Chapter 9 Crash #2
“Come back in two minutes. See if I care.” I shut the door and got undressed. “I’m still not going with you.” I tossed my clothes aside and eyed the closet. Everything was too revealing for my mood today.
I cracked the door and peered outside. Dennis was nowhere to be seen. I hurried down the hall into Ari’s room to steal a plain t-shirt and pair of jeans, then changed and trudged back to my room. I fastened my hair in a messy ponytail before once again flopping face first on the bed.
“Again?”
I ignored Dennis’ voice and continued to mope. Finally, the silence got to me. I turned to see him looking at my array of shot glasses from the places I’d traveled. “Can you bring me the France one? I wanna take a shot.”
“No. Why are you dressed like your cousin?” He seemed intrigued by the change in style. “You’re so covered up. It’s weird.”
“You’re weird. Your face is weird. Go away.”
“So I’m thinking if I set your bed on fire, you’ll finally get off it.” His lighter was out and clicked on in a flash.
“You better not.” I sat up and stared him down until he let the fire die.
“I knew you wouldn’t do it.” I crossed my arms. But then he pulled out a matchbook instead.
“Dennis, don’t you dare—” He tossed a lit match and I clambered back, gaping as a small fire erupted on the bed.
“Motherfuck! Put it out! PUT IT OUT, PUT IT OUT—!” I was screaming while he laughed, waving my arms to stop the flames from growing.
“You’re doing it all wrong.” He pushed me aside before grabbing a pillow and beating it against the flames until they died down. “Don’t ever fan flames. It makes them worse.” He dropped my pillow on the floor.
“Don’t ever set my bed on fire! Are you insane? Why do you have a lighter and a matchbook? What’s wrong with you?”
“Great. Now that you’re up, we can get going.” He took my shoulders and steered me to the hall. “Let’s try Craven Lake, since that’s where you and Ari played as kids. Do you think that’ll cheer you up?”
“No.”
“I think so, too.” He gave a rough nudge that nearly sent me tumbling down the stairs.
“You could’ve burnt the whole house down! Normal people don’t set people’s beds on fire and laugh about it. You’re really unhinged.”
“I’m a maniac, sweetheart.” He shot me a devious smile as we reached downstairs. “You’ll get used to it.”
“Ugh. I forgot shoes. Hold on.” I turned and jumped back from a passing shadow.
When I blinked, nothing was there. “I’ll be back.
” I fought back tears of frustration as I trudged upstairs.
A few things moved while I laced up a pair of combats.
Some were inanimate objects, others were inexplicable shadows.
It wasn’t real. I knew this. But the worst part was not actually knowing.
Not being able to trust my own senses. Seeing a reality I had to tell myself not to believe.
“Are you done yet?”
I jumped at Dennis’ voice. “Yeah.” I tied the last bow and stood.
“Why are you so jumpy today?” he asked. I shrugged and brushed past him. “And now you wanna go.” He sounded concerned. We strode down the hall, downstairs, through the living room. “Really, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I wanna go. I’m seeing things and it’s making me paranoid.” I grabbed my keys as we passed the kitchen counter. “Are you driving or am I?”
“I don’t use a car, remember?” He paused before pulling the door open. “Let’s walk. The fresh air might cheer you up.”
I stared at the ground while we walked side by side. The lake was less than a mile away. I kicked a pebble and twisted a loose lock of hair. By the time we’d gone a few blocks, Dennis was ardently watching me. I gave him a ‘what do you want’ look but said nothing.
“I want you to act normal again. You’re ruining my mood.”
“I’m so sorry, Dennis. I didn’t realize this is affecting you so much. Let me just go back to my birth and un-bipolar myself, and then maybe you’ll be happier with me? Would that help?”
He laughed and half smiled. “Maybe.”
“Screw you.” I laced my fingers through my hair and tugged. “How are you even out right now? It’s daytime.”
“It’s overcast. Either way, the sun doesn’t kill us. It makes us feel sick and weak, but we’d survive.”
“Since you’re making me hang out with you, I think you should tell me about yourself.”
“What do you wanna know?” He was watching me differently now, if not a little suspiciously.
I shrugged and stopped twisting my hair to think. My mood lifted a little when I noticed we were nearing the park. Maybe he was right; Craven Lake might actually cheer me up.
My thoughts drifted through different vampire lore until we reached the crowded lake.
