Corpus Christie
They were all looking at me in surprise, and then in shock. I stood there for a moment, staring back at them, wondering at the horror radiating from gleaming eyes and gaping maws. Andy started toward me, his fingers reaching for the sleeve of my shirt, but he stopped short of touching me and pulled back, his mouth agape. The silence engulfed his whispers of "Christie." and "What happened?"
I was about to answer when it fell on me like a wet blanket and something exploded inside of them, drenching me in syrupy blood. My hands, my neck, my entire body was suddenly streaked with the crimson flow. I staggered away from him, terrified of what was happening, and parted my lips to express in words the ghastliness of being coated in this slippery paint, but all that came was a blood-curdling scream. I screamed again, and again, and then I don't remember anything more.
* * *
When I saw her standing there alone in the front hall, my first reaction was anger. It had been three days since she stormed off alone! Three days of telephoning, searching, and wondering had passed, and here she was, standing there quietly as if nothing had happened, without apology or explanation! I started to demand where she had been, what she thought she was playing at, vanishing like that over some stupid argument, but the words died in my throat.
She didn't seem to see me; she just stood there, staring blankly at the floor at her feet, a ghostly pale figure dripping wet from the rain. Her clothes, the same sweater and jeans she'd been wearing when she left, clung to her soddenly. My fury was washed away by the rain water dripping down her face, and I tried to pull her further inside to shut the door behind her. She stiffened under my touch and jerked away, stumbling into the coat rack.
"Christie? What's wrong, baby? Calm down-"
My attempt at soothing her was cut off as she lurched into me. I felt something cold and wet press against the soft, fleshy part of my stomach, and when I felt it explode, tearing me open, I could only gurgle my surprise.
* * *
I was reading in the kitchen when the ruckus began. The kitchen is the only room in Penny's house with decent lighting. From the sounds of things, Christie had reappeared after her episode of hiding from us all, as punishment for not taking her side against Andrew. I could hear him yelling from here, demanding to know why she was so childish, and why she thought she had the right make us all worry like that for three days just to spite him.
Things were a lot easier before we all tried to live together. Heck, things were a lot easier before the Imbuing. How would you like to be eating your dinner in a nice restaurant, out on a date with a nice girl, and realize that the food had been spiked with vampire blood? I think Christie was actually the first one to notice; she was working that night, and she dropped her tray all over some people at the bar. I took my lead from her and turned over my own table and the other ones nearby-anything to keep the bystanders from eating that crap. Meanwhile, Andrew and some girl whose name we never found out grabbed liquor bottles and knives from behind the bar and rushed the kitchen staff. The ensuing pandemonium was such that I couldn't tell who else knew what was going on, and who was running around screaming just because we were.
Nell was there, too, on a date with some guy from her poetry class. I didn't notice her at first, because instead of grabbing a weapon and finding the monster, she was busy trying to make sure no one got trampled in the panic. Penelope was in the street near the door, loading shopping bags into her car, when the restaurant exploded into frenzy. She spotted the blood sucker as she was pulling away from the curb and flattened him with her Mercedes.
Kind of a mundane end for something so dramatic, right? Well, I don't think any of us really had drama on our minds after that. Imagine picking up your fork to take a bite of chicken alfredo and realizing that some ghoul had put his undead master's unholy snot into the special sauce. I guess one down wasn't too bad for that night, though there are times when I wonder what things would be like now if that girl had lived and Andrew had died instead.
The five of us kinda stuck together after that. I mean, who else were we gonna tell? Hey, Mom, work was okay today, did you know that there are vampires at Applebee's? Right. After a couple of weeks of meeting on the sly, Penny told us that she'd inherited a house from her great aunt, big enough for all of us, and suggested that we chip in together for utilities and use it as our base. Base for what, you ask? We weren't really sure ourselves. I guess we fancied ourselves self-styled monster hunters. Little did we realize that there are a lot of monsters, and not a lot of us.
Things might be easier to handle if we got along a little better, but what can you do? We function on about the same level as any random group of five people who moved in together two weeks after meeting. Christie and Andrew hit it off right away, if by 'hitting it off' you mean 'lost control of their hormones and haven't stopped bickering since.' Andrew's one of those tall, dark, and stupid ex-highschool football players, and Christie's the bubbly blonde, so that one shouldn't have been hard to call. I could tell they were terrible for each other, but it was obvious that they'd wind up together. I guess it's some instinctive mutual attraction among the beautiful people, something in their genes that cries out for other beautiful genes to ensure the survival of the beautiful race for generations to come. I knew as soon as I met her that I'd never forgive Andrew for being born.
Those two make a nice picture from a distance, but as soon as you get close enough to hear them, you realize that, far from being in Barbie's dream house, you've stumbled upon the Amityville Horror. They're polite enough to screw each other in private, but they don't care who hears the arguing. Most of the time, it's over something stupid and vague-Andrew's tone when he said he loved her didn't have any emotion, Christie was too nice to the bartender and made Drew look like an idiot. It's like vampires and demons aren't enough excitement for them, and they need to create their own personal drama to fill the empty spaces.
Most of us don't bother getting involved anymore. Penny tried in the beginning, when we'd just moved into her aunt's house and they were already sharing a bedroom, but she usually steers clear of the whole thing now. Something about those two being crazier than her family.
I don't know what it was about this time, and I don't really care. I heard her come back in, but I tuned out when the argument started. It was the gunshot that startled me, made me drop my book, and dragged me out of the kitchen.
* * *
I was upstairs, gazing out through the misty glass, when Christianne materialized. I still do that a lot, especially when it's raining and the water blurs everything so that the colors run together as if the artist, dissatisfied with his work, was smearing it away to begin anew. Eugene says I'm on '24-7 monster patrol', but it isn't that, really. Sometimes I just want to look out there, see everything else, from a safe vantage point. I wonder what the people down there think, how they explain things like our scene in Applebee's. Maybe some of them know the truth, like we do, but just don't care. I can't imagine not caring, not wanting to do something about the shadowy shroud enveloping our world. How long as the human race been nothing but feeding stock to the vampires? How long have we been subjected to the cruel whims of sorcerers? I guess what I'm really hoping to see through the rain-spattered glass is some sign that the tide is turning, bearing my friends and me at the crest of the wave. I want a sign that we're winning, that we're regaining our grasp on the world from their grimy claws.
Sometimes I wish more people could wake up, like we have. Most people never will. They think they're looking through a window, but they're really looking into a mirror; they see their world reflected as themselves, and witches and ghosts, those ghoulish things that rule the night, are simply not there. I think that if more people saw what was happening, if enough people made it clear that they knew what was there and that they weren't going to offer themselves up for the slaughter, we could begin some sort of a dialogue. We could end the needless killing, on our side and theirs.
Eugene says that I just want to create a new minority, "Monster-Americans." Whenever I argue with Andrew, he chimes in with sarcastic barbs like "Monsters are people, too!" in a plaintive, whiny, tone. I don't sound like that, and their cruel mockery wounds my soul.
