Dad
On my eighteenth birthday, I walked home from the library late that evening, daydreaming about Tommy and dreading the coming confrontation with my mother. It was football practice night and I had a big test in biology, so I didn’t get my boyfriend fix that night. Mom and I had fought for a week already. My father—a fat, ugly, good-for-nothing-but-sending-child-support-checks man who was married to someone else when I was conceived—had sent Mom a letter informing her that he would no longer be mailing any support checks. I never met my father. All I knew was his name—Robert Stimple—and that his signature had a left slant and he wrote tiny, perfect letters that were so intricate they seemed typed. None of that mattered to my mother. What mattered was that his signature and the funding accompanying it was no longer going to arrive as scheduled.
I turned the key in our peeling green door and waited for her scalding voice. When it didn’t come, I peered around the empty living room. The TV was all static and turned low. The couch was empty, her candy wrappers strewn over the floor beside it.
“Mom,” I said halfheartedly. “I’m home.”
No answer.
She must have gone out.
I tossed my books on the floor. The faucet dripped in the bathroom. I went to turn it off and found my mother there, face down in a tubful of pink bathwater. I sat on the toilet beside the tub and flipped her over gently. Blood seeped from her neck where a neat gash had been made. Her eyes were closed, and her face seemed incredibly peaceful.
It struck me that she had been beautiful once. She had a narrow face and large, dark lips. I didn’t see her smile often, but when she did, it was easy to see why my dad might have fallen for her.
“Shit, Mom,” I mumbled.
I figured it was suicide. Had to be. I wiped a stray tear away and went to knock on the neighbor’s door to use the phone. I needed to call 911, needed to figure out what I should do next. Mom was mean, but she’d always been there. I didn’t know what would happen to me now. A bleak feeling of sorrow closed in. My one hope was Tommy. Maybe I could get an apartment of my own. Maybe we could keep seeing each other and things would turn out okay.
I knocked on the neighbor’s door and waited, thinking I’d finally get to meet the kook who didn’t care if dog blood was splashed on his or her balcony. The door cracked open.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” I said. “But I need to use your phone.”
The door opened wider. A cold, unsettling wave gripped me when the man spoke. “Hello, Angela.” He stepped aside, a thin, white man with auburn hair in a ponytail. He didn’t look, well, he didn’t look
right
, if you know what I mean. His skin glowed like the moonlight almost as if he was an albino, but he wasn’t. He had dark green eyes and smiled like he knew me.
“Um, nice to meet you,” I muttered, wondering if he’d had a run-in with Mom. Probably had. She pissed off a lot of people in the apartment building.
He waved a hand to the side, indicating his phone across the room by the couch. There wasn’t a TV in sight. In fact, his place seemed sparse. I glanced around as I lifted the receiver. Table for two, a bookshelf, not much else.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” came the operator’s voice.
“Um, yeah. My mom killed herself,” I blurted. The man stood by the doorway, staring at me. He gave me the creeps.
“What is your location?”
I gave her my address and everything else she asked for. When I hung up, the man had crossed the living room and stood before me.
“Are you all right?” he asked, a slight smirk on his thin lips.
His eyes held me still, mesmerizing. I blinked, trying to shake the feeling that he could hear my thoughts and see straight into me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It felt like I knew him from somewhere.
“No,” I answered. “No, I’m not.”
His hands settled upon my shoulders. I felt faint, weak. My neighbor eased me onto his couch and settled in beside me. He pulled me to him and embraced me. It was awkward, but I didn’t pull back. I wasn’t afraid, only stunned by him, by my mother’s death. I didn’t know what to do.
“She’s dead,” I whispered.
“You’re not alone,” he said. “I’ll wait with you until they get here.”
“Yes,” I blubbered. His offer sounded kind. Some neighbor I’d never met before holding me, comforting me and waiting with me for the paramedics or whomever they sent when someone killed herself. How thoughtful.
