by Amy Cross
A little further down the page, she found John Collier's Lilith, in which a naked woman posed with a snake wrapped around her body.
“Not me either. Never liked snakes.”
Scrolling further, she tried to read about the history of vampires, but her eyes were quickly drawn to a photo of Max Schreck from the 1920s Nosferatu film. The actor had been made up to look bald and dark-eyed, with long, curling fingers.
“Definitely not me.”
Near the bottom of the page, she found a picture of Christopher Lee as Dracula.
“That'd be kinda cool, but still nope.”
Reaching the last block of text, she began skimming the words once again, before finally realizing she couldn't concentrate. Nothing seemed to make sense, and she was leaning more and more toward the theory that her father had lost his mind. She figured he'd been through a lot of stress over the years, and that his job was very solitary, keeping him alone in the basement with dead bodies for most of the day. In the circumstances, it seemed highly likely that he might have become a little strange, that year by year his mind had cracked and finally all this nonsense had come spewing out.
And yet, deep down...
Filled with a sudden sense of panic, she hurried to the mirror in the corner and checked her reflection.
“At least I have a reflection,” she muttered under her breath. “Plus I love garlic bread, it's the best food ever, so I can't be a...”
Her voice trailed off. Still staring at herself, she knew she should take a closer look at her so-called fangs, but she couldn't quite bring herself to see them again. Besides, while they were out of sight, there was always a faint hope that they might have vanished, that they'd never really been there in the first place.
“I want to suck your blood,” she said out loud.
She sighed.
“I want to suck your blood!” she tried again, sniffing back more tears.
Another sigh.
“Vampires don't cry,” she added finally, wiping her cheeks. “So that's one great big fuck-you to the whole idea right there.”
She paused, before realizing she was distracting herself from the inevitable, from the one thing that seemed to suggest her father might have a point. She tried to find the necessary courage from somewhere, and finally she was able to raise her upper lip a little.
A shudder ran through her body.
Sure enough, two thin, crooked fangs had broken through her gums. She tried to rationalize what she was seeing, to tell herself that she simply had two new, slightly broken teeth, but deep down she could tell that these 'teeth' really were fangs, albeit ones that were in no way parallel to one another. In fact, the way they hung crookedly in her mouth seemed almost comical, and she couldn't shake the feeling that somehow they looked wrong. Leaning closer, she peered at her gums, examining the spot where the fangs emerged from the pinkness, and then she realized she could see tiny holes at the tip of each fang.
Tiny holes for the blood to enter.
“I'm not a vampire,” she whispered, trying to push back against the growing sense of fear in her chest. “Vampires aren't real. They're like werewolves or zombies or... Klingons...”
For a moment, however, she found herself thinking back to her experience in the alley. For the first time since waking up, she was starting to remember the moment when rat blood had dribbled into her mouth. Her initial reaction to the memory was disgust, but this was quickly replaced by a sense of wholeness, and a feeling that the blood had somehow satisfied a deep, primal need. She certainly couldn't deny that the pain and hunger in her belly had vanished, and as much as her mind recoiled at the thought of drinking from a rat, she could tell that her body embraced the idea.
“It's something else,” she whispered.
The words sounded so weak.
“It has to be something else. I'm not a...”
Again, she couldn't bring herself to say the word.
After a moment, however, she looked at the sore cuts in the palms of her hands, and she slowly began to realize that she couldn't deny what was right in front of her. No matter how many times she told herself that she couldn't be a vampire, that such things didn't even exist, the idea somehow settled in her mind and felt right.
“I can't be,” she whispered, feeling a cold flash of realization rippling through her body. “I just can't.”
Hearing a brief buzzing sound, she realized a text message had arrived. She grabbed her cellphone and saw that the message was from Rita, asking how she was doing.
“Fine,” she muttered, typing a quick response, before sitting back on her bed and staring at the wall.
A moment later, she received another message.
“If you want to talk,” Rita had written, “let me know. Personally, I think vampires are kinda cool.”
Izzy shuddered when she saw those words, but at the same time she was starting to let her mind consider the possibility.
“I'm a vampire,” she said out loud, still slumped on her bed. “I'm a vampire,” she said again, and this time the words felt just a little less outlandish. Finally, sitting up, she felt a cold sense of realization in her chest. “I'm a vampire.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“Was Mom a vampire?”
Turning, John saw that Izzy had come back downstairs and was watching him from the doorway. He hesitated for a moment, before looking down at the photo and once again trying to imagine what his dead wife would say. Nothing came, however, and he felt more useless than ever.
“Assuming that I believe all of this,” Izzy continued cautiously, “and that's still by no means certain, but... Are you trying to tell me that...” She stared at the photo in his hands, and instantly fresh tears reached her eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that Mom was... a vampire?”
He watched her for a moment, before setting the photo down.
“No,” he said finally, making his way back over to the table. “Your mother was human.”
“Then what -”
She stopped suddenly, staring at him.
