John, my old boss in the lab, the one who got me a job in the customer service department after my junior tech position dissolved when I’d dropped out of college, also declined attending. He, at least, had a pretty reasonable excuse.
Sorry, kiddo. Can’t do it. My wife is chaperoning Jeremy’s school dance (can you believe he’s already in middle school?) and I’m with Ashley (she’s in second grade now!). I tried to find a sitter, but with it being Halloween weekend, they all had plans already. Give me more notice next time and I’ll sucker them in with their inability to think more than two or three weeks ahead. Happy Birthday! Glad to hear things are going so well for you these days. You deserve it, kiddo.
Wow. Ouch. That one stung a bit.
The rest were roughly along the same lines. From computer issues—apparently, the screensaver glitch had spread and become a building-wide virus—to obligations like college and family, I’d have guessed that more than half of the people whom Mallory had invited had replied regarding their avoiding me like the plague that apparently caused the tree massacre in my living room, dining room, and back porch. The remaining invitees to have been included in the mass email invitation either didn’t respond at all or merely didn’t copy me in the response.
Wait… Mass email.
I opened the original invitation—yes, I had pathetically saved it as a digital keepsake—hit reply all and a new message window opened up complete with the to, from, and subject line headers already conveniently filled.
It’d be so easy to turn this public humiliation into one that was more private.
Dear loyal friends and co-workers, I typed sarcastically. You all suck…
I panicked and closed the email. Cowardly example of mediocrity that I was, I feared accidentally hitting send if I continued that route of hapless venting.
~ ~ ~
I had never drank rum before. I’d thought it harsh at first, but after the third or fourth shot of it, I started to detect a spicy-sweetness to it. Prior to cracking that particular bottle’s seal, I’d pretty much been just a winer.
Now, I giggled derogatorily to myself, I’m just a whiner. But, then that wasn’t new either. Intermittent as it may have been, whining had been a staple of my perceptive existence. If self-deprecation could be woven, I’d have expertly knitted it into a cozy couch throw, and worn it in already, by now. If it could have been ground into a fine powder, I’d have it stored in thirty-gallon drums to dip into during wintry months, steep in a cup with hot water, and season with sugar, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. Paired together, I’d have quite the nostalgic, languishing night ahead of me.
Homey snuggles turned prickly.
Comfort foods turned rancid.
I laughed, a little disturbed by the sharp edge of it, and hit send.
At least now I would be despairing in a house full of purposeful emptiness.
Five
~ up ~
Rum apparently burned more coming up than it did going down. Sunday morning and afternoon became a routine of napping and tributes to the wastelands. I’d never had a hangover before. I vowed I’d never have one again. If I died before it passed, I wouldn’t have been surprised.
I seriously couldn’t fathom how people did that more than once.
Maybe the secret was in doing it around friends. Shared experiences and all that.
I doubt I’d be up to finding out. But, who knew? I got stupid over things like prospects of camaraderie and, worse, opportunities to be one of them, you know, the cool people, the rich people, the successful people, the beautiful people.
The happy people.
The other side and all things green.
~ ~ ~
Sunday evening brought with it wonton soup, plain rice, and hideous sobriety.
Swathed lopsidedly by an old afghan my great aunt sent me as a housewarming gift—which I hadn’t opened until the great pre-party clean-up—I began the great post-party clean-up. It wasn’t nearly as bad as I’d expected it to be. But, then, I’d expected there to have been a party to clean up after too.
I wasn’t going to need to buy more garbage bags for a year.
I cleaned the back porch, my favorite space in the entire house—my house, mine—last. I think it was a subconscious accident. I’d meant to do it first, just in case my energy petered out. The rest of the house could wait, if it had come to that, but my porch was my haven, where I went to drown my depressions in tales of fancy. Granted, they were usually morbid, sensual, and violent tales of vampire fancy, but they were fantastical escapes nonetheless. That I ended up getting the porch done after the other rooms had to have been some mother-implanted-seed from long ago akin to save the best for last or maybe do the worst of it first so it gets done and over with rather than being endlessly postponed. Wouldn’t have put it past my traitorous mind to trick me like that. It was kind of what I had done with my unpacking, after all. Tomorrow had become next weekend had become six weeks later mad rush for company.
