by P. K. Tyler
Slowly, she moved her finger to her pale lips, licking Wolt’s blood off in delight. Bile rose in his throat. He found her movements sensuous and disgusting at the same time. Closing her eyes, she smiled broadly. “Mmm, darling, you taste good.”
Wolt was unable to speak or move. A nightmare played out before his eyes. Soon, he would wake and everything would be over. His breath came in short, heavy gasps and Wolt was sure his heart could not beat any faster. Every emotion he possessed crashed through his chest in rapid succession.
“What are you?” The question came as a hoarse whisper. His eyes were wide and tears of confusion and horror gleamed in them.
Eleanor was dead.
She did not like blood and had not possessed a mean bone in her body. This woman—this thing standing before him now, pushing him against the wall—was not Eleanor. She was a creature similar to the rat he’d faced earlier.
Clicking her tongue, Eleanor shook her head. “You’ll break a woman’s heart with that rudeness.” Her breath tickled his cheek and her tongue left an icy trail as she licked the bleeding cut on Wolt’s cheek. “You made sure I will be beautiful a thousand years from now,” she whispered against his neck.
Wolt felt her bite into his neck. He felt blood trickling onto his shoulder. The sensation of her cold lips sucking against his heated skin left Wolt light-headed. Her grip on his shoulders tightened and a low moan reached his ears.
The last sensation Wolt was conscious of was the lead in his limbs as darkness slowly crept over his vision.
* * *
Dumping his lifeless body unceremoniously on the floor, Eleanor wiped her mouth. “Goodbye, darling.”
South Hampton, Present day
The young man was lost and hungry. It was his first time in South Hampton. Light brown eyes filled with desperation as the passers-by dutifully ignored him. He was just a beggar on the street. Just another one of the people the rich felt was best to ignore.
His stomach growled in protest as he sat down on the park bench. Grey skies above threatened to pour their load onto the earth at any given moment.
The sun was setting and the clicking sound of heels reached the young man’s ears. Sitting with his head between his knees, he refused to look up. Probably just another well-to-do person who would ignore him and hurry away in disgust. He could not help his filthy appearance. He was hungry and needed work.
“Excuse me?” the voice was soft and feminine, prompting the lad to look up. The lady had a lacy, white parasol in her hand. Her crisp, white dress with delicate bead detailing reminded the young man vaguely of angels.
“Yeah?” he replied lazily, not bothering to be polite. The rich lady would just scamper away like the rest of her kind.
“Are you lost?”
“Maybe? What’s it to you?” Great! he thought. This one pretends to care!
Pouting, she twisted the parasol in her hand. “There is no need to be rude. You look lost. Perhaps if you told me where you wanted to go, I could help you. I know this area well.”
Shame filled the young man. This lady was genuinely trying to help.
“I’m looking for work, ma’am. I don’t know this area at all, only recently arrived. My apologies for being rude, but all I got lately was a bunch of people ignoring me and shooing me away. It’s been rough.”
Her gentle smile soothed his shame away. Bouncy brown curls framed her face in a controlled fashion. The young man silently admitted that she was as beautiful as she was kind.
“And what is your name?” her honey-sweet voice asked.
“Tobi Whitecotton, ma’am. Is there anyone in this area that’s hiring help? I’m good with my hands and I learn real fast.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are good with your hands, Mr. Whitecotton.” The young man smiled awkwardly. “Well, I don’t know of anyone that’s seeking extra help at the moment, but I might have a use for you. If you’d follow me?”
Tobi’s face lit up. He could not believe his luck. “Gladly, ma’am.” Lightly he sprang to his feet, his worn shoes tearing a little more with the quick action. His smile was one of genuine appreciation. “Thank you, ma’am. I didn’t think anyone would give a damn for a beggar on the street.”
She only smiled kindly in return and gestured for him to follow, which the young man gladly did. They walked in silence for a few blocks until she led him into a dark side street. “Where are we going? Are you sure this place is safe to walk through, being a lady and all?” Tobi asked, trying to hide his growing apprehension.
