Coralian Jam

There was something off in the strawberry jam.

Anemone curled her nose when she tasted it. The sticky substance clung to her fingers and smeared against her chin, even as she flung the jar as far away as she could throw.

"Yuck!"

Wet rag in hand, Dominic immediately began to wipe up the mess on the floor, no questions asked. He knew better than to question Anemone when she was in one of her moods.

Besides, there really was something foul about the jam. It smelled of rotten eggs and not only that – his nose curled too – he could catch a faint whiff of… medicine? But it wasn't really medicine, only had that strong pungent smell about it. Dominic decided to put the matter aside momentarily and to finish cleaning up the mess.

"Water," Anemone broke in suddenly. "Dominic, I want water."

She flopped herself on her bed, gazed blankly up at the ceiling, parted her lips slightly – and for a sudden, searing moment, Dominic wanted to kiss her.

"Hang on, Anemone," he told her soothingly as he finished his cleaning and stood up to do her bidding.

The colonel's orders, he reminded himself, although why he needed reminding, he was not sure.

By the time Dominic had produced a glass of water, Anemone had already fallen asleep. He set the glass down beside her, peered at her sleeping face for a moment and then walked away, the jar of strawberry jam in hand. The label on it read: CORALIAN JAM.

Well, thought Dominic sourly. He certainly wasn't going to feed that to Anemone again anytime soon.

"Close the curtains, Dominic," Anemone complained the next time she was awake. "The light's hurting my eyes."

Dominic closed the curtains.

"Is that better?" he murmured.

"I feel sick," said Anemone.

Dominic thought about the sedative needles he kept close to hand just for TheEND's pilot – and peered at Anemone's flushed face.

"Is it a headache?" he asked anxiously. "I'll get you the-"

Anemone shook her head. "No. You're an idiot, Dominic. It's my stomach."

The jam really hadn't agreed with her then, Dominic thought.

"And my skin," Anemone added with a shiver. "It feels like I've got goosebumps."

Impulsively, Dominic took off one of his gloves and leaned forward to touch Anemone's forehead with his bare fingers.

"Don't touch me!" the girl snarled. "I'll infect you!"

He drew back. "With what?" he said confusedly. "Indigestion?"

"You're an idiot, Dominic."

"I know," Dominic replied with a smile. "You said so just before."

Anemone rolled her head to the side, saying nothing. Her face was still flushed. Dominic continued to peer at her unrelentingly.

Eventually, Anemone could no longer handle her ailment silently.

"I want more water," she demanded. Then she said, "Please."

"All right," said Dominic.

Anemone remained bedridden for days. Her aversion to light persisted. She made irritated noises whenever Dominic opened the door to her room because the light from the hallway would come in through the opening. She stayed in her bed and swathed herself in as many blankets as Dominic had to give her. She covered herself so thoroughly that even her face was obscured from view. When Dominic set her meals on the bed beside her, he would wait, and then a single pale hand would reach out from under the cover of the blankets and take the food under.

The routine became so predictable to both of them that Anemone would answer Dominic's questions before the words could even leave his mouth.

"No, I'm not coming out. Keep the lights off. I'll be fine in a few days. And make sure you close the door behind you!" she would add when she could hear Dominic's footsteps becoming distant.

Sometimes, when he closed the door behind him, he waited with his back resting against it, his ears pricked to attention.

At these times, he would listen to Anemone moan softly in pain, when she thought he couldn't hear.

He made sure to report to Dewey about it at the next opportunity. He stated his concerns as dispassionately as his job required of him, but afterwards, he wondered if he should have let his emotion seep into his voice, because Dewey only smiled unconcernedly and said:

"She's coming along nicely."

Seeing as Anemone was sick, Dominic had avoided putting sweet things in her meals, instead going for traditional health foods. Curiously enough, she did not complain about the meal choices once, where in the past she would not have been seen within a mile of any vegetable. Her hand would reach out and take any food indiscriminately and would then retreat under the blanket. Then Dominic would hear the sound of her munching, so he knew at least that the food was being consumed.

