"I'm going to Tangier tomorrow."
"Mm. You always go to there."
"I know. That's because it's lovely. Why don't you come with me?"
"You know why."
"Adam . . ."
"Eve . . ."
Eve sighed, filling the phone line with static for a second. Adam knew she got frustrated sometimes when he refused to go places with her.
"I ran into my sister on the way out of Paris," she said after a moment.
Adam groaned and threw his head back on the edge of the couch. "What is she up to now?"
Eve laughed. "She said she was going to London with a group of friends she met in L.A."
"I say that she will drink at least one of them by the end of the trip–maybe all of them. I wouldn't put it past her."
"Adam," Eve chided, "you may not like her but she is my sister."
"That doesn't give her the right to drink every human she sees."
"Darling–"
"She's going to wind up killing herself by drinking someone's rotten blood."
"She isn't–"
"I mean, she's just so fucking impulsive. She doesn't even bother to think of the consequences of what she's doing – she just does whatever she feels like–"
"Adam."
Adam ran a hand over his face. "Sorry, love, it's just – she throws all of her sense out of the window when she's around people. I see you worry about her, which makes me worry about you."
There was the sound of a bottle shattering against the pavement outside, making Adam glare at the window.
"Adam, what was that?"
He stood, cradling the phone receiver in the crook of his elbow, and walked over to the window. Outside was a group of young guys drinking from bottles and then throwing them at each other. He snarled and drew the curtain.
"Just some zombies being assholes," he sneered. Zombies were the bane of his existence, always drinking or shooting up heroin or–
"Don't let them get to you, Adam," said Eve.
"I just – it's so – they're so–" He struggled to find the words. "Sad," he finished lamely.
"Oh, Adam, you care so much for them," she murmured.
"I do not," he said firmly. "They are self-destructive and ignorant and impetuous and they throw their wonderful lives away for nothing when – I mean–" He stuttered and came to an abrupt stop in his rambling. "They have such beautiful things. Why can't they be happy with them?"
There was a long minute of silence. Then:
"Darling, you do care." Eve yawned and the bed made a creaking sound through the telephone as she stood from it. "I have to go, my love. I'm set to meet Marlowe tomorrow, and I still need to pack."
He looked forlornly at the ceiling and said, "Are you to call again?"
"Of course," she replied. "Oh, and Adam – do you have enough rations?"
"Hold on." He looked around the room for his flip phone (he had figured out a way to have all of the phones that were lying around his house be connected to each other), found it, and wandered downstairs to the refrigerator, smiling softly when he opened it and grabbed the silver thermos that sat on the top shelf. "Yes, Eve. I always do."
"Not always . . ."
"That was once–" he protested.
"Three times, actually. And it was your own damn fault, too." Her tone softened as she added, "But I'm happy to hear that you're taking care of yourself now."
The fridge shut, blowing a rush of cool air at Adam. "I love you, Eve."
"You, too, darling. I miss you."
He hummed in agreement making Eve laugh before she hung up. He turned around to the kitchen table where his little glass sat, innocent and untouched since he last fed. The thermos was almost empty when he peered down into it.
"I'll have to get more," he muttered before pouring the last of it into the glass and tipping it into his mouth.
There was a constant fog that hung about in Detroit. It slithered in between the street lights and alleys, stuffy and humid and demanding to be walked through. It made the street seem more like the smoke that rolled out of the crumbling warehouses sometimes rather than the normal black tar road. From the fog covered street, the tops of the ancient houses that dotted the sides of the road looked like dark castles from old time movies. Every now and then an odd spiral shaped something would emerge from the fog making anyone who saw it feel uncomfortable.
It's a peculiar feeling, the people who passed the spiral shaped somethings said during their alcohol-induced stupor. It's the kind of feeling that you get when you don't belong somewhere. But it's the strange because it's the buildings that don't belong there, no?
No, Adam thought as drove passed a group of drunken teenagers who stood in front of a house with a miniature tower on the side of it. It's more like your ignorant minds don't belong there.
He hated humans.
No, hate was too strong of a word. He was disappointed in them. The humans had had numerous gifts given to them over the years–a place to live on, art, technology, life–and they had wasted it all on drugs. They poisoned themselves and sat inside their houses doing nothing all day. There was a world to be discovered, diseases to be cured, people to meet, and all the zombies did all day was stick needles in their arms. He was disappointed in them.
