The Grateful Boys

by Françoise DuMaurier

  “Well thanks, for… being so friendly… and not scary,” Sebastian replied, not exactly sure of what to say.

  Gregory took him down a hall on the first floor and they arrived in a large kitchen. Gregory showed him the contents of the refrigerator – gallons and gallons of animal blood plus the pints taken from the blood bank.

  “What’s in there?” Sebastian asked, pointing to the pantry door.

  “Just the catacombs,” Gregory answered. “You wouldn’t want to go down there. It’s boring.”

  “Catacombs?” Sebastian asked but Gregory ignored him and pulled him back toward the direction of the foyer.

  “Follow me,” Gregory said as he swiftly walked up the flight of stairs. “Time is of the essence for night is rarely as long as day. I want to show you my room.”

  Sebastian followed right after him up the stairs. After reaching the second floor, he followed the vampire down a hallway. They stopped at a wooden door with another golden doorknob.

  “All of the doorknobs are gold,” Sebastian said.

  “Yes, we tend to have an aversion to silver. And while metal in general is quite different from the specificity of silver, it looks close enough to make most of us uncomfortable. But let’s not dwell on that. Let’s go in.”

  They entered Gregory’s room. The first thing Sebastian noticed were the black curtains against every window. Gregory explained the deal with sunlight to him.

  Sebastian focused his eyes on other things around the room – the ornate curtained bed, a wall filled with decorative swords, a samurai outfit displayed in a corner, and a wooden counter top with many trinkets on top.

  “Wow, where did you get all of these things? This is incredible,” Sebastian exclaimed.

  “Gifts given to me over the centuries during my time across various continents. Being immortal really isn’t so bad. But I’ve acquired so many possessions over the centuries that it would be impossible to store them all. I now keep only the things I consider truly important. What you might call – sentimental.”

  Sebastian walked around the room, quietly admiring the myriad of trinkets, possessions, accessories, swords, and other belongings.

  “Sebastian,” Gregory called his name.

  “Yes?” Sebastian said, turning to face him.

  “You’ve thus far been gracious and receptive to courtesy. A wonderful guest, to be sure. But there is something that can bond a human and a vampire very closely. And I feel that you and I could have that friendship. A small step for a very big change.”

  “Oh God!” Sebastian said worriedly. “I knew it! I knew it! You wonna drink my blood. That’s why you brought me here. I should have known better than to invite you into my room. What was I thinking? You’re gonna drain me and kill me or turn me into you.”

  Gregory glided closer to him. He gripped Sebastian by the shoulders. Sebastian could feel the coldness of Gregory’s long fingers through his shirt. But as cold as his grip was, his eyes exuded warmth.

  “No,” Gregory said softly. “I don’t wish to drink from you, or drain you, or turn you into what I am. And I certainly didn’t bring you here to kill you. I promise.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “It’s not what I want from you. It’s what I want for you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I told you the bond between human and vampire must be strengthened if a real friendship is to be formed. I need you… to drink from me.”

  “What?” Sebastian asked, surprised. “You don’t want to drink my blood. You want this to go the other way around?”

  “When we first met, I told you…”

  “You don’t like to repeat yourself, I remember.”

  “Good,” Gregory smirked. “There’s hope for you yet.”

  “And it’s not going to turn me into a vampire?” Sebastian asked.

  “Absolutely not. The transformation into a vampire is much more… complicated.”

  “Then I… I guess I could try it,” Sebastian said hesitantly.

  “I knew you would,” he smirked. “I just knew it. Now turn around.”

  “What?”

  “If we are to do this, you must place your full trust in me. It is the only way for the human-vampire dynamic to work. Do you understand this, Sebastian? You may leave now if trust is not something you’re comfortable with.

  “No,” Sebastian said quickly. “I’m just nervous. That’s all.”

  “So you are capable of placing you trust in me?”

  “You saved me… I owe you… why shouldn’t I?”

  “And I am asking for nothing in return. I only want to give to you… Now, turn around,” Gregory said, repeating himself.

