No Shelter from Darkness

by Evans, Mark D.

  Up and dressed, Beth slowly descended the stairs, feeling like she was heading to the Headmaster. Her father was in the living room, just making himself comfortable in his armchair. Now that he was back, no one would dare sit in that seat when he was around. “Morning,” he said.

  Beth grimaced, pretending it was a smile.

  “Are you going to sit down?”

  She looked at the chair and rubbed her neck. Sitting down was like committing to a hearing; standing up she could still run away. The choice held her frozen for a moment before she lowered herself into the chair.

  “How are you feeling?” her father asked.

  She shrugged. “Okay, I suppose. Confused. Nervous.”

  “I meant physically.”

  “Good. I think. I'm not tired or anything. Not like I've been saying I am.”

  “And you're not feeling hungry or thirsty? What you've been describing as fatigue, that's not coming back at all?”

  Why are you asking these questions? Don't you already know what was going on? “Hmm. I don't feel tired at all. I suppose, now I think about it, I do have a faint ache.”

  “Where?”

  Beth shrugged. “Everywhere. And my gum's still sore, but that's just because of my loose tooth.”

  “Your eyeteeth?”

  “It's just the one.”

  “The others will come out soon enough,” her father said, again with a knowing tone. “But it's important that you tell me as soon as you feel a hunger or thirst that food or water won't quench. Okay?”

  Beth knew he was talking about the craving she'd been feeling before and during both bouts of fatigue. Now, she felt a strong bout of nausea coming on. “Why?”

  Her father looked down and breathed in, preparing himself. When he looked back up at Beth, his eyes were cold. “It means you need more blood.”

  There it was. That word that Beth had been thinking about in the back of her mind, too frightened to bring it forward. At its mention she felt revulsion, and an odd, very distant sense of yearning. She wasn't feeling the craving that her father had mentioned, but she somehow knew that if she was, that word would have made her taste-buds tingle. That realization made her nausea worse. She sat forward, resting her arms on her knees. “What's wrong with me?”

  “What do you think is wrong with you?”

  “Dad, please. Just tell me.”

  He nodded. “Every culture has a name or word to describe your kind. They change and evolve over time, giving rise to new names. The English-speaking world seems to have settled on a new form of an old word, but ultimately they all mean the same thing, in essence.”

  Beth knew it was coming but wouldn't believe it until he spoke the words.

  “You are a vampire.”

  Beth stared at her father for a long time. The nausea faded until it was completely gone and her breathing was calm and regular for the first time since she'd woken. Her father stared back. Waiting.

  Beth burst out laughing. She couldn't help it. Her father sat straight-faced, which only made her laugh harder. She couldn't remember laughing so much in all her life. She was faintly aware of him sitting forward and trying to speak, his form blurred slightly from the tears, but while in hysterics only a few words made it to her ears.

  “Elizabeth … not funny … have … about this.”

  Beth unsteadily stood up and walked to the front window. She was trying to calm herself down by looking out and concentrating on the road, and then the houses opposite. It was approaching mid-July and the day was undeniably beautiful. From where she stood there were no obvious signs of war damage on her short street. She started taking deep breaths, but her shoulders still shrugged slightly from internal laughter.

  “Elizabeth … it's only a word, but laughing about it won't make your thirst for blood any less real.”

  Beth looked back at her father who remained seated. His deadly serious expression hadn't faltered, and just like that her laughter was gone. The remnant of her smile faded. With her back turned on her father once more, she stared down at the pavement right outside. This wasn't a joke. She stood there for a long, silent while until she began to shake her head. “No,” she said under her breath. “No, I don't believe it.”

  “You have to,” said her father.

  She turned round in a fury. “No!”

  “Beth …”

  She ran up the stairs to her room, slamming the door behind her. Collapsing on her bed, she rested on her side and allowed a tear to roll over the bridge of her nose and drip to the sheets. Even with the blind only half opened, her room was bright. It felt so inappropriate for the circumstances. It should be dark; cloudy. Raining, with a thunderstorm brewing. Evidently, there were a lot of things beyond her control.

  She watched the minute hand of her clock, unaware of its movement. Tears flowed in phases. They welled whenever she thought of the badger and the globule of blood on Susan's arm. Her mind saved itself by thinking about washing dishes or sweeping the floor, and they dried only to well again at the thought of what she was becoming. Finally exhausted, Beth's stinging eyes drooped and she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  The bottom step of the stairs squeaked. Beth woke with a start. Her father slowly limped up, step by step. Beth considered screaming at him to go away, to leave her alone. But the anger it required had passed. The knob turned and her door opened. Beth, with her concentration returned to the clock, felt the end of her bed rock as her father sat on it. But he said nothing.

  She took a long, deep breath and let it out. “I'm not human. Am I?”

  “No.” He let his response settle. “At least, I don't think so.” Beth strained to look up and around at him until he continued with an explanation. “One of the most common theories of vampire lore is that they—you—were all once human.”

  “So I've been turned into this?”

  “If you have, it happened before we adopted you.”

  “But why? Why me?”

  “I really don't know, Elizabeth.”

  “You know a lot though.”

