Almost Undead

CHAPTER ONE

It all starts with our landscaping. I’m not one to blame the victim, but we really should have trimmed the giant weed farm along our driveway. If the weeds hadn’t had a chance to start their own forest, I might have noticed the male skulking in the greenery before I opened my car door.

It’s on me before my second foot hits the ground. It’s so sudden I can’t even register at first that an event is occurring. I’m mentally on my way to the house when the pain forces me to the present. A fist in my hair gives control of my head to my attacker. Something pokes me in the ear as teeth poke me in the neck. It dawns on me that this is a vampire. That disgusting slurping noise is him drinking my blood.

It finally enters my mind that a scream is appropriate at this juncture of my life. My rasp is cut off by a smelly palm. He attempts to calm me with words spoken around the meat of my neck. One of the benefits of raising children is that I’m fluent in mumble-speak; those precious sounds babbled out from the soothered mouth. I can tell you one thing. Though I understand some of the words the vampire is saying; like ‘gift’, it’s no Christmas angel speech, despite his upbeat briefing.

Segued from my panic, I can’t help thinking, ‘What’s taking so long? Maybe he’s just a slow eater,’ occurs to my fractured mind. I’ve read that an adult’s attention span is twenty minutes. Maybe I have A.D.D or something because after ten minutes, my bored mind goes over the day’s events and violent urges build within me. I think this makes my blood spicy or something because he moans, “Goff oo kaske gub.” It’s one of those moments that no matter what’s said, it’s going to piss you off.

The panic part of the evening has come and gone. It’s time for me to vent some rage. I bite the smelly hand. I don’t want to. It’s gritty with dirt, dried blood and I fear something unmentionable, but I force my teeth closed with sheer will power. The pinky gets it. Blood reddens my lips, but its hand still muffles my renewed screaming. He actually stops drinking long enough to glance at his spilled blood and say, “Patience, dear, that comes later.”

My rage is replaced with sick horror. There’s no such thing as vampires except there is. I see little trickles of blood slipping down pasty, lumpy skin out from pale horns on his forehead. I can feel that my ear is wet. This bothers me more than the fiery pain searing my neck because it’s not raining out. Maybe it’s my mild case of OCD, but he’s bleeding on me. He’s bled into my ear. He’s declared his intention to make me a horny ear-bleeder.

“Mmh mh,” I negate frantically.

The vampire stiffens his back, looking seriously annoyed. “It’s a great gift I offer,” he declares.

“Don’t want it!” I scream futilely behind his palm.

He’s appalled at my bad manners. “Ungrateful pig!” He releases the fist in my hair and slices his wrist, “You’ll drink,” he vows. Quick-like, he places his wrist over my lips. I squirm away, praying to God for help. Exasperated, the vampire pinches my nose closed. My mouth opens instinctively for air, and blood sprays into my mouth. I try to spew it out but his wrist is unmoving against my mouth. Blood down my throat, no air, I start to suffocate. I pound at him with weakly fluttering limbs. Everything goes dark as I hear him say, “I’ll await your awakening at your grave.”

*

Needless to say, I’m surprised when I wake up in my driveway, sprawled asymmetrically next to my open car door. I chuckle with shocked horror at my terrifying dream. Obviously, I need to cut back on the horror movies. And I need to get more sleep. Since words won’t express my relief, I let out a whoosh of pent up air. Blood sprays from my lips.

A guttural note of denial belches from my throat. I whip frantic eyes around, fearing that I’ll see an amused vampire waiting to play cat to my mouse. Only familiar shapes of buildings and tree-sized weeds greet my eyes. I get to my knees and my entire body aches like I’d been the ground for a cattle stampede. I let the pain hearten me. Obviously, I’m not dead. The dead don’t hurt like I’m hurting. I mean, I’m pretty sure the undead exist pain free. The vampire’s evil plan had somehow gone awry.

This strikes me as extremely funny and I laugh for real. I’m not dead! Or undead! I struggle to my feet and catch a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror and the laughter burbles away. I look bad. I look really, really bad. I can’t go into the house like this! My husband will freak out! I consider my options. I’m just not up to driving to the hospital. What am I going to say to my husband?

I drag myself to the door of my house. Beaten and eaten almost to death, I wonder what I can possibly tell my husband so that he won’t yell at me. I know, it’s ludicrous to be afraid of a raised voice when I’ve been viciously attacked, but after fifteen years of marriage I know that when my husband is scared or worried, the first thing out of his mouth isn’t ‘baby, what happened’ or ‘baby, are you okay’; it’s a roar of rage. Followed by ‘what the hell happened to you’ or ‘what did you do to yourself’. Like I must have done something to acquire whatever trauma is visible on my person. He’s definitely a blame-the-victim kind of person. I don’t know why he’s like that unless his fear mechanism is directly connected to his rage mechanism. Whatever the reason, I’m more worried about facing my husband looking like an accident victim than I am of the vampire lurking somewhere out in the night.

