Teeth: Vampire Tales

was going to ice him.”

“Relax,” she said, and brought her hand up to lightly trace, with the nail of her index finger, an invisible design on his forehead. Luke felt the tension leave his muscles. His eyes closed, and a moment later he was asleep. When he woke with the sunlight in his face, Darene was gone, as was the Mercedes.

Luke played sick on Monday and Tuesday and stayed home from school. He spent those days on the computer going randomly from one site to another or playing Need for Speed. The implications of the gritchino made him dizzy. He wanted to call Darene, at least text her, but when he reached for his phone, the memory of her flying upside down and striking that nail into Gracie’s skull made her even more a mystery to him than the wind of eternity.

When he did return to school Wednesday, he found out that Darene hadn’t been to class that week either. He looked for her at all the times and places they’d usually meet on a school day and asked around for her. By fifth period, he knew she wasn’t there. He cut his seventh-period class and slipped out the side door of the gym. On the path through the woods, he smoked a joint. A half hour later, he stood in front of Darene’s house.

The windows had been stripped of their curtains, and the whole place was sunk in that eerie stillness of the vacant. There was a FOR SALE sign in the ground next to the driveway. “She’s gone,” he said aloud, realizing he wasn’t sure if it was for the best or worst.

Two nights later, Luke was awakened from a nightmare of the church by a light nudging at his shoulder. “Shh,” whispered a voice. At first he thought it was his mother who’d heard him crying out from his dream. He turned to see her, but instead saw a ghastly visage illuminated from beneath and appearing to be floating in the dark. Luke gasped, then groaned, backing up against the headboard.

“Fashtulina,” said the voice. The figure moved, and the glow that had lit the face revealed itself to be a flashlight.

“Uncle Sfortunado?” said Luke.

“Who else?”

“What do you want?” asked Luke, turning on the lamp next to his bed.

The old man came into view, wearing a long black coat and a beret. “Surprised to see me, gaduche?” he said, turning off the flashlight and putting it into his coat pocket.

“How’s your leg?” asked Luke, trying to swallow.

“The wasp makes the eye cry out,” said the old man with a sigh. “That Gracie, she could bite.”

“What are you doing here? Where’s Darene?”

“I’m here to give you this. ” Sfortunado reached his gloved hand into the breast pocket of the coat and brought out a thick roll of cash circled by a red rubber band. “Three thousand,” he said, and dropped the money onto the top of the nearby dresser.

“You’re giving me three thousand dollars?” said Luke.

“Your cut of the diamond.”

“That was real?”

“What I say?” He smiled.

“And Darene?”

“They were called back to the old country for their shame.”

“Shame for what?”

“They didn’t do it. I told them they should, but my nephew loves his uncle.”

“You’ve got the gritchino in you now, don’t you? After Gracie bit you, you got it in you,” said Luke.

Sfortunado shambled over and sat on the edge of the bed.

“Are you going to eat my kidney?” asked Luke, pulling his legs away from the old man.

“Not tonight,” said Sfortunado. “I came to ask you to please, now, put a brass nail into my head.” He put his thumb to the spot above the bridge of his nose. “Darene and her father could not, and now they have been banished from here. I couldn’t go back with them because I have the gritchino in me. Until I die, I’m almost the same old Sfortunado, but after that I will be as Gracie was.”

Luke listened and shook his head. “Forget it,” he said.

Sfortunado reached into the pockets of the long coat and brought out a mallet and a long brass nail. “You see,” said the old man, “there are no Cabadula here anymore. When I come from the coffin, there will be no one to stop me. I will feast on many. This will happen.”

“No way,” said Luke.

“When vanquished by the nail, like gritchino, I will evaporate. And then I am gone and Darene and her family can return. You miss the girl, gaduche, I know,” he said, and reached the mallet and nail toward Luke.

“No!” yelled Luke.

Sfortunado stood up. “Do it,” he growled. When his lip trembled, the sharp tips of his canines were visible. He took a step toward Luke, but from down the hallway outside the bedroom door there came the sound of footsteps on the stairs. The old man’s head turned, like a bird’s, listening.

“My parents are coming,” said Luke.

“Turn off the light,” said Sfortunado.

The instant the dark came on, Luke knew he shouldn’t have followed the order.

“Think about it, gaduche. When you are ready, turn on your phone and whisper my name three times. I will come with the mallet and nail.”

The doorknob turned.

Sfortunado stepped back, and his silhouette melted into the dark. Then the door opened, the lights came on, and Luke’s parents were there, but the old man had vanished.

“We heard voices and then you yelling, ‘No,’” said his father.

“Where’d this money come from?” asked his mother.

Luke couldn’t answer. He turned on his side, curled up in a ball, and pulled the blanket over his head.

Sunbleached by NATHAN BALLINGRUD

“We’re God’s beautiful creatures,” the vampire said, something like joy leaking into its voice for the first time since it had crawled under this house four days ago. “We’re the pinnacle of his art. If you believe in that kind of thing, anyway. That’s why the night is our time. He hangs jewels in the sky for us. People, they think we’re at some kinda disadvantage because we can’t go out in the sunlight. But who needs it. The day is small and cramped. You got your one lousy star.”

“You believe in God?” Joshua asked. The crawl space beneath his house was close and hot; his body was coated in a dense sheen of sweat. A cockroach crawled over his fingers, and he jerked his hand away. Late summer pressed onto this small Mississippi coastal town like the heel of a boot. The heat was an act of violence.

“I was raised Baptist. My thoughts on the matter are complicated.”

The crawl space was contained partially by sheets of aluminum siding and partially by decaying wooden latticework. It was by this latter that Joshua crouched, hiding in the hot spears of sunlight that intruded into the shadows and made a protective cage around him.

“That’s why it’s so easy for us to seduce. God loves us, so the world does too. Seduction is your weapon, kid. You’re what — fifteen? You think seduction is pumping like a jack-rabbit in your momma’s car. You don’t know anything. But you will, soon enough.”

The vampire moved in the shadows, and abruptly the stink of burned flesh and spoiled meat greased the air. It had opened a wound in itself, moving. Joshua knew that it tried to stay still as much as it could, to facilitate the healing, but the slowly shifting angles of the sunbeams made that impossible. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out a shape, but it was useless. He could sense it back there, though — a dark, fluttering presence. Something made of wings.

“Invite me in,” it said.