“Oh, I have nothing to fear,” she said with a smile that revealed long fangs. Pushing him roughly against the wall, she laughed at his futile attempt to escape. Her deep green orbs locked onto his fearful eyes as she traced a fingernail over his cheek, drawing blood. Licking the blood from her nail, she closed her eyes and smiled. Satisfaction glinted in her eyes.
“You taste good.”
About the Author
A South African writer who does not limit herself to genre, Sacha particularly enjoys writing horror and regularly creeps herself out with the content she produces. Other than that, she's a mildly unstable, adorable contradiction.
Cultural Gleanings
by Deanne Charlton
Summary: A woman awakes speaking a foreign language that feels familiar. How well can she and her husband communicate through pantomime? And what are those tiny noises?
On New Year’s Day, Carolynn Anne Williams woke up speaking Danish. She could hear her own thoughts, of course, and they were making sense in a language she had no memory of even having heard before. Yet she knew it was Danish. “God morgen?” she said in a questioning tone and cleared her throat. “God morgen!” came out with more authority.
“What did you say?” mumbled her sleepy husband.
“Jeg taler dansk.”
“What?” Doug was more awake now.
“Jeg kan ikke tale engelsk, men jeg kan godt forstå dig,” Carrie said in wonder.
“I’m sorry, hon, I just don’t understand you. Slow down.”
“Jeg taler ikke for hurtigt. Jeg taler dansk.”
Doug thrust his head forward and squinted in concentration. “I think I get ‘yeah’ in there. Are you talking about a dance?”
“Ingen,” Carrie said, sounding like “it’n” to Doug, so he went with it as a negative.
“Okay, then what?”
“Jeg,” she said, pointing at her chest. “Jeg.”
“You want me to call you ‘Yeh’?”
“Ingen!” She pointed to herself again, then to her eye. “Jeg!”
“It’s too early to play charades, CarrieAnne. Don’t make me work so hard.”
“Jeg,” she said, again pointing to herself and then her eye.
“Oh, damn. Okay. Eye.” He pointed to his own baby blues.
Pointing to herself and nodding vigorously, Carrie encouraged him to say it again.
“Eye. Eye. Oh! ‘Yeh’ means ‘I’, doesn’t it?” Doug, fully awake, put his palm on his chest and looked pleased with his guess.
“Ja, ja!” She tried again. “Jeg er Carrie.”
“Yeh uh Carrie?” he said, trying to match her phonetics.
“Det er godt nok,” she muttered. Realizing there was a faster way to get him to understand what was going on, she got up, slipped on her mules and motioned for him to stay put. Back in no time, she carried a dictionary.
Sitting beside him, she opened the book, flipped a few pages, and pointed to a word. Doug leaned over, glanced at the page and said, “You want pastries for breakfast?”
“Ingen!” Her pointing finger slid up a notch.
“You’re speaking Danish?” His eyes grew wide and his eyebrows reached his sleep-tousled bangs.
“Ja! Dansk.”
“Why?”
“Det ved jeg ikke!” Carrie’s face showed her frustration. She turned pages, pointing to three words as she found them.
Doug dutifully said them out loud. “I. Don’t. Know.” He sat back
. “You are speaking Danish, but you don’t know why you’re speaking Danish?”
Carrie nodded.
“Can you speak English?”
“Ingen. Jeg ved engelsk,” she said slowly, pointing to her temple, “men jeg kan ikke tale det.” She made a rolling motion from her mouth with one hand while shaking her head.
“You know English, but you can’t speak it?”
That got a sad nod.
“Sweetheart, are you all right? Does your head hurt?”
Frustrated that the first question required a nod for an answer and the second a side-to-side shake, Carrie resorted to a pointed shrug followed by using her hands in a motion of breaking something while she screwed up her face as though in pain. Then she pointed to her head and shook it.
“Let me see if I’m right,” Doug said. “Your head does not hurt, but you don’t know what’s going on.”