But they are people, in the emotional sense of the word. They may seem like horrible manifestations sometimes, but no one is perfect. We don't take away a murderer's humanity because he's committed a crime, even though he's committed the worst human sin, taking another's life. So-called "normal" people behave just as callously as these supernatural beings, and if ordinary human beings can be molded into better people through persistence and understanding, why not these Others, too?
Christie is the only one who agrees with me. She sees them in a romantic light, these creatures of the shadows.
I saw her coming up the walk that afternoon, trudging through the relentless downpour without a coat or umbrella. She'd been gone for two or three days, this time. Usually, she needs about a night to collect herself, and she at least telephones to let us know that she's gone "elsewhere" to get away from "him." This time, she just vanished.
Andrew sulked for a while. He tried to complain to Penelope ("Oye, Andrew, I already had to listen to this fight once, you think I need to hear it again?") and to Eugene ("Well, Drew, welcome to the land of the dumped, population you. Maybe she'll find a real boyfriend now.") before coming up to my room, occupying the window seat, and pouring his heart out in a slew of verbiage that essentially told me nothing. Then he left to mope in solitude, and to wait for her to come back in the morning so they could make up.
He whiled away most of the dreary tomorrow waiting, his temperament cycling through self-righteous anger, magnanimous forgiveness, and impatience for her return. When it became apparent that Christie wouldn't be returning for the second night in a row, his frustration morphed into insomnia, and he sat up the rest of the night glaring at the silent door and pretending to read.
When she still hadn't come home by the next morning, Andrew started looking. He called her cell phone, which had been turned off; her parents, who were alarmed by words like "missing" and "two whole days"; even her best friend, Janine, who hated him and hung up without answering his questions. No one had seen her; it was if she had been a dream, a figment of the imagination, melted into nothingness by dawn's golden rays.
Andrew and Christie don't usually seem like a serious couple, but the dark circles under his emerald eyes, the way his pallid visage jerked toward the door at the slightest sound, showed a deeper concern than I think we believed could exist in him. So when Christie finally swam up the sidewalk and opened the door to the driving deluge, I knew that Andrew would be there to meet her. I stayed in my room to give them some privacy. The rain was thunderous against the roof and the window, and I didn't know anything at all had happened until the ambulance arrived.
* * *
I was still screaming when they came. Someone shot Andrew! He lay on Penelope's white sofa, crimson blood pouring all over the plush cushions. Gene was saying something to me, but I couldn't hear him over the laughter.
Nelly came down and called the ambulance, and I yelled at her as if it were her fault that one of the monsters she's always trying to save had come and done this to my boyfriend, my poor Andy. But she moved around me as if I weren't there at all, that same dreamy look in her eye that she thinks makes her look like a poet, and ignored me.
Andrew's blood kept coming, filling the entire room with the sticky, scarlet ichor flowing from the hole in his heart to the sodden carpet, to the smooth wallpaper; flowing over the light bulbs in the lamps to cast everything in an eerie red darkroom glow before it thickened and dried and left us in blackness.
* * *
Drew was still standing, doubled over inches from Christie's arms, when I came in. At first I thought she'd only kicked him in the nuts. I looked at her, half-expecting a triumphant, vindictive sneer and the explanation of a car backfiring to explain the noise, but her eyes were wide and empty and strangely dark. Then he collapsed, and I noticed the trickle of blood that I thought would be bigger, like what you see in the movies.
Penny was still out, so I shouted for Nell. I didn't know what to do first, call an ambulance or try to do something for Drew. I wasted precious seconds in panic, staring at Christie staring at Drew, before I realized that I didn't know what to do for him, but I knew how to dial 911.
I tried to move Andrew out of the doorway and somehow managed to drag him to the couch. For the first time, he was my friend; I used to hate him, but now he was dying. Christie just stood there in the open doorway, her eyes following the crimson trail splashed over the carpet.
I couldn't tell you how long it took the paramedics to arrive; it could have been hours or less than five minutes. They pushed past Christie and rushed over to the sofa, asking questions while they did whatever they did. Christie didn't say a damn thing the whole time, and I wasn't really sure. He was shot, that much was obvious. It hadn't occurred to me yet to look for a gun, and when I did, my eyes fell first on Christie.
She was still dripping wet, not so pretty with runny, smeared mascara and sodden hair. Her hands were empty, hanging limply half-open at her sides.
* * *
The first thing I saw when I walked through the front door was the huge red blotch all over my eggshell sofa from Madrid. I'd told them all a million times not to eat in that room, and now it looked like cherry Kool-Aid met spaghetti and marinara in a culinary war of the worlds. I was so mad. I would have killed one of those pastusos if any of them had been there at the moment.
I don't know why I didn't notice the bloody spots on the carpet at my feet; maybe it was because I wasn't looking down. My mother taught me to never look down, to always keep my head respectably high and my eyes on the target, because the boys who were scared away by that were nothing but mariposas, anyway.
Maybe I just didn't want to see it.
We'd done okay, so far. That pobrecita who got killed on our first night, I never saw. I didn't even know she existed until Andrew mentioned her days later. Oye, I didn't know any of them existed at first! I thought it was just me and that thing, alone.
Ellen-Nell, we usually call her-once told me that I should be glad to have been chosen, glad to have had the veil lifted from my eyes. I called her a very bad name at the time-I don't think I'll tell you what it is; I don't want to teach you dirty Spanish, si?-and I think she knew what I meant even though she didn't understand the words. I never told her I was sorry, but I let her live in Tia Trinidad's old house with the rest of us, so I guess we're okay, right? Besides, I'm not really sorry. Excuse me, but you think I should be glad that I can see ghosts and werewolves and other stuff like that? I wish I'd never gone shopping that day. I'd still be flying fat, dumb and happy-my uncle Enrique is an airplane pilot, and that's what they say all the time-and I'd never have to know that there were monsters out there. I could live my life in peace while tontas like Nell fought for the world, or whatever they think they're fighting for.
But it isn't like that, you know? I saw that thing running out of the café, and I knew. Don't ask me how I knew-it's something like second sight, seeing spirits and things, and no one who does that can teach you how. But I saw it and I knew.
At first, it looked like a man, a tall man with sandy blond hair and eyes the color of gingerbread. He was pale, but flushed, not exactly as if he'd been in the sun, but more under the skin. His hair was greasy and tangled, and even though he wore a chef's apron, I didn't think he looked like he should work in a kitchen. His shirt clung to him damply across his chest, but hung in loose folds elsewhere, and I was wondering where he had found such bad-fitting clothes when he changed. His eyes weren't really that warm, sweet, ginger color; they were brown, like mine, but they swam in a scarlet haze. The sweat-soaked shirt was the same, tinted a little pink, and I knew it was from the blood. I could see it moving in him, a great glut of nasty, clotted blood in his belly, surging through his body and forcing its way through his muscles. He didn't look out-of-breath anymore- if anything, I thought he had just become stronger, and he was dashing straight for the street. In that moment, I could just see it, clear as if it was happening in front of me. He was a drug addict, as bad as-no, worse than-any of the losers in Little Havana. But he didn't crave a heroin needle or a crack pipe. I could see him, cravenly begging his master for more, gleefully guzzling the most vile, disgusting, bilious liquid imaginable, and I knew what he was, and what he served.