I have to tell Bear something when he sees me. ‘I had a really bad day at work’ just wasn’t going to cut it. I turn the corner into the kitchen and there he is. I freeze. He stares at me in disbelief for a split second and horror owns his face before his roar of rage emerges. His visage at that moment is as frightening as the vampire’s.

He surprises me, though. The accusations and shame-bullets aren’t directed at me. “Who did this to you?!” Bear blasts. (Everybody calls him Bear, because his name is Teddy.) He approaches me with extreme aggression and I call on my wobbly brain to help me. Ah yes.

I faint. Well, I pretend to faint.

Bear’s reaction is very gratifying. “Oh God, Honey,” he whimpers. He picks up my limp body, murmuring, “It’s going to be okay, baby.” He walks with me in his arms to the telephone and dials an emergency. “My wife,” he starts to get shaky-voiced. My own eyes well at the emotion in his tone. He really does care about me. Wow. “My wife has been attacked. She’s bleeding all over…”

I moan and pretend to come out of my unconscious state.

“Honey?” he whimpers with hope. “Honey, are you okay?” See? Even men ask stupid questions sometimes. I moan again for effect and open my eyes. His eyes stare back with the beginnings of suspicion in them. Maybe I’ve overplayed my part. I whisper, “Bear, I’m so glad you’re awake. I’ve had the worst night of my life.”

“What happened?” he asks, seeing my torn neck for the first time.

I do the sly deny. I say, “I would have sworn that a vampire attacked me. But it must have been a dog or something, because there’s no such thing as vampires. The trauma of the attack must have made me hallucinate or something.” Why the semi-lie? Well, this way, Bear doesn’t commit me or send me to an overpriced shrink to fix my broken brain. But by mentioning a vampire attack at all, the seed of truth is planted in case later events require me to reveal the whole story. I hope he never meets a vampire or anything like it, but better to give him a hint of the existence of monsters in case he needs it.

Just then my husband presses his hand over my neck wound which is probably a good idea except it sends such agony through my neck nerves and up into my brain that I bark a pained scream and pass out for real.

CHAPTER TWO

I wake up in a room surrounded by several shades of white. Before I can even snuggle into my firm, electronic bed, I’m accosted. No, it’s not vampires.

“Ma’am, if we could ask you a few questions,” says a feminine voice off to my left.

I turn my head to see a blue uniformed figure standing less than solicitously by my bedside. The thing about the police is that they aren’t very nice to victims. A criminal who can get away with murder if they’re not treated with kid gloves - they’ll treat like the queen herself, but a victim? A victim is going to get the third degree. How do I know this? Hey, I watch T.V.

The policewoman asks her first question. I answer as honestly as I can minus the vampire thing. I’m not stupid. No matter what anybody says.

I guess she sees a lot of really battered looking people, because the policewoman seems not at all discouraged in her aggressive questioning by my pathetic appearance. “And when did this happen? And why did that happen? Really? Really?”

You know what’s wrong with the world today? (One of the things, anyway.) Nobody trusts anyone. Everybody always thinks everybody’s lying. And if it’s someone from law enforcement, they know everybody’s lying (whether they are or not). It’s very frustrating to deal with if you are lying. Hmm. I imagine it would be even more so if one is telling the truth. Oh well, not my problem.

I’m very glad to see Bear enter the room a few minutes later. The officer had probably decided (it’s good to know our police force is occupied by people of intelligence and discernment) to wait until Bear had left the room before trying to interrogate me. It’s not that he’s huge or overtly muscled or anything. There’s just something about him that makes people give him a wide berth. And his head half full of gray hair hasn’t changed that one bit. Bear gives the policewoman a look.

After the police officer runs out of the room, I give Bear a big, grateful smile. “Bear, I feel fine,” I tell him. “Take me home.”

“You are fine,” Bear replies with a very real leer as his eyes scan my form. Good Lord, the man is so incorrigible. (And weird; it’s not like I’m a hot young babe.) He gets serious. “They ran some blood tests and you did get some sort of infection from the attack. It doesn’t seem to be contagious, but they want to keep you overnight for observation.” He pauses before adding the part about the torture because he’s just like that. “Oh and hook you up to an I.V. for a massive dose of antibiotics.”

I let my head fall back on my pillow wearily. I was feeling fine ‘til then. It’s a terrible thing to be a victim.

*

It occurs to me when I get home the next day that I don’t become a vampire until I die. That maybe what the smelly vampire from the other night meant was that some day I’d die of natural causes and that nice little infection in my blood would turn me into a vampire at that time and then he’d meet me at my grave. Maybe his evil plan hadn’t gone awry at all. What’s a few decades to the undead?

