Parasite Life

by Victoria Dalpe

  The rest of the day was a blur, the walk home just as fuzzy, and by the time I got there I felt weak, the familiar headache creeping in behind my temples. But as if these last few days had never happened, I cleaned my mother up, ate a Spartan meal, and crawled into bed before it was full dark. I woke with a start in the early morning, noting that I was standing in the hall. Swallowing and looking around, I realized I had been heading to my mother’s room. Disoriented, I went back to my bedroom, the horror of what I had been going to do dawning fully. I’d been so tired and upset I’d forgotten to barricade myself into my room like I had the night before. The hunger raged, it throbbed in my temples and squeezed my stomach. I clenched my jaw and barricaded the door.

  I felt terrible later in the morning when I got up again. My joints burned, my head pounded, and I couldn’t stop shivering. I took a hot shower to knock the chill out of my bones, but to no avail. I couldn’t get warm. At school, I sat in English class, hunched over my desk, hair a brown curtain around me. Sabrina sat beside me again, glancing my way periodically with a frown, in between taking ambitious notes and even raising her hand. In gym, I stuck to the corners, stiff. When finally forced to join into a game of basketball by the teacher, I just stood there. Balls whizzed by my head as I tried to stay on my feet. I could feel Sabrina’s eyes on me, but didn’t bother to look up. I’d given her the out to leave me alone and she’d taken it. It was the smart choice.

  After showering and dressing, I debated going home. Something hungry and predatory had woken in me, and now I could not turn it down. I was so aware of the blood-filled bodies moving around me, hearts chugging, glands sweating. And I was starving to death in their midst. I didn’t know if it was the knowledge of what I was that had suddenly made me aware, or perhaps Sabrina’s young healthy blood after years of barely subsisting. But I was cruelly aware of every person passing me by. Did they know how lucky they were? Now that I knew it was their blood I wanted, I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I could almost smell it, imagine what it would be like tasting their salty skin, biting into them. I stared at a husky, brown-haired boy in the lunchroom. Sabrina was nearby. I could feel her as if an invisible rope bound us.

  I can’t do this, I’m giving up. I can’t torture myself this way anymore. I took a few steps before the world tipped quickly and violently sideways. I felt myself falling, almost floating, then hit the ground.

  XVII.

  I could hear voices, sense movement near me. My skin tingled all over, my knee ached. What had happened? I must have passed out. I tried to sit up but as soon as I did, my vision swam and I had to drop my head down. I was in the nurse’s office. A middle-aged woman with a severe haircut rounded the curtain and did her best to smile at me, though I could sense her reluctance.

  “Welcome back, Ms. DeVry, I’m Nurse Hopkins. How are you feeling?”

  I stared blearily up at her, confused. I must’ve been carried in here. My head was splitting, and my limbs were weak. I glanced around warily and cleared my throat.

  “Did you eat breakfast?”

  I nodded, and she frowned while taking notes. She asked about medicine, drugs, even if I might be pregnant.

  “Well, I’ve been trying to call your house for a while. I have your mother here as the emergency contact. Is she home? Or do you have a work number for her? I’d love to have her come get you.”

  I quickly looked away, too tired to lie.

  “My mother’s very ill, and doesn’t drive. I don’t live far, I can walk . . .”

  “Nonsense. Is there anyone else?”

  “I could give her a ride.”

  My head shot up to see Sabrina standing halfway behind the curtains. She stared at the nurse, avoiding me at all costs. I rolled over to face the wall, biting my lip.

  The nurse hesitated. “That isn’t policy I’m afraid . . .”

  Sabrina gestured for Nurse Hopkins to talk to her privately. She spoke softly but I could hear her. The room was small, and the wall dividing us was a sheet.

  “Her mother’s practically an invalid, and she has no other family. I’ve been to her house. No one can come get her. I know it’s not standard, but I’d be happy to drive her home and keep an eye on her. You can call my mom, I’m sure she’d allow it. She’s met Jane before, and she’s familiar with her situation.”

