The Collection

as he shoves it in and begins thrusting.

I scream for him to stop it, that it hurts, not even pre­tending to enjoy it this time, but that seems to satisfy him and I know that he thinks he is recycling his negative emo­tions by imparting them to me.

When he is finished, he hits my face until I am bloody and then leaves the room.

Shari approaches me after he is gone. She stares at me with wide eyes and white face, frightened by what she has seen, and I try to smile at her but it hurts too much.

'Father hurled you,' she says. She frowns, thinking for a moment, and she hunkers down next to me. 'Is he a vam­pire?' she whispers.

'Yes,' I say. 'He's a vampire.' I don't know why I'm saying this, I don't know what thought process made Shari even think of it, but it sounds good to me.

Her eyes get even bigger. 'Then we better kill him,' she says.

Kill him.

I smile at her and I force myself to sit up. 'Yes,' I say nodding at her, wiping the blood from my nose and mouth, 'We better kill him.'

I make a stake from a recycled piece of broken broomhandle that I find in the tool cupboard next to the wash-bucket. Father has been saving that piece of broom handle for some time now, knowing that it has an untapped usage but not knowing what that usage is.

I have found a use for it, and I feel good as I stand next;' to The Pets' habitat and sharpen the end of the stick.

We kill him while he is sleeping. Shari asks why he sleeps at night if he is a vampire, but I tell her that he is doing it to fool us and she believes me.

Because I am stronger, I hold the pillow over his face while Shari drives the stake through his heart. There is more blood than I expected. A lot more. It spurts everywhere as he screams and his arms and legs thrash wildly around. Both Shari and I are covered with it, but we've both seen blood before, and I think to myself that it's not as bad as seeing my own.

I continue holding the pillow until he is still, until he has stopped moving, until the blood has stopped pumping.

He is smaller in death, and he suddenly looks harmless to me. I remember all of the good things he's done and all of the fun we've had together and I think maybe we made a mistake.

Shari blinks slowly, staring at the stake. 'He really was a vampire, wasn't he?'

I nod.

'What we do now?'

I tell her to take our clothes and the sheets and the pillow­cases and wash them in the plant water. We strip and roll up the linens. Naked, I drag Father's body into the processing portion of the garage.

I place the biodegradable bags next to the butcher block, and as I take the knife from the drawer, I plan out where and what I'm going to cut, what I'm going to do with his skin, his blood, his hair. I try to think of the best way to utilize his bones.

Old habits die hard.

 Bob

There don't seem to be many traveling salesmen any­more. The Avon Lady and the Fuller Brush Man be­long to an older generation, a different time. But a couple of years ago, a traveling salesman actually came to my door. Only I didn't know he was a sales­man. He was delivering an order for a customer on the next street over and had accidentally gone to the wrong house. I thought he was giving me free stuff. It took several minutes to straighten out the mix-up, and by the time I finally closed the door, I had the idea for 'Bob.'

'I'm so glad we found you at home!'

The aggressively overweight woman standing on his doorstep shifted a small black purse from her right hand to her left and fixed Brandon with an exuberant smile. He was still holding on to the half-opened door, but she grabbed his free hand and shook it. 'I'm Ida Kimball.'

'I'm sorry-' he started to say.

'These are all friends of Libby's.' Ida motioned toward the group of women behind her. They smiled at him encour­agingly.

Adjusting the small matronly hat on her head, Ida leaned forward, lowered her voice. 'May I use your rest room?' she asked.

He was about to direct her to the Shell station over on Lincoln, but he saw the look of almost desperate pleading in her eyes. 'Uh ... sure.' Brandon opened the door wider, stepped awkwardly aside.

Ida fixed him with another blinding smile as she pushed, past him. 'Thank you so much.'

'Make yourselves at home, girls!' she called out to the women behind her. 'I'm sure Bob won't mind. I'll be back in a jiffy!'

Bob?

'My name's Brandon,' he said, but Ida was already strid­ing through the living room, headed for the hallway. 'First door on the left!' he told her. She waved a wiggling-fingered hand in acknowledgment.

'There's been some mistake,' he said to the other women filing past him.

A thin older lady smiled, nodded. 'Of course,' she said.

'I don't know who you think I am-'

'It's okay. We're all good friends of Libby's.'

'I don't know Libby.'

'Of course not,' the old lady said.

He counted them as they walked past him into his living room. There were six of them altogether, seven including Ida. He stood there numbly, feeling strangely disassociated from what was happening. It was as though he was watching what was going on, viewing it from a distance as he would a movie or an event happening to someone else.

He didn't want to close the door, wanted to make it clear that there had been some mistake and that after Ida finished going to the bathroom they would have to leave, but it was hot outside, humid, and he didn't want to let flies in, so he closed the door and walked into the living room.

Two women, the older lady with whom he'd spoken and a mousy-looking woman with pinkish cat glasses, were snooping around his bookcase, trying to read the titles on the shelves. The others had all sat down on either the couch or the love seat and were quietly, politely, patiently waiting.

There was a roar of water and a rattle of pipes from under­neath the house as the toilet flushed, and a few seconds later, Ida emerged into the living room.

She didn't wash her hands, he thought, and for some rea­son that made him suddenly much more eager to get her out of his house.

'Well, Bob-' Ida began.

'My name's not Bob,' he interrupted. 'It's Brandon.'

'Why, of course it is. But the reason we dropped by today is because of Libby-'

'I don't know Libby.'

'Of course you don't. But Libby is -how shall we say it?-going through some tough times. She hasn't exactly been herself, as you might imagine, and, well, we just wanted to meet you first. You know how it is. We just wanted to make sure she was doing the right thing, that she wasn't mak­ing a big mistake.' She looked around the room, blinked, brightened. 'I'm sorry! I forgot to introduce everybody! Where are my manners?'

'That's okay. I think-'

'Girls!' Ida said. 'Best faces forward!'

The women straightened and smiled, facing him, acting in unison as though they were in some suburban version of the military and Ida their commanding officer.

'This is Shirley,' Ida said, motioning toward the mousy woman with cat glasses still standing next to the bookcase.

'Pleased to meet you,' Shirley said, offering an awkward f curtsy.

'That's Francine next to her.'