Chapter 9

Past Tense

I can't explain exactly the sensation that bled through me then, but it was like every cell, every hair, every drop of fluid within me seemed to come blazing alive in Her presence.

Alive. As in mortal.

Suddenly, and irrevocably mortal.

And to a vampire with no real memory of mortality, it was like my entire world was screaming.

This was not the stuff of dreams anymore, because She was not made of dreams. She was the other thing. And She was here, with me, within me, surrounding me, flooding my blood like… oh…

...and it came to me then, a memory of flesh and agony… white hot and yet beyond that, the sensation of a vampire's venom remaking me as I lay convulsing on that cold chapel floor, flooded and matted with straw and broken glass.

I lay at his feet and watched as he loomed over me, his pale, beautiful face twisted in rage at his prize being stolen from him. That was my last image before the keeper's venom took me to my death. And I cursed it as I did him.

Angelus had curated my death. Spent months coming to my window, whispering, telling me tales of atrocities he had committed, of the artful tortures he would bestow upon me, how he would take my body in every way possible, stripping away my innocence, my sanity (what little was left), my virginity and my blood.

He told me of the horrors I would commit after he drank from for me. That I would be like him soon, when the storm hit its peak and the world was as dark as my soul would be.

And my visions told me he did not lie.

Angelus never lied to me.

I had tried to run away, of course, but the staff had stopped me, lashed me to the bed with leather straps 'for my own good'.

"You desire that nurse, don't you, little Mary Alice?" He said one night. "I see your dirty little glances, your lecherous looks. Do they know of your depravity? What you want to do to women? You want her like only a man should want her, don't you?"

I felt my stomach drop as the memory came to me. The real Blanche McGrath wasn't out there growing grey. I knew this now, I remembered. I remembered.

What he did to her.

I felt bile rising in my throat, my body trembling, and I tried to close my eyes. But how do you close your eyes to a memory?

The scuttlebutt around the ward was Nurse McGrath's sudden disappearance was due to her becoming 'in the family way'. One of the doctors, no doubt, had taken advantage of her weak disposition.

I knew the bloody truth. It started with me choking on a sandwich. Gazing in horror as I pulled the long, matted ginger locks from my throat.

He left parts of her for me. Small parts that I would discover in my bed, in my pockets, in my coffee and food. I would scream and rush for the staff, but of course the evidence would be gone by the time they came.

They bound me to the bed more often than not, and, as my screams and begging grew, my visions came faster and stronger, thicker and more painfully vivid. Ice cracking and shifting. Sanity and insanity. No compass. No map. Cracking and shifting like tortured bones.

The moonlight shimmered off his wet, white flesh as he leered at me through the window. Rising winds whipped at trees behind him, tumbling blossom across the yard; the sickly scraping sound of snapped branches across the courtyard as the night howled.

Razor fingernails tap, tap, tapping at the glass.

"She is gone now. Dead as your dear heart." He said, a small, beautiful smile parted his lips, "But I wanted you to know, that it was because of you. And my sweet, sweet Alice, I made her scream your name with her last breath."

And I screamed too. I screamed and screamed until they dragged me into the darkness, binding me tight, strapping a bar of gnawed, bitter wood between my teeth and closing off the world from me. It was a small mercy.

I remember him. I remember her. I remember.

God, help me, I remember it all.

I woke up, neck stiff, lips slick with black foam. My face was pressed against a canvas pad, the sharp smell of it filling my nostrils. My body was throbbing steadily, and I realised it was my heart beat. I drew in a sticky, bitter breath and moaned at my discomfort.

I managed to shift upright, pins and needles lit up the nerves in my right arm. How long had I been asleep? How long had I been in here?

I craned my neck from side to side until I felt the blood flowing, releasing a happy little whimper when a delicious pop sent pleasure through me.

I tried to get my bearings. Not just place but time. This room was obviously the big hospital papa and his viper bitch had buried me in, so that meant mom was dead and buried. That meant I was alive. That meant it was the present, not a vision. Sure felt strange though.

So the year was 1920, but what day and what time?

The light from the viewing slot was flickering. I could hear a storm building in the distance and no doubt the lines had gone down again. They would be running on one of those big gas generators the groundskeeper had taken the time to show me on my wanderings. He was always good to me. That poor old generator would barely keep up, so it would be sputtering and dying all night. So, I guessed it was night. This room was one of the few not opening out to windows and skylights. Like a great greenhouse for growing lunatics.

