The Twilight of Lake Woebegotten (21 page)

Suddenly there was a brutally sharp
crack
, and the plexiglass barrier in front of me developed a starburst of cracks like a spiderweb made of ice. I involuntarily jumped back and almost dropped the binoculars, then lifted them to my face again, where I could see Rosemarie and Edwin screaming at each other. I couldn’t hear their words, but I could guess:
How dare you try to kill my girlfriend with a hockey puck!
vs.
It was just an accident, gawd, give it a rest!

But I had no doubt she’d aimed the puck my way. Maybe not to take my head off, but definitely to scare me. Creatures with that kind of power and control don’t make mistakes, not with the simple physical manipulation of a curved stick and a hard disc. This was a message: go away, little girl, or it might be your face that gets shattered next.

Poor Rosemarie. She had no idea what I was. She was so aware of her own monstrous qualities, it never occurred to her that I might have some monster tricks of my own.

Suddenly, the vampires stopped yelling at each other. They all stood very still, and then turned, as if all their feet were attached to the same swiveling mechanism, to look at the woods. I stepped hesitantly out of the gazebo, squinting toward the treeline, cursing my stupid mortal eyes, or nose, or whatever they were using to sense whatever it was I couldn’t perceive at all. I walked almost all the way to the edge of the pond before I saw what they did, and by then, you couldn’t miss it.

Three figures stepped out of the woods. There was a blur, and Edwin was suddenly next to me. “Stay close to me,” he said through clenched teeth. Hermet drifted over—what? icebergs can drift—and stood between us and the newcomers.

“Are these our out-of-towners?” I said.

“Yes. We didn’t expect them to approach so soon.”

“So are you guys going to have a brawl?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so. It should be perfectly polite. There’s nothing we want or need from one another, but it’s… good manners to introduce ourselves, reveal that we mean each other no harm, that we aren’t encroaching intentionally on another’s territory, etc. I know it’s hard for you, but just… be mouselike and quiet, please?”

“Consider me the incredible shrinking violet.” I crossed my arms, watching the vampires slowly approach one another. The newcomers looked like, well, dirty hippies, or more like if two male models and a high-class hooker decided to give up their fame and fortune and go hike the Appalachian trail in clothes they stole off some hobos. They were carrying big packs, which seemed a little strange to me. What did a traveling vampire really
need
? They wouldn’t carry food, they clearly weren’t too concerned about clothes, and I couldn’t imagine the elements bothered them much. Were the backpacks full of opera cloaks and big gold medallions?

The man in front was blond, sharp-featured, with eyes that never stopped moving. The other man was shorter, sturdier, with great ropelike dreadlocks and tattooed arms. The woman was lusher than either Rosemarie or Pleasance—
full like a tick
, I thought—all curves and bosoms and torrents of wavy, long, dark hair, which would have been unbearably pretty, except for the leaves stuck in it.

Argyle stepped toward them. “Greetings,” he said.

“We didn’t meant to interrupt your game,” the leader said. “I’m Jimmy. Hockey, is it? Shame we didn’t bring our skates.”

“Perhaps we can loan you some,” Argyle said. “Another time. Do you expect to be in the area for long?”

“No, no, just traveling. Yourselves?”

“We maintain a… permanent residence nearby,” he said. “This is my family.”

Jimmy glanced at the other man. “You…
live
around here? Doesn’t the local population, ah, notice the depletion?”

“We have… a different method,” Argyle said. “We—” He squinted. “Wait,” he said. “Is that…
Gretchen
?”

“I wondered when you’d notice,” the woman said, grinning. “Stop trying to hide behind your enormous brother, Edwin, and say hello.”

He groaned. “This is all I needed. Why did it have to be
her
?”

“You know these people?” Jimmy said, at more or less the same time I did.

“They’re the
vegetarians
I told you about,” Gretchen said.

Jimmy laughed. “Queequeg! Did you hear that? These are the ones who eat dogs and cats and so on!”

“I don’t know how people can eat that stuff,” Queequeg said, in a stoner’s loopy drawl. “Sounds nasty.”

Gretchen walked toward Edwin—and me, though she didn’t pay me any attention. She grabbed Edwin in a hug. “You little bastard,” she said. “I didn’t realize you’d rejoined your brood and settled down here.”

“We’ve only been here a couple of years,” he muttered, looking away.

