Chapter 2
Saturday, December 14th
1:04 A.M.
Doc looked at her incredulously. "A vampire?" he repeated. "This is not the time to joke, Mysteria."
"I'm not joking, Emmett. You're a vampire. How you became one, I don't know. You were delirious when I found you, stumbling the streets at night."
That sparked a vague memory in Doc. Now he recalled being horribly sick, his head pounding, his stomach churning....
He nodded. "I remember now. It was a severe flu-like illness, with nausea, sweats, chills, tremors, delirium, and fever. But my being sick doesn't explain your accusation that I'm a vampire."
"Yes it does. That sickness is how you changed. Vampirism is a disease of some sort, passed by blood-to-blood contact. It transforms us from ordinary to extraordinary. Now, you have to learn the rules of your new existence." Mysteria became very business-like. "First-you can ignore most of the legends about us. Holy symbols have no effect unless you believe they will. The same goes for roses, garlic, running water, or any other folk protections. You don't need to sleep in native dirt or in a coffin. We reflect in mirrors and show up on film. Second-you'll need to feed on blood every other night, excluding the first two nights of vampire existence. I don't know why, but for the first two nights, you have to feed. Blood is the only food your body will be able to digest. Normal food and drink will act as a poison and make you very ill. Water is okay. You'll need about a pint of blood every other night. You don't need to feed exclusively on human blood. Animal blood will satisfy you just fine. Third-"
"Mystie, stop," Doc interrupted her, annoyed. "I don't believe for one second that I'm a vampire. This is completely ridicul-ridic-"
Doc immediately formed a theory that, during the initial period of shock after being unearthed, his brain had shut off his senses somewhat. Now that he was recovering, it had turned them back on to full power. He based his theory on the flood of information his eyes, ears, nose, and skin were suddenly forcing on him. It was an explosion of sensory information.
He turned around, as if trying to escape his own senses. Bad move, as more information poured into his already overloaded brain circuitry. Doc screamed and hid his head in his hands, trying in a panic to block it all out.
Mysteria quickly took him into her arms again. "Emmett, Emmett, relax," she urged him. "Focus on something. A noise, a sight, a smell, anything!"
Doc sifted through the flood of stimuli his brain was receiving, trying to find something to focus on. He finally found something-a steady, very fast thumping.
"Focus all your attention on it," Mysteria instructed. "After a few minutes, the sensations will lessen a little, and you'll be able to handle them."
"I sure hope," Doc thought, wondering if he was going insane. He concentrated fully on the thumping. It wasn't too hard to do-before, he'd been able to concentrate on a project despite loud traffic. Within a few minutes, the other noises faded into a background hum. The other sensations lessened too. As they did, the thumping slowed.
"Now look up very slowly."
Doc raised his head inch by inch until he was looking at Mysteria again. She seemed to glow in the soft moonlight, every detail of her face and body illuminated. For the first time, Doc noticed a fragrance clinging to her body, making her smell wonderfully sweet. Her breath sounded loud to his ears, as if he could hear the lungs themselves at work. And that mysterious thumping beat on, joined by another. "Great Scott," Doc realized, "that's our heartbeats."
He looked around slowly. Even though most of it was background noise, he could hear each sound separately. Inviting smells reached his nose, each subtly different from all the rest. The ground seemed to glow with the same light that clung to Mystie. He picked up a handful of dirt and sifted it through his fingers. He could tell exactly how many grains were in his handful because he could feel each one. A growing sense of wonderment filled his mind. It was like he had been totally senseless before this moment.
Mysteria laughed a little. "You feel like all your senses have been turned on for the first time, right?" she asked, every note of her voice beautifully distinct.
Doc nodded absently, still absorbed in the world around him. "This is incredible. Truly amazing. This hyperactivity is probably due from stress, but still...."
"Not from stress. It's from your new nature." Mysteria draped a friendly arm across his neck. "I felt something similar when I changed."
"This vampire business again? Mysteria, I'm sorry, but I don't believe vampires exist. It is scientifically impossible for undead bodies that suck blood to exist."
"Undead ones, yes. But we're perfectly alive, so it is possible for us to exist. You need to accept that, and learn the rules of what you are, Emmett. Otherwise you'll end up like-" She stopped, as if unsure she should go on.
"Like whom?" Doc didn't like the look on her face.
"Like the majority of vampires-insane and bestial. Emmett, please let me teach you." Her eyes were pleading.
"She really believes we're both vampires," Doc thought. "I guess I should let her say her piece, if it'll put her mind at ease." "All right, Mystie, go on."
Mysteria smiled. "Okay. I told you about the legends and the blood. Third-your body will be-is, really-quite different. You've already noticed your senses are all much sharper than they used to be. You'll need to sleep in the day, as sunlight sedates us. In a few weeks you'll be able to stay awake in late afternoon and in deep shade. You have fangs, of course, but they can retract into the jaw. Your fingernails are now claws."
"Claws?" Doc echoed, looking down at his hands. His fingernails were at least 2 inches long. "You may have a point there. I've never seen postmortem growth that produced these."
"You'll need to clip them every 3-4 days," Mysteria nodded, pleased to see he was starting to accept what she said. "You can fly; we develop bat wings during the change. You can see the life that glows within every living thing. You can hypnotize people just by having them look into your eyes. You can read minds. And you're looking at me like I belong in a mental institution."
"Mysteria, this is madness. I love you, and I admit you have a point about the claw-like fingernails, but I'm worried about your mental health. Getting so involved in a fantasy isn't healthy."
"Emmett, explain to me how you can see your surroundings and me so perfectly at night."
"Simple. Moonlight."
"What phase is the moon in?"
