Turned

by Mazlow, J.

  “Send a couple of vampires up there to scare them off. You know the drill. They can take one or two, no turning.”

  “Not this time sir. They know of us.”

  “How much do they know,” my brother growled in a whisper, but I did not hear the response as I pushed the door open and stepped into the sunlight. Dust seemed to be flying everywhere under the shade of the barn’s extensions as I stepped out amidst the group of vampires sitting outside the doorway. They looked sluggish and wan, even the one that had been involved in my capture. He didn’t get up, just glared at me suspiciously, his brown eyes glinting in the sunlight, his big head the only taut part of his body. I moved quickly past them and didn’t slow until the horse barn was behind me. Then I ambled down the hill towards the camp, a tight knot of humanity in the green valley. The sunlight turned the river orange and glared from the tin roofs so that dozens of suns shined up at me. Dogs trotted up to me, sniffed warily and then loped up towards the barns. What was I to do? Find Dottie and ask her for more work. The path I walked on had been worn down by feet, hoof prints and even the tracks of carts and vehicles and little puffs of dust erupted from beneath me with each step before fading away. My stomach growled and I took its answer as to my course of action.

  A few minutes later I clomped my way up the stairs to the farmhouse and stepped onto the porch before my footsteps reminded me and I stepped back down to knock my boots off against the side of the house. A few women in the yard in front of it looked askance at me but I just ignored them and made my way inside. Inside the fire had burnt down to nothing but glowing embers but it was still hot and stuffy. The only light inside came from a couple of wax papered windows which cast the room in a gloomy yellow. I hesitated as I entered, taking one step and then another as I looked around the empty room. The smell of corn filled the air and set my stomach to growling and my mouth puckering up on itself as it began to water. My footsteps clunked in the empty room as if I were a giant and I walked slowly across the room to keep the sound at a minimum. I expected Dottie to burst in at any second and reprimand me for my laziness and my undue disturbance. From behind the door a burst of female laughter erupted and then subsided. As I drew closer, I could hear their voices chatting and clinks and sloshes and other sounds I assumed were related to cooking. I pushed the door open tentatively, stuck my head in through the crack and found myself under the stare of a hawk nosed woman with bright blue eyes and raven dark hair. Around her Mary and two other women stood in the actual kitchen of the house, though the useless appliances had been stripped out. My head swam with the heat of the room. It was worse than the dining room had been when I’d fallen asleep in front of the fireplace. The heat emanated from a great black stove that sat along one wall with a stack of firewood beside it. The hawk nosed woman held a thick and ragged wooden spoon dripping a thick sauce onto the floor and she pointed it at me. “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as Mary, the girl who served me earlier hid her mirth behind her small hand. One other lady looked astonished and the fourth just rolled her eyes as if she’d seen all this hundreds of times.

  “Just looking for some food,” I said.

  “You smell like a mucker,” she said and turned back to stirring never indicating whether I could enter, so I swung the door open slowly.

  “Let him be Liza,” Mary said warmly and waved me in with her hand. “I didn’t see you at lunch, but then again I didn’t see your brother either.” She looked at me with bright blue eyes.

  “He was mucking girl,” Liza said looking up at us as she picked up a knife and an onion and moved to chop it on an unstable table against one wall. The blade rang against the wood in quick succession as she worked the knife up and down filling the air with the pungent odor of onion that set my eyes to watering. I stood awkwardly for a moment as Liza threw her onion bits into a large pot on the stove and grabbed another onion.

  “I don’t let anyone eat in my kitchen. It’s hard enough to get any work done without people standing around wasting your time. You go on out to the table now and Mary’ll bring you something to eat. But don’t you think this is going to become a regular habit. Meals come at a regular time and if you come mooching around here look for food then I know that you’re not working and if you’re not working than you’re not eating. Now get on out of here.” She’d delivered her spiel in a firm voice without yelling but she punctuated it with a glare that had me backing out of the kitchen before I even knew what I was doing. Once the door had swung shut behind me, I breathed a sigh of relief and sat down at one of the benches on the long table. Orange light diffused through the walls illuminating dust motes that hung in the air barely moving. Under the delightful smells of stew emanating from the kitchen the room held a permanent odor of stale smoke and dust. A pair of heavy curtains hung at one end of the room swaying in and out slightly as if the room were breathing. Everything exhibited a harmless sense of age. The room had the same character as that of an old man nodding in and out of peaceful dreams in some overstuffed armchair somewhere.