I've never been sorry for that, and I never said I was. I didn't know what that creep was up to, but he made a better hood ornament for my car than chef, I'm sure. I just wish I didn't have to keep doing this. It's hard controlling it when you're in Victoria's Secret and you see some shape shifter come out of the dressing room, maybe take something without paying just because she can, and because the sales girl can't resist their mind- control powers like I can. Plus, shoplifting drives up the prices for the rest of us-don't they know that?
I think they just don't care. I've seen how they treat people. They think they're better than us, worth more, somehow, because they're freaks. They prey on us, feed on us, use us without a thought to the consequences for us. Well, no more. We may not be able to get away with jumping every single one of them the moment we see them, but they're on our shit list. You know how those women's organizations march to "take back the night," protest against sexual assault and violence against women and stuff? Well, we're going to take back the world, and if those things are smart, they'll give it back without a fight, before me and my hombres come to collect it.
Sounds tough, right? That's the attitude we have to take, because if we act scared, we'll lose. We've been pretty lucky, so far. Other than that girl whose name nobody knows, none of us have died, or even been seriously injured. We're luckier than I think some of us realize, like Nell, with all her caca about "reasoning" with the monsters.
So if you're wondering how I could be so naïve, to not see Andrew's heart's blood for what it was, that's why. I never saw that dead girl who got her neck broken by the leech. I never came home and saw someone as a bloody mess before, and I didn't want to. Nell was right about that; it's a lot easier to talk about monster hunting and destroying them all, a lot easier to take risks for what Andrew called "the betterment of mankind," before it gets real like that. I didn't really know what I was complaining about before I found out what had happened to Andrew, and now that I know, I think maybe that girl was the lucky one. She died before she had to face the real horror: we're losing.
* * *
The ride to the hospital only lasted about ten minutes, but it could have been hours; time didn't seem to matter. I was sure he was dead, and Christie didn't look much better.
The paramedics didn't seem to notice the gun, even though it was right in the doorway, a gleaming gray blob next to the blood stains. They strapped Andrew into the gurney and started to wheel him off, but they really seemed to be paying more attention to Christie. I don't know what it was; she looked awful, pale and shivering in the doorway, her hair and clothes drenched, make-up washing away in dark rivulets, but I could barely manage to take my eyes away from her. I have to admit that, even in the ambulance, I looked only at her, not at our friend the dying man. I could say that I didn't want to look at death, but that would be a damn lie. Looking at Christie, I felt like I was staring death in the eyes, and I just couldn't tear myself away from its stony grin.
I saw Andrew's spurting blood lurking behind the crystal blue of those orbs, and something worse-dark shapes without form or figure that were defined only by glowing eyes and toothy mouths. The sight shocked me and I wrenched away, flattening myself against the side of the ambulance and squeezing my eyes shut.
Christie didn't make a sound; the compartment was quiet except for the mundane sounds of other cars and the occasional low moan from Andrew. When I finally opened my eyes, she was staring at the window behind my head, oblivious to my fit of nightmarish visions.
At the time, I wrote it off to the shock of seeing Andrew like this; I'd never seen anyone buy it before. I wasn't putting things together fast enough. Me, the analyzer, the smart one. I should have been the first one to see it, but I was the last.
* * *
The first thing I heard when I came downstairs was Christie, weeping sorrowfully over the urgent voices of the EMS team.
Something in her voice halted me. She spoke with a timber so plaintive, so charming, like the wail of a siren beckoning hapless seamen to a bloody death on the foamy rocks. I stopped, gripped the banister; I would be Odysseus, my ears closed against the death song. I could have stopped it then, but I wasn't sure. I needed to go into the room, to face her, to return gaze for gaze, in order to really know, but I was afraid. I stood there, petrified, until I heard them leave, and I didn't enter Penelope's parlor until I was sure it was empty.
The sofa was an ocean of blood. I stopped as if jerked back by some invisible thread looped around my waist. The crimson sea flowed from the couch in a small river to puddle in the doorway, mixed with rain water. A small handgun lay unobtrusively in the shadow of the end table, barely touching the dark pool.
I now wished that I had come out earlier, that I had had the spine to face Christianne for all her tremulous magnetism. I could not imagine what had happened, but it must have been Andrew; Eugene had been nervously speaking to the ambulance crew, and Penelope wasn't home yet.
I couldn't bear to be in the front hall anymore, so I exited, walking backward, never taking my eyes from the signs of betrayal. I sat in the kitchen, trying to read a book that had been left there, until I heard Penelope open the front door and splash in the puddle of gore, exclaiming something in Spanish that I didn't understand.
* * *
Nell told me what had happened in that circular way of hers, ignoring direct questions to give more details in flowery words. It took nearly half an hour to understand what had gone on. Nell had come downstairs to find that Andrew had been shot. Eugene and Christie rode with him in the ambulance. Nell sat in the kitchen, eating Oreos and drinking tea, waiting for me to come home before cleaning anything up in case I liked the new décor, or something.
I wanted to call someone to clean it up for us, but how was I going to explain the blood? Why weren't the police here yet-wasn't this a crime scene or something?
We waited about an hour before I finally started cleaning up; police or no, I wasn't going to leave that mess in my living room until those gringos got around to coming over.
* * *
The darkness.
I couldn't see anymore, couldn't move. It was all dark and pulsing, like a cocoon around my entire body, like the enchiladas that Penny made us last week.
I thought of those enchiladas, pictured myself inside of one, covered in bloody sauce and ready to be eaten, and the image rose up in the darkness, and I laughed.
I laughed and laughed, and they all laughed with me.
* * *
My eyes opened briefly. I was in shock; I know that from watching ER and stuff. I could feel it, in a detached kind of way. I think it was the jarring of the car that woke me.
Christie met my gaze, her blue eyes melting into tears of concern, and she smiled sweetly, lovingly, as she reached to squeeze my hand. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and ask what had happened, but my lips wouldn't move.
The blood was draining from me; I could still feel it as a kind of dull ache, and the same dizziness that you feel at the blood bank, but I'd never passed out after giving blood. My eyes closed then, though, and Christie's angelic smile didn't leave me even in my dreams. I knew I was dying, but I didn't care.
* * *
The stars glittered brightly against the ebon backdrop and the silent moon had long since dropped below the horizon before Eugene telephoned to tell Penelope and me that everything was okay. He and Christianne were still at the hospital, but they were getting ready to come home. Andrew would be in surgery for another hour at least, but we could come visit tomorrow. They were expecting him to cling stubbornly to life for that long, at least.
Penelope got up, saying something about unloading her car, and thereby left me to my lonely ponderings in the kitchen. Over the past few hours, I had begun a thousand sentences and abandoned them all; I could not bring myself to articulate my worries to someone like Penelope, who would only laugh at me for being too frightened to talk to a girl we had lived with for months. My muse fled whenever I tried to describe the tones I had heard in Christianne's mermaid's tongue. The allusion to the sirens of myth sounded flat and unconvincing even to my ear, and I knew Penelope would scoff at them, demand quantitative proof where I had only insights and feelings to offer. I would try to face it all alone.