I feel so much better afterward . If it weren’t for the nightmares involving horny, custard-colored me chowing down on my family, it would be like nothing bad had happened.

*

As it happens, my theory turns out to be holey. When he doesn’t sense me buried at any nearby cemeteries, my would-be vampire sire returns to the scene of his crime.

You’d think I’d have learned my lesson. After the horrible experience seven days ago, you’d think I’d have gained some wisdom. But no, those damned weeds were still growing strong, giving Mr. Hornhead another chance to surprise me. Only, he didn’t.

Surprise me, that is. I only crack the car door an inch when the dreaded stench of undead boy’s B.O. nearly overwhelms my sensitive nose. Eyes watering, I slam the door shut, tearing off the handle as I do so. “Cheap piece of crap,” I mutter pointlessly, staring at the jagged handle for a second before tossing it in the back seat to join a multitude of the forgotten unneeded. Panic begins to tingle just underneath my heart. If the smell makes me pass out, you might as well stick an apple in my mouth and call me an entrée. Or worse, a vampire.

Suddenly, my brain works and I turn the car on, fumbling with the key a little. I hear a roar erupt from an un-human throat and I jump. I jump again as Mr. Hornhead appears abruptly behind my car. My heart slams in my chest so loud, it drowns out the sound of the angry undead.

Then something inside the soul of me stirs. And it’s not a vegetarian. A cold, killing rage freezes a knot in my throat. It freezes parts of my mind and heart; walling off the gentle of me from an inner predator that hones its forgotten senses. Hate such as I’ve never been tainted with my whole life powers the psychotic within me. My voice joins the vampire’s in a battle cry of its own.

My foot knows what to do before I do. It kicks the accelerator to the floorboard. The vampire, being paranormally fast, has time to avoid the car, but he doesn’t. I wonder if he just happens to be a particularly stupid pseudo-corpse as my rear bumper mows him down. As satisfying as the thud of rubber and metal meeting undead meat is, I can’t help feeling less gratified to imagine that my attacker is from the bottom caste of the vampire population rather than a more superior sort. I hear noise from beneath my car as I sit there pondering. A hand suddenly shoots up out of the floorboard. I give a perfectly understandable shriek of surprise and hit the gas again. The vampire’s hand is torn from its fleshy home.

As I slam on the brakes in the middle of the street, I figure now would be a good time to shift into drive before I cause an accident. Thus, I’m perfectly positioned when the prone vampire sits up- to accelerate to ramming speed. I give a morbid chuckle that truly does disturb the normal, socially well-adjusted part of my soul as his face gains the imprint of the logo on my car’s grill. His horns catch in the area between the bumper and the grill as he’s slipping down. His struggles to release himself one-handed drag one of his legs beneath the front right tire. Just like that; with the force of the wheel pulling his body under and his horns keeping his head trapped to the grill; pop goes the vampire. Its head is ripped from its shoulders. I hit the brakes and jump out of the car in time to see his two parts slowly disintegrate. At least this time, I don’t have to lie to Bear about newly acquired injuries. I take heart in this as I pull back into my driveway.

I get out of my car and glance at my grill as I pass by on my way into the house. That’s when I truly know with that deepest sense of blossoming revelation that there is no justice in the universe. My lip trembles at the sight of my squished grill as I wonder what I’m going to tell my husband.



CHAPTER THREE

I burst into tears at the sight of Bear. He gets that tightness around his mouth that indicates he’s trying to control his anger. I know from my years of marriage to him that although it feels like he’s mad at me for crying, it’s really that he’s pissed at whatever’s making me cry and he needs to instantly lash out at the badness of the situation. Only the badness isn’t present and I am. He manages to hold his roar in and asks in a mildly accusatory tone, “Honey, what’s wrong?”

Through my sobs I explain, “I wrecked the car.”

Now comes the roar, “Again!”

Once. Once in my life I had a little car accident. It was my fault, but nobody was hurt but the vehicles. Bear still mentions it several times a year with warnings on how to drive properly accompanied by large insinuations about my driving incompetence. I hate it when I can’t point out how wrong he is with facts to prove my perfection. ‘But every body gets into an accident sometime in their life’ just doesn’t cut it when Bear has driving skills dripping out his rectum and he’s never been in the tiniest fender bender.

I have to think fast to come up with a diversionary tactic or I’d be getting driving lectures from him on my deathbed. “It was that creature that bit me,” I whimper truthfully. “It was just standing in the middle of the driveway and I hit it.” Oh yeah, I’m good. “I backed up and when I got out of the car, it had disappeared.” Okay, so my story was deeply edited, but the truth is in there, too and who could ask for more than that?

