by Amy Cross
Again she waited, but again Izzy seemed lost in her own thoughts.
“If it's any consolation,” Rita added, “I'm in no way offended. I mean, sure, you tried to bite my neck, and you were a pain in the ass, but at least you were an interesting pain in the ass. I've had people cause me trouble before, but they usually committed the cardinal sin of being both annoying and boring. You?” She smiled. “Well, one thing you're definitely not is boring. That's how I make all my decisions in life. If something's boring, I leave. If it's interesting, even if it's scary interesting, I stick around.”
Still she waited, and finally she nudged Izzy's arm, hoping for a response.
“Are you okay in there?” she asked cautiously. “Izzy?”
“I don't know what happened,” Izzy muttered, her voice still trembling slightly, filled with shock.
“Well, there's time to figure that out.”
“It was going on all day. It was getting worse and worse, like it was building up. I tried everything to stop it, but I couldn't.”
“What happened to your hands?”
For a moment, Izzy wasn't sure what she meant. Remembering the way she'd used the pen lid earlier, however, she checked her palms, and sure enough the flesh of both hands was lacerated.
“It was the only way to stay in control,” she mumbled helplessly. “It worked at first, but not later.”
“Evidently.”
“Something's... Something's happening to me.”
“No kidding.”
Stopping as she reached the driveway to her house, Izzy turned to Rita. “Did I really try to hurt you? I mean, are you sure I wasn't just joking?”
“Pretty sure. And by the way, those are some interesting teeth you've got there.”
With her tongue, Izzy felt the two new teeth and immediately realized that they were longer than before, as if they'd finally emerged all the way. Sharp and thin, they'd burst through her upper gums and were now slightly longer than her regular teeth.
“So that's a lot to think about, huh?” Rita continued, before spotting the sign at the front of the driveway. “A funeral parlor? You live in a funeral parlor?”
“My father runs it.”
“No way!” Looking toward the house, Rita seemed genuinely dumbstruck for a moment. “Are there dead bodies in there right now? Like actual dead bodies, of people who used to be alive?”
“There might be. Sometimes.”
“Can I see them?”
“I don't think so,” Izzy muttered, reaching up and touching her fangs with the tip of a finger. “I think I just need to go inside and... I need to work out what happened tonight.”
“Do you want some company?” Rita asked. “I can totally understand if you're a little confused. I'm an excellent listener.”
“I need to be alone, but...” Izzy paused. “Thank you. I don't quite know what would have happened if you hadn't been there.”
“Neither do I,” Rita replied, “but I'm glad I bumped into you. For Violet's sake, if nothing else. I mean, she might be a total bitch, but she's kinda harmless. And defenseless.”
They stood in silence for a moment, each of them waiting for the other to say something. Finally, despite feeling a little awkward, Izzy felt as if she had to admit something else about the evening, although she wasn't quite sure where to start...
She swallowed hard. “I think -”
“Isobel!” a voice called out suddenly.
“Dad,” she whispered with a sigh.
“Isobel!”
Running along the driveway, John quickly reached his daughter and grabbed her arm.
“Where have you been?” he asked, glancing briefly at Rita and then turning back to Izzy. “You're hours late! Why didn't you come home for dinner? Why didn't you answer your phone?”
“I must have turned it off,” she replied, clearly a little shocked by his sudden arrival. “Um, Dad -”
“We have to go inside right now,” he stammered, still holding her arm as he turned and began to lead her into the house. “I need to talk to you!”
“Dad, this -”
“It's important,” he hissed, tugging her along. “Isobel, I need to discuss a very serious matter with you.”
“Seeya later,” Rita said with a faint, sad smile.
“Thanks again!” Izzy called back to her. “I'll call you tomorrow! Sorry about... this!”
“No need to apologize,” Rita muttered, watching as Izzy was dragged all the way into the house, at which point the front door was slammed shut. “So that's what it's like to have a father, huh?” she added with a sigh. She thought about the matter for a moment, before turning and heading back along the street. The metal around her belt was jangling more than ever. “Seems like a hassle. I think I'll stick with the whole alcoholic Mom thing and -”
Spotting something glinting on the ground, she reached down and picked up a bottle-top.
“Hmm,” she muttered, before slipping it into the cloth bag that hung from her belt. “Might be useful some day. You never know.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“You could have tried to be less rude,” Izzy muttered as she sat at one end of the dining table, watching her father heading to the other chair. “That was my friend out there, or...”
Her voice trailed off for a moment.
Was Rita her friend?
Or just someone she'd bumped into a few times?
“I mean... I was discussing something with her, that's all.” She paused again. “We were just -”
“I need to talk to you,” John said firmly as he sat down. “It's important.”
“Dad, I'm tired.”
“I'm sure you are, but -”
“And I don't feel well.” She got to her feet, wincing a little as she pushed the chair back and heard its legs scraping against the wooden floor. “Can we do this tomorrow?”
