The Art of Being a Vampire, page 5
I slept mostly.
Woke only to drink
the blood Tallie
brought me.
When my mouth
was dry, it wasn’t
water I wanted.
When my belly
rumbled, it wasn’t
food I craved.
The world shrank
to that tiny room.
And my only joy
was in my daily
mug.
I might have
lived that way
forever,
but one day
as I was licking
the last drops
of blood
from my cup,
Tallie announced,
“Enjoy it, luv.
After this,
you get yer own.”
I jerked my head up,
surprised.
“Huh?”
Tallie grinned, mean.
“Didja think I’d be
waiting on ya,
the rest of our
endless lives?”
I blinked at her.
Then down at
my empty mug.
“But how . . .?”
She laughed, hard.
“Yer fangs
have come in
by now.
So you just
pick a warm body
and ask ‘em
to let ya have
a bite.”
Blood was
dark under
my fingernails.
From where I’d
run my fingers
round the
edges of my cup.
But still,
I jerked back
at those words.
At the thought
of sinking my teeth
and biting through
the flesh
of another
person.
It’s the difference
between
getting a burger
at the drive-thru
and having to
go out and
butcher yer
own cow.
“I can’t do it,”
I told Tallie.
“Well then,”
she replied,
plucking the mug
from my hands.
“You’ll starve.”
It Was No Ordinary Hunger
And I
began
to understand
Brandt’s
warning.
I lasted less than
one full day
before I was
begging Tallie
for one more mug.
Tears in
my eyes.
She took real pleasure
in telling me
no.
“You did this to me.
You have to feed me!”
Which, of course,
only made Tallie
laugh again.
“Nuh-uh, luvie.
You were made
cause you
were wanting
to be more
than you were.”
Again that
awful laugh
rattled outta her.
She added,
“Next time,
be more
careful whatcha
wish for.”
One of the Blood Givers
eventually
took pity on me.
Showed me how
Tallie had used
a needle with a
tube at the end
to get their blood
out without
using any teeth.
Being users,
they had no trouble
sticking themselves.
For one day,
I drank outta my mug
again.
But Tallie
got wind of it.
Nipped that
right in the bud.
Grabbing me
by the back
of the neck,
she hauled me
to a mirror
and lifted up
my front lip.
“Look there,”
she said.
“See those
pointy things?
Those are yer fangs.
They ain’t just
for show.”
I jerked away
from her.
Angry.
Knowing
she got off on
watching me
twist and spin.
“Maybe I just won’t drink
no more blood,” I said to her.
I knew it for a lie
even as the words
were on my lips.
Tallie knew it, too.
Laughed so hard
she had to
bend over and
clutch her sides.
Then she grabbed
me once again.
Hauled me to
the front door.
And without
even a goodbye
or good luck—
tossed me out.
It’d Been Days
since I’d entered
that house.
The sudden rush
of fresh air
reminded me
the rest of
the world
still existed.
Including Aunt Clara.
She’d left me
a million or so
frantic text messages.
I’d ignored ’em
until she threatened
to call the police.
I’m not much
of a fan
of law enforcement.
And I had a feeling
Sid and Tallie
wouldn’t thank me
for bringing ’em
to their door neither.
So I’d texted her back
and told her
I was safe.
That I’d be gone
for a while.
I’d wanted
to get away
from Clara’s
from the moment
I’d gotten there.
And yet,
at that moment
the thought
of my clean bed
in the pretty
blue guest room
at Aunt Clara’s
made me feel
something like
longing.
Except how could
I go back there
or anywhere else
like this?
With the taste of
blood
on my tongue,
and yet still
thirsty
for
more.
Brandt Found Me
sitting on
a broken-down
lawn chair
that’d been
left to rot
in the yard.
He seemed relieved
to see me.
“I thought
you’d gone,”
he said.
“Where would
I go?” I asked.
Hoping he might
have an answer.
“I shouldn’t have
brought you here,”
he sighed.
For the first
time, I found
his sad boy act
annoying.
“Well, you did,”
I snapped at him.
“So stop telling me
how yer
sorry about
how things
happened.
And tell me what
I’m meant
to do next!”
The words came out
vicious enough
that he took a
quick step away.
“Easy,”
he cautioned.
“Being hungry
is already
gonna bring
out your worst.
Even Sid
can’t always
control it.”
Brandt pointed to my neck.
“Tallie had him
do the honors—
that’s what she
called it.
But once he had
his teeth in you,
he didn’t want to
stop.”
I felt sick,
imagining Sid’s
fangs and lips
on the soft skin
of my neck.
“She yelled at him,
yanked his hair,
and then finally
broke a chair
in half.
Clubbed him
in the back
of the head.”
I turned my back
to Brandt,
hating him
a little bit
for telling me.
For putting
ugly pictures
in my head.
Staring at the
crumbling
brick wall,
I could finally
ask
the one question
that had been
sitting unsaid
between us.
“Am I dead?”
Brandt sighed.
“Tallie says
we’re not
chained with
the living
or the dead.
