by P. Mattern
Too soon the bus gave a large mechanical shudder and sighed to a stop in front of a smallish combination gas sation/bus station. Kimbra and Carey grabbed their respective backpacks and hopped off ahead of the other passengers, not wishing to be stuck in the slow mass exit once the aisles became crowded. Kimbra motioned Carey to join her and immediately took a right.
“Your Aunt lives one street over from the bus terminal,” she told him, smiling as though she had a happy secret, and cutting her eyes alluringly at Carey every few feet. Even if she hadn’t done those things, Carey was already smitten with her, and was sorry when they arrived at his aunt’s place.
Aunt Ida’s house was a grey Victorian with dark red shutters around the six pane windows on the bottom floor. Carey was amazed that it seemed to have been kept up, but of course his older cousins would have seen to that he figured. The home was surrounded, in typical Victorian style, by an ornate wrought iron fence. Above the front gate was an entrance arch with iron curlicues that decoratively framed the name FLOYD .
To Carey’s mind it had all the ambiance of the entrance to a small town cemetery.
“Do you want to meet my aunt?” he asked, turning to Kimbra.
“Hmmmmmm-how about next time? “she suggested.”I’d hate to cast a damper on what I’m sure will be a heartfelt reunion. Plus you know how chatty elderly people are and I need to get home .That’s funny…..” she interrupted herself, frowning slightly. “Usually there’s a few cats patrolling the yard at all times, but I don’t seem to see any!”
Following her gaze, Carey surveyed the front of the mansion and saw nary a feline.
“That’s absolutely ducky with me.” He said,”Not a cat person.”
Kimbra looked up at him, entrancing him with her abundant energy and her blood bouquet that effused the air between them with the sweetest and most mouth watering fragrance he’d ever taken in. Peaches. Watermelon. Passionfruit. Something tantalizing and ethereal.
“Well, I have to go, nice meeting you Carey…stay in touch!” she said as she quickly raised up on tiptoe and brushed his cheek with her lips. Carey was so startled by her momentary proximity that he didn’t recover until she was halfway down the street, turning around once to wave as he stood looking after her. He found that he couldn’t look away until she’d turned the corner.
Pushing open the surprisingly heavy gate Carey walked up to the front porch. When he rang the annoyingly buzzy sounding doorbell he could hear his aunt from a distance on the inside of the home saying ,”Just a minute. I’m coming, I’m coming.”
When she finally opened the door she seemed delighted to see him and immediately wrapped him up in an enthusiastic embrace.
“Carey!” she cried,”What a surprise! If I’d known that you were coming I’d have baked a rhubarb and strawberry pie!”
Quickly she ushered Carey in. Carey informed her that he’d come to visit hoping to stay awhile. His aunt seemed surprised but agreeable.
“Well, I don’t see why not,” she said thoughtfully, serving Carey a cup of cocoa with whipped cream as he sat at her lace tablecloth covered formica kitchen table.”You’re over 18 after all. And on my last visit it didn’t seem as if you were getting along with your parents-not to pry of course, that would be your business. And frankly I could use some help around here…so much to do to keep up an old place like this. It belonged to your grandparents you know.”
Biting into a piece of Walker’s shortbread from a willowware pattern plate of cookies that Aunt Ida had placed before him, Carey looked around the kitchen.”Where are the cats?” he asked.
Aunt Ida looked puzzled,”Well that’s very strange...some of my little darlings are afraid of strangers but Petunia and Crybaby aren’t….I wonder where they’ve got to. Did somebody mention to you that I love cats?”
“You have, several times, ”Carey replied over a mouthful of cooky.”And I met a girl on the bus coming here that said you-er-might have a few.”
Aunt Ida semed to find that pronouncement funny.
“I sure DO have a few cats…sixty-five by my last count. Some are indoor kittyfolk and some are outdoor. And I know every kitty’s name, too!!”
As he Aunt Ida continued to chat away, Carey tuned her out and continued to look around and then was struck by a realization that HE might be the reason that Aunt Ida’s cats were in hiding. He knew he wasn’t a standard issue human anymore. Whatever he now was seemed to be a powerful feline repellant.