“Izzy...”
“Please, Dad? I need to get some sleep. Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning.”
John hesitated, before finally sighing. “Sure. We can talk in the morning.”
Izzy stared at him for a moment. “Typical.”
“What's typical?”
“You.” She paused. “Do you how many times, over the past few years, you've said we need to discuss something important, and then you've backed down and said it can wait?”
“I don't know what you're -”
“I've noticed, Dad!” She paused again. Part of her wanted to go upstairs and hide away in her room, and hope that everything would be normal in the morning, but another part of her knew she needed help and desperately wanted him to offer something. Too scared to ask him directly what was happening, she still hoped that he might be able to help. “It's like there's always some big deal you want to talk about, and sometimes you build yourself up to finally do it, but then you back down as soon as I give you the opportunity.”
“I do?” He stared at her for a moment, before nodding. “Yes. I guess I do.”
“It's about Mom, isn't it?”
“Your mother?”
“It has to be about her.” She sighed. “Dad, I just -”
“It's not about her.”
“Then -”
“Sit down, Isobel.”
“Dad -”
“Sit down!” he said firmly.
She froze for a moment, shocked by his tone, before finally sitting again.
“I feel sick,” she muttered, “and I've had a really bad evening, so unless this is important -”
“Isobel -”
“Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Now who's delaying?” he asked.
She opened her mouth to argue with him, but finally she sighed.
“It's about you,” he continued. “It's about... changes you might have noticed.”
She rolled her eyes. “Dad, I'm -”
“You must have guessed what you are.”
She paused, feeling a flash of panic in her chest. “What do you -”
�
�I can sense it in you,” he continued. “I've sensed it for a while, but I've delayed and delayed and delayed talking to you about it, and now I just have to hope I'm not too late. You might have muddled through puberty with help from the internet, but this situation is very different. Something else is stirring in your body.”
Izzy paused, trying to work out exactly what he meant. Or rather, trying to ignore the growing sense of realization that was creeping through her mind. She felt as if she was on the verge of something unreal and impossible, something that would simultaneously make perfect sense and yet contradict everything she knew about the world.
“You have pains in your gut,” he told her. “Don't deny it. I know. You also have loose teeth, two of them, or maybe they've even come out and new ones are coming through. You feel different, too, when you're around other people. You feel a kind of yearning, a hunger, and you can't explain it. Perhaps you've even begun to feel the need to feed, you've begun to hear the blood-songs...” He sighed. “I should have warned you about all of this, but instead I waited and I waited and now it's beyond the point where I could have prepared you. The thing is, Isobel, these symptoms won't go away. They're a sign that your body is changing, and developing, and moving on to the next phase of your existence. Believe it or not, I went through it myself, once. A long, long time ago.”
She shook her head.
“There'll be other things, too,” he added. “Dreams, or at least they'll seem like dreams at first. Or nightmares. Have you been having vivid nightmares lately, Isobel?”
Again she shook her head, not wanting to admit that he was right.
“They're not nightmares,” he continued. “They're a kind of race memory, a way for you to process a certain section of history and...” He sighed. “I know this must seem rather overwhelming. I wish I could find a better way to explain it all.”
They sat in silence for a moment, before finally there was a loud bumping sound from beneath the floor.
“Someone's staying with us for a few days,” John told her. “That's not -”
“In the basement?”
“Yes, in the basement, but it really -”
“You have a friend,” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow, “and he or she is staying in our basement for a while? Isn't that -”
“It's not the point,” he said firmly. “Isobel, show me your teeth.”
She paused. “Why?”
“Just show me.”
“I...” She paused again, before shaking her head.
“Why not?”
“I don't want to.”
“Because they're already starting to come through?”
She swallowed hard, feeling as if she was being slowly nudged toward a possibility she still couldn't acknowledge.
“This is so difficult,” he muttered, putting his head in his hands for a moment before sitting back and staring at her. “I could have done this so much better, but...” He sighed again. “Show me your teeth. I know what I'm going to see, so let's just get this over with and then I can explain what's happening to you.”
She considered the request for a moment, before finally baring her teeth, revealing two thin, long white fangs poking down from her gums.
John's eyes narrowed slightly, and then he tilted his head a little to one side.
“They're crooked,” he said with a trace of shock in his voice.
“Thanks, Dad,” she muttered, putting a hand in front of her mouth.
“Let me see.” Getting to his feet, John hurried around the table and stopped next to her. “Show me again.”
She hesitated, before lifting her head and baring her fangs again.
With a faint smile, John reached down and touched one of the fangs with the side of his finger. They were crooked, and whereas they should have run straight down from the gums, instead they leaned in toward one another. Not a lot, but enough for the difference to be noticeable, and the fang on the left was at a particular slant.
“They're crooked,” John whispered, still smiling. In his eyes, there was the faintest trace of tears. “My girl with the crooked fangs.”
