A Circle in a Spiral

Sometimes Ben feels like there's this great empty swath of his childhood, a colossal bundle of reasons and thoughts and feelings that just decided to walk off one day without his permission. There's this emptiness – a huge black hole, right in the center of his chest, only he can't remember how it got there. Some days it's a mosquito bite, but other days it's a gunshot wound, open and bleeding.

On days like that, he can't feel anything except crushing-burning-hot anger.

There's something missing in his life and he can't figure out what it is.

Hell, there's a ton 'a stuff missing – a steady source of income for his mom, a nice house, money for college, his sonovabitch good-for-nothin' dad – but those are things that Ben can't have. No matter how hard his mom tries, she never gets promoted or the toilet backs up again or the newest boyfriend is a total asshat. When he was a kid, everything was fine. Nice neighborhood, nice friends, simple and clean and apple pie. Then they moved a couple times (for no reason, or if there was one then Ben didn't know it) and couldn't pay the mortgage on the house because Mom couldn't get a job, etc. Shit happened. Life happened.

Nothing ever goes right – nothing.

There's a back parking lot behind the gas station on the corner of River Street and Jayne Ave., where the kids at the high school throw rocks at the security cameras and smoke. Even though Ben doesn't smoke – he's tried, couldn't stand the taste and the kids called him a wuss – he still hangs out back there, once everyone's gone. The place reeks of weed and desperation but he doesn't mind somehow. And some days, he almost likes it. It's odd to find happiness or peace in misery, weird and twisted and probably sick, and he's probably the only person in the world like that.

One day, Ben sees two people – a tall guy with greasy black hair, and a girl in a biker jacket – drag the store clerk into the back parking lot. He hears them coming, hear the clerk thrashing against the pavement, and hides behind a dumpster. Even in the cooling September air, it's hot and reeking in the shadow of the dumpster.

Although the store clerk is heavy – late twenties, probably thirty pounds overweight – the biker jacket girl drags him across the pavement like a ragdoll. She flashes a wicked grin at her partner and winks. Her teeth grow, an extra set sprouting from her gums like a shark's.

The store clerk is begging now – take my money but don't hurt me, please, please, don't hurt me! – and his cries echo on pavement and cinderblock. But there's no one around to hear him, no one except Ben. He pulls out his phone and dials 911, praying that the beeps or his whispered plea for help won't be overheard. The tall guy nods to the biker jacket girl and the store clerk screams as his throat is ripped out.

Ben can't look away.

As they leave, sirens wailing a street away, the tall guy sniffs the air and flashes a knowing look towards the dumpster.

Five minutes later, when the cops come, the vampires – cus that's what they were, Ben knows it, he's seen enough supernatural movies and he knows it – have cut and run, leaving a drained corpse behind. Ben is given a shock blanket, questioned gently, security tapes are pulled from the store to confirm his story, and a police officer drives him home. His mom's been worried sick, even though the cops called her. She hugs Ben on the doorstep, tears in her eyes as the officer rehashes the details, and Ben feels like a little kid again.

That night, he researches vampires.

The next few days are eerily quiet. No police leads, no new attacks, nothing. But there's something stirring in Ben's gut – this isn't over, not even close. Those vampires are coming back, maybe even coming for him. The tall greasy one knows that Ben saw the attack. He's going to come back, but Ben's ready.

He blew all his saved up money on strings of garlic, wooden stakes, a rosary, and a machete, sneaking the vamp-hunting items into the house when his mom left for work in the evening. There's garlic strung up around the kitchen, all over his room, above every door, and even stuffed in the drywall in his mom's room because she'd never let him hang it up there and more than anything, Ben needs her to be safe. He hides the wooden stakes in convenient locations around the house and makes a sort of holster-sling for the machete as a last resort. The rosary has a secure nest in his pocket.

For a week, there's nothing. A few questions from the police, some repeat questions from a lone fed with a charcoal-gray suit and growly black car, and then a whole lotta nothing. The whole house smells like garlic but Ben plays the scared little boy card – even though he's fifteen now – and his mom lets him keep it up for peace of mind. He can see the worry in the lines on her face.

The vampires come a week and a half later.

It's almost eleven at night, Ben is up out of nervous habit, keeping a watch, and his mom is asleep. Safe, he hopes, in her garlic-protected room. And then there's a crash downstairs, an echoing laugh.

It's time.

Hand fumbling in the dark, he straps the machete on and pulls a bathrobe to hide it. His right hand drifts freely, ready to pull it out at the last second; his left clutches the rosary. Ben wedges a chair underneath the handle of the door to his mom's room – he needs her to be safe, she can't get in the way, he has to do this alone – and waits at the top of the stairs, every sense alight and tingling with a fiery anticipation. He's never been this scared before – never felt this alive.

They come.

The tall one, the leader, stands halfway up the stairs and stops, holding his hand up to the biker jacket girl. He inhales deeply, a grin breaking over his face.

"Someone went a little heavy on the garlic, eh?" He laughs, teeth flashing white. "You know that doesn't work on us, little boy?"

Ben says nothing.

"And those stakes you hid… waste of money as far as vampire hunting's concerned," he continues. "Better for gardening."

"Go away," Ben says. His voice is steady, if scarcely above a whisper. "Get out of my house."

"Nah, I think I'll rip out your throat and drink your blood first." The vampire starts up the stairs; the biker jacket vamp whimpers with anticipation, a hungry look in her eyes.

"I'm warning you right now, stay back!" Ben holds up the rosary – it probably won't work, but he needs to save the machete as a surprise attack.

The tall vamp pauses for a moment and Ben's heart leaps.

"What, are you Catholic?"

And then he lunges.

In one fluid motion, Ben unsheathes the machete and slashes towards the vampire's exposed neck. Blood sprays on the wall; the head flies off. The trunk sways for a moment and then falls with a thud.

Silence.

The biker girl vampire stares wide-eyed at Ben, terrified. He holds the machete out, arms steady, and finds that he's no longer afraid.

"Get out," he growls.

She flees.

The door to his mother's room rattles, she's crying, begging to be let out, for God's sake, don't hurt her son. Ben stares at the body on the floor, the blood on the walls, on his machete, on his clothes and hands and face. Something clicks into place and for the first time in a long time, he finally feels right.

That gaping black hole, although still there, is just a little bit smaller.