They surprised me by entering through the side door into the kitchen, Eugene leading Christianne by the sleeve of her rust-colored shirt. She was stale and mute, gazing at her feet, not seeming to recognize where she was or who we were. Something stirred in me, but I shoved it back down. I shouldn't have-I knew that at the time-but I couldn't help it.
Christie was always the baby of our little family, sweet even in her anger. She was the picture of an "all-American girl," with her hair like spun- gold and eyes like large sapphires. And she was on our side, always had been.
* * *
I was back in the living room when the taxi pulled up. I'd had enough of Ellen for one day. She'd been alternating between morbid silence and random babbling about monsters. Loco, man, I tell you.
So, I saw them get out of the cab through the living room window. Gene was leading Christie by the elbow. It was hard to see them clearly in the darkness, but I still remember Christie had a weird look on her face, like she was blind or crazy and couldn't process the world around her. Every few steps, she'd stop and look around like she couldn't remember where she was or where she was going, but most of the time, she just stared at the ground, and it took a tug from Eugene to get her moving again.
I don't think they saw me; they kept walking right past the front door, heading for the side door leading into the kitchen. Well, I remember thinking at the time, I guess I wouldn't want to walk back through here, either. I had mopped up most of the blood, but the front hall still looked like something out of one of those Stephen King books.
I tossed a few more ruined pillows into a pile near the front door, and that's when I saw the gun peeking out from under a blood-soaked cushion. It was nuts! Here I had the murder weapon right in front of me, probably with fingerprints and everything all over it, and no police ever came to pick it up!
I didn't want to just leave it there, so I picked it up. I had to use my bare hands, even though they always say never to do that on TV, because I didn't have any Kleenex and everything else in there was bloody.
That's when I heard the kitchen door open. Nell started to say something to them, but her voice dropped off, and then there was silence.
I didn't know what was going on-I didn't even realize anything was wrong yet, believe it or not-but I wanted to ask Eugene for a better explanation of what had happened, so I headed for the kitchen door.
Inside the kitchen, the first thing I saw was the back of Eugene's head, because he was standing in the doorway, staring at Christie. Nell was still at the table, mug of tea in hand, and her mouth was open as if she were going to say something, but she was quiet for once. Both of them have their eyes glued to Christie, so I looked, too, almost expecting to see a third eye or something, from the way they were staring.
She was still in the open doorway, half standing in the warm kitchen light, half in the shadows and drizzling rain outside. She was looking at Nell, but in a few seconds she noticed the open door and turned to face me.
That's when I saw the monster wearing Christie's skin. I felt it reach for me, but I was faster. I raised the gun, took aim, and fired.
* * *
Christianne was no scaly siren, I was relieved to note. Her sodden hair and clothes gave her the look of an undine, a mermaid, some creature of the fathomless aqua depths who had crept out of the foamy sea to stand upon dry land. Her eyes were the color of the sea after a storm, tranquil blue orbs full of passion, almost violent in her grief over her lost love.
I stood when they came in, but I paused when I saw those limpid purple pools glistening with the tears of innocence abused. My heart broke in that moment, and though I had always considered myself a feeling and empathetic person, never before had I experienced the torrent of emotion radiating from her ivory visage. In that moment, I felt the sorrow of Helen, gazing upon the destruction of Troy; I felt the anguish of Juliet, looking up her lost Romeo, and I, too, wished to plunge a dagger into my heart rather than endure life any longer.
But poor Christie's sadness was greater, dwarfing my own in a deluge of unshed tears, and I ran to her to enfold her in a comforting embrace. Then, she vanished in a shower of incarnadine droplets, and I fell to my knees, nearly fainting in horror.
* * *
Thinking back, I'm pretty sure that I heard the shot first, then felt the heat of the bullet whizzing past my ear, and that I turned to see Penny holding the gun before the bullet even hit its mark. I know that's not possible, that there wouldn't have been time. But I'd swear I didn't know that Christie had been shot until I heard Nell's ear-splitting scream.
She was always a real sweetheart, even to me. She laughed at my corny jokes, and no one else is ever that nice. She was only really belligerent with Andrew, and even then it was mostly his bad attitude. He didn't appreciate her. If she'd been in love with me, I would have proved that I deserved her. I would have brought her a dozen red roses every day. I never would have yelled at her, never would have driven her off. This never would have happened if she'd loved me instead of him, because I would have treated her right, and that's a fact.
* * *
It took a while to calm them down, but I'm not a bad shot, so they had to face the reality of the situation: Christie was dead. It took more convincing before they acknowledged the fact that she had been dead for days before I shot her.
Nell was hysterical, of course. I would have been expecting that if I'd taken the time to think it through. But just because I acted rashly doesn't mean I regret what I did.
If I start to feel a little guilty from listening to too much of Ellen's whining, all I have to do is remember what she looked like-what the monster looked like. It was pale and clammy, like a corpse-exactly like a walking corpse. Her blue eyes had turned red, burning like coals, like the eyes of the devils in Dante. Its lips didn't quite close, because there were sharp fangs protruding from its mouth, glistening with dark drops of blood. The image of that thing appears in my mind, and I know I'd shoot it again if I had the chance.
Eugene dealt with it a little better. He stared at me in shock while Christie twitched on the kitchen floor. She had already stopped moving by the time he went to her. "Jesus, Penny!" he said, after a few seconds of holding her limp wrist. "Jesus Christ! You killed her!"
We had no choice but to call the police; Nell swore to do it herself if I didn't "turn myself in." They arrived in about two hours, after I called them back twice, and took the body without asking us any questions at all. We never heard from them again. Gene said it was a brilliant stroke of luck for us. I guess they lost the paperwork or something.
Nell locked herself in her room for a couple of days while Eugene helped me clean up. We were in the middle of shampooing the living room carpet when the hospital called because Eugene had listed us as the next of kin. Some nurse must have messed up the machines or something, because Andrew had died in the night.
Those were tough times, you know? We kinda lost the whole group mentality. Nell moved out and wouldn't tell us where she was going, only that our "difference of philosophy" meant that we couldn't work together anymore. Gene stuck around for a little while, but then he wanted to get his own place. I think he still saw the blood every time he walked through the house. I still hear from him, from time to time.
I stay here, carrying on as usual. Things got a lot darker, okay, but they'd just get darker still if I gave up. I won't let this stop me. Christie and Andrew were good friends-better friends than I think I ever realized before they died. But I won't let their deaths be for nothing.
We're fighting a war, and yeah, maybe we're losing. But the human race is not going to go down without a fight. Not if I have anything to say about it, anyway.
* * *
It was dark, but I saw by smell. I could smell it all around me. I was hungry. I was ravenously hungry.
I fell upon them, ripping, snapping, and it was cold and too thick: dead.
But it held onto me, digging its claws into my back and driving me on. They laughed at me from the shadows and kept laughing even when I was finished.
I told them to shut up. Someone would hear, and I would be caught. I couldn't be caught, not now.
I flung myself from the dark place to discover the night. But they wouldn't stop laughing.
They still won't stop.
