by Rei Fletcher
"Ah, I'm swept away by all of the passion." Her voice didn't mock, it teased. Marianne got the difference. Anyway, she didn't mind.
"He's a decent guy."
"Not all it used to be?"
"Yeah."
"Growing apart. So it goes."
They sat in the car. Ash handed over a bottle of whiskey. It was definitely easier to drink with practice. They watched the steady stream of customers into the convenience store, sharing the bottle back and forth.
"You've lived a long time."
"That I have."
"What's the meaning of it?"
"No idea. Your decent guy, he's caught up in it because it's all new. When he figures out an answer that suits him he'll get a job and settle in and he won't wonder anymore."
"That sounds depressing."
Ash shrugged. "I spent ten years in Paris listening to people philosophise over the meaning of life, while chambermaids cleaned their piss pots. Holy god, did they stink."
"The pots or the philosophers?"
"Both."
"I heard that. Things were smelly."
"Modern life has its advantages. But then, they all smelled, so no one did, if you look at it that way."
Marianne shifted to ease the pain in her side. "I guess it's different for everyone."
"That's my thought."
"What's yours?"
"I want to take care of that one."
"Like a crusade. A quest."
"Something like that." Ash smiled.
"That'll be mine, too."
"So young for that."
"How old were you? I mean, you look like you're maybe twenty."
"Ah, fair enough. The thing is, I have to wait for my chances. He's hard to catch. Same with everything. I hate being patient."
"Me too."
"Is that why you went along with a mysterious light?"
"I guess. I just want something to happen, you know? I won't have many chances, I don't think. Maybe if I'd gotten into university I wouldn't even have been out there. I'd've been getting ready to go. But it's like, I don't want this to be all there is, forever."
"You're smart and courageous. If you can go out and hunt Unformed Beasts you can get out of here."
Marianne looked down at her knife. "I'll be more helpful next time."
"Patience, Marianne. You'll get better. In any case, it's a fine thing to have a companion on the road."
"Yeah. Yeah, it is."
She watched Ash stow the bottle. "Do vampires get drunk?"
"It's a quick burn. The taste is an old one. Reminds me of old times. If it bothers you I don't need to."
"No. I mean, it's just…" She waved at the road. "Dangerous, you know."
"I can take my tipples at home."
"If you say it's okay, it's cool."
"Not the point, my girl."
Chapter 9
Marianne got her first proper kill the next night. Ash picked her up after work and they tracked a beast to a riverbank. It was feasting on something. Ash held her back at first, to learn about its habits.
"It sounds so gross."
"It just climbs right on there." Ash peered through the leaves. Something about the movement caught Marianne's attention. It wasn't like an animal exactly, but it wasn't like how a person would do it, either.
Human. Like a human.
She turned back to the beast. It was undulating. The sound and the smells together were stomach-churning. All of its attention was on its feeding. Did that mean it was more vulnerable? She might have read that somewhere. Or maybe that was drinking. There was so much material to cover in her classes, and now she couldn't remember it, anyway. What was the point of it all, then?
"It's...slurping."
"I'll go upriver. If it can smell anything it will catch my scent."
It didn't lift its bloody face until Ash was fully visible on the rocky shore. Marianne crept up behind it. It was much easier with a knife than it had been with a frying pan. She made sure of a killing blow like Ash taught her.
"It doesn't have a nose," she said.
Ash peered at its face. "There are spots where eyes might have been. Four." She made a face.
"So maybe it used to live somewhere with light."
"When they were in this world, maybe."
"That place was light."
Ash looked in the direction of the trailer park. "It's a magic place. They have different rules. What you saw was meant to be alluring to you."
They pushed the melting corpse into the river. There wasn't enough left of the prey animal to identify, except to know that it wasn't a person.
"Thank god it's furry."
Ash snickered. "It would be worse in a big city. Here there are enough wild animals and strays that it doesn't have to go after people all the time. Dogs are easier prey."
"You'd think dogs would fight."
"They don't know how to fight these things. Unformed beasts have a sort of dull intelligence. Enough to put dogs at a disadvantage."
Those tails.
They went out every night. Their best record was a cluster of three that had taken up in a subdivision north of town. The hunt and the kills took all of her concentration, and it wasn't easy, but it was a rush. The immediacy beat at her blood. All of her track and field training could be thrown at hunting down monsters that sucked up people and family pets like milkshakes. She liked it. She liked being good at it. She liked that it was something better than cooking french fries.
Even the night they didn't find anything was productive. There were tricks to getting around unnoticed, even in the dark. Ash had advantages that Marianne could never match, but she showed Marianne some ways that worked for noisy, slow humans, too. It was awesome. Sneaking around, and not just to go out with Bobby. It felt important, like how school had seemed important, but this was real. And anyway it was her fault they were out. Hers and that guy's.
"I guess it's good to know where they aren't, too."
"Safe bolt holes are important. Allies, too, if you can find them."
Marianne nodded to cover her smile of pleasure.