Under normal circumstances, this would have made Dominic very glad.

One day, he came into Anemone's room with her meal and said: "You've been eating well, so I've got a treat for you. Hot chocolate."

He knew, owing to Anemone's sweet tooth, that it was her favourite beverage.

He placed the cup by her bed and watched her hand take it. He heard her slurping the drink down.

"How does it taste?" he asked her at length. "Sweet?"

"How chocolate always tastes sweet, moron," came Anemone's muffled reply.

That was all that Dominic needed to hear. "I'm glad you liked it, Anemone," he said, and tried to keep the emotion out of his voice.

The "hot chocolate" wasn't hot chocolate at all. It was the bitterest, most foul-tasting brew of coffee Dominic had ever had the misfortune of tasting, and he had had to spit it out of his mouth when he had tried it on the way to Anemone's room.

There was no doubt about it: Anemone had somehow lost her sense of taste.

He was overcome with the urge to remove the blankets and just see Anemone before him, but his hand hovered motionlessly over her for a full minute. He paused then and listened to her breathe, and it sounded a bit like she was panting.

It was around that time Dominic noticed that Anemone's pet had gone missing.

'Pet' was the word Dominic associated with it whenever he saw it because he never quite figured out what type of animal it was. Or what its name was. Knowing Anemone would be upset if her pet had vanished, Dominic searched high and low for it. He felt his way blindly all around Anemone's shadowy room and when he found nothing, he systematically searched the rest of the ship. But Anemone's pet was nowhere to be found.

"Anemone," he said to the figure within the bundle of blankets. "Your pet dog… sheep… thing is, er, I don't know where it is."

"Gulliver's here with me," said Anemone.

"Oh," said Dominic awkwardly. "Well, that's a relief, I suppose."

He could only hear one set of breathing.

When a week had passed since Anemone had fallen ill, Dominic decided it was time to report to Dewey again.

When he knocked on the door of Dewey's room, one of his child attendants opened the door. The child had a blank expression on her face and it seemed as if she was dribbling a bit of strawberry jam out of the corner of her mouth. Dominic stared at the child, but the child skirted out of his vision before he could scrutinize her closely.

Dewey stood up at his desk and smiled cordially at Dominic.

"How's Anemone's progress, Lieutenant Dominic?" he asked.

Dominic saluted, and then said quickly, "With all due respect, sir, she's gone backwards and I-" He stopped. He noticed what his superior was holding in his hand. "Colonel, is that strawberry jam?"

Dewey smiled.

"I was just feeding it to my attendant," he explained calmly.

"Sir!" Dominic's eyes widened. "Anemone ate that and it's how she fell ill!"

"Ah," said Dewey, "but not just any strawberry jam would do that, would it?"

Dominic was about to reply to that when the sudden sound of a groan made him jump. He swung around to see that Dewey's child assistant had fallen to her knees.

She was throwing up all over the carpet. Upon closer inspection, what she was hurling was not the contents of her stomach but copious amounts of her own blood.

Dominic flinched at the sight of her.

"Another failure," Dewey said behind him.

"What?" Dominic frowned. He felt his heartbeat quicken. "I don't-!"

"Understand?" Dewey cut him off, casting a wry glance in his direction. "Coralian Jam isn't made from strawberries, Lieutenant." He paused, while the groans of the little girl spewing up blood remained audible. "It is," he proclaimed, "made from the blood of a certain type of Coralian. Drinking it will make you become like it – if your body can handle it. And I certainly hope that because of it, TheEND's performance will improve."

Dominic was no longer listening. The girl was screaming now, clawing at her own pale flesh and she quivered violently. She was rapidly becoming nothing but a sodden, bloody heap upon the floor. Dominic could only turn his heels on her and run.

All the way to Anemone's room.

He swung the door open.

"Anemone!" he yelled. "Anemone!"

"Stop screaming," she told him irritably. "And close the door."

Dominic did not obey. He strode purposefully over to Anemone's bed and began to tear the blankets off her.