He rubbed one hand up and down my back. I cried into his black rayon shirt, wetting it with tears. I bawled and sobbed, and my neighbor, whose name I didn’t even know, sat there and said nothing. He smelled like incense, the same spicy smell in Richard’s room after he’d smoked and tried to hide it with cinnamon-scented cones. He stroked my hair.
The paramedics came first. I sat on my neighbor’s leather couch, and he went out to meet them. They took his information, asked him a thousand questions, and then they moved on to me. I answered as best I could. Yes, Mom had a problem with depression. Yes, she’d been taking her meds. No, I didn’t think anyone had killed her. Yes, I think she did it to herself. Yes, she’d said she would one day.
They found a note. I read it over and nodded. “Yeah, that’s her writing.”
Numb and dumbfounded, I watched them carry her body away on a stretcher, covered with a body bag. It didn’t hide enough. I could see the lumpy outline of her in there. My neighbor curled his arm over my shoulder. “You can stay here if you want. I have a spare room. A bed. I’ll help you clean up tomorrow. Take you anywhere you need to make the arrangements.
“Arrangements,” I repeated.
I wanted to call Tommy then. I needed to hear his voice, the one stable thing in my life. I made to get up, but my neighbor pushed me back down. The last police officer left, shutting the door behind her.
“Can I use your phone?” I asked, feeling trapped.
“Sleep, you need to sleep now.”
I shook my head, the voice in it not my own. My eyes drooped, suddenly heavy. I sagged forward, and he caught me in his arms. I blinked and tried to keep my eyes open. He lifted me and carried me down the hall to a dark bedroom. Dread filled me. Maybe he’d rape me. I certainly had no energy or willpower to fight him off. Instead, he set me on the bed and pulled the cover over me sideways.
My neighbor sat beside me and ran his hand over my face until my eyes closed.
“You’re safe with me. Always safe. I’ll care for you now, Angela. Forever.”
I moaned in my sleep, caught between a dream tugging at me and the need to get out of there, to talk to my boyfriend, to face reality. Lips brushed over my cheek. “You’re beautiful,” my neighbor said.
I tensed, but I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t wake up.
His mouth caressed my skin, moving down to my neck where he kissed and nuzzled. “I’ve watched over you every night, waited years for this moment. Now, we will be together always. You will never be alone. I promise.”
I slept hard. Usually I toss and turn, waking up to Mom’s TV, which she liked to leave on all night. When I woke, I found myself alone. My neck hurt. I touched the tender skin there and wondered just what the heck my neighbor had done to me the night before. I pushed back the covers. My clothes were still on, even my shoes. Breathing a sigh of relief, I got up and stretched.
The bedroom was empty, the living room too. I searched the whole apartment, but my neighbor must have gone out. Standing by the sliding glass door, I stared at the patch of old blood on the concrete and remembered that night so long ago.
I needed to go to school.
I let myself out and went into my mom’s apartment. The neighbor must have been there already because the whole place was cleaned. No wrappers on the floor, no mess, no trash in the kitchen. Even the dishes were done. I stood in the bathroom and stared at the empty tub. Everything smelled like bleach. For a moment, I thought it might all be a dream. It felt like a dream.
I went to my bedroom and sat on the edge of my bed. The neighbor had cleaned in there too. I felt like my privacy had been invaded. An envelope sat atop my pillow, the writing a wide script. I reached over and plucked it up.
For Angela
, it said on the outside.
I broke the wax seal on the back, thinking it way out there that anyone used wax in this day and age.
I can’t be with you during the day. Tonight we’ll talk. I’ll help you through this difficult time. I’ve always been here for you, always listening and watching over you.
Yours,
Rory
“Okay, way weird,” I said and tossed the letter away. “Way freakin’ weird. My neighbor is off his rocker and my mom’s gone and offed herself. I gotta get out of here.”