After the first night, she started packing a change of clothes. When things got especially gooey she had something to wear while Ash threw her things into the wash. They'd sit and drink and talk. God, they could talk about anything and it came easy. The tiny library on her mantle was nothing compared to the ocean of books Ash had read. She knew music, too. Older stuff, mostly, like from the 40s and 50s, and classical stuff. They traded CDs once or twice, and Ash laughed when Marianne tried to be nice about opera. She could be honest, though. She never felt like she had to impress Ash the way she used to try to do with Bobby, and she didn't have to worry about her gossiping like Charlene sometimes would. And sometimes Ash would lean forward and it was like they had the same vibe, completely.
She stayed in bed until afternoon and sometimes evening, making up for lost sleep. She was freakishly exhausted a lot of the time, even dozing at work. Like an old woman, she thought, but it was worth it. She was lucky that her mom was busy. She didn't ask any questions or even ask if Marianne had gas money. Maybe John was taking care of that.
The exhaustion made her appreciate the slow times at work. When it was dead Charlene came to hang out and she could take it easy. She came more often than she used to since school was out.
"Mare?"
"Hm? Sorry."
Charlene rolled her eyes.
"You look like death warmed over. What's going on with you anyway?"
"Nothing. Less than nothing."
"Then why won't you hang out anymore?"
Because I'm hunting magical monster creatures with a vampire.
Sometimes when she really thought about it, she thought she might actually be crazy.
"Just broke."
"It doesn't cost anything to come over and watch movies."
"We always end up going to a store or whatever."
"I don't mind spotting you."
"It
doesn't seem right, that's all."
"It's just that it's my last summer." Marianne thought she was meant to pity her, like she was dying, not going off to a great university. "You almost never call back or anything. When you do you barely talk."
Marianne tried to remember what she'd said, but honestly couldn't remember the last time they'd spoken.
"I never liked talking on the phone." Charlene didn't look appeased. "Sorry. I'll try to do better. Anyway, I'm coming tonight."
"Only because I rounded you up."
Railroaded, that was the word for it. She was a bit annoyed, too, because Ash said she'd caught the trail of something else that had come through the gate. Not that the Unformed Beasts were safe or easy to kill, but she wondered what other creatures might be like.
"God! Are you even listening?"
"Sorry. Sorry, I am listening. Movies, right?"
Charlene made a face. "That's just a lucky guess."
"At least it was lucky?"
Charlene relented with a smile. Marianne laughed. It was really hard not to cheer up along with Charlene.
"Tim Curry marathon?"
"That sounds great. Just us?"
"Yup. And I stocked up on junk food, so you don't have to worry about all that. You don't anyway, you know. Have to worry, I mean. You don't have to ask, I'm offering."
"Grand."
"Grand?"
Marianne felt the heat rise in her cheeks and she got up to get a rag to wipe the counter again.
"Watching foreign TV shows again? Or a book this time?"
"What do you mean?"
"You always do that. You read something or whatever and get so into it. It's like you turn into a different person, a little bit." She laughed. "I can never keep up."
Marianne looked at the rag. Was she that much of a fake?
"I'm just me," she said. Her voice didn't sound very sure.
"I think you're cool. I always thought that. Way cooler than me." Charlene shrugged. There was a moment of embarrassed silence.
"Let's have some fries. On the house."
"Mare!"
She threw up the horns and made her best rock face.
Her favourite Tim Curry movie was Clue. Charlene's was Fern Gully. They both liked Rocky Horror. They raided the liquor cabinet to spice up their cokes, and Charlene extracted a promise from her to play video games with a group of friends. Charlene's brother drove Marianne home, letting her out on the road like she asked. After the warmth of the car, the pre-dawn cold hit her like a punch to the gut.
She remembered the Unformed Beast swinging for her. She only felt the odd twinge every now and then. She ambled home, booze making her flip off the silent stretch of forest. She didn't say his name or think it, but she knew he was there.
We're gonna take care of it.
It wasn't just some fake poser phase, she decided. She'd killed real monsters. It was like learning from Yoda, if Yoda was a vampire, and it wasn't like Ash was going around ripping out throats, so what did it matter? So what if she accidentally said 'grand' like Ash did? What was wrong with changing? It sounded nice when she heard it. She fell asleep as the sun came up, fingertips touching the knife in its hiding place.
The smell of leftover coffee woke her, making her want to throw up almost as badly as the Unformed Beasts did. She dumped it out and went back to her room. Fresh air flooded in when she opened her window. She took a deep breath. It was an almost cartoonishly nice day. That was the thing about this town. The days would be so gorgeous and clean, with the sharp northern wind that filled her full of restless energy, and made her think that static little mill towns weren't so bad. Some days were amazing. She smiled and stretched. Maybe today would be a good day.
She heard her mom come home. It was later than she thought. She rubbed her eyes.
"Hey there, stranger." Her mom peered into her room and smiled. "Still in bed?"
"I've been up. Just a little tired."
"Too much midnight oil. Come on. I got dinner."
There were only two plates among the scattered Chinese food containers. She wondered if this was a cheer up feast, and hoped it wasn't. She liked John. She loaded up her plate and dug in.