Now Gretchen looked me up and down, frankly. “We’ve got a live one over here, boys!” she shouted. She reached out, as if to caress my cheek, but Edwin grabbed her wrist and held it still. They stood like that, two figures in perfect, still tension, and then she relaxed. “Oh, Edwin, you never change. Still kinky for the live girls.” She looked at me. “You’re not the first, sweetie, and you won’t be the last.”

All the blood drained from my face—another problem I wouldn’t have once I became a vampire. “What is she talking about, Edwin?”

He opened his mouth, then just closed it and shook his head.

“I don’t know you,” Gretchen said, “but I don’t have to. Because I used to
be
you. Edwin used to date me, you see—back when I was alive.”

EVERYONE HAS A CRAZY EX

FROM THE JOURNAL OF BONNIE GRAYDUCK

G
retchen kept smiling. “He promised me eternity, Edwin did. But he only likes his women with heartbeats. As soon as I got myself turned, so I could be with him forever and ever and always, well, he lost interest. I guess I didn’t smell so nice anymore.”

“Don’t listen to her, Bonnie,” Edwin said. “It’s not like she says. Gretchen, I think you and your… entourage… should leave.”

“Oh, we’ll leave,” she said. “It’s not as if I hold a
grudge
after all this time.”

Argyle cleared his throat. “Ah. I suppose you three have some things to talk about. Jimmy, and, Queequeg, is it? If you’d like to come over to the house, perhaps take a shower, change your clothes?”

“You mind, love?” Jimmy said. “I’ve still got bits of that old man we ate stuck in my hair, be nice to have a shampoo.”

“Not at all,” Gretchen said. “I’ve been looking forward to having a chat with Edwin for ages, as you well know, and the opportunity to provide a cautionary tale for his latest living lover is a special treat.”

“I can’t believe this,” I said as the others moved off. I walked over to the gazebo, thinking furiously, and sat down on the bench. Edwin came after me, and Gretchen sauntered along after that, smirking like only an immortal killing machine with boobs that were simultaneously big and perky could smirk. “Edwin… you told me you were a
virgin!
” I couldn’t believe he’d lied. Edwin’s various depths of pathos and bathos and other -
thoses
were evident, but I’d never gotten the sense he was a liar, and I’m usually good at spotting those. If he was playing with me, just using me to gratify some kind of live-girl fetish he had, like some kind of reverse necrophiliac… then I’d bury a stake in his heart myself.

“Well, that may be true.” Gretchen plopped down on a bench across from me, her back to the plexiglass barrier. “I mean, I gave him a couple of hand jobs, but we’d been seeing each other for like six months before he dared to risk orgasm.” She rolled her eyes. “And he never returned the favor for fear of getting overly excited and tearing me apart with his ferocious teeth, yadda yadda.”

“You said I was the first girl you’d ever loved,” I seethed, not looking at her, staring at Edwin.

“You
are
!” he said. Then glanced at Gretchen. “I was… infatuated with her. Confused. She had a nice smell, I confess, but when she became a vampire, I realized her personality was a terrible match for mine—abrasive, contrary, crass, coarse—”

“Stop, you’re making me blush,” Gretchen said.

“Did you turn her?” I asked. I didn’t actually care if he
had
fucked her. It would’ve been nice for him to have a little experience before we slept together—screwing a virgin is like eating a green banana. But… “Did you make her a vampire?”

“He never would,” she said. “I had to get another vampire to do it, and he made me an indentured servant for ten years as payment. I just got out of that contract recently. But if you’re hoping Edwin will punch your mortal-card, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Would a guy who’s got a thing for pre-op transsexuals pay for his lover to get bottom surgery? Of course not. Face it, sweetie, you’re just something for him to wank over. If he had a shoe fetish, you’d be a red high-heeled pump. You—”

“Shut
up,
Gretchen,” Edwin said, narrowing his eyes at her. “The love I feel for Bonnie is
deep
and
pure
and
true
, and my family likes her, unlike
you
. They always hated you. Said I was just dazzled by your breasts.”

She pulled the neck of her flannel shirt away and looked down at her chest. “They are pretty dazzling.”

“But Edwin,” I said, “you told me yourself, what attracted you was my
smell
. If I did become a vampire, and I didn’t have that smell anymore… why would you still want me?” I hadn’t considered this possibility. I’d assumed we’d be together forever once I managed to get myself turned (by Edwin or someone else), but now Gretchen had raised doubts.