"What you cackling over?" A girl's voice came, the thick New York accent seemed out of place somehow "care to share?"

I tried to explain the joke, but the bit in my mouth muffled it.

"Great, the only person to yammer to 'round here and they gone and gagged you up like a greyhound." She said.

I figured she was in the cell across from me. Despite my restraints I managed to work my way up the wall to standing, and get to the metal slit.

I now had another bearing. The three isolation rooms where in the west most part of the wing, and as the exit to the ward proper was to my right, I was facing north. With that measure, I felt the hospital settling in around me in my mind. Biloxi was behind me and far away, in all respects.

"Why the muzzle, toots? You a biter?" The girl said, her face partially visible through her own slit. "you look like a biter."

"Fits" I managed to say around the wooden bit. "'Stops me swallowing my tongue" She winced and sneered at this.

"How positively awful." She said, and then looked away with a bored expression. Then a wicked little smile appeared on her perfect bow lips. "I stabbed an orderly with his pencil."

I must confess, there was something about her face that instantly captivated me, her dark brown hair cut in the ultra modern flapper style, the wonky smile and slightly misaligned teeth, the long proud nose with little flared ridges at either side and hazel eyes which, unlike the rest of those belonging to the patients here, were still blazing with youth.

"I'm Alice. Brandon." I mumbled over the bit. "Well, s'short for Mary Alice."

She smiled that charming smile and returned to staring back out into the ward.

"You?" I said.

"Wait? You don't know who I am?" I shook my head. Why should I? She turned her attention back to me, her brow raised in curiosity. "I thought everyone here knew."

"Sorry."

"No, it's refreshing. I"m Buffy. Well, Elizabeth's what mother called me, but that is frightfully dull, don't you think?" Buffy leaned forward like she was telling a ghost story at a campfire. "The papers like to call me The Meridian Slayer. Watcha think of that then Alice?"

"Don't get t'read much here." I confessed. "I like Buffy. It suits you."

She seemed baffled for a moment, considering me with her hazel eyes, but then a knowing smile came to her lips.

"How curious". She said. "What they got you locked up here for?"

"They think I am mad."

Buffy's smile became radiant, and I felt my heart flutter.

"Yeah. Me too."

...

I was led back to my room the following morning by a nurse I was unfamiliar with.

I was given a glass of prune juice with potassium bromide before being allowed to rest. It tasted of ashes, but I managed to swallow it down. Frankly, it tasted better than the foul black foam around the bit. I felt hungry, thirsty for something... but the idea of eating anything made me nauseated. It was quite the frustrating dilemma, so I focused on trying to sleep instead.

My bed felt so soft by comparison to the cell, that by all rights I should have slept soundly, but the heat of the day was rising and I found little rest except dozing. At about noon I became aware of two nurses preparing the bed across from me, whispered gossip and hushed snickering. One caught me watching and became stern faced, elbowing her companion.

"Got anything sharp around the place Mary Alice? Best give it up now for your own safety."

I shook my head but grinned at the realisation that Buffy would be sharing the room with me. I guess the nurse didn't believe me, she just shrugged.

"Your funeral" she said with a smirk.

At five Buffy appeared at the doorway, flanked by the matron and a thug of an orderly. She seemed tiny by comparison, no taller than I, and her demeanor was quite different from our last encounter. She seemed exhausted, frail and sheepish. Her clothes where exquisite, but ripped and stained- a pearl colored dress cut shockingly high, exposing her smooth, taut muscled legs.

She made her way to the bed and sat down, listening to the rules the matron reeled off, answering with little nods here and there.

To my disappointment, she didn't look at me once. When the matron and her monkey left, Buffy lay upon the bed and turned away from me. It didn't take me long to realise she was silently sobbing to herself.

That night the air was hot and still, charged with static from the distant lightning storms. The Cicadas were strangely silent.

I glanced over to the girl across from me. Sad, intelligent eyes sparkled back at me in the darkness. She was awake and staring at me in a curious way.

"I wish you were real" she whispered.

I sighed, and closed my eyes.

Yeah, me too. I thought.