Aunt Ida was standing up, calling out a series of cat names in an attempt to get her pets to show themselves, but to no avail.
“Well Carey,” she said at last, panting a little as she resumed her table seat.”They’ll come out eventually, and you’ll get to meet them. After all-they have to eat sometime!”
Carey nodded and took a sip of his cocoa. Somehow he wasn’t as sure that the cats would return as his aunt was.
Which was okay with him, because he just wasn’t a cat person.
The next day was a Saturday. Waking up in the mahogany four poster bed at Aunt Ida’s was initially disorienting for Carey-it took him a few seconds to reconnect with the events of the past 24 hours that had thrust him into life in a small Midwestern town. He could smell coffee wafting up the staircase from the kitchen and also breakfast food-bacon and eggs probably. Jumping up, he peered out from his upstairs room onto the quiet street. It was sunny, but standing at the window in his shorts he could feel a draft that made him shiver. There was a knock at the bedroom door and he hurriedly pulled on his jeans to answer it.
Aunt Ida was on the other side, her wrinkled and lightly powdered face wreathed in smiles, her bright startlingly blue eyes sparkling.
“Sorry to wake you Carey dear, but you’ve already missed a little visitor. Kimbra-I recognized her as Dr. Bingham’s older daughter. She said she met you on the bus yesterday. I told her that you were sleeping so she said she’d stop back by in about 45 minutes. That should give you some time to shower and have a late breakfast.” Aunt Ida finished with a cheerful lilt to her musical voice, reminding Carey of Glenda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz.
He thanked his aunt and assured her that he’d be downstairs in a few minutes. The shower that he took under Aunt Ida’s cranky ancient showerhead felt wonderful, although the plumbing groaned and the water came out rust colored at first. He was amazed to note that his cuts ,scrapes and lacerations had faded to pearlescent pink scars, some of them faded to faint white markings on his skin. Turning around he gasped as he saw his back, crisscrossed with angry looking double puncture marks and slashes as though he’d been attacked by countless fanged creatures.
Which was hardly a surprise, because he had been.
The marks extended down into the area of his buttocks and even the backs of his legs, down into his calf area, although the numbers were fewer. He wondered if the marks would ever fade completely. He wondered if he would ever stop dreaming about the attack.
He also wondered for the thousandth time what being bitten had changed him into exactly.
He pulled on a clean striped shirt and a black hoody. His brand new black jeans were still clean and he put those on as well, along with a fresh pair of black socks and his Converse sneakers. In spite of the scars, he felt like a new man. One that was expecting a beautiful new friend to stop by. All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to start his first day in a new town.
Carey made small talk with his aunt as he wolfed down three eggs over easy, three pieces of toast and six strips of bacon ,washing them down with café au lait. His aunt told him that even though some of her cats reappeared for their morning feeding, they all seemed to vanish as soon as Carey came downstairs.
Carey brooded about the cats-he suspected that his new ‘monster’ status had everything to do with the cats refusing to appear when he was around. Maybe it was an instinctual self-preservation thing, he reflected-although he had no inclination to make a meal out of any of them.
At least not yet. For the time being bacon and eg
gs were much more appealing.
Soon Kimbra appeared at the front door and Carey introduced her to his aunt. Kimbra had her hair back in a long, thick French braid intertwined with ribbon the color of spring grass, wisps of her hair curling around her ears because of the humidity. If anything, she was more beautiful than he remembered from the previous day. When she looked into his eyes with her intriguing green ones he found it difficult to keep his train of thought.
“Let’s take a walk,” she suggested ,”I can introduce you to most of the town ’hot spots’ if we travel on foot, and it’s a really gorgeous day!!
Carey chuckled at the concept that the ‘one horse town’ could contain anything remotely close to a ‘hot spot”. He did imagine that Kimber might have a few on that hot little body of hers, though. He was happy that she couldn’t read his thoughts, most of which centered around getting closer to her in a prurient manner.
