Slices (5 page)

I
didn’t answer him. I just stared up at the ceiling,
unbelieving. The ceiling was mirrored — this had been a
bedroom, I decided then — and I could see my own reflection
staring numbly back. Sylvan was standing just to the side of the
coffin, and in the mirror, he seemed to be hanging overhead, upside
down like a vampire bat. His companion was nowhere to be seen. It
seemed we’d finally been left alone.

“Well?”
he asked. He reached up an arm, took the coffin lid in his hand, and
pulled it down over me. I could hear the click of a latch, of a lock,
a bolt —

And
the darkness was suffocating around me. I automatically raised my
hands and pressed them up against the lid, so close against my face.
I tried to lift it and it wouldn’t move. I started to pound
against the padded satin surface.

“Come
on!” I shouted. “Let me out!” I didn’t know
if he could hear me. I raised my scratched and imperfect voice as
loud as I could. “Get me out of here!”

A
long and unmeasured moment passed. It could have been a minute, it
could have been ten. The only thing I could hear was my own ragged
and uneven breaths and the pounding of my small fists.

Finally,
another sound — the lock being undone. The lid sliding open. My
eyes, wild and staring, blinked against the sudden candlelight
filling them as if it was midday sun. I sat bolt upright, trying to
get my breathing back under control, glaring at him.

“I’m
disappointed,” he said. “You panicked.”

“I
didn’t
panic,”
I snapped. “I’m pissed off.”

He
met the remark with a smile. “If you want to back out,”
he said, “this is your last chance.”

“No,
I don’t want to back out,” I said. “I want you to
stop fucking around and get on with it.”

He
took a step back, as if my vehemence had actually assaulted him, but
the smile still rested easily on his face.

“Did
you think I’d be impressed with all this?” I said. “With
this kind of, of, cheap melodramatic bullshit? You think you can
scare me? You think you can show me death? Well, I’ve seen
death. This isn’t it.

“This
is death like in the movies. This is pretty and clean and perfect,
and it isn’t like that. I found my own best friend, the only
friend I’ve ever had, staring stupid straight up at nothing,
swimming in his own shit, the bathtub he slit his wrists in
overflowing and spilling blood and water all over the floor and it
wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t perfect. He didn’t look
peaceful, he didn’t look beautiful, he just looked
surprised,
like he didn’t think it would hurt, he looked like a fucking
idiot, he just left a big mess for everyone else to clean up ….
”

And
oh, God, Gabe, I hadn’t cried over you, not once, not until
then, until it all came pouring out. Like blood from an old scar made
into a fresh wound.

Sylvan,
to his credit, didn’t say a thing. Just stood and watched and
let me feel it.

“I
don’t want any more death,” I finally said quietly. “I
don’t need you to scare me, I don’t need you to show me
anything. I’ve already seen it. And I know I don’t want
any part of it.” I looked up at him. “Can you take me
away from death or not?”

“I
can.”

“Then
get me out of this stupid thing.”

He
reached down, slid his arms under my body, and lifted me out of the
coffin. He held me for a while, like a doll. I felt warm and safe
in his arms.

And
then I realized. Warm?

With
my head against his chest, I could hear his heartbeat —

“You
liar!” I struggled out of his arms, and he nearly dropped me,
and I got my feet under me just in time, beating my fists against his
chest like I’d beat them against the coffin lid. “You
goddamned liar! You’re just like the rest of them!”

“What’s
wrong?” he asked me, untroubled.

“You’re
warm. I can hear your heart beating,” I said, shoving him away.
“You’re not a vampire at all.”

“Guilty,”
he said, his smile widening. He looked past me, just over my
shoulder. “She’s yours.”

“What
— ” I was pounced from behind, arms pinning me, knocked
off balance and sent sprawling. Attacked by the man I hadn’t
seen in the mirror.

We
tumbled, struggling, and crashed into my picture, sending it
shattering to the ground. I was rolled onto my back in a pile of
broken glass, a picture of my eyes staring up at me from below.