“No,” he said, firmly, taking my hand and gazing into my eyes. “It’s not that. Yes, I was initially attracted by your delectable odor, but I didn’t
eat
you, did I? It’s like, if a mortal man sees a woman across the room, the thing that first attracts him might be her hair, her beautiful eyes, her—”

“Tits and ass,” Gretchen said, in a helpful tone.

“—other physical attributes,” Edwin said. “But that’s not enough to create
love
. That comes later. And even if the looks fade, when the woman, ah—”

“Gets in a disfiguring car wreck?” Gretchen said.

“—passes beyond the blush of youth,” Edwin continued, “then that love doesn’t fade, as it has transcended the merely physical. Once I got to know you, started spending time with you, found out how funny and sharp and smart and witty and brave you are,
that’s
when I fell in love. And that’s where I still am. In love, with you, Bonnie Grayduck, until the stars grow cold and the universe breathes its last.”

“Huh,” Gretchen said. “You know, Bonnie, I kind of believe him.”

That startled me. “
Really
?”

“Yep. I don’t have lie-detection powers—my abilities are if anything kind of the
opposite
of that—but I mooned around after him for the best part of a year, and I know him pretty well. He’s radiating sincerity, and he’s not staring at your boobs, which was all he ever did to me—back then I was dumb enough to find that flattering. So, yeah, I think he really loves you. Which kind of spoils my plan, which was to turn you into a vampire, and show you what an asshole he is. But now I’m afraid, if I do that, you two really
will
ride off into the sunset—or the heat death of the universe, same difference—together.”

God. Damn. It.
If Edwin had sounded just a
bit
less sincere, I could have gotten myself turned into a vampire! Yes, it would have been disappointing if Edwin lost interest in me, but I’d take consolation in the fact that I was
immortal and full of supernatural power
. The joy of being a vampire would do a lot more for a broken heart than a pint of Häagen-Dazs and a Sarah McLachlan playlist ever could.

“So I guess I need a new plan.” Gretchen gave a big sunny grin and stood up. “Be seeing you around, Bonnie. Take care of yourself, Edwin. I’m going to go get a shower, and then, if your little vegetarian cult hasn’t successfully brainwashed my boys into eating tofu soaked in hamster blood, we’ll all be on our way.”

Edwin frowned. “Gretchen. Are you… angry with me?”

“Ten years,” she said, pausing in the entryway to the gazebo. “That’s how long I had to be indentured to the vamp who turned me, because
you
wouldn’t. I didn’t think it would be so bad—what’s ten years when you measure it against an eternity with the person you love? I was so happy when I told you—my master let me have two weeks to spend with you before my service began, do you remember? I thought
you’d
be so happy. But you just told me you were disappointed in me, that I’d made a terrible mistake, and after three days you told me maybe we’d better go our separate ways. So I went back to my master and began to repay him… I had no idea how terrible those ten years would be, Edwin. The things I’d be made to do. To witness. To allow to be done to
me
. It wasn’t worth it. Even if you
had
loved me, embraced me, made me part of your ridiculous granola family, it wouldn’t have been worth it. And since I didn’t even get the consolation of having the boy I loved love me
back
…” She shook her head. “I’m not angry. Angry’s not the right word. Calling me angry is like calling the sun a little warm, a glacier a little chilly, the moon a good little ways away. I’ll be seeing you, Edwin. But you might not see me.” Another grin, this one a quick flicker, like a striking snake or one of those fish who shoot bugs out of the air with their spit. Then she sauntered off.

“Fuck,” I said.

“Fuck,” Edwin agreed.

“She’s going to kill me, isn’t she?” I said.

“That would be my guess,” Edwin said. Then he scooped me up in his arms and began running towards the woods at, I’d conservatively guess, about sixty miles per hour.

The trip wasn’t exactly pleasant. Even with my face buried in Edwin’s chest, the force of the wind pressing against me as he ran was tremendous, and I thought my hair would be ripped out by sheer velocity alone. He stopped running so abruptly that I jerked whiplash-hard against his immovable grasp, and as he turned his head and spat out bugs and leaves and other crap that had blown into his mouth while running, I confess, I found him somewhat less attractive than usual. He put me down gently, and I wobbled on my feet, feeling truly clumsy for once. We were in the woods—shocker—alongside another rutted dirt road. A mud-colored old SUV came bumping and thumping along, and I tensed up, but Edwin raised his hand, waving.