  Nurse Hopkins whispered back and eventually called Sabrina’s mother, getting permission. The nurse rounded the corner back to me. By this point I’d managed to sit up. She crossed to me, shining a light in my eyes, listening to my pulse again.

  “You’re lucky to have a good friend like Ms. Karnstein here. She’s willing to take you home and get you to bed. But if you feel faint again, or any of these symptoms continue, I want you to go to the hospital.”

  I nodded and rose. As soon as she didn’t need to be next to me, she wasn’t. Sabrina stood with my things. I raised an eyebrow.

  “When you passed out, I grabbed your stuff. Hope that’s okay.”

  I could see the journal peeking out, relieved that it wasn’t on the floor in the cafeteria. I was stupid to not take it out of my bag last night, but I had been so tired. Sabrina followed my eyes to the diary, then handed the bag to me. I crossed my arms over it possessively and meekly followed her out, down the institutional yellow hallway, over the gleaming buffed floors, and out the side entrance toward the student parking.

  The winter air helped clear my head a bit. I still felt like road kill, but at least I wasn’t unconscious. Once out of the school’s sightlines I stopped, Sabrina continuing a few paces before noticing I wasn’t behind her. She stopped, confused.

  “Thank you, for doing that in there. And for getting my things. It means a lot. But you don’t have to take me home. You made it clear yesterday that you want nothing to do with me and I totally respect that. I can get home on my own.”

  I walked past her, planning on cutting through the sports field. She didn’t call out, or try to stop me, reinforcing that she was just being a nice person, but we were still not friends. It was better for her to stay away better for everyone to keep their distance. I’d reached the other side of the field and was just about at the end of school property when Sabina, in her mother’s car, pulled up beside me, rolling the passenger window down.

  “Just get in the car, Jane. It’s cold and you look like shit. I don’t think you’ll make it.”

  I wanted to fight her. But, she was right. Even my hair ached. Resigned, I got in, grateful for the heaters on full blast and the kindness. I was so conflicted. I rested my forehead against the glass, eyes shut.

  “Thanks,” I whispered. She just grunted in reply. The silence in the car had mass. We drove along for a bit before I noticed we had passed my house.

  “You just missed . . .”

  “I know. I figured we should talk.” She lit a cigarette and rolled the window down a scant inch, blowing the smoke out through her nose.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Really Sabrina, it’s fine. I understand—”

  “I read the journal,” she cut in.

  I didn’t know what to say. My breath stopped for a second.

  “I stayed up all night after you dropped it off, reading it. I was so angry with you, and freaked out. I couldn’t imagine what your crazy mother’s diary would do to change that. At first, I thought it was the most fucked up thing I’d ever read. Then I thought, maybe I should call DCYF because she’s obviously neglectful and insane. And she was obviously abusing you back then. But then I thought about the other night, how you acted, and then how you seemed totally unaware of biting me, and looking at you now . . .”

  I exhaled, “It’s true. What my mother says, it’s all true. But I don’t want to hurt her anymore. I’ve been barricading myself into my room at night so I can’t get at her.”

  “But that’ll just make you sicker, won’t it?”

  “It’s better than killing my own mother, don’t you think?” I glared a
t her. She winced and I could see her fear. She believed.

  Sabrina steadied herself and put on her turn signal, dragging the car along a remote logging trail. Once all we could see was woods, she killed the engine, and turned to me.

  “I feel bad for you.”

  I covered my face with both hands. Being pitied felt worse than being hated.

  “None of this is your fault, Jane. You didn’t ask to be a vampire.”

  I cringed as the V-word passed her lips.

  “I made a choice last night. Or, well, I guess early this morning, and it took me seeing you so sick today, and realizing what that meant, and if you promise not to take too much . . .”

  She rolled up her sleeve and jutted her arm out to me.

  “Sabrina!” I knocked it away horrified and wrenched the car door open. She grabbed my coat sleeve.