It
was his companion, the quiet little man, the one I’d ignored
all this time, because Sylvan had been so blinding, so much my idea
of what a vampire should be. His hands gripped my arms tight, and
they felt cold and lifeless, like cuts of meat. The small man’s
face was twisted unrecognizably by hunger and desire and feelings I
hadn’t felt yet and couldn’t name, and his eyes glittered
and burned in the candlelight.

Then
his face was gone, moving faster than I could see, a mouth wet at my
neck and fangs sliding out and into me harder and faster and deeper
than any lover had ever bitten me and my treasonous heart beat faster
and faster and made it easy for him, pumped all my blood into the
mouth that had waited so patiently for it.

And
that was how I died.

I
don’t know if you’ll ever be able to read this letter,
Gabe, but I see no reason why one dead friend can’t write to
another.

Because
I am dead now; I have no doubt of that. I can’t feel a
heartbeat anymore, I don’t need to breathe, I don’t even
need to blink. One night I did try to kill myself, old habit, a razor
to my wrist, but I couldn’t raise a drop of blood. I’m
dry and dead and empty.

I’d
try other ways, new ways, ways that should work now, but I can’t
make myself do it. I spend my days paralyzed and staring at nothing,
unable to sleep, but unable all the same to get up and walk out into
the sunlight.

And
besides, Sylvan wouldn’t want me to. And what Sylvan wants is
somehow terribly important to me now.

The
only thing that ever makes me feel happy, or feel like my old self,
or really, feel anything at all, is my mouth pressed to one of
Sylvan’s wounds, his blood inside me, making me feel warm and
safe again. He doesn’t feed us much. Just enough to keep us
alive, not enough to go out and hunt for ourselves. Just enough to
keep us dependent on him.

It
turns out blood is a lot like love. If only one person has ever given
you any, you start feeling like they’re the only place you
could ever get it. It’s like you need them, like you’re
addicted to them.

I
still don’t know the small man’s name. I don’t know
if he even has one. We’re close, of course, as close as twins
being suckled by their mother.

Sometimes
closer. Sometimes Sylvan makes us … do things to each other,
before he’ll agree to feed us. And he’ll watch and he’ll
laugh. But no, we don’t talk. Not to each other.

I
just talk to Sylvan. And to you. I know you’re not there to
hear me, and to answer me, but sometimes I forget that.

When
I found you dead, Gabe, I very nearly did pick up your razor and
follow you.

And
now I really wish I had.

Awake
again, I see. No, don’t try to get up. Are you comfortable? Do
you want a glass of water or anything? No?

Where
are you? No, this isn’t a hospital. You asked me that
yesterday, do you remember? And the day before that, and the day
before that.

You’re
sure you don’t remember, any of it? No, this is not a hospital,
you weren’t in an accident. You’re fine. You’re in
the peak of health.

But
you should be starting to form short-term memories again by now.
Maybe I did give you too much. It’s not easy to measure the
right dosage. Too much would have killed you. Small doses hardly do
anything. They use it in motion-sickness pills, I believe.

That’s
right, yes. I drugged you. What’s the last thing you do
remember? A nightclub, a pretty girl buying you drinks? One of my
fans. Nice to know an old man like me still has fans. Fans who will
do anything, slip something into your drink for me —

Don’t
struggle. I’m afraid I meant you
can’t
get up. You’re strapped down. It’s for your safety, we
can’t have you taking off the bandages too soon.

Quiet.
There’s no point. No one’s going to hear you. We’re
the only ones here. And I really do need to tell you what’s
going on, and I don’t have much time left. You do want to know,
don’t you? What’s going to happen to you?

Where
was I? Oh yes. The drug. Scopolamine, the doctors call it — I’m
not sure I’m pronouncing that right. The nice young men in
Colombia who sold it to me call it the Devil’s Breath. That’s
so much more — poetic, really. For something that comes from
such pretty flowers.

It
just makes you … suggestible. Highly suggestible. Any
suggestion I might make that you should, say, come with me to my
house, check yourself into the care of my personal specialists, sign
any paperwork I need you to sign — it all just suddenly sounds
so
reasonable,
you see.