Most of the people were playing in the water, sitting on benches, or lounging in the grass.
There were a few kids running around playing games, which was the worst part.
I headed in the direction furthest from the children.
“What’s your real age?” I finally asked.
“Tell me about being in sunlight and garlic and dying from crucifixes and all that stuff. And how you drink blood. Do you wither away without it or turn into a zombie or something? Or disintegrate? Do you turn into dust if it’s too bright? Are you slowly melting right now?”
“Too many dumb questions. Pick a normal one and I might answer.”
“You’re such a dick,” I grumbled. “Fine. What kills you? You said I’d have to know how to kill a vampire to do it.” I sat on a bench and waited.
“I’m not telling you that. Try again.” He sat beside me and pulled out the lighter.
“Okay. Sunlight. It’s super cloudy, but still. How are you out here?” I asked, peering at the sky. It seemed like daytime in general should’ve caused some melting by now.
“I don’t melt, obviously.” He ignored the sour look I gave for eavesdropping on my thoughts.
“We can’t do direct sunlight. Cloudy days are okay if the sun is fully covered, but of course evenings and night are best. Direct sunlight makes us weaker the longer we’re in it.
Weaker like you, I guess. Not actually as weak as a human but it makes us slower.
Pathetic. Like prey waiting to be killed—”
“I get it,” I snapped. “So, do you eat normal food? Wait, yeah you do. You finished my milkshake last night,” I remembered as I said it. That was a stupid question.
“All your questions are stupid. But to answer what you should’ve asked, I usually drink blood every couple days. We don’t need normal food, but we can eat it. A full meal will make us feel sluggish for a while, but it still tastes good.”
“Is there a vampire handbook or something? Or like instructions from that political thing you were talking about?”
He smiled and flicked on the ever-present lighter. “Something like that.”
“How old are you, really?”
“Three hundred and seventy-nine. I’ve been twenty-three for a while.”
I gaped at him in horror. I’d been lusting over an old man this entire time?
“Why didn’t you tell me you’re dying of old age?
Ew! I’ve been flirting with a grandpa?” I grimaced as I recounted every interaction we’d had so far, but my disgust turned to relief, then slight annoyance, when I realized he was joking.
“I’m twenty-three,” he said, barely suppressing a grin. “I was seventeen six years ago like any normal person. I’m a relatively new vampire. Same with Sean and Mateo.”
“You’re not funny. So you don’t melt and you drink every couple days.” I pulled my hair from its ponytail to run my fingers through it. “What about holy water? Does that make your skin fall off or something?”
“Not me, but it would affect a Christian or Catholic. If you have the slightest belief in Jesus or his teachings, a cross might burn you. If you’re Jewish, one of their stars would make you weaker.
If you’re Buddhist whatever symbol they believe in will affect you.
It’s not generic, it has to be whatever’s real for you. ”
“Interesting.” I pulled my hair into a neater version of its previous ponytail. “Well I’m an atheist. So if someone showed me a picture of… I don’t know, science? Would I melt and die?”
“What’s your obsession with melting? If you love melting things so much, why’d you freak out when I tried to melt your bed?”
“Because that’s different. That was my favorite comforter and you ruined it. Vampires melting is a lot more interesting than poor innocent cartoon comforters being murdered in their own home—” My rant cut short when a soccer ball collided with my leg.
“That’s mine!” A boy who looked about six came running up. “That’s my ball.”
“Okay?” I didn’t like kids and I didn’t know what else to say. The boy stared at me for several seconds before grabbing the ball and running back to his friends. “Gross,” I muttered.
“I’m guessing you don’t like kids?”
“I hate ‘em. I’m never having kids. They’re basically leeches. They leech off your body, your money, your time. This is entrance only.” I pointed to my crotch, making Dennis laugh.
“Good to know.”
Suddenly, an ear-piercing scream sounded from across the park. A woman was distraught at the water’s edge, frantically pointing at the lake and shouting about a person trapped beneath. I didn’t think twice before hopping up and sprinting over to help.
I ignored Dennis’ calls to come back and joined the woman at the shoreline. I peered into the clear water to see a person somehow wrapped and bogged down by whatever plants grew from the lake’s floor. I took a deep breath and made to dive in, but someone yanked me back before I could.
“What are you doing?” Dennis demanded.
“What’re you doing? I’m trying to help.”
“Leave it to someone else. You don’t need to do it.”