  Sebastian slowly turned to face away from the vampire. He gasped as Gregory grabbed him, pulling him closer – his back pressed to Gregory’s chest.

  Gregory sunk his fangs into his own wrist. He held his wrist up to Sebastian’s mouth and told him, “drink.”

  Sebastian closed his eyes as his mouth met the cold wrist of the vampire. He began to drink the bitter but sweet tasting blood from the arm in front of him. As the blood met his throat, Sebastian felt a sensation he’d never known before.

  A rush of ecstasy hit him like a powerful drug. Drinking from a vampire was surely an immediate addiction, completely incomparable. The ardor was overpowering and all encompassing. His chest rose and fell as he drank the blood of the immortal – the true blood.

  Sebastian opened his eyes and his senses were so different. He could smell things he’d never smelt before. Every inch of the room. He could hear the branches outside swaying in the distance. And his vision – everything looked as if he were seeing through a crystalline kaleidoscope.

  Gregory pulled his arm away and the two fang marks in his wrist disappeared, leaving behind only a faint scar of where he’d bitten himself.

  Gregory took Sebastian and walked him over to his bed. Sebastian sat on the bed as Gregory knelt down on one knee and stared him in the eyes.

  “Look at me closely,” Gregory said.

  Sebastian nodded.

  Without saying a word, he did as the vampire instructed – meeting Gregory’s eyes in a haze of euphoria.

  “Now…” Gregory said softly. “Sleep.”

  Sebastian’s eyelids drew to a close and everything went dark.110

  Chapter 6

  Monday would be a bigger day than Mason ever thought it would be. But first he had to get through Sunday. It was the last day before school would be back in session, and Mason had just seen a goddamn gigantic vampire bat fly out of my own sister’s bedroom!

  He wasn’t quite sure how to approach the topic to his sister. How the hell do I confront her about having a blood sucking nightmare demon fly out of her room? At first Mason thought, perhaps he’d been seeing things. But he knew he was far too young to have reached senility.

  I know exactly what I saw, he told himself. On Sunday morning he carefully stood peeking from his door, watching his sister leave her bedroom and enter the kitchen for breakfast.

  She sat down at the kitchen table. Mason slowly followed after her. He sat at the far end of the table, away from Hailey as Mom fried eggs and bacon.

  “Morning, kids,” Mom said.

  “Good morning, Mom,” Hailey said.

  “Morning Mom,” Mason uttered, his eyes never leaving Hailey.

  “Breakfast smells great,” Hailey breathed in deeply.

  “Still eating food, eh?” Mason raised a single solitary eyebrow.

  “Uh, yeah,” Hailey scoffed. “Why wouldn’t I be eating food?”

  “Oh, no reason. Just a comment. I know how you girls get. Feeling body conscious, perhaps,” Mason shrugged inquisitively.

  “What the heck are you on about?” Hailey said, yawning.

  “Leave your sister alone, honey,” Mom told him as she served breakfast.

  “For now,” Mason muttered under his breath.

  “Spent all Saturday lying in bed so
I’m going out with some friends this afternoon,” Hailey said while eating.

  “What friends?” Mason asked, pointing a fork at her.

  “Are you questioning me?” Hailey asked him. “You can’t be for real.”

  “Oh, I’m very for real. Very, very for real,” he snapped.

  “Mason!” Mom said, eating a spoonful of eggs.

  “Oh, it’s nothing mom. Just a little strange how Hailey is eating her bacon by hand and not with her silver fork.”

  “Mason, honey, nobody eats bacon with a fork. Like ever,” Mom said.

  “Oh… yeah,” Mason admitted, having forgotten that detail – he was simply attempting to get her to eat with the silver fork. “My bad.”

  “Well it’s certainly not mine,” Hailey snarked before grabbing her silver fork and using it to eat eggs.

  Alright, Mason to himself. She’s touching the silver. I guess that means she’s not a vampire. Just fraternizing with one. Hmmm.

  Mason watched her from afar for the two hours that followed. When she went to her room to change, he placed his ear up to her door but heard only her plans to meet up with Madison.