He parked his car on the grass beside his house and slammed its door angrily. His night had not been going well. First there was the group of teenagers who were high as the damn sky who had approached him when he'd left to go to the hospital. It'd taken all of his self-control not to break their necks. Then when he got to the hospital to see Doctor Watson for his blood supply, the Doctor told him that he couldn't provide Adam with the blood.
Look, I'm sorry, the Doctor said, but I can't give you the blood. Now go away before someone walks in here.
He'd hustled Adam from the lab, shut the door, and locked it.
Adam had stormed back to his car and drove home. Damn zombies, he'd thought.
He pulled of his hospital gear and threw it on the couch in the front room, then headed up the stairs into his sitting room. His raggedy robe was thrown across the couch and he put it on, tying it at his waist. A faint pang of hunger electrified his stomach as he grabbed his Michael Hedges acoustic from where it was leaning against the wall. He placed his headphones over his ears and rolled his neck.
He was going to need to distract himself for the next few weeks if he was going to be without food. Making music, he decided, was the best way to do it.
Adam received a phone call from Eve a week later.
He was plucking at the strings of his viola, listening to the rain tap against the window, when his phone rang. He walked over to the table that was crowded with records, music sheets, guitar strings, and other miscellaneous things, and picked up the phone that was connected to a white receiver.
"Hello?"
"Adam."
"Eve."
He could hear Eve's smile through the speaker. "Hello, darling. How are you?"
Adam sighed and picked up the receiver. "Bored without you. There are more and more zombies coming to the house, and they interrupt my sleep and when I write my music."
"They're called humans, Adam."
He groaned. "But, Eve, you don't live with them. The bad ones, anyway. They're all drunk and in some other world. I can't even take a drive without seeing some teenager shooting up on the side of the road. I mean what the hell? They have the audacity to poison themselves in the middle of public for God's sake–"
"Adam, please," Eve interrupted gently. "What else have you been up to?"
He paced around the room, twirling the curled wire that connected the phone and the receiver in his fingers. "I told you already: nothing much. I've written a bit, but that's nothing. What about you, love?"
"Tangier is lovely as it always is. I still don't understand why you won't come here with me"-Adam decided to ignore the statement-"but I'm afraid I'm in the same predicament as you. Nothing particularly interesting has happened to me, either."
"Sorry."
"So I've decided that I want to go to Venice for a bit."
"Venice? We haven't been there in the last few decades . . ."
"Yes, that's why I want to go back." There was a noise that filtered through the speaker that resembled that of a door being knocked upon. "I think that's Marlowe. He's doing well, since you didn't ask. I must bid you adieu. But before I leave, I must ask: are you getting enough food?"
"Yes, Eve."
"And are you feeling well?"
"Yes, Eve."
"And Adam?"
"Yes, Eve?"
"I love you."
"I love you, too, Eve."
He heard her kiss her end of the phone and the line went dead. He threw the phone on the couch and rubbed his hands over his face. Lying was something that made his mind spin for whatever reason, especially when he was lying to Eve.
The truth was that he hadn't eaten in the past week and hunger was taking its toll on him. His mind tumbled a lot and his knees often felt weak. Unpleasant aches dug themselves deep in his bones and moved throughout his muscles. His insides felt knotted and made him uncomfortable.
Adam promised himself that he would go see Doctor Watson next week. If hunger hadn't tightened its chains around him, that is.
Adam stared down at the letter in his hands. It was written in neat cursive-black swirls on white paper. The envelope had been sealed with red wax, as if it was sent a hundred years ago, but the date on the paper said it had been sent just two months ago.
He placed the letter in a small glass bowl sitting at the center of the kitchen table. Then he picked up the matchbox sitting next to it, lit two matches, and threw them into the bowl. The flame was small at first but it caught onto the paper and the white was consumed by orange and yellow. He watched the paper singe at the corners and then turn blue and finally black as it was incinerated.
The words were burned, much like the letter itself, into his mind's eye. When he blinked, the swirls of black were plastered against the back of his eyelids, shining painfully bright. The opening of the letter was particularly irritating:
Found this hidden in the back of the first copy of Macbeth-your favorite, I remember–and when I finally found where you had gone off to, I copied it and sent it to you. The original note was a bloody, scribbled mess, so I hope this suffices. Hope you and Eve are faring well.
-Tyranny
After he read that, Adam had gotten up and taken out the glass bowl from the cabinet and grabbed the matchbox off of the steps.