A block over from where his Aunt Ida’s house was was Milton’s main street. There were actually two gas stations, located cattycornered to each other, a Coffee shop (which Kimbra pointed out but said she was saving it for the last stop on the tour), the Gentlemen’s Shoppe,the Lady’s Boutique,the library, Goolrick’s Drug store which Kimber said made the best fountain sodas and milkshakes, a five and dime store selling sundries, and a hobby shop which had a painted sign that advertised ‘CURIOSITIES’. There was also a grocery, recessed back from the main street by a parking lot. Two streets over the art deco movie theatre with two whole screens occupied a prominent spot. Farther out there was a school that combined elementary and junior high grades.
“Where do the high schoolers go?” Carey asked.”Next town over?”
“No-but the high school was built outside of the town proper on some donated farmland and everyone either drives or takes the bus. I graduated from Nelson High just last year.”
“And you’re still here?” Carey asked, amazement in his voice.”Didn’t you want to go off to college? See the rest of the world?”
A shadow fell over Kimbra’s face.
“I didn’t want to leave my mom. She was sick. We buried her last summer.”
Carey immediately felt like a complete and utter douchebag.”Wow I’m sorry…that must have been tough.”
Kimber nodded wordlessly. Carey got the impression that she was close to tears. She sighed and absentmindedly started playing with her long burnished braid for a few seconds, then throwing the braid back over her shoulder, said animatedly, ”Time to visit the Art Gallery!”
Somehow before they crossed the surprisingly busy intersection Kimbra slipped her hand into Cary’s, making him draw in a breath in surprise. The energy connection between them was intense and enjoyable. Kimbra’s hands were small and smooth and soft and fit into his own hand perfectly. It made him wonder how perfectly their bodies would fit together.
Entering the coffee shop Carey found himself doing a head swivel-brightly colored paintings were hung in rows on every wall, some realistically rendered and others had an impressionistic feel to them. They were all gorgeous.
“Wow,” he said in genuine admiration, looking around, ”You are GOOD! Great, even!!!”
Carey continued staring at the artwork until he felt Kimbra tugging him up to the counter.
“What’s your pleasure, sailor?” she asked with a wink.”They have a mean and mouthwatering coconut frappaccino. It has real coconut milk in it. Extremely yummy.”
Carey agreed to try the coffee drink based on Kimbra’s enthusiastic recommendation. It was a mild day weatherwise, and as they sat talking at a bistro table Kimbra paused in the middle of a sentence and sucked in her breath,eyes riveted to the open doorway. Carey immediately turned his head to see what had captured her attention.
It was a dog, its fur dark enough to be called black, and it was staring in through the bottom portion of the brass handled glassed in door.
“That dog again,” Kimbra murmured,”I wonder if it belongs to anybody. I noticed it about a month ago. I’ve tried to get it to come to me so I could see if it has a collar or anything but it just runs off.”
For some reason the hair on the back of Careys neck was standing up. There was something strange about the mutt-and it HAD to be a mutt because it certainly didn’t look like any breed of dog he was familiar with. Kimbra made a noisy sucking sound to pull the last of her frappachino drink out from the bottom of the cup and tossed it into the waste disposal bin, walking quickly to the door of the coffee shop. Carey scrambled to keep up with her as she marched to the doorway.
It seemed almost as if the dog was waiting for them. It was a good size, but not huge, and it immediately presented its head to Carey as soon as Carey stepped away from the doorway.
“It looks like a Huskie Doberman mix, maybe with a little Collie thrown in”. Carey said, rubbing the long ruff of fur around the dogs neck with both hands as it licked him repeatedly- as though he was a long lost friend.
“Well I’m frankly jealous.” Kimbra said, looking down at Carey as he squatted by the dog.”He wouldn’t even come to me at all. I guess he was waiting for you to get into town” she joked.
Carey shot up from his squatting position with the realization that this dog was the only animal that hadn’t run from him since he’d been attacked. He’d been in town for only 24 hours and already most of Aunt Ida’s cats had run off. There was something reassuring about the mutt’s acceptance of him. He wondered if Aunt Ida liked dogs.
