Chapter Nine – Jack #2
“And this is where we’ll put you-know-who during the day,” Maya said, tilting her head toward an alcove that had metal bars, lockable from the inside. I assumed they’d be giving Rabbit the key, that was something at least.
“Who’s going to guard him?”
“True believers.”
“Huh?”
“Like Tamo. They’re in for the cause.”
I fought not to roll my eyes. “What ‘cause?’ The fattening of Rosalie’s wallet?”
“Oh come on, Jack,” Maya said. “You know what they want. Eternal life, same as us.”
“Same as you, maybe. You were there when I was turned, remember? I didn’t get a warning.”
“Oh, that’s right. I forgot. You’re so high and mighty, Jack.
You didn’t want this gift, you just had it thrust upon you—and now you’re an ungrateful man-child who’s upset that he can’t always have his way.
” She didn’t have to raise her voice—her hissing vituperations echoed in the small hallway.
“You don’t even realize how goddamned lucky you are. ”
“You call living this life lucky?”
“Your version of it is!” She took a step forward and got in my face.
“You don’t have to sleep where she sleeps every day, and wake up to hear what she’s decided for you every night!
She chooses where I go, what I do, who I dance for, when I feed!
” She stabbed a finger at my chest and I let her.
“Whereas you get to have your own place, drive your own car, and keep your own money—you live your own life! If I’d known I was signing on to be eternally babysat, I would’ve just stayed home! ”
I took a step away from her and found my back against the cold stone wall. I’d always assumed Maya enjoyed her role in Rosalie’s life. Shows how little I knew.
“Jack!” Rabbit’s panicked voice echoed back from up ahead. “Jack!”
Both Maya and I looked at each other, and then started running for him.
“Rabbit!” I shouted after him.
“Shut-up! Cave-ins!” Maya hissed again.
He was two turns ahead of us, standing naked inside a room that also had metal bars embedded in the wall—but this time the lock was on the outside.
“Rabbit? How did you?” I boggled, knowing his ripped clothes were in a pile near my feet.
“Jack-Jack-Jack, get me out!” He reached through the bars with all of his body, but he was trapped by the circumference of his ribcage, just an inch too wide.
I grabbed hold of the lock and tried to wrench it open—but the thing was solid steel, as wide as my palm. I looked to Maya. “Go get the keys.”
She wasn’t listening. Her eyes were wide, staring at something behind Rabbit—something faintly moving.
“Jack!” Rabbit pleaded, still stretching his hand out for me.
The chamber behind him was like something out of a haunted house.
It held a stone coffin, with one tiny hole in the top, and an ever-so-slightly tilted slab.
There were grooves carved all over it, and the whole thing was wrapped in chains.
The lid on the coffin was moving too slowly to see—but all three of us could hear it, as stone ground over stone.
“Go get the keys,” I growled at Maya.
She was so panicked she didn’t yell at me for trying to whammy her. “I can’t! I don’t know where they are! Rosalie’s the only one who feeds the Sleeper!”
The sound of grinding continued—was it just my imagination that it was speeding up?
“Jack!” Rabbit howled in panic.
I squatted down to be at Rabbit’s height. “How’d you get in there, buddy?”
But I knew the answer as I asked it. The clothes at my feet were ripped—Buster must’ve gotten curious.
“I just—it smelled weird—and I wanted to know more—and,” He looked down at his little naked body in dismay. “What happened to me?”
Angela had never told him he was a werewolf? Christ.
“I’ll tell you everything, but first I need you to calm down.
” I was tempted to whammy him, but I didn’t think I could command him into changing.
I didn’t know how hard it was to change or how often he could change—Angela should’ve left me with a rule book.
“Take a deep breath,” I said, looking him in the eyes and taking a deep breath myself.
He mimicked me, as best he could. “Okay. What happened right before you found yourself inside there?”
“Buster. We were talking and—he—I knew he knew how to get in. So I let him.” He leaned forward, pressing his head against the bars. “I was a wolf,” he whispered, his eyes begging me to believe him.
“I know,” I said back. “And if you’re going to get out of that cage, you’re going to have to become a wolf again, Rabbit. Just for a little bit.”
“But—” he protested.
I held up my hand for silence. “It’s your power, Rabbit.
Just like I have mine, you have yours. You can do this.
I believe in you.” The grinding sound continued, an ominous undercurrent to our conversation.
“Buster’s been with you your whole life, hasn’t he?