  “I've done my homework.”

  Beth sat up, cross-legged at the head of her bed. “So what's the cure? How do I go back to being human?”

  “There is no cure. This is what you are.”

  “But I don't want to be like this. I don't want to live off …” she closed her eyes as if it would make saying the word easier, but it didn't. It was stuck in her throat.

  “I wish there was a cure, I really do. But as this Dr. Hawkins has discovered, your body is no longer capable of producing red blood cells.”

  “That's why I need it?”

  Her father nodded. “Blood cells have a finite lifespan, but whereas humans carry on producing those cells to replace the ones that die, you don't.”

  “Why now? Why all of a sudden?”

  Her father shrugged. “I can only assume it's been brought on by puberty.”

  Beth shied away slightly. It was weird enough hearing that word from her mother. “Will anything else happen? Are there any other changes?”

  “I don't know for certain.”

  Beth took that as a “yes”. Tears began to well once more. “What are they?” she sobbed.

  “We just have to take this one step at a time, Elizabeth.”

  “What if I hurt someone?”

  Her father hesitated. “I don't think you're capable of hurting anyone. It's not in your character.”

  His arm twitched, as if he was going to lift it but then changed his mind. Committing, he did lift it, and he lightly held Beth's shoulder. Through blurred vision she looked into her father's steely brown eyes. “I want you to remember something,” he said. “What you are doesn't define who you are.”

  Her father's hand felt awkward. He'd never been very good at sharing his feelings with her. She always felt he'd kept a certain distance from her. But at that moment she felt the need to be held, to feel safe and secure. She felt like she'd been given a great task, a test to pass.
A clearly signposted fork in the road lay ahead. Already she was afraid that she would choose the one that led to a dark dead end. She threw her arms around her father and cried into his shoulder. At first he hesitated, but finally he hugged her back.

  And Beth cried harder.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE WORLD HAD CHANGED. Like one of her vivid dreams, everything that surrounded Beth seemed, on some level, surreal. It brought with it an incredible sense of déjà vu that never ceased, yet which she could never place. All the while, the impossibility and absurdity of her father's revelation never escaped her.

  Then, on Monday morning, it suddenly clicked. While she was supposed to be calculating the distance between a and b given only the length and angle of x and y, Beth's mind slipped back to when she first found out she was adopted. She realized why the way she was feeling was so familiar.

  A few years earlier, her growing suspicions had led to a confrontation with her parents. With their confirmation that she wasn't biologically theirs, her nightmare had become real. At that moment, she'd had an overwhelming sense of being unwanted, of being somewhere she wasn't supposed to be. Now it was happening all over again, but on a much larger scale. Up to this point, she was only aware of living with a family that was not her own. The whole truth was so much worse: she'd been living with humans while she wasn't one herself. Not only were they not her family, they weren't even her species.

  Nausea started to rise as she looked around at the other children in her classroom.

  Human children.

  She'd always been the odd one out, but she could never have guessed just how different she was. And it felt so wrong.

  I shouldn't be here.

  Lost in confused thought, she half-jumped out of her seat when the bell rang to signal the end to morning classes. At break, Mary didn't stick around for long. There was no true animosity between them, but they were both apparently practicing a vow of silence and Beth was soon left in the corner of the rooftop playground, alone. She was vaguely aware of a circle of girls taking Mary in, but everything blurred and faded as Beth's unbelievable world enveloped her once more. Is this really happening? Can this be true?

  What am I to become?

  With another all-too-soon ring of the bell, her grim world retreated slightly. She unwillingly returned to class, though her attention lasted for barely a minute before her worries pulled her away. She was talked to by the teacher more than once and threatened with a trip to the Headmaster. But this return to her concerns had triggered another unwanted feeling. She felt the slightest twinge somewhere inside. Her stomach, perhaps. Maybe further up, closer to her throat. She couldn't pinpoint where it was but she knew what it was.

  For the briefest of moments, she thought of blood.

  There was no context; she didn't picture a gaping wound or a medical bottle filled with the stuff. It was just a fleeting thought of blood in general. Her mouth opened slightly, involuntarily, like she was about to take a bite from an imaginary sandwich. As if from a daydream, she woke to the present, hoping no one had seen her nip thin air. She slowly accepted with a cold sweat that she had the beginnings of an unquenchable thirst.

  As soon as school ended Beth was the first one out of the door. Up the road and about to turn onto Royston Street, she looked back to see an expressionless Mary turn the other way. Gibson wasn't far behind and began walking after her, while Oliver went running off with his two partners in crime. It appeared she was the only one going straight home, and that suited her just fine.

  Her father's words rang constantly. She was feeling what he'd called the “thirst” and though it was only a distant sensation, he'd made her feel like any delay in letting him know would be a serious problem. She marched up the road to her own street. Is this what it's going to be like from now on? She'd already tried putting things in perspective, that she simply needed a different kind of sustenance to everyone else, and that it was so gruesome it had to be kept secret. She needed something special to survive and only her father could get it for her.

  When she got home, she found him exactly how she'd imagined. Sitting in the parlor with his bandaged leg up, he read the newspaper with the wireless on in the background. Beth stood in the doorway to the living room but took no further steps.