Tyranny had been one of his and Eve's friends when they had been in a cult back in 1603 through God knew how long. Ironically enough, Tyranny was the one who had gotten thrown out of the cult first because he'd argued with the rest of the cult when they had decided to start drinking children. It was not long after that – when two of the vampires had brought back a dead child's body and demanded they drink from it – that Adam and Eve left as well.
But Adam's curiosity had gotten the best of him and the letter was suddenly opened and read in under a minute.
The letter was written by a woman to her lover explaining that she was never going to see him again because she was dying. Dying because she had been bitten by a demon. She told him how much she loved him, compared their love to the sky where each star stood for how many years she would wait for him, faithful and loving, so that they could be reunited someday.
It was the last sentence that made Adam make the final decision to burn it.
Do not seek out vengeance upon the demons that killed me, for they were simply God's gifts to Hell who were twisted until their only thoughts were to kill.
The damned woman was dying, bleeding out onto the letter she was writing to her only love, and she had the audacity to tell him to take pity on the things that killed her. She had the audacity to call the monsters that half-drained her of her blood and left her to die a slow death gifts?
And why the hell would Tyranny think it was okay to send him this in the first place? He knew that Adam was the one who fed on this woman. He knew how distraught Adam had been when he'd drank this kill (because halfway through sucking the life out of her, he heard her gasp out that she was with child, and he had fled). He fucking knew.
The letter was no more than a pile of ash now, sitting innocently in the bowl in middle of the table. Adam lashed out suddenly and sent the bowl flying into the wall, shattering it into a hundred tiny pieces.
His insides twisted painfully as he choked on tears. His mouth watered at the thought of fresh blood, warm and sweet and smooth in his mouth, dripping down his throat and filling his aching stomach.
This was not okay.
This was not fucking okay.
The human should not have taken pity on him. He was an animal who killed innocent people, a monster who drank blood to survive, a demon who was now crying and shaking, and God his body hurt and he felt so, so dizzy.
He was not okay.
Adam lay on his bed, his fist wrapped around a ball of red fabric from the blanket that was spread out on the mattress. His other hand – which was stroking his small plush rabbit – was shaking. The bones in his fingers creaked when he bent his knuckles to brush the soft fur of his stuffed animal – back and forth and back and forth.
His stomach ached.
Back and forth – the fur went from white to grey as his fingers lightly brushed the rabbit's neck.
He wished Eve were here.
Back and forth, back and forth.
There was a knock at the door. He could hear people's excited but hushed voices filtering through the dark hall. The muted noise sounded more like a blaring death march to Adam than voices. He made no move to get up, just continued to lay there and feel his ribs expand when he breathed.
"Adam?" one of the voices said – a girl. She added in a muffled whisper that made Adam involuntarily strain his ears to hear, "I thought you said that this was where he lived."
"It is," another voice said – a boy.
A couple.
Adam parted his cracked and dry lips and exhaled a stream of cool air. He continued to stroke the rabbit as he debated on whether or not to answer the door. He was so weak and the door was so far . . . But if he answered it, then he would get a meal. His first meal in two weeks.
He missed Eve. She would know what to do.
"Well I guess he doesn't live here. Sorry, Annie. Let's go somewhere else."
Adam sighed as the couple left his doorstep. A potential meal had walked away. A potential kill. He promised himself a long time ago that he wouldn't kill anybody again.
Zombie, he thought to himself. The word just floats around in his head, the rest of his mind concentrated on how his insides hurt with hunger.
So he laid there on his bed, his shaking hand gripping the stuffed rabbit, his other hand still balled in the blanket. He laid there and breathed and felt his stomach contract in hunger and thought about how much he missed Eve.
(There was a boy in dirty trousers with holes in the knees standing in a cornfield. The boy's white shirt was only half-buttoned so that it exposed his skinny shoulder and prominent collar bone. He had no shoes on, and paper-thin cuts were scattered on his shins, oozing small droplets of red.
"Marie," he called. A crow cawed when the boy ran past its sitting place – a particularly tall corn stalk – and took to the sky, a black dot on crystal blue.
The boy ran in the cornfield for hours and hours, frantically searching and calling for this Marie. When the sun was far below the horizon and the stars had started to speckle the sky, he stopped his search and trudged back to the edge of the cornfield.
The crow cawed again, and the boy looked sullenly up at it.
"Marie," he called for the hundredth time, his voice coming out in no more than a croak. With a sigh, he started to walk to his house that was at the top of the hill, right above the corn field.
"Jacob!"
The boy – Jacob – spun around, eyes darting in every direction to find the source of the voice – to find Marie.