  Mary swept out of the kitchen door letting a burst of lively conversation out with her. Her skirts swished as she walked. She smiled shyly looking down into a large wooden bowl that steamed as she carried it. She sat the bowl down in front of me along with a large spoon. I immediately picked up the spoon and began to slurp the stew up. It scalded my tongue and broth ran down into my beard, but I didn’t care. Mary stood in front of me nervously clutching her skirts, her face exhibiting embarrassment and amusement. I stopped and told her that the food was excellent as I tried to catch my breath.

  She looked down as if embarrassed and said, “Oh I just help.” I didn’t respond except to eat the stew. Her bright blue eyes stared at me for a moment and then she said, “You should shave your beard.”

  I grunted and slurped down another spoonful. “Everyone does it here. We have razors. Your brother was one of the first to shave. He says it sets us apart from every other stinking human that scrabbles across the earth.” I sat the spoon down and looked up at her. I must have looked gruff because her expression changed to slight fear as if she’d offended me.

  “Sometimes I’m impressed that Benjamin knows which end of the razor to shave with.” I said and she looked shocked. I took a couple more bites of the stew. “Well sit down if you’re going to stay,” I said. She sat down across from me gracefully folding her skirts up underneath her.

  “He’s quite handsome though.” She said quietly. I suppressed a snort as I noticed a slight blush creeping up into her rounded cheeks. She’d let down her blond hair since she’d been working in the kitchen and she tucked it behind her ears now like a young girl. Her hands were under the table, but I could tell that they were fidgeting. “You look alike,” she said. I took a bite of stew and then her words hit me. I blushed then and stared at the stew. Chunks of meat, potatoes and carrot floated in a thick brown broth with the occasional pea all of it cast with a smoky flavor and odor. When I looked up, she was smiling broadly, her eyes bright and wide. A rosy tint shone through her tan skin. I grinned back at her not knowing what to say.

  I had never known many women, but I had heard plenty of stories of men whose downfall had been the lure of females. Often a tale would arise spreading as such gossip did, eagerly related at run-ins with other humans and eagerly heard by all. No confirmation was necessary or expected but one of the persistent myths, along with a city free of vampires and unknown by their kind, was that of a settlement, camp, tribe, or traveling group of women. Most often they were traveling without male companionship but sometimes they simply didn’t have male protectors in sufficient numbers. Whether or not those rumors had been planted by vampires was unknown and not important. Solitary men, groups of men and even families were said to have been lost searching for these mythical mates, presumably drained or turned as they wandered. My brother, as sulky and uncongenial as he had been, had been tempted by one particularly ludicrous tale of a tribe of blonde women that had wandered the fores
t for years without ever even seeing a man, despite the fact that it was a man who told us that he’d heard from another man that they were somewhere just over the bluff. In the end he’d been unwilling to strike out on his own, though he’d complained about it as usual. Families stay together he said and then they become tribes, yet we remain just us three.

  Yet now he was surrounded by women, like the one who sat in front of me playing with a strand of her hair, who obviously desired him, and he didn’t seem to care. She smiled widely as if her mouth could just contain all her perfect but broad teeth between luscious lips, just slightly reddened. In her yellow dress stained and coated down the front with a light dusting of flour she seemed almost fragile but her hands looked almost as big as her wrists could support and they were calloused, wrinkled and dirty. I smiled back at her but with my lips pulled together painfully aware of the teeth I’d lost and the way my ragged beard and clothing must look. Sitting across from her I imagined her delight if she saw me shaved, looking even more like my brother, clothed like one of the proper men of the camp not just some vagabond.