“You?” she asked, her voice trembling slightly as the first tear trickled down her cheek.
“Isobel -”
“No way.”
He sighed.
“Look at you!” she continued, her voice filled with astonishment. “You can't be a vampire, Dad! You're just... You look... Normal...”
“Thanks,” he replied. “I think.”
“I'm still not saying I believe it,” she added quickly. “Let's be clear about that. I am still so, so far away from believing any of this. It's just...” She looked once again at the photo of her mother, and in that moment she realized she had to keep asking questions. Running away and hiding was not an option. “I had a few odd things happen to me today,” she continued cautiously, “and I figure I should at least entertain all the possibilities. Even the ones that seem completely crazy.” Reaching up, she touched the tips of her fangs, taking care this time to not prick her skin. “I mean, I can't deny these things, can I? They're pretty solid proof that something's going on. And something happened earlier, something involving blood, and it really freaked me out. It made me feel like I wasn't even myself.”
“You needed to feed,” he told her.
“On blood?”
He nodded.
“Even rat blood?”
“Rat blood?” He frowned. “God, no. I mean, it'd fill a hole, but it's remarkably low quality. No daughter of mine should be drinking from a common rodent.”
“So then how -” She paused again, as she tried to make sense of the thoughts swirling through her mind. Slowly, she turned and saw the sign for the funeral parlor, and then she turned back to him. “You?” she asked again. “You?”
He tried to smile, even though he felt sick to his stomach. “Surprised?”
“You're not a vampire,” she continued. “Vampires are brooding and menacing, not...” She tried to think of a polite way to finish the sentence. “Vampires don't wear slacks and run funera
l parlors.”
“They do if they want a convenient source of blood that means they can avoid killing innocent victims.”
“You get the -” She froze, feeling nauseous for a moment. “Okay, I think I'm starting to see the bigger picture here.”
She looked down at the blood-pack on the table.
“I had my fangs surgically removed,” he told her. “I had false human teeth put in their place. It's not a common operation, and it hurt like... Well, it hurt a lot, but it was a long time ago.”
“Why did you do it?”
“I...” He shook his head, as if he wasn't quite sure how to explain. “I didn't want to see another vampire ever again. Not even in the mirror.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Because of what they did to...” Slowly, he turned to look at the photo again. “Your mother always said she could handle herself. She said she knew what she was getting into, marrying someone... marrying something like me. I knew deep down that she was wrong, that the truth and the darkness would catch up to us, but your mother insisted that love would keep us safe and I believed her. After all, she was right about everything else.”
Izzy sniffed back more tears.
“What happened to her?” she asked cautiously.
He turned and looked at her, before shaking his head.
“What happened to her?” she asked again, with a hint of anger, as she made her way around the table. “What happened to Mom? I want the truth, this time!”
“I always told you she died after a car crash.”
“And I always knew you were holding something back.”
“Maybe this isn't the right time to -”
“This is exactly the right time,” she said firmly. “Tell me!”
“Let me see those fangs of yours again.”
“Dad -”
“Just let me see them,” he continued. “Please. Just quickly.”
She paused, before opening her mouth so he could see her two crooked fangs again.
“Your mother always wondered what you'd look like when you got them,” he said with a faint, sad smile. “If she could see them now, all crooked like this...” His smile grew, and now it seemed more genuine, although also tinged with sorrow. “God, she was obsessed by the thought of you getting your fangs one day. She'd have been so proud of you, Isobel. To see you now, to see that you're developing and... Your mother didn't hate vampires at all. She wasn't scared of them, either. She thought there was something beautiful about our species, and she loved you so very much.”
Izzy waited for him to finish, but after a moment she realized he was lost in thought.
“What happened to her?” she asked again. “The truth this time.”
He paused. “Isobel, your -”
Before he could finish, they both heard a loud bump from beneath their feet, accompanied by the sound of someone sneezing.
“Your friend?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Your... vampire friend?”
“I should...” John paused, before a moment of realization spread through his chest. “I know what I have to do,” he whispered finally.
“You have to tell me about Mom,” she replied, “and -”
“In a moment,” he added, hurrying around the table and heading to the doorway. “Wait right here!”
“Dad, you can't keep -”
“I'll be back in two minutes!” he called back to her, having already made his way out of the room.
Sighing, Izzy heard him clattering down the steps that led to the basement, and then a moment later she heard him hurrying back up. She waited, but now he was making his way upstairs, and she listened as his footsteps shuffled through the room directly above. He seemed to be gathering things from every room in the house. A few seconds later, she heard another loud bump, and then she realized he was heading back downstairs. Looking over at the doorway, she was startled to see him rushing through with a suitcase.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked.
“I've made an executive decision,” he replied, a little breathless as he placed the empty suitcase on the table and pulled it open. “You've got two minutes. Put anything important in here.”
“Why?”