Carrie nodded, reached over, and squeezed his hand.
“Get ready,” he said, standing and pulling on his jeans. “I’m taking you to Doc Anderson.”
“Få mælk fra geder først,” she replied, squeezing each hand into a fist in front of her and repeating the motion. She wound up bleating for good measure.
“Okay, I’ll milk the goats, but you be ready when I’m finished. Good thing there are only two right now. I’ll toss feed for the chickens and then we’re out of here. Twelve minutes!” he called over his shoulder.
* * *
Dr. Anderson saw them in his home office two miles from their house. Since his wife died he had spent more time there and his friendship with the couple had grown. He was as astounded as they were about the sudden language change in Carrie.
He did a rudimentary neurological workup, shining a light into her eyes, having her touch her nose, asking the name of the president. When he found no abnormalities (“Abnormiteter,” Carrie murmured), he told her he was sending her to a true neurologist.
“Since you seem to be healthy, otherwise—and I’m not saying you have a disease, just that this is a significant change that must be investigated—we’re going to put this on a hurry-up but not emergency schedule. You’ll be seen day after tomorrow at the SHU Med Center.”
Back at home, Doug saw to the animals while Carrie cooked, humming a tune as she set some goat milk aside for making into yogurt. The powdered culture she had ordered the past winter from a farm in Ohio not only made delicious yogurt, it did so overnight in a quart jar on the kitchen counter at room temperature. It had quickly become her favorite.
Doug came in to wash his hands. “What’s that song?” he asked.
“Hvilken sang?”
“Uh, the one you’re humming?”
Carrie looked surprised. She cocked her head, closed her eyes and began to hum again. Her eyes shot open “Nåh! Risengrød,” she said.
“And that is….?”
She pointed at the laptop on the kitchen desk. He booted it up and she sat to enter ‘risengrod’, having to use the English ‘o’. That turned out not to be a problem because the search provided over 3,000 returns.
“Rice gruel?”
“Ja.”
“Do you think you could make some for after supper tonight? And could we call it pudding instead? It actually looks pretty good.”
“Ja. Det vil være godt,” Carrie nodded decisively.
And it was. After cleaning up from the meal, the two retired to bed, snuggling under a lightweight quilt Carrie’s sister had made. Doug stroked her face and asked, “Are you worried?”
“Ingen,” she shook her head. Thinking hard, she could not come up with a way to tell him that, while odd and sometimes frustrating, her new language felt familiar and comfortable. She needed to tell him she felt okay but didn’t want to resort to the dictionary.
So, pulling him close, she showed him.
Getting up in the night to answer a badeværelse potte call, Carrie wondered how she knew a tune she had no reason to know. She hummed a bit of it again and decided she would not worry about it. It was a happy song.
* * *
At the university hospital two days later, Dr. Shanks was excited. After greeting the couple when his secretary brought them to his office, getting a handshake from Doug and a head bob from Carrie, he outlined the tests planned to try to discover what was happening.
“When we know what we’re dealing with, we’ll know better how to treat it. We have the latest equipment here, but we’ll start with a thorough eye exam and then a general examination of your mental status. Getting to the origin of this phenomenon will speed whatever therapy you may need.”
“Jeg håber du finder noget godt,” Carrie said.
Shanks looked at Doug, as if for translation, but he simply shrugged and asked, “Does the university have a foreign languages department?”
“Brilliant! I’ll have Alice call to have one of the modern Norse languages grad students sent over. In the meantime, let’s proceed to the next typical portion of the exam. First, does your wife seem otherwise herself?”
“Oh, yes. She’s the same CarrieAnne, but this is disturbing to both of us.”
“I’m sure.” Turning to Carrie, Shanks asked, “Mrs. Williams, in spite of…”
“Carrie,” said Carrie.
“Oh, of course. Carrie, in spite of not being able to speak English, you do understand it, is that correct?”
“Ja.”
“Fascinating. Other than suddenly speaking Danish, do you feel normal and healthy?” This prompted a strong nod. With a nod of his own, Shanks stood.