Company that never happened either.
That unfinished novel about warring vampire clans…? Now, that was something I could definitely finish.
The matching outdoor chaise and coffee table I’d splurged for when shopping for sprucing up for the party looked mighty friendly too.
I craved to be done so I could indulge both along with a soothing cup of honeyed tea.
~ ~ ~
I sipped steaming chamomile tea under hanging paper lamps, which bathed me in an amber glow. A stray, icy breeze whispered across the porch and breathed against my neck, penetrating me and rushing clear through to my toes. I inhaled its earthy, smoky, sweet scent and listened to its eerie, hushed, lulling song. The wicker chaise creaked, suiting the chilling season, my raw mood, and the guilty, indulgent pleasure of the novel I was currently reading. The story settled over me like sifted powdered sugar, nostalgically sweet, airy, and sometimes, just as scary, but gleamingly so. It promised pain and loss and death and life. It made my heart pound. It made my stomach flip-flop. It made me quietly shudder and gasp, teetering on the cusp of something special, unique, vivacious and powerful, passionate and seductive. Vital. When I exhaled, I felt alive.
I must’ve been dreaming. It was unreal.
The breeze solidified into a man leaning over the back of the wicker chaise. He struck, sharp and piercing, and my toes curled. He drank, jolting me up against him and arching me against his chest, sucking me out of myself. It felt like flying, like that upwards pull against gravity that only suction could conjure, and I rode it like I rode that roller coaster when I was twelve, coasting, tensed, and yet flung boneless, nevertheless, about in the tide. Up, over, around, and down. Pull and swallow and pull and swallow. One and two and three and four, a rhythm to sway my feet to kicking, arms to lifting, and hips to bucking.
I must’ve been lusting. It was chimerical.
He rubbed his thumb across my lips, slicking his own glossy, red substance there. When it slid inside my mouth, the universe exploded in a spray of stars. When he pulled it out, I stretched for him. I wanted to taste more of him, to taste his lips, to taste my own life in him, fleeting, but there, nourishing him, giving him life, even as mine left me, floating away on the icy breeze that had brought him inside my domain and was stealing him away from it, from me, and out into the night, crisp and sinuous, whimsical and wretched. I reached so far I fell off the wicker bench… And was immediately jolted back to reality. Mildly embarrassed, I hung my head and quickly reprimanded myself for the absurdity of my seriously troubled imagination.
I had to have been fantasizing. It had all been so illusory.
I sighed dismally and heaved myself up off the floor. I bumped the coffee table and scrambled to catch the teacup, to keep it from crashing to the floor. Sure there was carpet to cushion its fall, but with my luck, it’d still shatter and then I’d spend the next six months finding tiny shards with the bottom of my bare feet. But, it wasn’t the cup that had caught my eye. The cup had bar
ely jostled. Instead, there was a folded note fluttering to the floor.
Blood dripped onto the paper as I reached for it. The blood came from my neck. Now that I’d seen it drip, I could feel it clinging to my skin in two lines as it slithered to my collar. My fingers chased its path, their paths, coming from two already closing holes right there where I had been taught to look for a person’s pulse. My head swam so acutely at the impossibility and excitement of it all that all I could seem to do for a very long time was stare at the note, freshly stained by my own blood and still folded closed. No, not closed, not really. It taunted me like a startled gasp left unexplained. Fear warred with excitement as I stared at the parted edges, which seemed to gape more and more the longer I watched them.
Finally, I plucked it up and spread it open. My visitor had written only a few short phrases:
You won. Psylas’s niche. 1333 Sanguinette Plaza. 3 am.
