Vampires in Devil Town
Page 25
He begged her. Scrawling on a little notepad beside his bed, he begged her to give him the gift of speech once more.
One miraculous and oddly twisted afternoon, Rachel clenched her mouth over his. This was the first instant they had shared any erotic contact since that night. Her tongue explored his mouth, at first so empty. Gradually, she felt the tongue come back to life, growing, taking shape and awkwardly moving against hers.
His speech was clumsy at first. He didn’t like the way it made him sound so he practiced only while alone. After nearly a week, while Rachel sat bedside and massaged his knee, he said, “So, we did it again, didn’t we?”
“I’m not exactly sure what we did but, yeah, we did something.”
“Do you think that’s the end?”
“Honestly?”
“No, lie to me. That should be the basis of every relationship, I think.”
“Oh, I see, he’s got his tongue and his sarcasm back.”
“Fuck you. Yes, honestly.”
“No, I don’t think it’s over. Is that what you want to hear?”
“No, not really.”
“What the hell happened back there? I felt like I walked in on something I knew nothing about.”
“Oh, well, they decided to fill me in on it as they went about rendering my body. I think we stopped them from some kind of heaven they called the Dark Fire.”
“How did we do that?”
“Their bodies were vessels for some kind of god. Each of them contained one of these gods. They said the gods needed some form of human vessel and they had served that role too long. The boy you saw, he was to be one of the new vessels.” Jacob took a deep swallow, looking almost like he wished he didn’t have his tongue back. “You were to be the other one.”
“Jesus,” she said. “So what happened to the gods?”
“I think the others carried them back to the Dark Fire. There was a ritual they were trying to perform but they weren’t able to carry it out. The gods could still be out there, looking for bodies to inhabit.” He paused, looking out the window. Rachel couldn’t tell if it was a look of longing or a look of fright. “They could be in me or you.”
“For now, let me pretend you didn’t say that. I haven’t sacrificed anyone yet, so I prefer to think I’m evil god free.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”
“What else are we supposed to do?”
“I’d like to leave.”
“So when are we planning to get the hell out of this town?”
“How ‘bout as soon as my legs will carry me?”
“Sounds great.”
“You know, if we get married first, we can call it a honeymoon.”
“That sounds even better.”
She leaned over the bed and kissed him on the forehead, trying not to smell the fear leaking from his pores. She held his hand while they sat quietly, looking at the early summer sunlight through the windows and thinking about the beautiful fire that burned beneath the Sad House.
Wayne Hixon lives in Illinois where he has no phone and no television. Vampires in Devil Town is his first novel. You can email him at wayne66hixon@yahoo.com.