“All right. I’m going to send you down the hall to Dr. Robbins. She will examine your eyes and then you’ll come back to me and I’ll have a go at, well, just about everything else from the neck up. This will take several visits because it will be quite thorough. And it’s only a first step. We can schedule the appointments to fit your schedule, but the tests should be done as quickly as possible.”
“Scheduling won’t be a problem,” Doug assured him. “We’ll be here whenever you say.”
After more paperwork in the ophthalmologist’s office, a nurse ushered the couple into a room with soft lighting where they met Dr. Robbins. She was a tall woman who simultaneously embodied competence and caring. Brisk in her manner, the doctor got down to business.
“Okay, Mrs. Williams, I will be looking for …”
“Carrie,” said Carrie.
“Thank you. Carrie, I will look carefully at your physical eyes and check your vision. I will ask a lot of questions and I want you to ask me as many as you want.”
The doctor took care with her examination, explaining what she was looking for, what Carrie should do, and what her equipment was designed to do. Using both a retinoscope and an auto-refractor, she looked into her eyes all the way to their back walls. One machine blew puffs of air into each eye, another illuminated their structure, and Robbins used an elaborate phoropter for the vision test. For clarity, when asking, “Which is clearer, One … or Two,” she had Carrie hold up one finger on her right hand or two fingers on her left.
Near the end, she dilated her pupils, peered at them with an ophthalmoscope, and called a time-out for lunch. “Your Danish-speaking student will be at Dr. Shanks’s office at three o’clock. That should give you time to rest and recover your clear vision. I’ll have my report on his desk within an hour.”
They made their way to the cafeteria in the hospital basement and went through the line, then found a table near the door. A photo mural of a public park ran the length of the seating area. The lighting and a mild, pine-scented breeze from the air handler enhanced the feeling of being outside.
“Well, it’s been exhausting for me, and you’re the one who had to go through all that,” Doug said once they were seated.
Carrie nodded. She wanted to talk, but if Doug was already tired, she didn’t want to wear him out further. Her hand sought his before she started on her soup, and she gave him a cheerful look.
After eating, they took a walk in the
real outdoors, then sat side by side in Dr. Shanks’s waiting area, leaning together for a cat nap.
* * *
“Sorry to disturb you!” boomed the doctor, waking them fully. He introduced them to Alvilda Birger, a young Danish American woman. “She is studying Norse languages and psychology.”
The young woman extended her hand and said, “Hej,” sounding like ‘Hi.’ “Please call me Alvi.”
“Rart at møde dig, Alvi,” Carrie said.
“Hello,” said Doug. Then he barked, “Hej!” and looked surprised at his own volume. That made the others smile. Carrie chuckled. Then Alvi began to giggle softly, which developed into a healthy, infectious laugh. Defenseless against it, all four began to guffaw, the rising mirth spreading even to the doctor’s normally indomitable secretary at her desk.
When the roars finally subsided, Doug was perspiring, red-faced, and wondering if he had inadvertently said a bad word in Danish. He said, “I’m never that funny in English,” setting off another round. After settling down, Carrie had hiccoughs. Alvi assured Doug that he had, in fact, said “hello” like a Dane, and added that it had simply startled her when he did. Dr. Shanks, who was fast becoming Greg to the Williamses, shook his head and glanced at his secretary. Carrie watched his shoulders jerk when he caught Alice dabbing her eyes, but he did not start laughing again. He ushered all three visitors into his office.
“Why don’t you tell Carrie a little about yourself while I ask Doug some questions,” he suggested to Alvi. The two men retired to an examination room.
Carrie and the young woman sat with their heads together. “Hvordan har du det?” Alvi asked, making eye contact and sounding sincere.
Grateful to be asked, and wanting to reassure her, Carrie answered, “Godt, tak.”
The young woman winked and whispered, “Hej!” while making a face much like Doug’s when he had boomed it.
Carrie grinned and asked whether the young woman’s name meant anything in English.