  He put the paper on his lap and looked at her. “Elizabeth?”

  Beth didn't know what to say. She stepped into the living room and sat in the armchair, taking the gray box from around her neck and putting it on the floor with her lunch tin. She rubbed her neck. A look at her father reminded her that he always knew what was going on. She wondered if he already knew what was coming. “I think,” she paused and took a breath. “I think I'm beginning to feel thirsty.”

  “You need blood?”

  Beth dipped her head, shaking it slightly.

  “Elizabeth. You need to get used to this.”

  “How? How am I ever going to get used to this?” She practically shouted, expecting a harsh warning for her outburst. It didn't feel quite right when, instead, her father simply sat where he was, saying nothing and allowing her a few seconds to calm down.

  “How soon do you need it?” he asked.

  Beth shrugged. “Should I know that? Don't you know that?” The anger hadn't completely disappeared from her voice.

  “Elizabeth, I'm as new to this as you are. You've felt the first sign of thirst today, yes? How long does it normally take before you start feeling noticeably tired? How long before someone else would know something was wrong?”

  “I'm not sure. It happened quicker the second time.”

  Her father nodded. “So last time, how long was it?”

  “It'll probably be a few days before the craving gets really strong.”

  “The thirst, you mean?”

  “Yes, the thirst.”

  “Good. I should be able to get some for tomorrow. You'll be fine until then, yes?” Beth nodded. “Your mother's at work again tomorrow, but in case you're not alone when you come home I'll leave it in the shelter, under the right hand bunk behind the first aid box.”

  Beth nodded. She was completely unsurprised that her father had already thought of everything.

  * * *

  Knowing what it was she craved made Beth a different creature. In some ways it was easier; she was able to resist the temptation to fidget knowing that her thirst would soon be satisfied. It made the craving easier to live with.

  But in other ways it was much worse.

  All the following day at school she was anxious to get home. She wasn't thinking about the blood in particular, only that the gnawing craving inside of her would be satisfied. But that made her wonder how quickly it would take for her craving to overpower her if left unchecked.

  When classes were over she went straight home, not giving anyone a chance to accompany her. With no entourage around them, her father was able to speak openly. “How are you?”

  It caught Beth off guard. “Fine,” was her automatic response.

  Her father nodded stiffly from his chair while Beth stood frozen on the spot. It seemed neither of them knew how to act, how to proceed from here. She was, after all, about to go out into the shelter to drink blood.

  But where is it from? It was such an obvious question, distracting her from her mission. “Dad? Where do you get it?”

  “What?”

  You know what. He was making her say it, forcing her. Closing her eyes she spoke the horrid word as if it was taboo. “The blood. Is it … is it human?”

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “No! Of course not.”

  Her father squinted slightly, like he was figuring out if she was lying. “I get it from the butcher.”

  “Jeff? Does he know?” she wondered with horror.

  “He thinks I'm making Black Pudding.”

  Beth let out a small sigh of relief but then paused. “Wait, what's that?”

  “Cooked blood, with spices and herbs. Usually.”

  “People actually eat
that?” Her father looked at her with you-should-know-better eyes, and Beth glanced down in shame at her own hypocrisy. “So it's animal blood then?” she asked.

  “Pig.”

  Beth paused, thinking. ”If the doctor already knows I need new blood, why can't I just have transfusions?”

  “You'd be transfused with human blood.”

  The way he said it made Beth feel like some kind of delinquent. “I wasn't thinking about it like that. Only that if I had transfusions, there'd be no need for all this secrecy.”

  “Aside from the suspicion and inevitable investigation, and the fact you seem to need it orally, you'd effectively be draining a person every month.” Beth lurched at her father's revelation. “Human blood is precious and you don't need it. Mammalian blood will do just fine.”

  “Like … pig's blood.” The words still didn't feel comfortable, especially when she really thought about them.

  “It's the closest thing to human,” said her father.

  Beth frowned and shook her head at the same time. “I can't believe we're having this conversation.”

  Bill didn't miss a beat. “As I said yesterday, what you need is behind the first aid kit.”

  Surreal as it had been, the conversation was now over. Beth dipped her head almost in shame and walked through the house. Her father hadn't taken kindly to her trying to make light of the situation, but she felt she needed to, just to continue.

  The shelter was warm, and Beth stopped the door open to let the breeze come in and steal the stale hot air. She sat down on the bunk on the right. Under her was the first aid kit, and behind that would be something that held a volume of blood. Every step leading to this point made the unbelievable more real. But this was truly the final step. She'd consumed blood before, but this would be the first time she would do so of her own free will.

  She leant forward and felt with her hand behind the familiar tin box of the first aid kit and found a less familiar, smaller wooden coffer. She pulled it out and opened the lid. Inside was a sealed jar of red liquid, but already Beth could smell the telltale scent of sweet, rusted iron. She slid off the bunk and crouched on the floor in the middle of the shelter, with the warm jar between her hands. She unscrewed the lid and let the strong smell rise. Its effect was comparable only with that of her mother's freshly baked apple pie—a treat she hadn't tasted for a long time.