"Jacob! Help!"
He sprinted back into the field, running and running, ignoring the hard husks that slapped his face and tripped him up. He fell on a sharp rock and gasped as it made a deep cut on his knee but determinedly jumped up and limped to a small, circular clearing in the middle of the field.
"Marie!" he cried when he saw the girl who was dressed in a white silk dress. It was torn in multiple places as if she, too, had fallen many times. Her back was right up against a stalk, her eyes wide with fear.
"Jacob," she sobbed. "Run, brother, run. You must go."
"Marie, what are you doing out here? I've been calling for you for hours and hours–"
"Shh. I think I hear them."
"What–?" But the boy felt a hand on his shoulder that made his blood run cold. He turned, slowly, slowly, until he faced a woman with white hair and a kind face. "W-who are you?"
The woman smiled sadly at him, eyes taking in his startled expression. "I'm so, so sorry," she said softly.
Jacob turned back to Marie who, to his horror, was staring at a tall, lanky man with dark eyes and long, disheveled black hair. In the dark, the stranger looked more like a humanized monster taken right from one of Jacob's nightmares. He, too, had a hand on Marie's shoulder.
"Please – let my sister go," Jacob whispered. "She has done nothing wrong. Just – have mercy on her. She's only eight years of age."
The man and woman shared a long, lingering look before the man pulled his hand delicately off of Marie's shoulders.
"Go, Marie." Jacob felt his eyes sting. "Go! Go! Run and don't look back." Marie was hesitant and slowed her steps when she was at the edge of the clearing. "Please," Jacob whispered, tears streaming down his face.
"Farewell, brother. I promise to come back."
And she bolted out of sight. Jacob felt his heart turn to lead and sink down into his stomach. His blood pounded in his veins, pulsing, pulsing, until he felt as if they might burst.
He turned back to the woman. "Are you . . . are you a demon?"
The woman shook her head and knelt down in front of him. "You are a brave child, you know. Look at the stars with me."
She turned her head to stare at the sky, and Jacob followed.
It was as if diamonds had been thrown over a dark blanket. There were hundreds of stars in the nighttime sky, glinting and shimmering like tiny mirages. A sudden bright line streaked across the almost black backdrop.
The woman beside him laughed. "Shooting stars are my favorite."
Jacob scolded himself for answering her so curiously. "Why?"
"Because they stay up high in the sky, watching everything that happens down here, and they wait and wait for the right moment where they can fall down to the Earth and see what life is like down here from a different perspective. It's quite amazing, the life of a star. An infinite amount of possibilities lies within one tiny dot in the sky . . ."
"Eve," the shadowy man said quietly.
Jacob took this as a sign – a sign of mercy, of death, he did not know – and suddenly felt very scared. He reached for the strange, charming woman's hand which had moved from his shoulder to hang by her side.
She looked down, surprised.
"Whatever you plan to do to me, make it quick." He bit his trembling lower lip. "Make me one of the falling stars, if you can. Make me see the world in a different perspective."
"Be gentle, Adam," the woman said. She looked at the boy with sad, sad eyes when he suddenly felt sharp pricks on his neck. There was the sensation of being sucked dry – his emotions, his organs, his body, his soul – before he looked at the stars again and focused on one that fell down across the sky, wishing sleepily that he could fall from the sky, too.)
Adam did not remember many dreams in his long life. He remembered one that was fuzzy around the edges that had occurred when he was nearly starving a few decades ago, but he could not really recall what it was about.
But what he did know was that this dream was different than the few that he'd had. It scared him to realize that he was reliving August 12th, 1709 (the date would always be a prominent one in his mind) – the day that he had drunk his first child – through his victim's point of view.
Adam hated dreaming.
He hated drinking humans.
He hated humans.
Adam stayed up all day, lying on his bed, bending his fingers, and petting his stuffed animal. He watched the sunlight slowly trickle through the frosted window of the front door to his house and pool at the bottom of his open bedroom door. The light was too bright and it burned his eyes, so he closed them.
He gave a faint start when he woke up a little while later, not even realizing that he had been sleeping. Unwanted exhaustion overcame him a lot now.
He thought about Eve and what she was doing in Venice right now. Perhaps sleeping, if it was light out. Or maybe, if it was night, she was sitting in a gondola, drifting through the city with an Italian guide who told her how beautiful Venice was. But she could see how beautiful Venice was on her own.
She could see how anything was beautiful on her own.
The sunlight was dim now, not burning Adam's eyes as much, but he let them shut again and dozed off once more.