They were all looking at me in surprise, and then in shock. I stood there for a moment, staring back at them, wondering at the horror radiating from gleaming eyes and gaping maws. Andy started toward me, his fingers reaching for the sleeve of my shirt, but he stopped short of touching me and pulled back, his mouth agape. The silence engulfed his whispers of "Christie." and "What happened?"
I was about to answer when it fell on me like a wet blanket and something exploded inside of them, drenching me in syrupy blood. My hands, my neck, my entire body was suddenly streaked with the crimson flow. I staggered away from him, terrified of what was happening, and parted my lips to express in words the ghastliness of being coated in this slippery paint, but all that came was a blood-curdling scream. I screamed again, and again, and then I don't remember anything more.
* * *
When I saw her standing there alone in the front hall, my first reaction was anger. It had been three days since she stormed off alone! Three days of telephoning, searching, and wondering had passed, and here she was, standing there quietly as if nothing had happened, without apology or explanation! I started to demand where she had been, what she thought she was playing at, vanishing like that over some stupid argument, but the words died in my throat.
She didn't seem to see me; she just stood there, staring blankly at the floor at her feet, a ghostly pale figure dripping wet from the rain. Her clothes, the same sweater and jeans she'd been wearing when she left, clung to her soddenly. My fury was washed away by the rain water dripping down her face, and I tried to pull her further inside to shut the door behind her. She stiffened under my touch and jerked away, stumbling into the coat rack.
"Christie? What's wrong, baby? Calm down-"
My attempt at soothing her was cut off as she lurched into me. I felt something cold and wet press against the soft, fleshy part of my stomach, and when I felt it explode, tearing me open, I could only gurgle my surprise.
* * *
I was reading in the kitchen when the ruckus began. The kitchen is the only room in Penny's house with decent lighting. From the sounds of things, Christie had reappeared after her episode of hiding from us all, as punishment for not taking her side against Andrew. I could hear him yelling from here, demanding to know why she was so childish, and why she thought she had the right make us all worry like that for three days just to spite him.
Things were a lot easier before we all tried to live together. Heck, things were a lot easier before the Imbuing. How would you like to be eating your dinner in a nice restaurant, out on a date with a nice girl, and realize that the food had been spiked with vampire blood? I think Christie was actually the first one to notice; she was working that night, and she dropped her tray all over some people at the bar. I took my lead from her and turned over my own table and the other ones nearby-anything to keep the bystanders from eating that crap. Meanwhile, Andrew and some girl whose name we never found out grabbed liquor bottles and knives from behind the bar and rushed the kitchen staff. The ensuing pandemonium was such that I couldn't tell who else knew what was going on, and who was running around screaming just because we were.
Nell was there, too, on a date with some guy from her poetry class. I didn't notice her at first, because instead of grabbing a weapon and finding the monster, she was busy trying to make sure no one got trampled in the panic. Penelope was in the street near the door, loading shopping bags into her car, when the restaurant exploded into frenzy. She spotted the blood sucker as she was pulling away from the curb and flattened him with her Mercedes.
Kind of a mundane end for something so dramatic, right? Well, I don't think any of us really had drama on our minds after that. Imagine picking up your fork to take a bite of chicken alfredo and realizing that some ghoul had put his undead master's unholy snot into the special sauce. I guess one down wasn't too bad for that night, though there are times when I wonder what things would be like now if that girl had lived and Andrew had died instead.
The five of us kinda stuck together after that. I mean, who else were we gonna tell? Hey, Mom, work was okay today, did you know that there are vampires at Applebee's? Right. After a couple of weeks of meeting on the sly, Penny told us that she'd inherited a house from her great aunt, big enough for all of us, and suggested that we chip in together for utilities and use it as our base. Base for what, you ask? We weren't really sure ourselves. I guess we fancied ourselves self-styled monster hunters. Little did we realize that there are a lot of monsters, and not a lot of us.
Things might be easier to handle if we got along a little better, but what can you do? We function on about the same level as any random group of five people who moved in together two weeks after meeting. Christie and Andrew hit it off right away, if by 'hitting it off' you mean 'lost control of their hormones and haven't stopped bickering since.' Andrew's one of those tall, dark, and stupid ex-highschool football players, and Christie's the bubbly blonde, so that one shouldn't have been hard to call. I could tell they were terrible for each other, but it was obvious that they'd wind up together. I guess it's some instinctive mutual attraction among the beautiful people, something in their genes that cries out for other beautiful genes to ensure the survival of the beautiful race for generations to come. I knew as soon as I met her that I'd never forgive Andrew for being born.
Those two make a nice picture from a distance, but as soon as you get close enough to hear them, you realize that, far from being in Barbie's dream house, you've stumbled upon the Amityville Horror. They're polite enough to screw each other in private, but they don't care who hears the arguing. Most of the time, it's over something stupid and vague-Andrew's tone when he said he loved her didn't have any emotion, Christie was too nice to the bartender and made Drew look like an idiot. It's like vampires and demons aren't enough excitement for them, and they need to create their own personal drama to fill the empty spaces.
Most of us don't bother getting involved anymore. Penny tried in the beginning, when we'd just moved into her aunt's house and they were already sharing a bedroom, but she usually steers clear of the whole thing now. Something about those two being crazier than her family.
I don't know what it was about this time, and I don't really care. I heard her come back in, but I tuned out when the argument started. It was the gunshot that startled me, made me drop my book, and dragged me out of the kitchen.
* * *
I was upstairs, gazing out through the misty glass, when Christianne materialized. I still do that a lot, especially when it's raining and the water blurs everything so that the colors run together as if the artist, dissatisfied with his work, was smearing it away to begin anew. Eugene says I'm on '24-7 monster patrol', but it isn't that, really. Sometimes I just want to look out there, see everything else, from a safe vantage point. I wonder what the people down there think, how they explain things like our scene in Applebee's. Maybe some of them know the truth, like we do, but just don't care. I can't imagine not caring, not wanting to do something about the shadowy shroud enveloping our world. How long as the human race been nothing but feeding stock to the vampires? How long have we been subjected to the cruel whims of sorcerers? I guess what I'm really hoping to see through the rain-spattered glass is some sign that the tide is turning, bearing my friends and me at the crest of the wave. I want a sign that we're winning, that we're regaining our grasp on the world from their grimy claws.
Sometimes I wish more people could wake up, like we have. Most people never will. They think they're looking through a window, but they're really looking into a mirror; they see their world reflected as themselves, and witches and ghosts, those ghoulish things that rule the night, are simply not there. I think that if more people saw what was happening, if enough people made it clear that they knew what was there and that they weren't going to offer themselves up for the slaughter, we could begin some sort of a dialogue. We could end the needless killing, on our side and theirs.
Eugene says that I just want to create a new minority, "Monster-Americans." Whenever I argue with Andrew, he chimes in with sarcastic barbs like "Monsters are people, too!" in a plaintive, whiny, tone. I don't sound like that, and their cruel mockery wounds my soul.