I spent the day in my room, staring at the letter and working on my biology homework. Yeah, I know it sounds whacky, but it kept my mind off things. I fell asleep sometime that afternoon. Someone shook me awake and I squinted in the darkness, trying to figure out who it was. My neck ached. Dizziness swept over me when I focused on his dark green eyes.
“Rory,” I said.
“That’s right,” he whispered.
Before I could say anything more, his mouth descended to the sore spot on my neck. He bit me. I whimpered. His teeth passed through my skin, stabbing into my flesh. Hands held me down. I didn’t struggle. I couldn’t.
His voice slithered in my mind, soothing me though I wanted to scream and fight him off.
“You’re beautiful. So beautiful. Be mine, Angela, for all time.”
I reached up and threaded my fingers in his hair. Long, silky smooth, and soft, the strands clung to my skin. I breathed in deep. His spicy scent filled my nostrils, his body crushed down atop mine, and his thoughts tangled inside my head and pushed mine aside.
“Rory,” I croaked out. “What have you done to me?”
He suckled, drawing out blood and my very soul. I felt my strength waver and tried to fight for control over my mind. His leg nudged between mine, rubbing seductively at my crotch. My face flushed with fear and embarrassment. It felt good. Soon, he seemed distant. Darkness hazed over my vision, and I muttered the name of the one person I desired.
“Tommy.”
“Shh,” Rory said, releasing my neck. His lips, wet and hot with my blood, ran along my cheek to my mouth. He kissed me as one would savor a dessert, licking and biting, drawing my lips into his mouth to tease with his tongue. My world was ending and I was powerless to stop it. After a while, I couldn’t tell who he was. I thought he was Tommy, and I kissed back, hungry for the safety of my boyfriend’s arms.
He pulled off my T-shirt and ran his fingers over my breasts, pausing to kiss them between his explorations.
“Tommy,” I whispered. “Hold me.” Weakness settled in. The haze went completely black, and I couldn’t feel my body. I think back and realize I might have died at that moment. I could have gone on to wherever it is we go when our souls leave our flesh, but the man pressed atop me didn’t want me gone. He wanted me in ways I couldn’t understand at the time.
Skin passed into my mouth, blood wetting it and dribbling across my tongue. I gagged and coughed. I saw nothing but tasted the coppery thickness draining into me. I wanted to spit it out and for everything to end. This nightmare entrapping me continued, and I began to drink, to swallow, to suck down more and more.
Laughter lingered on the edge of my consciousness.
Blood
The next morning, I woke and couldn’t stand the trickle of light bursting through the tattered curtains. I crawled under the bed and let sleep take me. I dreamt of the red-haired man, horrible nightmares, visions of blood and death, of emptiness and a pale moon glaring at me from a dark heaven. I can’t say it really was sleep where I lingered, but more of a state of being between life and death. Fatigue drained me. I wondered if Tommy would come looking for me.
Rory pulled me from my hiding place when night came, and I felt, for the first time, that I could see in the dark, truly see as if it were day. He pushed me along, out of my mother’s apartment forever. We ran through the city streets, our bodies so light, our footfalls silent as if we glided over the sidewalks.
“You must feed,” he told me.
A homeless man, drunk and wavering as he stood near a bus stop bench caught sight of us and stumbled forth. He held out one hand, muttering more to himself than to us about money. His odor wafted to me, and I coughed.
“Feed,” Rory ordered as if I should know what he wanted of me. Cold air blew back my hair and chilled me. I felt icy. My skin prickled and my nipples, bare since he’d stolen my T-shirt the night before, hardened in rebellion. He thrust me in front of the drunk man and whispered in my ear, “The longer you wait, the more you will ache with hunger. Bite his throat, drink him dry. Revel in the peace that comes to him with death.”
I shivered as understanding dawned. “You killed my mother,” I said, frightened and dazed.
He didn’t answer outright. “She never loved you. I can love you. I can love you for all eternity.” His voice snaked into my thoughts. His will thumped and droned with the beating of my heart. “Feed.”
“Feed?” I questioned, still so unsure of what he meant, of what I had become, and of what he wanted me to be or do.