"Well, roughly 4 days ago, it was waning in the crescent shape. So today it would be a new-"
He stopped dead. "New moon," he finally whispered. "No sunlight is reflecting off the lunar surface. So our eyes don't see a moon."
For a moment, one insane moment, Doc believed. Then he shook his head violently. "I must not be thinking clearly. I'm horribly thirsty, that's why. Most probably I'm dehydrated. I've been here before; where's the nearest fountain?"
Mysteria commanded his attention. "Emmett, look at me a moment." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
Suddenly, huge bat wings unfolded from her back. She opened her eyes, revealing glowing blue orbs. Then she smiled, and a pair of inch-long fangs extended from her upper jaw.
Doc felt the fabric of his reality crumble. The sight before him couldn't possibly exist, yet all his senses informed him it was real. It was far more than his intelligent, scientific mind could take. He collapsed into a dead faint.
"Emmett!" Mysteria quickly returned to her normal appearance and knelt beside him. "Wake up, Emmett. Wake up." She rubbed his hand, avoiding the claws.
Doc woke slowly. "Ugh. Marty? Mysteria?"
"Mysteria, Emmett."
He sat up, blinking his eyes. "Mysteria, I think I'm going insane. I just hallucinated you as this-" Doc struggled for words. "This winged creature." He swallowed, trying to moisten his horribly dry throat. "I've got to get something to drink. This thirst just keeps getting worse."
"You'll get one right now." Mysteria took one of his hands in hers. She slowly drew one of the nails along the curve of her neck. Blood welled from the cut, running down her neck and staining her jacket.
"Mystie! What in the name of Sir Isaac H. Newton are you doing?" Doc gasped.
"Feeding you." She took him in her arms once more, pushing his mouth against the wound. "Drink up."
Doc was about to protest when he tasted the blood in his mouth. It tasted so...so right. Warm, salty, nutrient-rich; everything a drink should be. He swallowed and felt it run down his throat towards his waiting stomach. Automatically his fangs extended into the cut and began to draw up the blood along grooves on the backs. Eyes closed in pure delight, his tongue lapped the grooves, bringing into him the salty richness of her life.
He did this for a full five minutes before he came to his senses. Shocked, he shoved Mysteria away from him. She nearly cracked her head on a tombstone. Startled by this act of violence, she looked at him. "What was that for?"
"I didn't mean to hurt you, Mystie," Doc apologized, staying as far back from her as he could. "I'm a monster."
"NO! Emmett, don't talk like that," Mysteria pleaded. "You're not a monster. You're just a different sort of being."
"What kind of sick freak takes pleasure in drinking blood? I was hurting you!"
"May I remind you that I made the initial cut with your claws."
Doc stared at her with tormented eyes. "It was all true, what you said. I know that now." Tears began sliding down his cheeks. "I'm an animal. All I care about is feeding."
"That's not true at all," she said severely. "If you were an animal, you wouldn't be crying right now. Emmett, we're not evil. We're not like the other kind at all."
"'Other kind'?"
"That's right; I forgot you didn't know. There are two types of vampire-souled and soulless. Souled vampires are what we are. We still have our human personalities. Soulless vampires were driven insane by the change. They live for hurting others, for pain. And, sadly, they're the majority. They're the reason all vampires are so hated. But we are not like that."
Doc sighed and looked at his gravestone. "I should be under 6 feet of earth right now," he said in a dull monotone. His pain over finding out what he was was beyond expression. "I should be dead and in the early stages of decomposition."
"Think of it this way, Emmett," Mystie said, trying to make him cheer up. "You'll be more alive than you were before. You can fly, read minds-you can see Marty again."
The thought of seeing Marty didn't brighten Doc's gloomy countenance. "Yeah. I'll see him to suck his blood."
"Even that isn't really bad," she persisted. "You don't even have to drink from him. And if you do, you won't hurt him. Most people relax when we drink from them. And you wouldn't take more than what he'd give to a blood drive."
Doc didn't react to this information. "What time is it?"
"You're the one wearing a watch," Mysteria pointed out, getting worried. She'd seen vampires like this-right before they'd committed suicide.
"Oh, right." Doc glanced at the watch on his left wrist. It read 2:06 A. M. "3 hours, 51 minutes, and 47 seconds until sunrise," he commented for no particular reason. "Can we die?"
"Emmett, I will not allow you to commit suicide," Mysteria snapped, although she sounded more frightened than mad. "Being a vampire is not hell on earth, no matter what the movies and books say. Our lives are as full and rich as normal humans' are. Fuller, because of our heightened powers. There are unpleasant changes, yes, but the pleasant ones more than make up for them. You're a scientist. Don't you want to explore yourself? Your new body? You could explain us, Emmett! Don't you feel that familiar thrill of discovery you described to me? Live, Emmett, if only to discover the truth about us."
Doc's expression didn't change. He found the vampire state so repulsive he couldn't reconcile it to himself in any way. He looked back at the tombstone, which was supposed to mark his final resting place. Maybe it still could.
Before Mysteria could react, Doc slammed his head into the edge of the tombstone. His skull broke upon the hard slab, and blood ran from the wound in a scarlet river. Soundlessly, Doc slumped down, his eyes glassy as if dead.
But he was not dead. Despite laying his brain open to the elements, his heart still beat, his lungs still breathed. He was merely in a coma.
"EMMETT! Oh, no...." Mysteria sighed. She had planned for them to fly out of the graveyard to avoid the night watchman. But now, she knew, Doc would be out until dawn. "Now I wish I had told you what kills us. We could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble and pain."
She studied the wound and saw the injured brain matter already beginning to heal. She fetched some water and rinsed a few concrete chips from the wound. She then cleaned up the blood and shut Doc's glassy eyes, forcing herself not to salivate. When the mess was cleared, she sat by Doc's side, awaiting his return to consciousness.