We’re
between.”
Between.
This strangely
felt exactly
right.
And also
oh-so
wrong.
I was less than alive.
But not quite dead.
With that,
I had only
one more
question
for Brandt.
“Why me?”
I asked him.
At this, he
looked surprised.
Like the answer
was obvious.
“I liked
you.
And . . .
I was lonely.
And you had nothing else
going on
in your life.
You seemed like
maybe . . .
you wouldn’t mind.”
I Understood Brandt
and his hot/cold
ways, at last.
He’d been wrestling
with himself.
Wanting company
in his misery.
I guess I proved that
I was the right
type of idiot to walk right
into Sid and Tallie’s
arms . . .
or should I say
fangs?
I think a part
of me had been
hoping for some
sorta declaration
of love.
Maybe him going on ’bout
how he couldn’t
live without me.
Or unlive
without me.
But now
thinking
on it,
I can
see that
Brandt
never promised me love.
Only . . .
forever.
I Hated Him a Bit
But I needed
Brandt, too.
He was the one
who told me
it wasn’t
a good idea
for me to
go back to
Aunt Clara.
Especially
while I was
hungry.
He also showed me
that there were
ways around
the whole
blood problem.
We took a trip to
the grocery store.
He taught me how
sinking our fangs
into a raw steak
could blunt
the edge
of hunger.
The red meat
was gray
when we
finished with it.
That night,
he got the keys
to Sid and Tallie’s
old Caddy.
I slept in
the back seat.
The next day,
I convinced
Brandt
that we should
take it
for a drive.
It started hard,
but once it got
going, it wasn’t
too bad of a ride.
Without school
or anything else
to fill our days,
we began
bumping along
country roads
pockmarked with
potholes.
We ran the heat.
Pressed our
hands to the vents
fighting off the cold
inside of us.
A week went by.
Then half of
another.
We ran
low on money.
Had to steal
the meat.
Stuffing the
cellophane-wrapped
packages under
our shirts.
Running outta
the store when
a manager asked us
what we were doing.
It was just
as well
we couldn’t
go back after that.
I was racked with
shivers by then.
The blood in the meat
not enough to ever
fully warm me
or stop the
cravings.
They grew
fiercer with each
passing day.
“I can’t bite someone,”
I told Brandt.
He nodded
in response,
but his words
disagreed.
“You could.
It’s not the biting
that’s hard.
It’s the stopping.”
I asked then
if that had
happened to him.
If he’d used
his fangs
on a person . . .
If he’d killed.
Instead of answering,
he pulled the car
to the side
of the road.
Then he walked
away,
leaving me
alone.
When he came back,
we didn’t talk
about it no more.
But I was pretty
certain his reaction
meant the answer
was
yes.
Passing the Time
became a problem.
Brandt started
talking ’bout
how we
oughta
travel
and go
places.
But to me,
it seemed
like wherever
we went,
it’d
always be
just him
and me.
Most of the time
we were bored
and sick of
each other’s company.
We still ate food
and drank water,
but nothing
tasted good
except blood.
The idea that we’d
live forever,
with only
one another,
felt
not
like
a gift,
but more like
a curse.
I Started Taking Photos
with Brandt’s phone.
It was a whole heckofalot
nicer than mine.
I took close-ups
of my fangs.
Or of Brandt’s
mouth with a ribeye
clamped between
his teeth.
Careful
not to give our
identities away.
I broke us up
into bits and pieces.
Mr. Bailey
used to say
that an artist
ain’t really an artist
until they
send their work
out into the
world.
So I made an
InstaPic account.
I called it
The Art of Being a Vampire.
Over the next
few weeks,
I gained a couple
thousand followers
who were
interested enough
to comment.
They’d ask questions
(that were no doubt
meant as a joke)
about my
bloodsucker life.
I was so
hungry
that sometimes
I’d sink
my fangs
into my own hand.
Just to trick
my body into thinking
(for a few seconds anyway)
that it was being fed.
But when
I was
framing up
my subject
and deciding
on the light
and angles,
for those
few minutes
the hunger faded.
And
for that
short time, I felt
<<
human.
We Ran Outta Money
And so we had
no choice
but to start
stealing
more than
just steaks
from the
grocery store.
At first,
it was
fun.
We’d get
ourselves
blooded up.
Then,
feeling like
we were
unstoppable,
we broke
windows
to a
jewelry store.
Sold the goods
to a
pawn shop.
The money
bought us
gas
and
blood soup
from this
weird
Polish
restaurant.
After that,
we set
our sights
on a
bigger
target.
A blood drive
at the
local Y.
I was meant to
cause a
distraction
while Brandt
got the goods.
“Just scream
and pretend
you’re sick
or something,”
he’d told me.
So that’s what
I did.
Sick wasn’t
hard to fake—
my cheeks
were hollow.
My skin
a sickly,
chalky
white-gray
sorta color.
I avoided
my reflection.
Fearing
I was
beginning
to look like
Sid and Tallie.
“Oooh,”