“Taste him. Take his soul into yours. It will make you strong.”
I didn’t want to get any closer to the indigent man puttering toward me. He smelled awful. His clothes were rags. He kept babbling nonsense about the moon and dogs.
I nodded, hoping I could outrun the man behind me and find a better place to hide, one where he wouldn’t catch me and drag me out. Maybe I could make it to Tommy’s.
I took a step toward my proposed victim. Another step. Another.
The cold hands that held me fell away. A surge of pride glimmered in my mind, not my pride. I turned. The moonlight lit my companion’s face. He looked fondly at me, as I guess a father would look proudly on his own child—a smile I hardly recognized, for I had never known a parent who gazed at me in that way.
“What are you?” I asked.
He flashed a broad smile, revealing his pointed, white teeth. “Your guardian angel.”
“You’re no angel.” I faced the homeless man once more. His eyes clouded with a pained look, an expression of submission.
Did I make him do that? Can I? Do I have some innate power now?
I bolted, running for the opposite side of the street. My legs carried me faster than I thought possible, and I stopped in an alley by a dumpster. Glancing over my shoulder, I watched Rory approach the homeless man, grip his head, and turn it roughly to one side. He buried his face against the man’s neck. I didn’t want to see more. I sprinted down the alley to the next street, and then the next.
Buzzing rang in my ears. The city lights glowed redder than I remembered. I needed to get away from it, to get a shirt and find a bus. I rifled through my pockets and found enough change to make the trip.
“Angela.”
I shuddered. Rory could speak in my head, like some schizophrenic entity in my mind.
“Angela, come back to me. We need each other. I’ll keep you safe.”
I wanted a shower, fresh clothes. I wanted the voice in my head to shut up. I wanted sanity and my boyfriend. For a moment, I even wanted Mom back. She’d beat the living crap out of the guy. But even as I thought it, I knew she’d have lost to him—did lose to him. He’d killed my mother.
“Your mother was blind to your beauty.”
“Oh my God,” I breathed in a hushed gasp. “Oh my God, it’s
you
. You killed Mr. Malcolm. The dog.”
His sinister laughter flooded my brain.
I climbed a fire escape ladder, thinking maybe he wouldn’t look for me on the roof. I’d hidden up there a few times when Mom was on one of her rampages. Nothing but pigeons and junk to see, that and the city lights twinkling. The metal creaked and tapped with each step I took. I wished I was barefoot so he couldn’t hear me.
“Angela!”
I looked down. He stood beneath the ladder, his mouth soiled with what he’d done. His skin shone so pale in the dark. His hair fluttered across his face, free from the ponytail he’d worn before. I wondered if his victim had pulled the band out.
“You can’t escape me,” he shouted. “No use trying.”
“Just leave me alone,” I wailed and climbed higher. At the top of the building, I hauled myself over the edge and ran into the shadows of spires there, curling up in a ball behind one.
The wind picked up. My hair got in my eyes and stuck to my tear-stained cheeks. I covered my chest with my arms and tried to be quiet.
“Angela?” He sounded steps away. “I can smell you. You’re a part of me now, just as I’m a part of you. Come out. We can try again another night. It’s all right.”
His shadow spread out in front of me, half formed and gray from the moonlight. “I’ll find you something better for your first time. Someone your age. Would you like that?”
I pursed my lips.
Cold fingers pinched my shoulder. His control made me freeze in place. I expected him to hit me, or worse. Instead, Rory, my self-proclaimed guardian angel, bent to my level and drew me against him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ve gone and done this all wrong. I forgot what it felt like at first, how it makes no sense.” He lifted me in his arms and carried me across the building. Pigeons cooed in the shadows. At the ladder, he stopped and set me on my feet, perilously close to the edge. Rory unbuttoned his shirt, a dark one, it could have been blue but I wasn’t sure. He dropped it on the ground, smiled, and reached for me.