It was night when he woke up, this time because of his hunger pains. He realized then that he hadn't moved in over two days.
The bed creaked a little when he sat up, slowly, mechanically, as if he were a robot.
Zombie, he thought with a bitter smile that stretched his lips until he felt the skin split and identified the tang of blood. It tasted stale and was cold. It reminded him of himself.
Adam's body hurt when he stood up; still, he forced himself to walk out of his room and down the hall to the small room where he kept his instruments. He crossed the room and sat down on the couch, a groan that sounded like the scrape of sandpaper against wood escaping him.
He was parched and felt as if his throat were filled with sand. Swallowing was idiotic; he could barely work the muscles in his throat.
His mind worked as he stared at his guitar. It wandered back to the couple who had stumbled onto his doorstep the other day. God, they smelled so good - but now they were probably on the other side of the city, lost in the crowd.
He fell asleep (again) thinking about how, centuries ago, he had drunk goblets of blood and never thought of what it would be like to be starving.
The time when Eve came back from Marseille was one of Adam's favorite memories.
It had been a cloudy day and had turned into a rainy night. Adam was surprised when he saw a car pull up to the front of his house, its headlights reflecting light through the raindrop-streaked windows.
He ruffled his hair with a sigh. He didn't want to deal with any humans tonight.
There was a knock on the door which made Adam wince. Insufferable creatures, he thought. The floorboards creaked softly as he padded across the smooth wooden floor, his feet bare. Not insufferable creatures, he corrected himself. More like lovely, confused, ignorant, self-destructive creatures. He opened the door and his mouth went dry.
Rain water dripped off of Eve's blond hair making it stick out in awkward places. Even so, Adam thought she looked beautiful.
"Eve," he said.
Eve blinked before breaking out in a warm smile. She set her suitcase down and walked into Adam's opened arms. She wrapped her own arms around his waist, and they stood there like that for a while, his hand stroking her wet hair, the tap tap tap of the rain hitting the ground the only sound between them.
He unlatched his arms from around her and reached behind his back to pull one of her gloves off of her hands and brought her cold hand up to his lips where he kissed her palm. His eyes stayed locked with her thorughout the simple ritual.
A few hours later Adam found himself staring at the ceiling, his head resting in Eve's lap. He listened to her talk about Marseille with its warm nights and the magnificent Palais du Pharo.
"It rained in Marseille a few times. God, the city was beautiful at night when the rain fell," she said. Her eyes were bright and the corner of her lips was turned up in a half smile of delight. She loved talking about the places she went to, and Adam was more than eager to hear about them.
"Sounds lovely," he murmured. His hand intertwined with Eve's and his fingers traced the veins on the back of it.
"Darling, what have you been up to while I've been away?" The concern in her voice made Adam smile a bit. She knew about his struggle with depression. "Have you been eating?"
"Yes. Doctor Watson has been slow with getting me the blood, though," Adam said with a frown. The Doctor had not been at the hospital the last time Adam had gone to see him. He didn't tell Eve that.
They sat in silence before Adam asked, "How were the zombies?"
Eve laughed. "They were . . . human. But the French are really lovely people. They seem to care more about their . . . opportunities – the things they have – more than others, I suppose. Why don't you come with me the next time I go? You would love Marseille now. You haven't been there in forever."
"The last time I was there I recall lots of lights and rain - and sweet blood, I believe." He brushed his lips against her wrist, feeling the ever-so-slight beat of her pulse. "Their blood was sweet, was it not? I can't quite remember." He couldn't remember lots of things, like when he was turned (Eve never told him who turned him; she said she saw him turn).
"It was because of the wine, I think."
Wine was a drink that rang a distant bell in Adam's head. He sometimes remembered some sweet, dark red liquid that wasn't as thick as blood but wasn't as watery as, well, water. But he could never be sure if his memories of wine were just made up out of his imagination or if they were real. Adam had lived such a long time that it was hard to sort things out.
Eve ran her fingers through his hair. "Adam, darling, come home."
Adam blinked, shaking his head a bit and let his free hand wander up to her face. "I'm here," he said quietly.
"What troubles you?" Eve always asked that question.
"Why can't I remember things?"
She was quiet for a moment, pondering his question. Her eyes flicked to the ceiling as if she might find the answer there. After some time she said, "We live such long lives, Adam. All of those memories that we have, that we make, in the long years that we live – well, there's just too many. Our minds are just as fragile as the humans', I'm afraid, and even we cannot survive the tidal wave of emotions that accompanies memories. There's just too many to count, too many to hold onto." She paused, letting Adam mull over her words, waiting to see if he wanted to say anything.