“Because we can't stay here, Isobel!” he continued, his eyes filled with panic. “It's too dangerous. I don't care what anyone else says! I'm getting us out of here tonight!”
Chapter Thirty
“This is nuts,” Izzy muttered, watching the dark road ahead as John drove them out of town. “You've lost your mind. Or I've lost my mind.” She turned to her father. “We've both lost our minds! What if that's it? What if we both happened to have snapped at the same time and -”
“Isobel...”
“No, listen!” she continued. “We've both snapped, and now we're feeding into each other's madness!”
“If only things were that easy,” he muttered.
Sighing, she slumped back in the passenger seat. “I want it to be that,” she said finally. “I'd rather be mad than... this...”
“I'll explain later,” he continued. “I'm sorry, Isobel, but we had to get away from the house while O'Malley was still in the basement. I locked him in, but eventually he'll find a way out.”
“You locked your friend in the basement?”
“He'd only try to dissuade me.”
“From what?”
“From getting us out of here!” He took the next left, following the signs for the road that led out of town around the edge of the forest. “He wanted us to sit tight like obedient little things, but I'm not letting you stay in the danger-zone. I know the whole fiasco must sound insane, Isobel, but I'll explain when we get far, far away from this place. We'll go to Florida. Doesn't that sound good? We'll go to Florida to get away from all the craziness.” He frowned. “Now there's a sentence I bet no-one has ever said before.”
“It's you,” she whispered, watching him intently. “You're the one who's nuts. Not me.”
“Isobel -”
“Stop the car,” she continued, suddenly feeling a rush of panic. “I should never have listened to you, you're out of your mind. It's probably not even safe for you to be driving! All this stuff about vampires is insane, you're just taking advantage of the situation and filling my head with all sorts of crap and -”
“You know it's true,” he said firmly. The car's tires squealed as he took the next turn too fast. “I saw it in your eyes back there. I was only telling you things you already suspected. Denial is part of the process, but deep down you know full well that I'm right.”
“You keep saying that, but...”
Her voice trailed off as she tried to think of another answer. A moment later, however, she spotted a sign flashing past, and she turned just in time to see the Welcome to Sobolton board disappearing into the distance. She'd lived in the same town, in the same house, for as long as she remembered, and suddenly she saw the lights receding into the distance. Everything she'd ever known, everything that had ever made her feel even slightly comfortable, was disappearing into the night.
“We can't leave,” she said suddenly, turning to her father. “This is insane!”
“We have to get out of town.”
“No, Dad, seriously -”
“It's not safe. I'll explain later, but -”
“Explaining later really hasn't worked so far, has it?” she snapped, no longer able to stifle the panic that was rising in her chest. “My whole life up until this point has been all about you explaining things later! Seriously, you need to start being honest with me. Why don't we just turn around and go home, and you can try going through it all from the start? I'm not saying I believe you, not yet, and I still think you should consider getting an MRI scan to rule out some kind of brain tumor or aneurysm, but I'm willing to listen if you just -”
“There's no time!” he hissed.
“Why not?”
“You wouldn't understand!”
“But what's the big
hurry?”
“Isobel, please!”
She sighed, watching the increasingly dark road ahead. Apart from the car's headlamps, there were no other lights around, and she was starting to feel as if they were driving into oblivion.
“What happened to Mom?” she asked finally.
“Isobel -”
“You owe me!” she said firmly. “Don't try to avoid it anymore, Dad. At least tell me the truth about Mom, or stop the car and I'll walk back to town!”
“You're being -”
“There's someone in the road!” she screamed suddenly, spotting a figure up ahead.
John slammed his foot on the brake pedal, but he was far too late and the car slammed into the figure. Instead of sending it crashing over the top of the hood, however, the impact merely shoved the figure back at speed, while the car screeched to a halt and John let out a gasp of shock. As the figure's feet scraped along the dark asphalt, sparks and smoke shot up, but still the figure remained upright until finally it came to a halt.
Izzy, meanwhile, had gripped the sides of her seat and was staring ahead with shocked eyes.
The headlights were still picking out the figure, who – despite having been knocked back several meters – had remained on his feet. A faint cloud of smoke was still curling up from the souls of his boots. After a moment, squinting slightly, Izzy realized the figure was wearing some kind of black shawl, while his face seemed almost blank in the moonlight.
“Who the hell is that guy?” she asked, feeling a flicker of fear in her chest. “Dad, why -”
“We'll go around him,” John muttered, easing the car forward and then steering around the figure.
“Dad, he might be hurt!”
Before John could reply, the car's electronics cut out, plunging them into darkness. A moment later, the engine fell silent and the entire vehicle ground to a halt, with the dark figure still framed against the road and watching them calmly from up ahead.
John tried to get the engine re-started, but the only sound came from the key, clicking futilely.
“What's wrong with it?” Izzy asked, before glancing at the figure. “Why's that guy just standing there? I don't think he's moved since we hit him. Maybe it's just a really heavy statue.”