Bear narrows his eyes, “Disappearing roadkill wrecked the car?”

Roadkill, I love it. Vampire roadkill; sometimes my husband coins the best phrases. You gotta love a man with a brain. I try to sooth my savage beast. “Maybe wrecked is too harsh a term. It’s been a rough week and the stress of the situation created a verbal exaggeration.”

Sympathy for my incident wars on his face with the knowledge that I’m deliberately using my trauma to buy my way out of his righteous fury. In the end, he simply wheels around and goes out to look at the car. I follow him out, drawn after by sheer force of his will though I’d rather get caught by the mayor crapping on the steps of city hall than listen to my husband berate me.

Bear crosses his arms in front of him as he surveys the damage to the car. He looks at me, saying softly, “Honey, that wasn’t made by a dog.”

I answer carefully, “I never exactly said it was a dog.”

“Honey,” he says with exasperation, his gentle, understanding nature tapped out. “It was a vampire or demon or something, wasn’t it?”

Damn, you gotta love a smart man. “What makes you say that?” I respond, just in case he’s joking. My Teddy Bear can have the most twisted sense of humour.

Bear points at a little horn lodged in the grill. Well, imagine that. The whole vamp disintegrates except for one horn? If horns don’t experience rapid entropy like the rest of the vampire’s body, where’s the other horn? Maybe God heard my inner lament for justice. Or maybe He just doesn’t want me giving my husband anymore sorta truths. Bear’s reaction falls in the latter category.

“Why didn’t you just tell me !?” He yells, vein popping out over his occipital lobe. “Honey, you can’t just manipulate words until the truth is lost somewhere in the middle and act like it’s okay!”

“Would you have believed me?” I ask with shaking voice, avoiding the topic of the second part of his complaint.

He pauses for a second. “No, probably not,” he answers honestly. “But that’s no excuse!” he insists. “We vowed to be honest with one another.”

“I didn’t want to end up on brain altering medication,” I defend myself, “or divorced so you can distance yourself from the crazy woman.” (At which time, I diplomatically don’t add, you get sole custody of our daughters.)

Bear goes into his stubborn man-pout. He doesn’t stick out his lower lip or slump his shoulders like a normal person, but I know he’s pouting just the same. “So it ran off after you hit it?” Bear changes the subject.

I accept the segue gratefully. I don’t care that much about proving my point. “No it like, rotted into dust when its head came off.”

I will never in my whole life forget the dumbfounded look on my husband’s face when he heard me say that. I savour the delicious moment. I’ve stunned Bear speechless. He bounces back, though. Bear grins at me. “You go, Buffy,” he teases. If you ask me, the man has an unnatural obsession with Buffy. I guess it’s a good thing I share it.

I beam with gladness beneath the light of his admiration. Then he points to the car and asks, “How are you going to explain the accident to insurance? Or are you just going to pay for the repairs out of pocket?”

How do you like that? I save the world from an evil neck-biter and I have to foot the bill for collateral damage. Insurance companies should be paying me for this. Or at least my husband should.

Bear bends down to pick the horn out of our car’s grill. How he even saw it by the dim light of the street lamp I’ll never know. He’s like that character Monk, on T.V. He sees things other people, most everybody on the planet, that is; miss. I believe he should be a policeman instead of a postman. Ah, well. The world deprived of a real-life brilliant detective because my husband ignores the wise advice of his wife.

I eye the body part with disgust. I guess it’s good that he didn’t leave it there for me to remove but I’d rather it just conveniently disappear so I don’t have to look at the bloodcrusted piece of memorabilia just waiting to give me a grand moment of PTSD.

“Just toss it in the garbage,” I suggest.

“What?” he exclaims with surprised eyebrows. “This is our proof that vampires exist.”

“It looks like a goat horn, Bear,” I point out, amused. “It’s not proof of anything.”

Bear looks crestfallen as he examines it closely for irrefutably unique vampire horn properties. His shoulders sag with disappointment. “Well, at least it will be proof enough for our girls so that they know to take proper precautions after dark.”

I shake my head at his naiveté. Vampires are so fast that you don’t have time to grab something that can fight them off; be you ever so loaded down with anti-vampire paraphernalia. Oh well, it would make Bear crazy with fear if he believes there is no hope of stopping a vamp from making breakfast of Boadicea and Siobhan. Better to let him be mistaken than psycho. Sometimes ignorance is bliss. I’ve often found that leaving him ignorant is much more likely to lead to bliss for me.

Bear’s eyes search our nightscape property. I understand the gesture. It is different now, out here at night. It brings back strong memories of childhood feelings. Because now we know what we always felt was true when we were children. There are monsters in the dark.