"Too many," was the only thing he murmured.
"I think," Eve continued, "that we subconsciously block out the memories that we do not want to hold onto anymore; the ones that cause us too much heartbreak or joy."
"Too much joy?"
"Even happiness can become overwhelming."
"But if we block out the memories that cause us emotion, wouldn't that make us monsters? Zombies like the rest of the world?"
Eve bit her lip, choosing her next words carefully. "We only ignore the ones that cause us too much emotion." And then she thought of something. "Do you remember your parents?"
"No," Adam replied flatly. He wasn't exactly sure he wanted too, either. "They're dead," he added as a dark afterthought.
"Exactly. So if you remembered them, don't you think that you would be overwhelmed by grief every time you thought of them?"
"I suppose . . ."
"And that would be a burden that nobody wants to bear. So, you see, my point is is that some things are just too much to cope with." Eve looked down at Adam, tracing his jaw.
He said nothing but tilted his head to one side, still staring at the ceiling. Monsters and zombies don't like to feel things, he thought. He added it to his mental book of things to dwell on later. Extreme things, he added as a hazy afterthought.
"Pick up your violin, Wolfgang, and write me something." Eve's voice was soothing as if she were talking to a child.
Adam sat up and grabbed his violin off of the side table. He plucked the highest string and nodded.
"I do love it when you play for me."
Adam agreed with a content sigh, feeling much like a cat with its owner. He hadn't seen Eve in the last – how long ago was it? He couldn't remember. But she was here now and that was all that mattered because he loved when she sat there, listening to him play his instruments.
She was beautiful and she was his and that was all that Adam cared about.
It had been two years since that day, and Adam was in the same situation.
He had gathered his strength after three full days and nights of sleeping to finally get up and go to the hospital earlier that night. It hurt to walk, to push the keys into their slot in the car, to breathe.
As he had made his way around the familiar disinfectant smelling building complex in his sunglasses and scrubs, he ran into a nurse who he throatily asked where Doctor Watson was.
She said he was on vacation.
Adam was too weak to shout or storm out of the building. Instead he slammed his hands down on the wheel of his car when he was parked in the grass near his house and groaned, "Fuck."
The Doctor was on goddamn vacation. He just got up and left, not even bothering to tell Adam when he was leaving or where he was going. The blood supplier was gone for God knew how long.
Adam sat on the crescent shaped couch with his Jean Reinhardt guitar sitting on his thighs and his head craned over the top of the cushions, staring at the ceiling. His fingers throbbed as he strummed the Reinhardt, causing a strained sound to emanate from the instrument.
He remembered when Ian had acquired it for him. It was one of the first guitars that he'd received from the kid. Ian had delivered it with a smile, practically radiating enthusiasm, for he had been absolutely honored to supply one of his idol musicians with instruments.
Adam's sorrows swallowed his brain, causing his vision to blur and black to cloud the edges of his eyes. Or that might have been his hunger. The pain in his stomach was a dull ache, lessened steadily by the month of unwanted fasting that passed by in long, sleep-filled days and nights.
He blinked once, twice, and his eyelids were getting heavy. Rest. He needed more rest. Just for a little while, just a doze, just–
The buzzing of his doorbell woke him. (When had he fallen asleep?) It was a single buzz, so Adam assumed it was Ian.
He felt around the couch until he found his old telephone between the cushions and dialed Ian's number. The human picked up.
"Adam."
"Ian."
"Hey, man. I'm outside the house–"
"It's unlocked." Adam unceremoniously hung up. He could hear banging downstairs as Ian came through the door and bounded up the stairs.
"Hey." Ian stood in the doorway to the room with a guitar case in his hand.
"Hey," Adam replied, dully. One of his hands fell over his stomach and traced nonsense patterns on the tie of his robe.
"One of my guys got this," and here Ian held up the guitar case, "for me. Said it belonged to Jimmy Page, and he found it in a pawn shop or something. I figured you could take a look." Ian walked over to Adam and set the black case down next to the table. He shrugged. "Listen, I don't know if he was lying or not, I mean it didn't cost me much so it could be a load of bullshit, but I thought it'd just be another thing to add to your collection, you know?"
Adam said nothing in return.
"But – um – are you okay? You look kind of–"
"What day is it?" Adam interrupted.