  “What else can you do? Are you just going to starve yourself to death, locked up in your room? Or what if it’s like when you were a kid? What if you just go into one of your weird ‘states’ and crawl out your window and go after someone?”

  I closed the car door, but wouldn’t look at her.

  “Oh my God, that’s your plan? Hope for the best and starve to death?”

  “There’s nothing else I can do. I don’t want to hurt anyone . . . I don’t want to kill my mother. And I don’t want to go be a freak in a hospital either. There are no other options.”

  Sabrina shook her head, offered her arm again.

  “This is an option.” Her wrist was inches from my face.

  “Why would you do this? I don’t even know if I can. I never have, you know . . . consciously done this before.” I was mortified by how badly I wanted to.

  “I trust you not to hurt me.”

  The headache roared in my ears, my mouth filling with saliva.

  “Why do you trust me? You have no reason to.”

  “Someone needs to believe in you.”

  Her arm was warm in my cold, trembling fingers. I stared at the smooth pale skin, the tracery of blue veins. I released something of a sob.

  “I have no idea what I’m doing. This is totally weird.”

  Sabrina laughed nervously. “It does feel crazy, right?”

  We watched each other. Her soft hazel eyes trusting. I held onto that feeling and followed it deeper. The heat from her arm warmed my hands, but it was more than that. The electricity ran from her to me like a conduit. My mother was right; I was absorbing something of Sabrina through her touch. Engrossed in the sensation, I leaned my head down, running my face along the silken skin of her forearm, breathing in the perfume at the pulse point. My tongue snaked out, running along that vein from the wrist to the crook of her elbow. She gasped at the feel of my mouth on her, a combination of fear and surprise. I began sucking, pulling the tender flesh into my mouth, and, as if I had done this a thousand times before, I bit down.

  The blood eased out slowly at first. I bit down a little harder, trying to nick the vein without chewing her up, to tease more out. My teeth parted her flesh as if through butter and with one more good tug, my mouth filled to the brim. I moaned, swallowing greedily. The energy raced through me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. I could feel the healthy, hearty thump of her heart on my tongue.

  As if from another world, from hundreds of miles away, I heard a voice, calling my name over and over. I felt a pressure on my shoulder, a pinching. Finally, a wrenching on my scalp that knocked me back into reality. It was daytime, I was in Sabrina’s mother’s Buick, and she was letting me drink her blood. I sat up too fast, pushing myself as far from her as possible, looking frantically for the door handle. I felt scared, disoriented, trapped in the car.

  “—Jane? Can you hear me? Are you okay?”

  Sabrina was staring at me, eyes concerned, face pale as parchment. I felt like an animal in a cage, but slowly the instinct to flee abated. I breathed, letting myself remember. And with the memories came the disturbing reality that my mother was not insane, and that I needed to drink blood to survive.

  “How do you feel?”

  I blinked a few times, pushing down the rush and the adrenaline. I scrubbed my hand over my face and tried to stamp down the rush of giddiness and adrenaline surging through me.

  “Good. Weirded out, but really good. Really, uh, hyper-energized, I guess . . .”

  I pulled down the visor mirror, recoiling at the bloody face staring back at me.

  “Jesus.” I found a tissue in my pocket and proceeded to wipe up. Sabrina sat crumpled in her seat: too pale and sick.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her. She nodded, trying to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.

  “Yeah, it was, um, intense. You were you, and then you . . . weren’t, like you went into a trance, and when you bit in it didn’t hurt. It felt more like pressure. I think that’s how you could bite your mom without her knowing, or me the other night. It kind of felt good, actually, I mean it was kind of . . . hot.”

  I blushed, now that I had enough blood in me to do so. I could feel it flushing my cheeks.

  “It just got a little scary when I started to get dizzy, and then I felt queasy. I kept calling you and I tried shaking you. But you were in the zone or whatever. But I got you off eventually, so it’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry. It was hard for me to stop.”

  Sabrina nodded, pressing a tissue to the wound. “Well, you were starving, and it’s not like there’s a manual for this fucked-up shit.”