“He’s dead,” a gruff voice spoke up. A man was emerging—he must’ve dived in at the same time I tried to—with a grim expression.
“Are you sure?”
“Is he stuck?”
Panicked voices were coming from the small crowd that had gathered.
“Either way, I can’t get him out,” the man said.
“Dennis, please.” I turned to him in desperation. Unless another vampire was present, he was the only one strong enough to free the person without tools. He stared at me for a second before looking at the water in defeat.
“Fine. Wait here.” He dropped my arm and calmly walked to the water’s edge.
A wave of relief hit the moment he was in.
The man said the person was already dead, but what if he wasn’t?
He could be on the cusp of dying with enough time to be saved.
But that thought disappeared as soon as Dennis reached the surface—an unmistakably dead man was slowly surfacing beside him, floating up now that the plants were ripped apart.
Dennis got out and crossed the bank without a word, ignoring the horrified reactions around us.
“Let’s go.” He caught my arm mid-stride and pulled me through the frantic bystanders.
“Wait, what happened?” I twisted to see a couple of people in the water, trying to fish the dead man out since Dennis hadn’t bothered to bring him to shore.
I struggled to break free but he continued to pull me along.
Eventually, I managed to plant my feet on the ground.
“I’m not going anywhere. What if they need a witness? ”
“They won’t.” He grabbed my waist and flung me over a shoulder, then resumed a quick pace.
“Dennis!”
“Will you stop being difficult?” His grip tightened when I tried to kick his head. “There are plenty of witnesses and he didn’t drown, so whatever you saw is useless, anyway.”
“Fine. I won’t try to go back. Will you put me down now?” I asked, going limp to show I really meant it. He agreed and lowered me to the grass. I pushed his hands off and straightened my shirt. “How do you know he didn’t drown?”
“No blood. I would’ve smelled it. He was dead before he hit the water. Though I don’t know what kind of amateur leaves a body in a clear fucking lake,” Dennis said, running a hand through his soaked hair.
“Don’t you leave bodies out all the time?”
“Yeah. On purpose. I don’t do some half-assed attempt at hiding it, like tying it in a lake people swim in.” His tone was judgmental as he glanced back at the scene. “If I want a body to disappear, it’ll never be found.”
A shiver went up my spine at his words. “I think I wanna go home,” I murmured.
“Why, am I scaring you?”
“No. I just wanna go home.”
“It’s so cute when you try to lie.” He laughed as I shot him a dirty look and started walking of my own accord. Mostly to get away from him, but of course he easily kept up.
We walked in silence for a while before I asked, “Can you turn into mist?”
“No.”
“What about a shadow?”
“Nope.”
“Can you hypnotize people and make them go to sleep?”
“I would’ve put you to sleep by now if I could. You talk too much.”
“What about mirrors?” I continued, ignoring his audacity. “Can you see your reflection? I don’t even know what vampire stories are real anymore. My entire life has been a lie.”
“That’s what you get for believing that romance shit.” He moved unnervingly fast to kick a rock I’d been aiming for. It flew several blocks ahead. “And no, I can’t see my reflection.”
“That must be so weird. What’s your religion? Just in case I need to burn a hole in your skin one day.”
“I don’t have one.” He thought for a moment before saying, “Actually, I did. But I don’t follow it anymore and I’m not telling you what it was.”
“I bet I can guess.”
“Go ahead. I doubt you’ll get it.”
“Buddhist? Christian? Catholic? Mormon? Muslim? Jewish? Scientology?”
“No, no, no, no, no, no. And no.” He laughed as I frowned in defeat.
“I can’t think of anymore.” I slowed down as we reached my front porch. My eyes roamed his dark clothes, which were soaked and clinging to his body. The padlock chain around his neck was glistening, as were the chains around his wrist.
“You didn’t try Hinduism.”
“Oh, yeah. Are you Hindu?” I jumped as his hand slipped in my back pocket, but he was only grabbing my keys.
“No.” He unlocked the door and stepped aside to let me in. “I have some stuff to take care of. I’ll see you later. Don’t kill yourself while I’m gone.”
“Wait.”
He stopped halfway to shutting the door. “What?”
“Will you please tell me?” I gave him my puppy eyes. “Pretty please?”
“No.” He laughed eerily and tossed me the keys. I tried to catch them but they landed at my feet. “Bye, Vixen.”
The door barely missed my foot as it closed. I yanked it open, but he was already gone.