Ian tapped his chin and glanced down at his watch. "The twenty-third at one in the morning," he said.
Adam sighed. He had slept for eighty-four hours straight. When had time become so irrelevant?
"I'm fine," he mumbled. It was more to reassure himself rather than a reply to Ian. His muscles ached and he could practically hear Ian's blood running through his veins, and if the zombie didn't leave the house soon, Adam was definitelygoing to drink him.
"So I'll just take this out for you," Ian started, as he flipped the latches of the guitar case back.
"Stop," Adam said. His voice came out suddenly sharp, causing Ian to stop his movements and look at him with wide eyes. The vampire waved his hand in an apologetic gesture and said, in a tone that was less harsh, "Look – I really appreciate that you brought me that. I really do. But I've had a long day – some more of those rock and roll teenagers came by – and I'm tired. So if you wouldn't mind leaving that there and then leaving – I'd really appreciate it."
Ian closed the guitar case and nodded his head. "Yeah, yeah, I understand. Those teenagers; they're fuckin' crazy. I'll just come back when you're feeling better." He stood to go but stopped when he reached the doorway. "Do you need anything?"
Adam's mind felt hazy; through the haze, one sharp thought shoved its way to the front. "Actually, I need you to go down to the hospital and see if a Doctor Watson is in. If he is, I need you to call me immediately. Understand?"
"Doctor Watson? Yeah, sure, I can do that."
"Thanks, Ian."
The phone was going off. Adam could hear it from wherever he was (this strange, dark place that was silent and weightless), but it sounded far away, as if it were an echo in a cave. The ringing got louder and more persistent, poking Adam's dark place – bubble, almost – until he just couldn't stand it and had to find out where the hellthat fucking phone was.
He felt himself rise out of the darkness (his mind, he realized) and opened one of his eyes. He threw his arm out, found the phone sitting next to him, and picked it up.
"What?" His voice was hoarse as if he had lined his throat with sandpaper. It hurt to talk. It hurt to do anything.
"Adam? You don't sound too good."
"Uh-huh."
"Well I was just calling to tell you that that doctor you wanted – Watson or whatever his name was – he's in. Guy just got back yesterday. Funny cause you asked about him two days ago and he arrived the next day. . ." Ian trailed off at the end of his sentence, moving on to some other topic about a piano one of his guys found that could possibly be from 1854 or something.
Adam stopped paying attention after Ian mentioned that Watson was back. "Ian," he interrupted.
"And – oh, yeah?"
"Thanks for the call. Stop by tomorrow or the next day and we can look at the Jimmy Page that you brought over the other day. I'll pay you, too." He tried not to sound rushed even though his hand ached from holding the phone to his ear and his hunger pains hit him with a vengeance.
"Okay. That sounds good. But listen, Adam, you don't have to pay me–"
"I want to. I've got to go. See you tomorrow night or, um, whenever."
Adam hung up and idiotically made an attempt to stand. He slowly, slowly, walked over to the door and then had to stand there for a few minutes to catch his breath. His legs shook and his mind felt fuzzy. The room around him spun like one of his records, around and around and around. He threw his arm out to support himself on the wall and closed his eyes.
The trip to the hospital was going to take longer than he expected.
Doctor Watson was rifling through some papers when Adam walked in. A grim look crossed his face when he saw 'Doctor Faust' standing behind the metal table that sat in the middle of the room. The air was heavy with tension, and the way that Adam was standing – head tilted slightly, back ram-rod straight even though it pained him greatly – made Doctor Watson shift nervously, obviously on edge about Adam's intimidating stature.
"You scared me," he muttered.
Silence was his answer and he sighed, going over to the cooler that held the packs and bottles of blood.
"I can tell that you're mad that I left. But my boss was growing suspicious of the missing blood samples – there was a problem for a while where I couldn't replace them quick enough. It's all taken care of now so don't worry." He pawed through the fridge until he found the thermoses of O-Negative he usually gave to the other 'Doctor'.
Adam popped open his briefcase and watched Watson as he placed five thermoses into it. With a snap, he closed it again, reached into one of his pockets to draw out a wad of cash, and threw it at the Doctor. He could feel the Doctor's eyes follow him as he took carefully paced steps (he was desperately trying not to run) out of the hospital.
The car purred as he pulled out of the parking lot and onto the deserted road. His giddiness at finally having food made his hands shake and his stomach do flips. Adrenaline mixed in with what little blood ran through his veins and burned his arms and legs forming a pool of warmth low in his stomach.