"You've been going a little wild since school's been out."
Marianne speared some garlic pork, thinking of Ash, wondering if she liked Chinese. For the taste of it.
"Just getting my time in while Charlene is still here."
"I was talking to Nora today. You know she's a manager at a McDonald's."
Shit.
"She can get you on, for sure, she says. Full time, if you want it. All you have to do basically is fill in that application I got you."
Marianne twisted noodles around her fork. "I don't...I don't know. I don't want to work at McDonald's."
You don't know." Her mom's voice flattened. "What's there to know?"
"It's just...I don't want to work there."
"You're not in school anymore. You have to start pulling your weight. It's money. We need it. We need to get the car looked at and do some fixing up around here. The place is going to fall down around our heads if we aren't careful."
Marianne looked at the door, imagining herself getting up and just leaving. Just like that.
"What's that about? That look." Her mom's eyes could be so hard when she got worked up. Marianne felt a little twist of resentment. Like she hadn't been pulling her weight? She'd worked all the way through high school.
"You think I'm only worth a job at McDonald's?"
"That's not what I said. Anyway, what's wrong with it? It's a decent job."
Respectable, her mom meant. Acceptable. Safe enough. A safe road to a steady job. That kind of thing. Steady, low-level work. The kind of work that would give her just enough money to barely keep her head above water, and make sure that she never got out of town.
"I could do more if I could go to university. I could make way better money when I'm done."
"Where do you think that money's coming from? You didn't get the scholarships. You always knew that you had to get them. If you still want to go you have to figure that out. That money."
It stung, all the way down to the bone. For a minute her mom was quiet.
"I'm sorry, sweetie. I know you worked hard, but it didn't happen. That's the way it goes."
"The gas station is better. I'll ask for more shifts."
"Has someone else quit?" She couldn't tell if her mom was genuinely hopeful, or just making a point. It didn't really matter either way.
"They already said the only way you'll get more hours is sick days for someone else or if someone quit. There's no future at that place."
"And there is at McDonald's?"
"Well, you know. There's management training there. That's something. It looks good on a resume, working there."
"Maybe for high school kids."
"It's a job. You do what you have to. Daydream all you want but there needs to be food on the table and a roof over our heads while you do it. It'll keep us going until something better comes along. I asked for another application. You can fill it out tonight."
She did, messily and grumpily, leaving it on the counter on the way out the door to meet Charlene.
She drove them to a condo complex downtown. The buildings were verging on dingy. Eighties stucco was cracking between thick, dark wood planks. Cooking smells lingered in the hallway, mingling with the smell of Pine-Sol, or whatever the industrial version of that cleaner was. Years of foot traffic left a blurry, pale stripe in the loud carpet pattern, like game trails leading to dark brown doors.
The brown and cream continued inside. Yard sale furniture and posters shrank the living room into something more like a bedroom. She found a place on a futon that had absorbed years of pot and cigarette smoke. Remembering the sleeping bag in the back of Bobby's pickup, she put her jacket down before she sat.
Charlene was quickly off gossiping with people Marianne didn't know. The two guys playing Tomb Raider went to the com
munity college, she learned, mostly by eavesdropping, and were getting certified as electricians. Everyone else seemed to be friends from there or university.
"Marianne? Mare?"
She looked up in surprise. "Sarah?"
She was enveloped in an enthusiastic and slightly tipsy hug.
"You're back from university?"
"Summering at home to save a bit of cash." Sarah grabbed another beer for Marianne and sat beside her on the lumpy futon. Except for short hair and more makeup Sarah looked identical to when she'd captained their track team. They caught up on gossip over the warring noise of video games and music.
"So what are you going to study?" Sarah asked.
"Taking a year off."
She hesitated just slightly. Sarah had been one of the few people who hadn't cared about her dad's accident, but she did know Marianne wasn't exactly rolling in money.
"Gonna find yourself. Very wise. I think I should've, too. The Math and Science requirements are killers."
"What do you study?"
"Lit. I think I'm going to focus on 19th century women's literature."
"That's so cool!"
"I love it. I'd love to be a writer. Who wouldn't, though, right?" She laughed. Marianne thought she was wearing perfume. That was new. "God knows what I'm going to do for a living. Have you thought about going to the community college?"
"I don't know yet."
"It might be a good idea. Even if you go a year or two, and figure out what you want to do, then you can transfer to a university." Sarah patted her leg the way she used to when they were resting at practice. A bit like patting a horse, maybe. It'd been a while since she'd felt something that normal, and it made her feel better.
"That does sound like a good idea."
"Marianne!" Charlene waved at her. "They're switching to Mario Kart. Come on. You can play."
"Gotta go be a gorilla."
"Win big."
She was waiting for the guys to switch over the game systems when the door opened, followed by a gust of cool, fresh air. When she heard Bobby's voice she fought to keep her face still. He was her boyfriend; she ought to be excited.
He made a space for himself beside her and kissed her cheek.
"Hey."
"Howdy stranger." He gave her his best smile.