The Vampiric Housewife (19 page)

    
It was a middle aged human. He wore khaki shorts that revealed hairy legs and a white polo over a protruding belly. His face was sun burnt, except from where he had been wearing sunglasses, and deeply lined. He smiled at her. “Car trouble?” he asked. “No cell phone?”

    
She smiled nervously and shook her head. “It-it just stalled.”

    
“I’m not very good with cars. But I can give it a look. If all else fails, I can let you use my phone or give you a lift to the next exit.”

    
“That’s very nice of you.” The guilt was already swirling inside her. She couldn’t murder this man. He was a good Samaritan. How could she trade his life for her husband’s?

    
“You want to pop the hood for me?”

    
She nodded and opened the car door. Her children’s eyes peaked from behind the blanket. She closed her eyes and pictured the last human she killed, the man she stripped naked in her kitchen. She visualized his hairy chest, his flabby stomach, his flaccid penis. She had scrubbed him top to bottom as if she was abrading a dirty pot. She dressed him as she once had dressed her children when they were small and locked him up in her pantry like . . . some inanimate object. She had done nothing more that night than prepare dinner like she had a hundred times before. This would be no different. Charlie was right. Vampires were on the top of the food chain. God had designed them to be nourished by blood. It would be no different than slaughtering a cow. She popped the hood and came back out.

    
“Engine’s cold. How long have you been stranded?” he asked as he checked valves and belts and such.

    
“You were the first person kind enough to stop.”

    
“That’s the world we live in,” he said. “It’s sad. I’m James—“ He turned towards her extending his hand, and she attacked. Her teeth sunk into his neck. She could smell the sun charred skin, his aftershave, the air conditioning from his car. His blood ran hot and thick down her throat. He didn’t put up much of a fight, but he jerked and twitched in a way she wasn’t accustomed to. Soon as she felt him go limp, she released him.

    
“John!” she called out slamming the hood shut. Her son quickly appeared. “Help me.”

    
Together they moved the man to the back of the van and heaved him in.

    
Amelia stared aghast at the human. She stared at her mother—not with the same judgment she held for her father, but bewilderment. Valerie just looked back at her defensively until she had to turn her attention to the situation on hand.

    
“Mom, that was cool!” Harry told her. She ignored him.

    
“Charlie, we’ve got blood.” She pulled the blanket back then using her teeth opened the human’s wrist and held it over Charlie’s mouth. He suckled it with a hunger she had never seen in him before. His lips flaked away but there was raw flesh beneath them.

    
“Can I have some?” Harry asked enviously.

    
Again, Valerie ignored him. They would have to do something about the body. There wasn’t a bloodman to pick the corpse up from the curb. She looked out the window. There was a cow pasture next to the highway. As Charlie finished, Valerie started going through his pockets. She found his keys and a wallet. A hundred bucks in cash, a credit card, license. James Peterson. Forty-three. Organ donor. He wanted his death to help others. She could take solace in that.
I am so sorry James,
she silently said before pocketing the cash.

    
Charlie flung the arm aside. His lips and eyes were healing but still raw. He no longer screamed in torment; he was simply weak.

    
“John, Amelia, I need you to take the body out to the middle of that field.”

    
“No,” Amelia said in a panicky voice. She had never told her mother no before.

    
“You’ve taken bodies to the curb for me before. This is no different.”

    
“This man stopped to
help
us. It is different!”

    
“Did you want your father to die? This thing is human. We are vampires. We drink human blood,” she said firmly. “Do as you’re told.” She pulled the blanket-curtain aside and looked at James Peterson’s car. A SUV. That would fit them. “Harry, you’re going to help me move everything to its car. Then you’ll help me move your father.”

    
Harry was sniffing the human. There was no blood left to taste or else Harry would have stolen a bite. “Okay,” he said easily.

    
They went to work. With relative easy the two teenagers moved the body to the field. She prayed no other motorist noticed them. Harry and Valerie moved their few possessions to the SUV which was much nicer than the van with its clean interior and leather seats. They found some human food in the console, CD’s in the glove box. In the back there was a tool box and golf clubs. Valerie decided to keep the tool box and had Harry dump the golf clubs in the field. He came back carrying a putter, swinging it about like a toy. She let him kept it even though the sight of it disgusted her.

    
With her and Harry on either side of Charlie, they were able to move him to the SUV and place him in the back row of seats. He made very few sounds, his eyes remained closed, but he seemed to be getting better before their very eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    
“This is wrong,” Amelia said carrying the man’s sandaled feet.