The
Devil’s Breath. They used blowguns in Colombia to dose someone
with it, I think that’s why they call it that. The natives used
it centuries ago to talk wives and slaves into just calmly lying down
in their dead chief’s graves and letting themselves be buried
alive. I found all this out when I was researching zombie legends
before we filmed
White
Voodoo.

Ahhh.
Now the light dawns in those dull eyes of yours. You do recognize me?
Do you know where you are now?

Look.
Try to focus. See the posters?
Faust.
Night Comes Swiftly. White Voodoo,
of
course. And
Pray
for Dawn
.
Naturally. You’ll have seen that, of course. Don’t dare
tell me you haven’t.

That’s
right. Take a good look at this face. Franz August. You know who I
am. The Angel of Fear.

I
made over sixty of these films, most of them with Malleus Studios,
and somewhere in this sprawling old house I still have the poster for
every last one of them. You’ll have to pardon an old man his
vanity.

And
you’ll have to imagine what it’s like — you can do
that, can’t you? Pretend to be me for a little while? —
imagine walking these halls, every day after day after the phone has
stopped ringing and all the fan mail has slowed to the occasional
letter or postcard, walking down the halls and seeing this face
staring back at you. Like a hall of mirrors that never, ever changes,
when the mirror in your bedroom tells a different story, shows you a
face that’s lined and cracked and pulled tighter year after
year across your skull? A face that even the most gifted plastic
surgeon in all of Hollywood tells you he can’t save any longer?
Think about it, Mister Meyer.

Oh,
yes. I know who you are. You don’t think I just randomly pulled
you out of a crowd, do you? Yes. Of course this is about
Pray
for Dawn.
Everything in my life is about
Pray
for Dawn.

I
don’t know how many of my films you’ve seen. The kindest
thing I can say about most of them is that I did my best. I tried to
look past the cheap sets and the cheap starlets and believe in what I
was doing, and sometimes, not always mind you but sometimes, I was
brilliant, even when the film itself wasn’t.

This
isn’t just my vanity. This is truth. They called me the
Valentino of Horror, do you know that? Audiences loved me, they
really did, the women wanted me and the men wished they could be me.
Hell, half the men wanted me, too, and I can’t blame them. Look
at this face, those eyes. I was beautiful. Michelangelo could have
sculpted that. Wasn’t I beautiful, then?

Don’t
look at me like that. I didn’t bring you here to have my way
with you. If I wanted that, I could have done it back when you were
still drugged.

You’re
here for something else. I’m getting to that. But we were
talking about
Pray
for Dawn.

Malleus
Studios’ last great gamble. Their most expensive film, ever, it
nearly bankrupted them, it broke their backs financially and they
never tried anything that ambitious again, ever. Their one last
attempt to get critical acclaim and mainstream success and they very
nearly made it.

They’d
hired a real director, someone with vision, and the most brilliant
lighting designer I’ve ever worked with. But I was still their
star. They never considered anyone else.

And
it worked, it all worked, audiences screamed and laughed and wept. It
did better box office than any of their releases ever had, but it
simply wasn’t enough to justify what they spent, but still —
still. We’d done something to be proud of, made a nightmare
that would last for generations.

Of
course you know all this. I’m sure you do. If you’ve done
any research at all, or just turned on your TV around Halloween, you
know it.

I
just have to be sure. I want to know that you understand just what it
is you’re fucking with.

Pray
for Dawn
is
mine. It’s what I was going to be remembered for. My face,
flickering twenty-four times a second in the dark, forever. Can you
understand that?

I
know it wasn’t your idea. I know that. I can’t imagine
you even
have
ideas. I’ve seen your movies, the entire Jeff Meyer
oeuvre.
Popcorn romances, Mister Meyer. I saw
A
Walk in the Park.
I saw that cheap little
Breakfast
at Tiffany’s
knockoff, whatever it was called. And I’ve seen you try to do
Jane Austen and frankly, Mister Meyer, I’m not particularly
impressed with any of it.

Oh,
you can act — I’m sure you can, whether you normally
bother to or not, you have the spark for it, I can tell. I have a
sense for these things.

But
your oh-look-at-me, I’m-a-bad-boy act isn’t — it’s
not
dangerous.
Not the way I was dangerous. It’s safe and commodified and
pre-packaged.