” I asked, and Rabbit nodded. “He’s not just your imaginary friend, Rabbit—he’s your best friend, truly.
And he would never let anything bad happen to you. ”
“I think he ranned away,” Rabbit said, tears squeezing from his eyes, his words regressing in his fear.
“No. Never. I promise you.” I moved to sit down and took Rabbit’s hand, pulling him with me, on the other side of the bars.
“Changing might be scary—I don’t know what it’s like myself—and so maybe it scared him, or you, you know?
But it’s natural. You both did it once. You can do it again.
Close your eyes.” Rabbit did as he was told, and I took both his hands.
“Repeat after me. Buster, I need you to come back now.”
Rabbit intoned the words, just after I said them. I looked over at Maya, who caught me looking and then made a gesture, holding her hands up to approximate how much of the coffin was left to open before whatever-the-fuck Rosalie kept inside it came out to visit us.
“Keep repeating my words, Rabbit: I’m sorry I got scared, Buster. I’ve never turned into a wolf before. But I really need to turn into one again, now.”
Rabbit repeated me, emphasizing the really. His tone had begun to match mine, along with his breathing.
“Okay, keep your eyes closed. I’m going to count backwards from ten, and when I reach one, you’re going to turn into Buster. I want to meet him, okay? Don’t try to force him out—just relax. Keep breathing. Ten. Nine.”
I started going in descending order, a long breath in between each number, matched by the rise and fall of Rabbit’s little chest. What was I going to do if this didn’t work?
What kind of damage would I do to him if I just yanked him through?
How could I ever face Angela if I could only give her half of the corpse of her dead son?
“…three. Two. One.”
Both of us waited in silence. I only had eyes for him, staring at him as if I could will him into changing—and then he did.
It was like when a magician flips a sheet out from underneath a table full of glassware.
One second, his skin-side was out, the next, it’d been ripped away and replaced with fur.
It wasn’t a silent process though—the sound was as sickening as the grinding of the stone behind us was—pops and snaps, like breaking twigs, and a soft squelching that spoke of the movement of flesh.
At the end of it I was looking at a wolf, roughly the same size as Rabbit, behind the bars of the cage. I stood up and made room, and he trotted on through, the metal stroking him on either side.
“Nice to meet you, Buster,” I said. He came up to me, intelligent eyes staring up, and sniffed at my hand. The grinding sound inside the cage stopped.
Maya put her back to the bars and sagged down them to the floor. “Rosalie is going to kill us.”
The three of us jogged or trotted back the way we’d come. I hadn’t considered the reverse problem—how to get Buster to turn back into Rabbit—but maybe staying a wolf was safer for now. At least it didn’t require clothing—his first change had turned Rabbit’s outfit into rags.
When we reached the exit, Maya and I looked to one another. “Want to just stay down here?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Not really, no.”
If she jumped out first, she could trap us in—if I jumped out first, she’d be back here unsupervised with Rabbit. Why was it that every interaction with another vampire had the beginnings of a ‘you have a chicken, a wolf, and a bag of grain’ riddle in it?
“Ladies first,” I said, deciding to take my chances.
Maya gathered herself, then leapt for the edge and pulled herself up.
“I don’t suppose you can jump that far, eh?” I asked Buster. Not getting a response, I said, “Don’t hate me for this,” and scooped him up before he could fight it, flinging him up and out of the tunnel’s entrance—leaping up and behind myself.
“Ow!” Rabbit complained, from where he’d landed, back to being a boy.
“Welcome back,” I told him, as Maya quickly screwed the coffee table’s lid back on.
Rabbit looked around at the trailer. “What happened? Where’s my clothes?”
The duffle bag Angela had sent with us was still on the ground—I dug through it and tossed underwear, jeans, and a t-shirt at him. “Here.”
He pulled them on, all boyish and shy around Maya who was sitting on top of the coffee-table, looking pensive. “That was close.”
“What was that thing?”
“Rosalie’s pet.”
“Is it safe for us to go back down there?”
“You and I, yes. And him, during the day.”
“I’m not going back down there,” Rabbit announced, jumping his jeans up. “Ever.” He stood and looked at both of us, hands on his hips, in imitation of who knew how many adults. “Where’s my mom?” He looked between us for answers—and when we came up short, he crumpled and ran into the back.
“Rabbit,” I called after him, standing. Maya caught my arm.
“Let him run ahead a little—kids need space.”
“Getting too much space is what made me, me,” I said, shaking off her arm and heading after him.