    
“What was Mom suppose to do? Let Dad die? Is that what you would have done?” John snarled. He had just about had enough of Amelia’s human sob story. So what if humans weren’t what they thought? They were still food. He was going to strangle his sister if he had to hear one more thing about those dirty homosapiens. Or his little brother if he had to hear him whine about being hungry or bored. Or his mother if he had to listen to her attack Charlie one more time. All he wanted was a moment alone. A moment to mourn all that he had lost, his old life, his friends, Lisa. He could never go back. After Drew and Mr. Miller attacked them in the motel room, he surrendered to that idea. His premonition on Lisa’s porch was true, he would never see her again. He was a man. He could handle that. But he still needed a moment to get his head around it. And around the new world he saw. Yeah, the cars were cool. The TV was weird. The girls were cute and easy—and human. The music was god awful. His best friend was trying to kill him. His sister seemed to have super strength, his little brother a killer instinct, and what did he have? Nothing. There was nothing special about him in this real world. He was special in his old world. He was a star athlete. He was dating the head cheerleader. He was popular. Now he was nothing. So no, he did not want to listen to everyone around him complain, and he really did not care about the plight of humans.

    
He was particularly pissed at his mother. Charlie had saved them. He had gotten them out of Sangre Valley. He had shown up at the motel and rescued them. Why couldn’t she just lay off of him? He was exposing himself to sunlight for their protection. What more did she want from him? And here Amelia was complaining that Valerie killed a human to save their father’s life just because the human was
nice.

    
“Oh fuck!” he swore. He just stepped in cow manure.

    
“John!”

    
He glared at her.

    
They found a pond in the field a good distance from the highway. Cows herded around it. They released low toned moos and stared at the kids.

    
“Set him down for a minute. He’s heavy,” John said. “We’ll just roll him in.”

    
As they dropped him, John noticed a cell phone fall out of a side pocket. He looked at his sister. She didn’t notice. He quickly pocketed it himself. He couldn’t go back to Sangre Valley, but maybe he could call Lisa just to let her know that he was okay and to say goodbye.

    
They rolled the body into the water. The man bobbed face down a couple of times then just floated at the surface.

    
“I’ll clean your shoes off for you,” Amelia offered timidly.

    
She wanted to make peace. He took off his shoe and gave it to her. With a leaf and a stick she squatted down by the water and began to clean it off.

    
“I’m sorry,” he said not sounding at all as if he was truly sorry. He was sorry but he wasn’t. “It’s just . . .”

    
“I know. Our old life was a lie. And our new life is . . . this,” she said looking around. At that moment a cow mooed at them breaking the tension. Both broke into a fit of giggles.

    
“Do you think Dad will be okay?” he asked

    
“Yeah. His flesh was coming back as he drank,” she said. She bit her lip. “It really doesn’t bother you? Humans being a lot like us?”

    
“Jesus Christ, Aims, if you start with the human bullshit again, I’m never speaking to you again.”

    
“Okay.” She handed him back his clean shoe.

    
“It’s soaking wet!” he said as he slid his foot in with a squish.

    
She smiled. “At least it’s not covered in shit.”

Chapter Seventeen

Don’t Play with Your Food

    
Valerie drove as her husband recovered in the back. Harry kept his mom company in the front seat as he pawed through James Peterson’s wallet. Harry could still smell the man’s scent on it. His whole car reeked of him. But also of a woman and two children. He saw a picture of them in the man’s wallet. The wife was blonde and fat and wore too much makeup. She didn’t look anything like the humans on TV. The kids were a little bit younger than him. Two fat boys, little piggies. Their names were on the back of the pictures, Jason age eight and Sam age ten. He looked at the address on the driver’s license. The SUV had GPS, he could drive to their house in the middle of the night. He could break in through a window and creep upstairs where they would be sound asleep in their beds. He’d do the mom first. He would wake her up before he killed her. After the woman in the Blood Market, he wanted his humans to see him, to realize exactly what he was doing to them when he fed. And he wanted to see the terror in their eyes. That was almost as delicious as the blood. So he would wake her up but bite her before she could scream. She was so fat, she’d have to have a lot of blood in her. He’d gorge himself. But he’d save room for her two little piggies. Harry didn’t really believe there was such a thing as too much blood. He would wake the boys up. Maybe they’d want to play with him. But Mom always told him not to play with his food. He would drain the oldest first, Sam, while the youngest watched. Then he would drain the other. It would be a blood feast. So much blood he could swim in it if he wanted. Harry found himself smiling at the pictures playing in his head.

    
“What are you doing?” his mother demanded and snatched the wallet from his hands. “Leave that alone.” She tossed it out her window.

    
She always had to ruin his fun.

    
It was nearing six a.m. They needed to find refuge. It would do them all a world of good to spend a day outside of a vehicle, bathe, get at least a little bit of space from each other. Besides, they were here; it was New York City with its scrapers and bright lights.

    
She pulled off at a random exit and found a motel that looked cheap. She parked and turned around in her seat. “How’s he doing?”

    
“He’s doing fine,” Charlie answered back in a weak but cheerful voice.

    
Relief spread through her chest. It was as if a vice had been released and she could once again breathe. “I’m going to rent us a room. I’ll be right back.”