  “Thank you for not being afraid of me.” My voice cracked, but I didn’t care.

  She lifted the tissue to look at the wound. “You don’t have fangs. But you bit through my skin like it was nothing. I’ve been bit plenty—I have a little brother after all—and regular teeth are too blunt.”

  I ran my tongue along my teeth, and had to admit that they were all quite sharp. “No fangs,” I replied.

  After a long bout of pregnant, strange silence, Sabrina finally blurted, “I’m still a little scared, Jane. It did take me two days to come to that conclusion, and I won’t lie to you. I did just have to pull your hair to get you off of me.”

  “Sorry for that.” And I was. But more than anything I was enjoying the feeling of Sabrina’s life inside of me, reviving me. I stared out at the forest, the trees barren and gray. Her blood was virile and healthy, not like my mother’s. I felt like a new person, my senses sharp, my muscles strong. I’d never felt so full. Sabrina had been watching me out of the corner of her eye.

  “Thank you for helping me.”

  She turned away, a blush now warming her neck and cheeks.

  XVIII.

  We talked for a while longer, sitting in Sabrina’s car. Night came swiftly in the winter country, and by five o’clock we were shrouded in darkness. She slowly, gingerly, backed up along the rough logging trail and onto the main road, driving me home. I had her leave me at the gate. No point in further abusing her mother’s car by driving up it. Stepping out, I waved at the red taillights and made my way to the house with a lightness I’d never felt.

  Inside, the answering machine flashed with missed calls. I didn’t bother listening to them before erasing, knowing they were the nurse from school. I stared at the nearly dead creature in the chair, my sleeping mother. She’d no doubt heard each of those messages. Was she concerned for me? Did it matter anymore? I made extra noise when I came in, which woke her. She stared around blearily. I spoke to her as I refueled the small stove,

  “I had a close call today. Passed out at school, was so weak I could barely walk. Nurse called a bunch.” I paused.

  “You look all right now.” She whispered suspiciously, blankets up to her chin, barely visible besides the dryer lint fluff of hair and two intense, bloodshot eyes. She knew I was full of blood, and she knew it wasn’t hers. I was tempted to tell her about Sabrina. A fucked up part of me wanted her to be jealous. As soon as the feeling rose up I couldn’t push it down. She’d been using me as her long-term suicide attempt, and now I w
as disturbing the plan. If I stopped feeding on her, she’d eventually recover, she’d eventually have to face her actions. She wouldn’t get her romantic ending as a martyr.

  I had always wanted her to worry about me. To show she cared in any way. And I knew there would always be a little child in me, yearning for my mother’s love. But I also knew I’d never get it. Not the way I wanted. She would keep us alive, she’d even kill and die for me. But love? I turned my back on her and left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  XIX.

  Midweek, Sabrina allowed me to drink her blood again, and it was as wonderful and explosive as the first time.

  But like the last time, she had to intervene when I couldn’t stop. She’d pounded on my back, pulling at my hair and ears. It was shameful to have such an appetite. If I wanted to continue feeding on her without hurting her, or even killing her, I’d need to get it under control. Sabrina was upset and I needed to please her. I needed her to keep supplying me. With each encounter I was learning more about this monster that had slept inside me for so long. I was learning to listen to it.

  For example, on this third feeding the monster in me noticed Sabrina’s desire. A sexual need deeply repressed, one she felt uncomfortable acting on. I knew she was aroused, a tang in the air, a shift in the tight space of her car. It was as if my senses were blossoming, transmitting finite details about Sabrina, teaching me about my prey. Whispering to me that the prey liked sex and they liked being loved.

  Prey. Predator. I’d always known I was an outsider, but I’d had no idea how outside I truly was. I couldn’t ignore that, with this new strength and awareness, came a crueler voice. It saw Sabrina as something weaker, something like food, something that could be used. And I didn’t want that. I wasn’t like Hugh, taking advantage, using love and influence for his own needs. I was honored Sabrina would take on the risk. It was selfless and brave, and I was appreciative.