The dog sat at his feet, tongue lolling out happily, looking at him as if to say ”Well? Are you taking me home with you?” There was something oddly human about the animal’s eyes.
Kimbra was cooing to the mutt.”Yes you ARE a handsome doggie!” But the dogs eyes remained fixed on Carey.
It was a given that the dog would follow them back to Aunt Ida’s house. Aunt Ida was only hesitant for a few seconds after Carey introduced her to the mutt, but since the dog decided to show off a repertoire of tricks including laying down at her orthopedically shod feet, rolling over, and then sitting up and begging, she agreed that the dog could stay. Aunt Ida had lost her beloved cocker spaniel ,a pet she’d had for 14 years, just a few weeks before Carey arrived, so the pet filled a void.
“What’s his name?” Kimber asked.”Have you thought about what you want to name him?”
Carey didn’t hesitate.
“His name is Loki.” he answered.” It means ‘mischief’. And he looks a little like Tom Hiddleston the actor that played Loki in the Avengers movie.”
“Welcome to Cassis,” Kimber told Loki.”Wherever you came from, you’re here now.”
Two days later Carey met Kimber’s younger sister Channing. Although the two young ladies shared the same fair coloring Channing was a natural blonde and her eyes were a rare shade of green. In many ways she looked like a shorter version of Kimber. Carey also met Dr. Bingham, who was reading a newspaper at the time in his study and looked at Carey over his reading glasses as if examining a rare species of bug. Carey got the impression that he would have liked to sit him down and grill him on his background and career plans but since he wasn’t officially ‘dating’ Dr. Bingham’s daughter he was spared that particular discussion.
Loki became Carey’s constant companion. Never wanting to stay behind, the dog would wait outside of the shops for Carey and Kimber to reappear. Carey noticed that other dogs would cross the street to avoid him, and even barking dogs would cease barking as he passed their gated homes, give a strange yelp or a low growl and run away from the fence when he passed. Carey could come to only one conclusion.
They knew. The animals somehow knew that he wasn’t human, and they were afraid of him.
The only animal that wanted to be near him was Loki.
He relaxed into small town life and had the dreams of being pursued less frequently now. One night in particular after a particularly vivid nightmare he jerked violently awake, sweating profusely, his bedclothes soaked with perspiration. When he shuffled, still halfway asleep
, down the hall to the bathroom and clicked on the light he was shocked to see fangs protruding from underneath his upper lip.
Tentatively he reached up to touch the point of one of them-it was so razor sharp that it punctured the tip of his index finger like a lancet.
“Damn.” He muttered, watching a drop of blood form. He wondered what other forms of fighting apparatus came by virtue of his new condition, what other abilities came from his being Turned. That he HAD been Turned was a foregone conclusion-he had done enough research to ascertain that part.. He was remarkably strong, his agility was phenomenal and he could run like a streak. But he seemed something other than your average Joe Vampire…there were other things. He was able to contort his body in ways that would easily have won him a place in the Guiness Book of World Records if he’d been interested in having that feature documented. If he concentrated he could actually see through walls or doors. And he had an unerring sense of direction that he’d never had before.
The bloodlust that convinced him that he was at least partially a vampire was increasing by the day but was manageable. He seemed to be able to dispel it with raw meat snacks, especially animal organs that contained a lot of blood like livers and hearts. These he could buy at the grocery down the street and snack on as he walked home, always draining the plastic container of the last drop of bloody fluid before he washed it out and deposited into the recycling bin.
After all, just because he was some sort of ‘monster’ didn’t mean he’d given up recycling.
He noticed that his body was changing also-the muscles sharply defined as though he worked out in a gym for hours daily. He wasn’t at all muscle bound but his body was a far cry from the tall, thin, ‘string bean’ physique he’d had before the attacks. He wasn’t sure how much of the changes were due to the attack and how much of it was the physical maturing process. His hair seemed to be in a hyper growth spurt also-past his collar now, seemingly growing a couple whole inches in the scant week that he’d been in town.