She screamed. "Dominic! Don't!"

She clung tightly to her blanket but Dominic, now caught in a panicked frenzy, pulled them off her, leaving her exposed.

"No!" she howled.

Only then did Dominic freeze.

On the way to Anemone's room he had thought: She'll look different. That's why she doesn't want me to see her. In his mind, he had conjured a vague image of something nameless and terrible. He saw no shape but he did see gleaming red eyes and dark, matted hair that covered her entire body. He was prepared to encounter a monster.

But Anemone's face was as pale, white and beautiful as he remembered it, even as her eyes were wide as saucers and her expression stricken.

It was in fact the smell that was horrifying.

She smelled strongly of the putrid scent of death. It was intertwined – almost seamlessly – with the pungent aroma of the Coralian Jam. The smell of rotten eggs and something like medicine. Dominic physically recoiled.

What was more, Anemone had not been lying about Gulliver being with her. Her pet lay stretched across her chest, its limbs twisted and stiff in death. It had once been a fat and heavy animal for its diminutive size but now it was nothing more than a flaky shell of skin and bone. Dry, crusty blood stained the front of Anemone's dress where the animal had clung to. But as for the animal itself, it had no blood inside its body or outside on its fur. It was as if it had been licked completely clean and sucked completely dry. Its neck had been snapped cleanly.

Dominic knew instantly that he had just discovered the true source of Anemone's meals.

"I'm hungry…!" the girl moaned. A single, anguished tear rolled down her face and she opened her mouth wide. Dominic could see a pair of blood-stained fangs, as sharp as the needles he had always used on Anemone.

"I tried to hold it in," Anemone insisted tearfully. With a sudden ferocity, she picked up Gulliver and flung his body against the wall. Then her attention was back on Dominic. "But I'm so hungry," she went on. "Dominic, I'm hungry!"

Without warning, she lunged out of the bed at him, aiming for his throat.

Perhaps if it had been anyone else, Dominic would have reacted instantaneously. He would have dodged the lunge reflexively and reached for the handgun at his belt. But it was Anemone's tearful face that was seared into his mind and he remained stock still in horror, even as she came so close to him. He could feel her breath roll like a sigh down his neck.

"Lieutenant Dominic! Are you all right?"

He heard the men's voices distantly, as if they came from a television or a radio set. But two of the crewmen, armed with guns, were standing at the door. They must have been attracted to the sound of Anemone's screaming.

"No, you fools!" Dominic shouted desperately. "Don't shoot Anemone!"

Evidently confused by the orders, the men lowered their guns slightly. In the time they did that, Anemone had already darted over to them.

Dominic heard the men scream but did not see how they died. He had scrunched his eyes shut.

He thought: this can't be happening. No. No. No.

No.

He opened his eyes. The sound of someone slurping greedily was too much for his own morbid curiosity. It was Anemone, naturally. She was lapping up the blood of the crewmen the way a man, dying of thirst, would gulp down precious water. She made sucking noises of enjoyment, and Dominic could not tear his eyes away from her. There would be a maniacal gleam in her eyes, he knew. He was used to the side of Anemone that revelled in bloodlust. She had held back so that she would savour every last drop.

Abruptly, Anemone pulled away from the corpses and she was panting, harder than she ever had in a fight.

And then she turned to him, a sudden calmness setting over her features. The blood was dripping out of her mouth and onto her now totally soiled dress, and she smiled, the most breathtakingly simple smile Dominic had ever seen.

She said:

"I think your blood would be the sweetest."

Several days later, a package arrived for Gekkostate.

"So nice of someone to send us food!" Renton Thurston, whose job it was today to sort out the mail, chirped with enthusiasm.

Inside the package was an unmarked jar of Coralian Jam.

Author's note: So I wrote a vampire story.

Never thought I'd write one of these, but I wanted to do something different to celebrate my fortieth fic on FFnet. I normally find vampires neither scary nor attractive, but I do admit I got a kick out of writing this piece. Hope you liked it too!