  There was a cry from the kitchen and Mary stood quickly. “I have to go,” she said turning towards the kitchen. Not wanting to let her go without a final word but unable to think of anything I simply said, “Thanks for the food.”

  After she left I finished the stew and tried to think of something to say to her when I returned the empty bowl to the kitchen from which still emanated the sounds of their work, but nothing worthwhile sprang to mind and the heat and amid the gloom of the room my mind thoughts dampened further and further until I fell into a fitful sleep. I would wake up choking on a snore but no sooner than I’d taken a breath I found myself asleep again. I finally awoke to the sound of boots on the porch and voices outside growing louder and more entangled as men and women crammed into the room and began filling the benches. My first inclination was to flee from their boisterous voices and jostling bodies, but I remained seated as they filed in. They glanced at me with faces red from a recent scrubbing, but their attention quickly turned away as they called for beer. The women and the men had come in together but seemed to separate into groups as they sat down. The men wore thick home woven clothes and the women wore the dresses of the camp, mostly in yellows and blues, with large white aprons tied around their waists. Men and women wore heavy boots dark with mud. The curtains were thrown back, and the room was cast in a pale evening light that angled in through the windows. A couple of women burst out of the kitchen carrying large tankards of a pale-yellow beverage, but to my disappointment Mary was not among them. One of them roughly sat a full glass down in front of me, the sour smelling liquid sloshing onto the table as she hurried off with her empty tray and an exasperated expression. Soon the table around me filled up with men draining their glasses with long gulps and wiping the foam from their faces as they gasped for breath. I sipped mine more slowly my lips curling at the grainy sour flavor.

  The room suddenly quieted somewhat, and I looked around to see Dottie slipping in the doorway. She looked around the room with a disapproving expression as if taking mental notes, her face drawn up, her lips as tightly pressed together as her bun was wound up on the back of her head and then made her way over to me in small crisp steps.

  “Here you are Eli,” she said in a tone suitable for children. “Benjamin has informed me that your talents are wasted as a mucker.” She sniffed. “I’m not so sure about these talents myself. You’re about what I’d expect at this point. Too antsy to be of any use. I heard about your little lapse and you’re lucky that I don’t kick you out of here this instance.” Everyone was quiet around us and I could feel their eyes on me. I flushed, thankful for my still unkempt beard. “Just remember that even Benjamin’s brother can’t get away with everything. If a man as great as Ol’ John can end up vampire fodder on the side of the road then you can easily. I’d remember that next time you get an itching in your feet. In any case your brother didn’t illuminate these talents of yours and if he gave you any task then he didn’t deign to inform me so your own harvest with these jokers. But let me make one thing clear. No one in this village is permitted to pinch food from the harvest and hoard it up for themselves.” She glared down at me as if she fully expected me to shove ears of corn into my pants. “Ryan here,” she gestured to the man who was sitting across from me, his attention seemingly absorbed by his beer. “He can show you the ropes. I expect to hear better things about you tomorrow.” She turned and walked away disappearing into the kitchen. I felt sorry for Mary if she was still working in the kitchen. I felt tension draining from my neck and shoulders as Dottie left and I took a gulp of my beer and then immediately started coughing. The talk around me started up again.

  Before I’d finished coughing Ryan looked up at me and said in a deep booming voice. “Don’t worry, we all get on the wrong side of Dottie. Keeps things interesting.” He laughed and took a gulp of beer. He had a well-trimmed red beard that connected to his mustache and sideburns and hung down over his neck. He was one of the few men who didn’t wear a face full of stubble. “Harvesting ain’t nothing if you’re not afraid of doing a little work. I’m sure you’ll do better than Paul.”

  The man sitting beside me chuckled and said, “This coming from the man who spends most of his time telling us what to do.”

  Someone yelled, “His gut lets him get up the volume to do the job properly.”

  Paul went on. “I wouldn’t mind going around telling people what to do myself.”

  “You’d probably cut out for a nap the second you were free.” Ryan said and the men around us erupted in deep ooohs.” Paul raised his glass and drank.