When he pulled into the grass near his house, grabbing the briefcase from the passenger seat and drifting over to the house, as if in a trance. The bag in his hand was heavy, and damnhe could smell the blood from here . . .
There was something else that he could smell. It was a familiar scent, a lovely sweet-smelling thing, which caused him to inhale and exhale slowly.
The door was unlocked when Adam turned the knob, but he hardly noticed, too entranced by the strange smell. What the hell was it? Adam knew, he knew, he just couldn't place where he smelled it before because his mind was too preoccupied with opening one of the thermoses and gulping down the O-Negative.
Something white caught the corner of his eye and he spun sideways to find himself face-to-face with Eve. She was leaning against the door frame, arms crossed over her chest with two suitcases on either side of her.
"You look awful," she stated. Then she cupped his face with her hands and quietly said, "Darling, what have you done now?"
Those few words – that one sentence – broke Adam. He dropped his briefcase, pulled her gloves off of her hands and kissed her palms, granting her entrance. His eyes stung as he wrapped her in a hug.
"Eve," he whispered. "Oh, Eve, I don't know what happened. And here you are. You've come to save me just like every other time." He was suddenly hit by an overwhelming wave of fatigue and collapsed in her arms.
She helped him up the stairs and dragged him to the couch in his sitting room where she left him to shut the front door and retrieve his briefcase. After she returned she sat down on the table so that her knee brushed his and popped open the case, pulling out a glinting metal thermos.
Adam felt his dry mouth begin to water, and he weakly reached for the thermos. Eve unscrewed the lid, handing it to him with a concerned look on her face. And he drank. He poured the whole thing into his mouth and relished in the way the sweet blood coated his aching throat and soothed his pained organs. The O-Negative was smooth and so fucking good that he didn't stop to breathe until he finished the container.
He let his head fall back on the couch, mouth opening in a satisfied smile that revealed his deadly canines. His breathing was short, shallow gasps at first but slowly morphed into steady inhales and exhales.
After a few minutes, Adam lifted his head to look at Eve who patiently sat on the table, legs crossed, elbows on her knees. She offered to take the now empty thermos, and he gave it to her. He ran his tongue over his cracked lips that were stained red and tasted deliciously of O-Negative.
"Now that that's over, would you mind telling me what the hell was wrong with you?" Eve had her head tilted to one side with her lips pursed.
Adam frowned. "My blood supplier took off without telling me. The zombie just fucking up and left and I had nothing to eat for five weeks."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Eve demanded. "I called you four weeks ago and you said that everything was fine. You could have said that you were out of blood – I would've come here sooner."
Adam laughed. "That's why I didn't tell you," he rasped. "I didn't want you to worry about me. You sounded like you were enjoying yourself."
"Adam," Eve said firmly, glaring at him.
"Eve," he mocked. His eyelids felt heavy. After all of those days of sleeping, he was still tired.
Eve moved off the table and curled up next to him.
"Adam," she sighed, "this isn't the first time you've had this problem before. You have to stop doing this to yourself. You're turning into one of the zombies that you're so – how do you put it? Disappointed in? They destroy themselves from the inside out and that's exactly what you do. You say that they aren't beautiful anymore because they're slowly killing themselves. Stay beautiful, Adam. Stay like that for me."
"I love you, Eve," Adam murmured as his eyes closed. He squeezed her hand in a reassuring way. She pressed her lips to his knuckles.
(Kisses, she once said, are the strangest of things.
Why's that? he asked.
We press our lips to other people's skin – the soft covering that protects their bones – and we take it as an act of love. We kiss each other's faces and lips and take it as a sign of affection.
But it is a sign of affection. Bodily contact can be, in some ways.
Why don't we just say 'I love you' if we want to tell somebody we love them?
Adam chuckled and said, Because this is so much better, before kissing her.)
As he felt sleep cloud his brain, he thought about humans and what Eve said. They were animals: they killed each other and themselves for no reason; they destroyed their homes – they were terrible, terrible creatures. But they were also beautiful. With all of their flaws, there were their good qualities like the art they had made, the technology they had discovered, their stubborn attempts at finding love. They were complex things that, even after millions of years to become perfect, continued to make grave mistakes every day.
And Adam thought that he did a lot of those things in his own way. He'd killed people and made attempts to kill himself. He played around with the wires that ran through his house. And he pined for Eve through thinking about her every day. Perhaps humans weren't so bad. Perhaps they could learn from their mistakes.
Or perhaps Adam had fallen asleep already.