  There’s gotta be more to it. She’s being super secretive. That much I know. Can’t trust her if she’s got vampires entering and leaving our house. Jesus, she had to have invited him in. What would stop the greedy bloodsucker from coming to my room and devouring me, neck first!

  But instead of following her, which he knew would likely prove to be unfruitful – it being daylight and all, he instead decided to call his friends.

  As soon as Hailey left the house he made contact with each of them. Well, everyone but Sebastian who wasn’t answering his phone. Matthew however, did answer this time.

  “I’m telling you, I saw a damn cloud turn into a bat as it was leaving my sister’s room!” Mason said for the umpteenth time after having been video chatting with his friends for several minutes.

  “There’s a lot of stuff I believe in,” Ben said, “But vampires haven’t generally made the list.”

  “You sure you didn’t have too much Nyquil last night?” Matthew coughed. “Like me, I mean.”

  “Wait! You think I’m lying!” Mason steamed.

  “No, no, no,” Matthew said with a stuffy nose. “We’re not calling you a liar. We’re saying isn’t it possible you could be mistaken?”

  “No! I know what I saw last night. That evil demonic bastard went from a cloud of mist and turned right into a vampire bat. There’s nothing else on earth but a vampire that can do that.”

  “Wait. Mist?” Ben said, confused. “I’ve never heard of a vampire turning into mist.”

  “It’s not something found in the more recent vampire fiction,” Matthew corrected him with another cough. “But if you go back to the earliest vampire lore, including the work of Bram Stoker, vampires can shape shift into three forms – bat, wolf, and mist.”

  “There’s the expertise I’m talking about!” Mason said.

  “But,” Matthew continued. “That doesn’t mean it really happened last night.”

  “But it did!” Mason argued.

  “Enough already!” Alex finally spoke up. The others had almost forgotten he was also on the call. “I believe Mace. Sure it sounds a bit weird but I’ll always have his back. If you say it happened, Mace, it happened.”

  “That kind of trust is great ‘n all, but I’m still skeptical. At the end of the day, you can’t really blame Doubting Thomas, can you? Y’know?” Ben shrugged.

  “I’m not going to school tomorrow,” Mason said. “And I think you guys should join me. We should spend the day investigating my claims, so to speak.”

  “What amazing timing!” Matthew coughed. “I’ve never felt worse. Vampire investigation or not, there’s no way I’m going to school tomorrow. Got sick Friday morning. That’s why I didn’t make the game and didn’t answer you guys yesterday. I felt like I had the plague. So if you’re doing something tomorrow that involves not going to school… count me in… well, unless I’m too sick to get out of bed.” He stammered as he blew his nose into a tissue.

  “You know I’m in,” Alex said. “I could use a three-day weekend. I’ve got some fake vomit I’ll splash over my floor in the morning.” This threw each of them into fits of laughter, even Matthew who coughed and laughed simultaneously.

  “So are you in, Ben? You’re the only hold out,” Mason asked.

  “Why must I always be the holdout?” Ben said as he rolled his eyes. “It feels like the decision has now fallen on my shoulders.”

  “Because you’re the skeptic!” Mason answered. “If anyone’s gonna join us and find out the truth, it’s gotta be you. Let’s say we find an entire city of vampires beneath Corpus but you weren’t there. You wouldn’t believe us!”

  “Alright! I’ll show up then. I’ll pretend to be sick somehow and try to stay home. But what about Sebastian?”

  They tried calling Sebastian one more time for to video chat. By a miracle of the gods, he answered.

  “Hey,” Sebastian answered them and yawned. “What’s up?”

  “Why haven’t you been answering!” Alex asked him.

  “I actually just woke up. Kind of a long night. The kind you only have blurry memories of.”

  Before Sebastian could say anything else, Mason launched into the full shebang, describing the evil bloodsucker he saw fly from his sister’s window. Sebastian held back, adding nothing of personal value to this tale. He did, however, tell Mason that he believed him.

  “See, Ben! You’re the only one who thinks I’m making this up,” Mason said.