Stupidly, my first thought was ‘wow, that’s a lot of threes.’ It usurped the wriggling discordant note in the back of my mind that was trying to remind me of a familiarity.
~ ~ ~
Between chastising myself for being duped by what was likely some neighboring teen’s ridiculous prank and absurdly fearing that three sheets and all four of my towels weren’t enough to keep the sun from dusting me come dawn, sleep became unachievable.
A small part of me hoped it was really because I was simply a creature of the night now and that I’d never sleep again.
Another part of me mourned that idea. I liked dreaming. They were usually much more interesting than my life had ever or would ever be.
Another part bubbled with the mere idea that finally, finally, I could be something cool, special, powerful, important. I could be a vampiress. How badass was that?
The rest of me just cowered in the darkest, most heavily shadowed nook in my entire house. The entryway to my basement never seemed to see daylight. It used to creep me out a little bit. Now it seemed like the safest of havens. I huddled under every blanket and towel I could find. I waited for daybreak.
Sadly, I waited in vain.
Six
~ smack ~
My eyes snapped open. I was upside down, sort of. Equidistant rows of blunt objects pressed into me hard under the full length of my body. It was like a more polite bed of nails, where instead of nails there were parallel squarish bars. There were also wooden bars lining the space in front of me, closing me in, trapping me in the small space that contained me.
It seemed an awful lot like I was imprisoned and tortured.
And then I sat up and saw the truth.
I was lying partway down the stairs to my basement. The blunt objects were the stairs themselves. The wooden bars were the spokes of the stairs’ handrail. I must’ve fallen asleep while waiting for the sun to rise and rolled onto the stairs. I vaguely remembered leaving the door open so I could scramble down them and into the perpetual dark of the basement had I felt the slightest burning sensation from the sun.
Weird that I hadn’t jolted awake when I first fell into that position…
Oh, get over it already, I told myself. You’re not a Hellbound vampire.
Dragging myself to stand amidst my myriad of aching muscles, joints, and head, I felt like an idiot. At least it was still dark out. I could still get some sleep in my comfortable bed, get up with the alarm, and—
Oh, Hellbound… The therapist!
I scrambled to my computer and went to the company website. I entered my password and navigated the employee sections until I found the Health and Wellness Advocacy Program and their list of therapists. I copied and pasted their email addresses into a new email, jotted a quick request for appointments, and hit send. When I closed it, I saw my inbox.
My very full, very angry looking inbox.
I cringed, remembering the spiteful email I’d sent while drunk and depressed after my failed birthday party.
Hellbound, that reminded me that I was now thirty.
Thirty!
Ack!
I made breakfast before I opened any of those new emails.
~ ~ ~
Apparently, I only made breakfast so I could feed it to my toilet like a mama bird would her newborn chicks.
Ick!
~ ~ ~
I called in sick. I got voice mail. Weird. The sun still hadn’t risen. I thought it weirder. I thought it even more weirder when a group of kids, probably back to check on their prank, rang my doorbell.
I dragged my gut-twisted, body-aching self to the door and yanked it open with a festive, “What?!”
Three little tykes—a faerie princess, a superhero, and a football player—flinched back into their waiting parents’ legs. The parents’ gave me wary, suspicious glares.
I felt like a heel.
“Oh,” I said dumbly.
The little hero mustered up the bravery to shakily hold out his bag and whisper, “Trick or Treat.”
Okay, I was twice the heel. Triple, if I accounted for all three of the tykes.
Recovering swiftly, because I’m sophisticated like that, I said, “I’m sorry. I’ve been sick. Was sleeping. Completely forgot. Let me see what I have.”
I scurried to the kitchen and scavenged my cupboards for the snacks I’d bought for my failed to-die-for party. I could’ve sworn there were a couple bags of candy thrown in for festive measure.