“I don't have fangs,” she replied, turning away to hide her face.
“You must have felt the hunger for blood by now,” he continued. “Izzy, that's your body craving what it needs. The pain in your gut is what happens when that hunger goes unsatisfied. I'm afraid it's a curse we all -”
“Jesus!” Izzy hissed, getting to her feet and stepping back. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I'm sure you've guessed by now,” he replied. “Have you fed yet?”
“Fed?”
“You need blood. Aren't you in pain?”
She hesitated. “I'm not in pain.”
“That's odd.” He frowned. “Have you fed?”
Not wanting to mention the incident with Rita and the rats, she took another step back.
“I prepared this for you,” John continued, heading over to the counter and opening one of the drawers. He took out a clear plastic bag containing a pint of thick, rich red blood. “I thought I could help you with your first -”
“What the hell are you doing with that thing?” she asked, taking another step away from him.
“It's very good quality,” he explained. “I screen all the bodies that come into the parlor, only the very best -”
“Is that blood?”
“Of course it's blood,” he replied, stepping closer. “Don't you feel it calling to you? Don't you feel the hunger stirring in your gut?” He watched her carefully for a moment. “Or have you, as seems increasingly likely, already fed tonight?” He paused again. “Who was that girl I saw you with earlier? She's not one of us, I can tell that but -”
“One of us?” she asked, struggling to stay calm. “What are you -”
“She's not a vampire.”
“A vam-”
Izzy froze for a moment, her eyes filled with shock. That was the word that had been at the edge of her thoughts for a while now, even if she'd kept it a little to one side. It was a word charged with the unreal, and saying it out loud would require her to step beyond an invisible line that separated the real world from something darker, from something that seemed to be lurking in the shadows, waiting to offer its embrace.
“What's wrong?” John asked. “Can't you say it?”
Staring at him, she realized her lips felt impossibly dry. She also realized, after a moment, that he was right. She couldn't make herself say that word.
“You're not dumb, Isobel,” he continued. “Far from it. I know that deep down you recognize the signs, even if you can't quite bring yourself to accept them yet. If I could stop all of this, if I could make you go back to feeling normal, I would but -”
“Feeling normal?” She shook her head. “I've never felt normal in my life.”
“Isobel -”
“I'm done with this conversation,” she added, taking a step back until she reached the doorway. Suddenly, all she cared about was getting the hell out of that room. “I don't know if you've been sniffing fumes, Dad, or if your pal in the basement brought some weed over or something, but you're out of your mind. You need to really think about the fact that you're freaking me out, okay? 'Cause it's not big or clever to play games like this with your own goddamn daughter, not when she's...”
Her voice trailed off, before finally she turned and stormed out of the room.
“Isobel -”
“Leave me alone!”
“The vampire -”
“Don't say that word!” she screamed, turning to him with tears streaming down her face. “Don't ever say that word to me!”
She hesitated, her whole body trembling, before finally turning and hurrying up the stairs.
“Come back!” John called after her, although he knew it was already too late. A moment later he heard her bedroom door slamming shut and he turned, heading to the fireplace.
Stopping for a moment, he saw a framed photograph of a smiling woman. Taking the p
hoto in his right hand, he stared at her for a few seconds, feeling a familiar crushing sensation in his chest.
“I tried,” he said eventually, with a hint of tears in his eyes. “I really tried, but I couldn't do it. Not in a way that she'd...” He paused. “Do you remember when I told you I'd be awful at talking to her? And you told me I'd do just fine? Well, it looks like you were wrong. I screwed things up before, and I screwed them up tonight. Worse, I trapped us in this town and now there are other vampires around, which means I might not even have kept her safe. I kept putting the day off and putting it off, and now I don't know what I'm supposed to do. If you were here...”
He paused again, trying to imagine what his dead wife would say if she could hear him. But as ever, all he heard was silence.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“This is nuts,” Izzy muttered, hurrying over to her laptop and lifting the lid. Once she'd logged in, she began to type a query into a search engine, although after a moment she hesitated.
VAM
That was all she'd typed so far.
Sniffing back tears, she felt as if she was on the verge of losing her mind.
“Vampire,” she muttered finally, feeling a shudder as she finished typing the word. She was just going to prove her father wrong, she told herself as the results page loaded and she clicked through to a wiki site.
As she scrolled down the page, her eyes skimmed over the text. She saw sections about folk beliefs and the image of the vampire throughout history, and she saw reproductions of old images and paintings. There was so much information, some of it contradictory, and she had no idea where to start. Every time she began to read a section of the page, she felt as if the whole thing was just fiction, as if it was some kind of fairytale. The same worse and phrases kept appearing:
According to mythology.
Part of folklore.
In fiction.
Finally she stopped and looked at a jpeg of Edvard Munch's painting The Vampire, showing a red-haired woman embracing a man.
“Doesn't look anything like me,” she muttered under her breath, while wiping tears from her cheeks.