  “Shit, dude. I said I was gonna join you tomorrow. What else do ya want?” Ben asked. “Stop tearing into me for thinking horror movies are not reality.”

  “So, Sebastian,” Mason said, turning his attention. “You think you could join us tomorrow?”

  “Well, I guess so,” Sebastian said. “I’ve been feeling so strange lately I don’t think I’m ready to go to school anyway. Might as well spend it with you guys if everybody else is ditching.”

  “Then it’s settled,” Mason told them. “We’ll meet at my place tomorrow morning after my mom goes to work and figure it out from there.”

  They all agreed. That was Mason’s big moment on Sunday. It wasn’t much but it was a plan. A part of a plan anyway. Monday, however, would prove to be much bigger – and more eventful.

  “Mom I feel like I’m dying!” Mason said on Monday morning.

  He had mastered the art of placing a hot towel on his forehead then removing it and tossing it under his bed right before his mom entered his room.

  “Oh my word,” his mom, Mel, said as she placed her hand to his forehead. “Your temperature must be so high.”

  “UUUUGGGGHHHH!” Mason feigned, closing his eyes and opening his mouth. He extended his tongue and acted as if he were ready to hurl.

  “Maybe you need to stay home, honey,” his mom told him.

  “You think so mom?” he said, dramatically plopping back into the bed.

  “Yeah, I’ve still gotta go to work, though. Do you think you’ll be okay at home all alone by yourself until three or four?”

  “Yeah, mom,” he faked a cough that was so exaggerated it sounded as if he were going to throw up his very lungs. “Somehow I think I’ll manage.”

  “What’s up with him?” a familiar voice said.

  Mason looked up. He saw his sister standing in his doorway. She was fully dressed with her backup on.

  “Your brother’s not feeling well.”

  “Sucks for him. Well I gotta get going. See you later, mom. See you later, Mace,” Hailey laughed.

  She skipped away from his room and a half hour later, Mason was all alone. He individually called each of his friends to make sure they were still partaking in whatever plan he’d concocted.

  Alex had used the fake puke to perfection. Ben explained he was able to talk his way out of going to school, though not as effortlessly as Alex had done. Matthew w
as really, truly sick. And Sebastian’s dad had no problem allowing him to remain home after he’d been so sullen across the duration of the weekend.

  Alex was the first to arrive to Mason’s house by bike. They hung around inside waiting for Matthew who showed up next, followed by Ben. Finally after a half hour Sebastian arrived.

  His friends had not known this, but Sebastian had been utterly confused about the situation. He didn’t know how much to reveal, or how they’d react to his trip across town with a vampire. So his best course of action was to proceed with caution.

  Nor would Sebastian mention the deep surreal dream he had of Gregory Velstall. He could think only of how he longed to see him again. And how none of his friends could know this.

  There was a whole new world out there, and before last week, he never even knew it existed.

  “What took you so long, Seb?” Mason asked him.

  “Oh,” Sebastian said hazily. “I’ve just been sleeping late. Had a weird sort of dream. And it actually involved a vampire.”

  “What?” Mason said. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah,” Sebastian nodded. But he would divulge no further.

  “Alright guys,” Mason said, taking leadership. “We could search my sister’s room. Or we could search the streets.”

  “The streets?” Matthews coughed. “What are you planning to find exactly? A couple of dead bodies?”

  “Two people did die recently,” Mason added. “But mostly… there’s something I just realized. I just thought of it. Alex, Ben… remember what we saw when we were riding home from Seb’s place.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “The cows. Maybe it is a vampire.”

  Sebastian said nothing.

  “Wait, what?” Matthew coughed. “What am I missing? What happened after you guys left Seb’s place? How are cows and vampires related? I swear I’ve never felt so confused.”

  “We saw all these blue lights and yellow tape. It was the cops. They were in a field,” Ben said.

  “A farm, actually,” Alex corrected him.

  “Same thing,” Ben continued. “The farmer Old Man McIntyre was screaming about demanding answers. The cops were there ’cause someone had slaughtered all of his cows. And just left their bodies there. Obviously they weren’t there for the beef.”