But they are people, in the emotional sense of the word. They may seem like horrible manifestations sometimes, but no one is perfect. We don't take away a murderer's humanity because he's committed a crime, even though he's committed the worst human sin, taking another's life. So-called "normal" people behave just as callously as these supernatural beings, and if ordinary human beings can be molded into better people through persistence and understanding, why not these Others, too?
Christie is the only one who agrees with me. She sees them in a romantic light, these creatures of the shadows.
I saw her coming up the walk that afternoon, trudging through the relentless downpour without a coat or umbrella. She'd been gone for two or three days, this time. Usually, she needs about a night to collect herself, and she at least telephones to let us know that she's gone "elsewhere" to get away from "him." This time, she just vanished.
Andrew sulked for a while. He tried to complain to Penelope ("Oye, Andrew, I already had to listen to this fight once, you think I need to hear it again?") and to Eugene ("Well, Drew, welcome to the land of the dumped, population you. Maybe she'll find a real boyfriend now.") before coming up to my room, occupying the window seat, and pouring his heart out in a slew of verbiage that essentially told me nothing. Then he left to mope in solitude, and to wait for her to come back in the morning so they could make up.
He whiled away most of the dreary tomorrow waiting, his temperament cycling through self-righteous anger, magnanimous forgiveness, and impatience for her return. When it became apparent that Christie wouldn't be returning for the second night in a row, his frustration morphed into insomnia, and he sat up the rest of the night glaring at the silent door and pretending to read.
When she still hadn't come home by the next morning, Andrew started looking. He called her cell phone, which had been turned off; her parents, who were alarmed by words like "missing" and "two whole days"; even her best friend, Janine, who hated him and hung up without answering his questions. No one had seen her; it was if she had been a dream, a figment of the imagination, melted into nothingness by dawn's golden rays.
Andrew and Christie don't usually seem like a serious couple, but the dark circles under his emerald eyes, the way his pallid visage jerked toward the door at the slightest sound, showed a deeper concern than I think we believed could exist in him. So when Christie finally swam up the sidewalk and opened the door to the driving deluge, I knew that Andrew would be there to meet her. I stayed in my room to give them some privacy. The rain was thunderous against the roof and the window, and I didn't know anything at all had happened until the ambulance arrived.
* * *
I was still screaming when they came. Someone shot Andrew! He lay on Penelope's white sofa, crimson blood pouring all over the plush cushions. Gene was saying something to me, but I couldn't hear him over the laughter.
Nelly came down and called the ambulance, and I yelled at her as if it were her fault that one of the monsters she's always trying to save had come and done this to my boyfriend, my poor Andy. But she moved around me as if I weren't there at all, that same dreamy look in her eye that she thinks makes her look like a poet, and ignored me.
Andrew's blood kept coming, filling the entire room with the sticky, scarlet ichor flowing from the hole in his heart to the sodden carpet, to the smooth wallpaper; flowing over the light bulbs in the lamps to cast everything in an eerie red darkroom glow before it thickened and dried and left us in blackness.
* * *
Drew was still standing, doubled over inches from Christie's arms, when I came in. At first I thought she'd only kicked him in the nuts. I looked at her, half-expecting a triumphant, vindictive sneer and the explanation of a car backfiring to explain the noise, but her eyes were wide and empty and strangely dark. Then he collapsed, and I noticed the trickle of blood that I thought would be bigger, like what you see in the movies.
Penny was still out, so I shouted for Nell. I didn't know what to do first, call an ambulance or try to do something for Drew. I wasted precious seconds in panic, staring at Christie staring at Drew, before I realized that I didn't know what to do for him, but I knew how to dial 911.
I tried to move Andrew out of the doorway and somehow managed to drag him to the couch. For the first time, he was my friend; I used to hate him, but now he was dying. Christie just stood there in the open doorway, her eyes following the crimson trail splashed over the carpet.
I couldn't tell you how long it took the paramedics to arrive; it could have been hours or less than five minutes. They pushed past Christie and rushed over to the sofa, asking questions while they did whatever they did. Christie didn't say a damn thing the whole time, and I wasn't really sure. He was shot, that much was obvious. It hadn't occurred to me yet to look for a gun, and when I did, my eyes fell first on Christie.
She was still dripping wet, not so pretty with runny, smeared mascara and sodden hair. Her hands were empty, hanging limply half-open at her sides.
* * *
The first thing I saw when I walked through the front door was the huge red blotch all over my eggshell sofa from Madrid. I'd told them all a million times not to eat in that room, and now it looked like cherry Kool-Aid met spaghetti and marinara in a culinary war of the worlds. I was so mad. I would have killed one of those pastusos if any of them had been there at the moment.
I don't know why I didn't notice the bloody spots on the carpet at my feet; maybe it was because I wasn't looking down. My mother taught me to never look down, to always keep my head respectably high and my eyes on the target, because the boys who were scared away by that were nothing but mariposas, anyway.
Maybe I just didn't want to see it.
We'd done okay, so far. That pobrecita who got killed on our first night, I never saw. I didn't even know she existed until Andrew mentioned her days later. Oye, I didn't know any of them existed at first! I thought it was just me and that thing, alone.
Ellen-Nell, we usually call her-once told me that I should be glad to have been chosen, glad to have had the veil lifted from my eyes. I called her a very bad name at the time-I don't think I'll tell you what it is; I don't want to teach you dirty Spanish, si?-and I think she knew what I meant even though she didn't understand the words. I never told her I was sorry, but I let her live in Tia Trinidad's old house with the rest of us, so I guess we're okay, right? Besides, I'm not really sorry. Excuse me, but you think I should be glad that I can see ghosts and werewolves and other stuff like that? I wish I'd never gone shopping that day. I'd still be flying fat, dumb and happy-my uncle Enrique is an airplane pilot, and that's what they say all the time-and I'd never have to know that there were monsters out there. I could live my life in peace while tontas like Nell fought for the world, or whatever they think they're fighting for.
But it isn't like that, you know? I saw that thing running out of the café, and I knew. Don't ask me how I knew-it's something like second sight, seeing spirits and things, and no one who does that can teach you how. But I saw it and I knew.
At first, it looked like a man, a tall man with sandy blond hair and eyes the color of gingerbread. He was pale, but flushed, not exactly as if he'd been in the sun, but more under the skin. His hair was greasy and tangled, and even though he wore a chef's apron, I didn't think he looked like he should work in a kitchen. His shirt clung to him damply across his chest, but hung in loose folds elsewhere, and I was wondering where he had found such bad-fitting clothes when he changed. His eyes weren't really that warm, sweet, ginger color; they were brown, like mine, but they swam in a scarlet haze. The sweat-soaked shirt was the same, tinted a little pink, and I knew it was from the blood. I could see it moving in him, a great glut of nasty, clotted blood in his belly, surging through his body and forcing its way through his muscles. He didn't look out-of-breath anymore- if anything, I thought he had just become stronger, and he was dashing straight for the street. In that moment, I could just see it, clear as if it was happening in front of me. He was a drug addict, as bad as-no, worse than-any of the losers in Little Havana. But he didn't crave a heroin needle or a crack pipe. I could see him, cravenly begging his master for more, gleefully guzzling the most vile, disgusting, bilious liquid imaginable, and I knew what he was, and what he served.