“Yes!” I yelled triumphantly as I plucked two bags of mixed chocolatey-gooey goodness out of a bin in the lower cabinets.
“No!” I hissed in horror as realization dawned on me just as I fisted the bags. It was Halloween. It was Monday night. I’d missed work. I’d missed the day.
I’d missed dawn.
I dropped the bags of candy on the kitchen floor.
I scurried out of the kitchen and up the hall towards the living room with my computer in it. Three eager tykes and their two very weary, distrusting parents were peering in at me through my still-open door. I simpered when I noticed them. Then I surreptitiously backpedaled to retrieve the candy, and quickly divvied out half a bag of it between them to appease them all before ushering them on their way so I could get back to my crisis-slash-victory.
I checked my computer, which was closer than my phone, which was the only other source of time and date-keeping I owned, and sure enough… It was Monday, October 31st, not Sunday, October 30th.
I missed the day.
I missed the—
Wait, better double check.
I rapidly clicked through a few of my emails to make sure I simply wasn’t delusional and had forgotten the day. Sure enough, again, there was a mix of confused and retaliatory emails spawned by my drunken, spiteful party cancellation along with several where are you and why aren’t you at work today emails, not to mention the is this punishment for Saturday because I called you several times to explain and apologize, yet you haven’t even given me that small courtesy once.
I missed the day.
I missed the—
Wait, better triple check.
I went to my phone that time. Sure enough, cubed, the time and date confirmed my assessment and several voice mails from Mallory and others verified it further.
I freakin’ missed the Hellbound day.
I freaking missed the Hellbound—
Wait, that doesn’t exactly prove anything other than I’d slept my career away.
Hush… It was a powerful moment and it was perfectly appropriate for me to be dramatic during it.
I ran and got the note. I brought it into the kitchen, which had the strongest light, and was closest to the fridge because holy cannoli did my stomach suddenly protest its emptiness. It must’ve been from giving out the candy to those succulent looking people…
Okay, yeah, I was getting ahead of myself again.
I opened the paper. Read it again. Felt the fizzles of familiarity so I read it a third time. Connection wasn’t forming, so I closed my fist around it as I wracked my brain. A corner of the pa
per stuck out between my fingers. Four precise, digitally printed numbers caught my attention.
I spread open the note again. Same four numbers, hand written, on one side as part of the note. I flipped it over to find the tiny print of an address under the corporation’s logo. It was freakin’ company stationary, not the cheap letterhead that the bulk of us had to use on a regular basis, but the good, nearly linen-quality indulgence that the executives used. I came across them whenever one of the underlings I dealt with brought it as proof of whatever latest concern the information that was printed on it had caused to their superiors in their dealings with my über superiors.
I scoffed—because I had a good, well-practiced scoff and it worked perfectly in just this sort of situation—and said out loud, though still to myself, “Not so superior any more, are they?”
But, that was besides the point, or rather, a latter point. First, the stationary, which I didn’t keep at home, Hellbound, which I only saw second hand, was the tablet of my fantasy-clouded message. It had come from the Blood Conscience headquarters, from the executive offices in the topmost floors of the monstrous building. And the address numbers matched. They freakin’ Hellbound matched.
Blood Conscience.
Blood Science.
Blood Con.
Blood.
Monstrous, monstrous blood.
My stomach growled. It clenched and knotted and twisted and cramped. Hellbound, the cramps nearly doubled me over.
I stumbled to my fridge, practically moving on my stomach’s accord. I fumbled open the door. I smacked things aside and yanked others out until I got to the gobbets of juicy, red goodness, the raw stew meat I’d bought on the way home on Friday to cook up for a hearty Halloween meal on Monday… Today.
I tore open the packaging. I grabbed handfuls of the chunked meat. I squeezed them, trying to wring out its succulent juices. A couple of drops landed on my chin. I swiped them up with my palms, licked up their savory delight with greedy laps of my tongue.