I stepped backward in an act of defiance, wanting to escape him. My legs faltered at the small lip of wall before I fell over the side of the building.
Plummeting to my eventual death, I didn’t scream. I stared up at the night sky thinking it a sanguine shade much unlike the navy blue it ought to be. My back itched.
Strange thing to feel when falling.
I wanted to reach and scratch.
Above me, Rory leapt over the side of the building. Two great shadows burst at either side of him, and he glided toward me on the wings of, well, they were
his
wings, as red as his hair and catching the night wind as he narrowed them, giving chase.
He caught me and held me. We climbed into the sky, past the pollution, past the clouds. There, trapped in his embrace, I stared into his eyes and realized I could never get away. No matter how hard I tried, I wouldn’t be able to escape him. He possessed a strength which defied his shape. He had wings, for God’s sake. I stared at them. Great red wings made of flesh and fur. They weren’t bat wings or bird’s but something entirely different.
“What are you?” I asked again, the fear causing tremors my voice.
He dipped across the sky, not answering. It didn’t matter. I knew at that moment what he was, what he’d done, and what I would become.
“You like to fly, don’t you?” he asked.
I clung to him and closed my eyes. Pressing my face to his bare chest, I prayed for it all to stop, for the dream to end. I wanted to wake up at home in my bed, safe and poor with my loser of a mother on the couch snoring or crying—it didn’t matter which.
“You’ll fly too, Angela. One day soon. I’ll teach you. We’ll take to the night sky together. We’ll hunt and feed. We’ll make love before dawn.”
I sobbed.
He kissed the top of my head, some messed up cross between a demon and a vampire who thought he was an angel. He was nothing of the sort.
He brought me to his home. Not the apartment I thought he lived in, no, that was all a façade, a place for him to bide his time until I’d grown into a woman. This house bordered on being a mansion, a massive plantation estate with rolling hills and trees reaching for the sky. We set down by the front door. His wings shrank into leathery phantasms which soon dissipated.
“How do you do that?” I asked.
“You’ll see. It comes to you in time. All things do for those such as us.” He opened the crimson door and bowed, indicating I should go in before him.
“I want to go home.”
“You are home, little angel.” He smiled when I stepped inside. The door shut, and I found myself in a sickening paradise. Wealth showed itself in the furnishings, the light fixtures, the marble floors. Books lined shelves the likes of which I couldn’t have imagined in someone’s home. Massive paintings hung in a grandiose display here and there. I approached one, drawn to it and horrified by it when I understood what it portrayed.
“Do you like it?” Rory asked.
The portrait showed a black man hunched over, a white man whipping him while other slaves looked on. It looked old, from colonial times maybe.
“I paid a small fortune for the collection. Very rare, these ones. Charles James was not well known in his time. He ran a plantation in the South before the war. I believe that one is his brother.” He pointed at the man brandishing the whip.
“It’s sick,” I said.
Rory sidled next to me. His fingers plied my back just where my skin prickled and still itched after the fall. “Don’t worry,” he said, his voice soft and laced with an accent that sounded Irish. “They got what they deserved for what they did. Charles, Martin, the whole lot of them.”
I cleared my throat, unsure of what to say or do as he reminisced.
“I keep these as a reminder of how foul the human race can be and is.” His fingers massaged the tingling feeling in my shoulders until it vanished. Although his face appeared youthful beyond his strange coloring, I sensed age in his eyes, a knowing expression only worn by people who had lived a long while and seen a great many things. His eyes held a clouded look, much like Mr. Patterson, my algebra teacher, just before he retired. Melancholy clung to him and moved in waves before my eyes.
“What’s happening to me?” I asked.
“You’re changing. It takes time for your senses to come into their true strength.” He pulled me to him, a familiar surge of cold heat spreading through me. I felt safe now with him, not that I wanted to be there. The ease he could exert over my spirit drained me as well.
“Come bathe with me,” he urged. “Come and sit for a while by the window. We can watch the stars and talk about our future together.”