questions for their report. About an hour later, Sigrid came to the hospital. He repeated the story to her and eventually she asked about Yelena. He told her he left her a voicemail but hadn’t heard back yet. That was true—he did leave her a voicemail so that she would know I was back in the hospital the moment she woke.

  I had never felt this bad off. Maybe had I not left the hospital the night before I wouldn’t be so wretched now. I knew it was my fault. When Yelena came to get me I didn’t tell her that the day after she took me out to dinner, I had a transfusion of red blood cells. And worse, I needed two more over the next five days. My doctors had talked softly out in the hall and I strained to hear them but couldn’t understand a thing. Still, I knew it couldn’t be good. But when she came to my window, my spirits lifted and revived my strength enough that I told myself I could go with her and not tell her a thing. But I guess I only had enough strength left for one more day on the outside. And that’s what bothered me most. Yelena had finally come to get me, and this time she would have kept me even if it meant going into hiding, but my leukemia thwarted that and put me back to bed with a transfusion needle in my arm.

  I was in and out of sleep, but at one point I knew Sigrid and Berthold were there, and later it was only Berthold. He sat beside my bed until it grew late.

  Yelena came with the night, wearing a black overcoat. I was asleep. Berthold stood up immediately when she appeared in the doorway. It was clear she had gotten dressed quickly. Berthold was nervous, not knowing how she would react to my hospitalization or him taking me out to the desert, which he told her. She listened and then softly asked him to go and he left.

  Yelena came to me and placed her hand on my cheek. I woke and knew the cold touch was hers. My eyes opened slowly. “Mommy,” I said.

  “Shhhh,” she said to quiet me and keep what strength I had left. She leaned forward and kissed my face and then sat on the edge of the bed holding my hand.

  “I made him take me. Don’t be mad at him.”

  Again, she shushed me gently. “I’m not mad at him and I’m not mad at you,” she whispered, but then quickly turned her head. The shift had changed and a nurse had entered my room to check on me. It was Myrna, the nurse who always smelled like she had just peeled tangerines. She knew me and knew I was an orphan.

  “I’m sorry, only family is allowed now,” she said to Yelena. This hurt my heart as it reminded me that I had no family and that Yelena was not my mother even if I addressed her as such.

  Yelena stood and looked Myrna in the eyes. “You have forgotten me. I am not here. Your work is done and you will see to other patients.” Yelena nodded her head and Myrna left without a word.

  Yelena resumed her seat on my bed just as a tear rolled out of my eye. She caught it and looked at me.

  “I don’t want to die,” I choked, and my tears began to fall more freely.

  “Shhhh,” she said softly. “You’re not going to…” but she didn’t finish her sentence.

  Yelena struggled with herself. Her heart pained to see me dying and she felt helpless. Thoughts raced through her mind. She could release me from my sickness that instant by giving me her blood. But if she did she would force me to live an endless lifetime of nights, killing and feeding on human blood as she woefully did herself. But perhaps I could scribble forever and the two of us, mother and daughter, could murder nightly, killing only those who sinned against humanity. But if she gave me her blood I would certainly die, and rebirth into the undead was never a certainty. Over the centuries, countless tales were told, telling of immortal vampires killing their beloved with their blood gift, hoping to make them immortal and keep them by their side for all time, only to have them never awaken, their bodies instead rotting in the earth until they were dust. But she had to try because my death was imminent and I had just told her that I did not want to die. And she could hear the fear of death vibrating in my throat as I said those words. Was it a plea for mercy? What would be merciful? Letting me go into eternal sleep or damning me for eternity?

  “No, Mommy. I want…” and everything went black.

  She knew I went unconscious and time was slipping. She decided to act. She jerked the chain around my neck, breaking it, and placed it and the kaleidoscope key into her pocket. She leaned forward, close to my face, and sunk her teeth deep into my throat and drank, stealing my blood, made bitter with my cancer. The beeping of my heart monitor slowed as my own pulse slowed. She drank, careful not to spill a single drop, careful to drink only enough to mix my blood well with hers. And when I flatlined, she released me, and bit her bottom lip until a drop of blood formed at the surface. She kissed the wound she left on my neck with her lips, assuring her blood spread over my wound, healing the punctures until they were undetectable. The smear of her blood she left on my skin evaporated.

  Nurses came running and Yelena stepped away. They didn’t try hard to revive me. At my bedside they mourned more than panicked. Despite the headache I had always been to them, sneaking away to the cafeteria and later running away from the hospital altogether, they loved me because I was a child whose life was being robbed from her. Doctors came and I was pronounced dead and the heart monitor was switched off.

  *

  It was nearly midnight when the last of the doctors left me. It was also then that Sigrid returned to the hospital. The staff knew she was my social worker and walked her to my room where I lay dead. One of the doctors told Sigrid that he was very sorry. Sigrid nodded and he left, and to Sigrid’s surprise, remaining in my room was Yelena, who had finally allowed herself to be seen. Yelena wasn’t happy that Sigrid had returned so soon after I had died, but she would have to go with it.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” Myrna said as if she was seeing Yelena for the first time, “only family is allowed.”

  “It’s okay,” Sigrid said, “she’s with me.”

  Myrna nodded and left the room.

  “Thank you,” Yelena said to Sigrid, not turning to her, her eyes still fixed on my corpse. Though she knew my muscles were still relaxing and that it would be at least an hour until rigor mortis began to set in, she knew time was ticking. She needed Sigrid to leave.

  “I know you loved her,” Sigrid said softly.

  It soothed Yelena that her love for me was recognized and this time she turned to Sigrid. “Ag
ain, thank you,” she said, quietly.

  Their conversation continued in these hushed tones.

  “I loved her too,” Sigrid replied and took Yelena by the hand. Yelena felt her flinch when she felt the icy skin, but she collected herself quickly and squeezed Yelena’s hand.

  “What will happen to her body?”

  “She’ll be cremated. As she has no family, her remains will be handled by the Child and Family Agency. I believe they scatter the ashes. I can find that out and also find out if you can attend the scattering, if that’s the case.”

  “I don’t think I could bear it,” Yelena replied, but this was because she knew it would happen within the hours of daylight. “I’d like to pay for her funeral and give her a proper burial with a marked grave so that she isn’t forgotten. Is this something you can arrange for me?”

  “Yes. I believe I can.”

  “My lawyer can assist if needed.”

  “I don’t think that will be necessary, but thank you.” She squeezed Yelena’s hand more firmly. “And thank you, for providing for her like this. She was a very special girl.”

  They stood for a few minutes, saying nothing. Yelena wanted to hurry Sigrid out of the room but didn’t want to raise any suspicions. Sigrid began to weep gently. “May I be alone with her?” she asked.

  Reluctantly, Yelena assented. “I’ll be in the waiting room,” she said, and Sigrid released her hand.

  Once Yelena had left, Sigrid moved closer to my body. “My poor girl,” she whispered, “you’re in heaven now.” She leaned forward and kissed my forehead. She stayed with my body until her tears dried. When she exited the room, she was startled to see Yelena standing before her, waiting to get in. Yelena outstretched her arms to hug Sigrid, who embraced her readily but again flinched at the coolness of Yelena’s body. Their hug expired quickly and Yelena spoke.