I've never been sorry for that, and I never said I was. I didn't know what that creep was up to, but he made a better hood ornament for my car than chef, I'm sure. I just wish I didn't have to keep doing this. It's hard controlling it when you're in Victoria's Secret and you see some shape shifter come out of the dressing room, maybe take something without paying just because she can, and because the sales girl can't resist their mind- control powers like I can. Plus, shoplifting drives up the prices for the rest of us-don't they know that?
I think they just don't care. I've seen how they treat people. They think they're better than us, worth more, somehow, because they're freaks. They prey on us, feed on us, use us without a thought to the consequences for us. Well, no more. We may not be able to get away with jumping every single one of them the moment we see them, but they're on our shit list. You know how those women's organizations march to "take back the night," protest against sexual assault and violence against women and stuff? Well, we're going to take back the world, and if those things are smart, they'll give it back without a fight, before me and my hombres come to collect it.
Sounds tough, right? That's the attitude we have to take, because if we act scared, we'll lose. We've been pretty lucky, so far. Other than that girl whose name nobody knows, none of us have died, or even been seriously injured. We're luckier than I think some of us realize, like Nell, with all her caca about "reasoning" with the monsters.
So if you're wondering how I could be so naïve, to not see Andrew's heart's blood for what it was, that's why. I never saw that dead girl who got her neck broken by the leech. I never came home and saw someone as a bloody mess before, and I didn't want to. Nell was right about that; it's a lot easier to talk about monster hunting and destroying them all, a lot easier to take risks for what Andrew called "the betterment of mankind," before it gets real like that. I didn't really know what I was complaining about before I found out what had happened to Andrew, and now that I know, I think maybe that girl was the lucky one. She died before she had to face the real horror: we're losing.
* * *
The ride to the hospital only lasted about ten minutes, but it could have been hours; time didn't seem to matter. I was sure he was dead, and Christie didn't look much better.
The paramedics didn't seem to notice the gun, even though it was right in the doorway, a gleaming gray blob next to the blood stains. They strapped Andrew into the gurney and started to wheel him off, but they really seemed to be paying more attention to Christie. I don't know what it was; she looked awful, pale and shivering in the doorway, her hair and clothes drenched, make-up washing away in dark rivulets, but I could barely manage to take my eyes away from her. I have to admit that, even in the ambulance, I looked only at her, not at our friend the dying man. I could say that I didn't want to look at death, but that would be a damn lie. Looking at Christie, I felt like I was staring death in the eyes, and I just couldn't tear myself away from its stony grin.
I saw Andrew's spurting blood lurking behind the crystal blue of those orbs, and something worse-dark shapes without form or figure that were defined only by glowing eyes and toothy mouths. The sight shocked me and I wrenched away, flattening myself against the side of the ambulance and squeezing my eyes shut.
Christie didn't make a sound; the compartment was quiet except for the mundane sounds of other cars and the occasional low moan from Andrew. When I finally opened my eyes, she was staring at the window behind my head, oblivious to my fit of nightmarish visions.
At the time, I wrote it off to the shock of seeing Andrew like this; I'd never seen anyone buy it before. I wasn't putting things together fast enough. Me, the analyzer, the smart one. I should have been the first one to see it, but I was the last.
* * *
The first thing I heard when I came downstairs was Christie, weeping sorrowfully over the urgent voices of the EMS team.
Something in her voice halted me. She spoke with a timber so plaintive, so charming, like the wail of a siren beckoning hapless seamen to a bloody death on the foamy rocks. I stopped, gripped the banister; I would be Odysseus, my ears closed against the death song. I could have stopped it then, but I wasn't sure. I needed to go into the room, to face her, to return gaze for gaze, in order to really know, but I was afraid. I stood there, petrified, until I heard them leave, and I didn't enter Penelope's parlor until I was sure it was empty.
The sofa was an ocean of blood. I stopped as if jerked back by some invisible thread looped around my waist. The crimson sea flowed from the couch in a small river to puddle in the doorway, mixed with rain water. A small handgun lay unobtrusively in the shadow of the end table, barely touching the dark pool.
I now wished that I had come out earlier, that I had had the spine to face Christianne for all her tremulous magnetism. I could not imagine what had happened, but it must have been Andrew; Eugene had been nervously speaking to the ambulance crew, and Penelope wasn't home yet.
I couldn't bear to be in the front hall anymore, so I exited, walking backward, never taking my eyes from the signs of betrayal. I sat in the kitchen, trying to read a book that had been left there, until I heard Penelope open the front door and splash in the puddle of gore, exclaiming something in Spanish that I didn't understand.
* * *
Nell told me what had happened in that circular way of hers, ignoring direct questions to give more details in flowery words. It took nearly half an hour to understand what had gone on. Nell had come downstairs to find that Andrew had been shot. Eugene and Christie rode with him in the ambulance. Nell sat in the kitchen, eating Oreos and drinking tea, waiting for me to come home before cleaning anything up in case I liked the new décor, or something.
I wanted to call someone to clean it up for us, but how was I going to explain the blood? Why weren't the police here yet-wasn't this a crime scene or something?
We waited about an hour before I finally started cleaning up; police or no, I wasn't going to leave that mess in my living room until those gringos got around to coming over.
* * *
The darkness.
I couldn't see anymore, couldn't move. It was all dark and pulsing, like a cocoon around my entire body, like the enchiladas that Penny made us last week.
I thought of those enchiladas, pictured myself inside of one, covered in bloody sauce and ready to be eaten, and the image rose up in the darkness, and I laughed.
I laughed and laughed, and they all laughed with me.
* * *
My eyes opened briefly. I was in shock; I know that from watching ER and stuff. I could feel it, in a detached kind of way. I think it was the jarring of the car that woke me.
Christie met my gaze, her blue eyes melting into tears of concern, and she smiled sweetly, lovingly, as she reached to squeeze my hand. I wanted to tell her that I loved her and ask what had happened, but my lips wouldn't move.
The blood was draining from me; I could still feel it as a kind of dull ache, and the same dizziness that you feel at the blood bank, but I'd never passed out after giving blood. My eyes closed then, though, and Christie's angelic smile didn't leave me even in my dreams. I knew I was dying, but I didn't care.
* * *
The stars glittered brightly against the ebon backdrop and the silent moon had long since dropped below the horizon before Eugene telephoned to tell Penelope and me that everything was okay. He and Christianne were still at the hospital, but they were getting ready to come home. Andrew would be in surgery for another hour at least, but we could come visit tomorrow. They were expecting him to cling stubbornly to life for that long, at least.
Penelope got up, saying something about unloading her car, and thereby left me to my lonely ponderings in the kitchen. Over the past few hours, I had begun a thousand sentences and abandoned them all; I could not bring myself to articulate my worries to someone like Penelope, who would only laugh at me for being too frightened to talk to a girl we had lived with for months. My muse fled whenever I tried to describe the tones I had heard in Christianne's mermaid's tongue. The allusion to the sirens of myth sounded flat and unconvincing even to my ear, and I knew Penelope would scoff at them, demand quantitative proof where I had only insights and feelings to offer. I would try to face it all alone.