  “I see that you haven’t put on a baby face like your brother and the rest of these hairless louts.”

  “I haven’t really had the chance,” I said my eyes straying to the kitchen door. The smell of cooking meat was permeating the air even over the strong stench of the people around me and the smoke trickling out from the fireplace.

  “Well let’s hope you don’t. Trust me it’s more trouble than it’s worth and the itching is more than any man should bear.”

  “The sight of your face is more than anyone should have to bear,” Paul said.

  “Perhaps so, but I wasn’t the one who had to look at it. So, how’d you make it up here. What’s your story? I get tired of hearing the same old dried up tales from these fools. I knew that Benjamin had a brother, but he never talked about you, so I figured you were dead, or,” he looked around but there were only humans in the room with, “a vampire. Lucky for you I guess that you’re not.”

  I wasn’t surprised that my brother had left me in the past and never sent anyone to look for me in the vampiric south, it would have been a fool’s mission and I’d been nothing but a nuisance to him since I’d arrived already, but as I sat there telling my story in short, halting spurts I didn’t feel hurt. I felt warm, warm from the fire that had grown to a crackling warming entity, warm from the beer, warm from the second large meal I’d had in as many days and warm from the people around me. They were loud with life and happiness. They talked and they laughed without fear of discovery, without worrying that they’d have to run. As I talked more and more people gathered around to listen, people who’d lived for years in the camp and who savored the excitement of my story. Interjections came and went; jokes and sidetracks, and still I told on until Ryan yawned and said that we had a long day ahead of us and stood to go to bed. The room had already emptied somewhat and those that remained were more subdued. I followed Ryan out and made my way to the small room in which my cot sat. The other cot’s occupant already slept. I lie down and fell asleep.

  The next day, I was awakened before the morning bell by a young man with barely a sprouting of yellow fuzz on his sharp chin. He jumped back when I spun around reaching for his arm to throw him to the ground and flailed with my fists when I didn’t grab him. “Ryan said to wake you, dude.” He stood quivering, outlined by the hazy light that came in from
where he’d thrown back the heavy blanket that served as a door to the tiny shack that I had been put up in. My brother had a room in the farmhouse when he slept at all. Outside, a rustle of wind and the soft murmur of the camp coming alive were the only sounds.

  “Sorry,” my voice was gruffer than I’d intended it. The boy looked at me warily, his eyes wide and his breath ragged.

  “We’ve got to eat breakfast if we’re going to get any at all.” How old was this boy, 15, 16? How old was the camp, or village or whatever they called it? Had this boy ever known the day in and day out fear and paranoia of humanity on the run or had he always awakened each day to warm food, clothing, and the comfort of others. I felt as if I was scowling so I attempted to smile.

  “Lead the way,” I said, and he hastily left the cabin.

  The morning was crisp but clear, the pale blue strip that lined the ridge was spreading away from the orange glow that preceded the sun. A steady stream of smoke rose from countless fires around the camp, the largest from the farmhouse. Everywhere men, women and children scurried down the narrow paths that divided the cottages, dogs dashing around them happily. My legs were tight, and walking comforted me though I worried that Dottie was right and that I would not be able to acclimate to the settled lifestyle of these folk. The farmhouse’s atmosphere was different from the previous night. People moved through a line picking up bowls and ladling them full of grits then stacked biscuits around the edge. I resisted the urge to fill my bowl to the limit and use my shirt as a pouch to carry all the biscuits. Some ate sitting, some standing up. The air was hushed. I did not see Mary or my brother around, so I wandered over to a corner near a window and leaned up against the wall where a cool draft ran from the papered window. Ryan was talking with some men in low tones over their bowls, gesturing with their spoons. I spooned in two scoops of grits before I’d even thought and hissed as the molten food scalded my tongue. I tried a biscuit and found it cooler, so I ate the two I’d picked up. They were so light and buttery I almost moaned. Everything in the camp was so delicious it was no wonder people lived in the camp.