They surprised me by entering through the side door into the kitchen, Eugene leading Christianne by the sleeve of her rust-colored shirt. She was stale and mute, gazing at her feet, not seeming to recognize where she was or who we were. Something stirred in me, but I shoved it back down. I shouldn't have-I knew that at the time-but I couldn't help it.
Christie was always the baby of our little family, sweet even in her anger. She was the picture of an "all-American girl," with her hair like spun- gold and eyes like large sapphires. And she was on our side, always had been.
* * *
I was back in the living room when the taxi pulled up. I'd had enough of Ellen for one day. She'd been alternating between morbid silence and random babbling about monsters. Loco, man, I tell you.
So, I saw them get out of the cab through the living room window. Gene was leading Christie by the elbow. It was hard to see them clearly in the darkness, but I still remember Christie had a weird look on her face, like she was blind or crazy and couldn't process the world around her. Every few steps, she'd stop and look around like she couldn't remember where she was or where she was going, but most of the time, she just stared at the ground, and it took a tug from Eugene to get her moving again.
I don't think they saw me; they kept walking right past the front door, heading for the side door leading into the kitchen. Well, I remember thinking at the time, I guess I wouldn't want to walk back through here, either. I had mopped up most of the blood, but the front hall still looked like something out of one of those Stephen King books.
I tossed a few more ruined pillows into a pile near the front door, and that's when I saw the gun peeking out from under a blood-soaked cushion. It was nuts! Here I had the murder weapon right in front of me, probably with fingerprints and everything all over it, and no police ever came to pick it up!
I didn't want to just leave it there, so I picked it up. I had to use my bare hands, even though they always say never to do that on TV, because I didn't have any Kleenex and everything else in there was bloody.
That's when I heard the kitchen door open. Nell started to say something to them, but her voice dropped off, and then there was silence.
I didn't know what was going on-I didn't even realize anything was wrong yet, believe it or not-but I wanted to ask Eugene for a better explanation of what had happened, so I headed for the kitchen door.
Inside the kitchen, the first thing I saw was the back of Eugene's head, because he was standing in the doorway, staring at Christie. Nell was still at the table, mug of tea in hand, and her mouth was open as if she were going to say something, but she was quiet for once. Both of them have their eyes glued to Christie, so I looked, too, almost expecting to see a third eye or something, from the way they were staring.
She was still in the open doorway, half standing in the warm kitchen light, half in the shadows and drizzling rain outside. She was looking at Nell, but in a few seconds she noticed the open door and turned to face me.
That's when I saw the monster wearing Christie's skin. I felt it reach for me, but I was faster. I raised the gun, took aim, and fired.
* * *
Christianne was no scaly siren, I was relieved to note. Her sodden hair and clothes gave her the look of an undine, a mermaid, some creature of the fathomless aqua depths who had crept out of the foamy sea to stand upon dry land. Her eyes were the color of the sea after a storm, tranquil blue orbs full of passion, almost violent in her grief over her lost love.
I stood when they came in, but I paused when I saw those limpid purple pools glistening with the tears of innocence abused. My heart broke in that moment, and though I had always considered myself a feeling and empathetic person, never before had I experienced the torrent of emotion radiating from her ivory visage. In that moment, I felt the sorrow of Helen, gazing upon the destruction of Troy; I felt the anguish of Juliet, looking up her lost Romeo, and I, too, wished to plunge a dagger into my heart rather than endure life any longer.
But poor Christie's sadness was greater, dwarfing my own in a deluge of unshed tears, and I ran to her to enfold her in a comforting embrace. Then, she vanished in a shower of incarnadine droplets, and I fell to my knees, nearly fainting in horror.
* * *
Thinking back, I'm pretty sure that I heard the shot first, then felt the heat of the bullet whizzing past my ear, and that I turned to see Penny holding the gun before the bullet even hit its mark. I know that's not possible, that there wouldn't have been time. But I'd swear I didn't know that Christie had been shot until I heard Nell's ear-splitting scream.
She was always a real sweetheart, even to me. She laughed at my corny jokes, and no one else is ever that nice. She was only really belligerent with Andrew, and even then it was mostly his bad attitude. He didn't appreciate her. If she'd been in love with me, I would have proved that I deserved her. I would have brought her a dozen red roses every day. I never would have yelled at her, never would have driven her off. This never would have happened if she'd loved me instead of him, because I would have treated her right, and that's a fact.
* * *
It took a while to calm them down, but I'm not a bad shot, so they had to face the reality of the situation: Christie was dead. It took more convincing before they acknowledged the fact that she had been dead for days before I shot her.
Nell was hysterical, of course. I would have been expecting that if I'd taken the time to think it through. But just because I acted rashly doesn't mean I regret what I did.
If I start to feel a little guilty from listening to too much of Ellen's whining, all I have to do is remember what she looked like-what the monster looked like. It was pale and clammy, like a corpse-exactly like a walking corpse. Her blue eyes had turned red, burning like coals, like the eyes of the devils in Dante. Its lips didn't quite close, because there were sharp fangs protruding from its mouth, glistening with dark drops of blood. The image of that thing appears in my mind, and I know I'd shoot it again if I had the chance.
Eugene dealt with it a little better. He stared at me in shock while Christie twitched on the kitchen floor. She had already stopped moving by the time he went to her. "Jesus, Penny!" he said, after a few seconds of holding her limp wrist. "Jesus Christ! You killed her!"
We had no choice but to call the police; Nell swore to do it herself if I didn't "turn myself in." They arrived in about two hours, after I called them back twice, and took the body without asking us any questions at all. We never heard from them again. Gene said it was a brilliant stroke of luck for us. I guess they lost the paperwork or something.
Nell locked herself in her room for a couple of days while Eugene helped me clean up. We were in the middle of shampooing the living room carpet when the hospital called because Eugene had listed us as the next of kin. Some nurse must have messed up the machines or something, because Andrew had died in the night.
Those were tough times, you know? We kinda lost the whole group mentality. Nell moved out and wouldn't tell us where she was going, only that our "difference of philosophy" meant that we couldn't work together anymore. Gene stuck around for a little while, but then he wanted to get his own place. I think he still saw the blood every time he walked through the house. I still hear from him, from time to time.
I stay here, carrying on as usual. Things got a lot darker, okay, but they'd just get darker still if I gave up. I won't let this stop me. Christie and Andrew were good friends-better friends than I think I ever realized before they died. But I won't let their deaths be for nothing.
We're fighting a war, and yeah, maybe we're losing. But the human race is not going to go down without a fight. Not if I have anything to say about it, anyway.
* * *
It was dark, but I saw by smell. I could smell it all around me. I was hungry. I was ravenously hungry.
I fell upon them, ripping, snapping, and it was cold and too thick: dead.
But it held onto me, digging its claws into my back and driving me on. They laughed at me from the shadows and kept laughing even when I was finished.
I told them to shut up. Someone would hear, and I would be caught. I couldn't be caught, not now.
I flung myself from the dark place to discover the night. But they wouldn't stop laughing.
They still won't stop.