enough to touch. And I grabbed him and I tore out his throat and I ate him.
I was capable of that. I had done that.
I sat for a long time, stunned, not knowing what to think. The words that the man had whispered when he found me were, “Oh my God, it’s her. Please let her be alive.” That was what he said just before I killed him.
I put my head down on the table. The man had known me. He had cared about me. Perhaps I had had a relationship with him like the one I was developing with Wright. I must have had such relationships with someone—several someones.
How could I have killed such a person?
I couldn’t kill Wright. Could I? I’d been with him for only one night, and yet there was a bond between us. But I had not recognized the other man. I couldn’t see his face—had no memory of ever seeing his face—but his scent should have told me what he was. How was it that he had smelled only like food to me and not like a person at all?
I heard Wright wake up. Heard his breathing change. After a moment, he got up and came over to me. The room was dim but not dark. There was a window in the kitchen area where the moonlight shone in.
“What’s going on?” he asked. He put his hands on my shoulders and rubbed me pleasantly. I sat up. “I’ve been trying to remember things,” I said.
“Any luck?”
“Pain, hunger, bad things. Nothing from before I woke up hurt and blind in the cave.” I couldn’t tell him about the man I’d killed. How could I ever tell him about a thing like that?
“Give it time,” he said. “You’ll get it back. If you’d see a doctor—” “No! No hospital. No doctor.”
“Why?”
“Why?” I stood up, turning to face him. He stepped back, startled, and I realized I had moved too quickly—faster than he expected me to move. No matter. It helped me make my point. “Wright, I don’t know what I am, but I’m not like you. I think maybe . . . maybe I look a lot more human than I am. I don’t want to draw attention to myself, maybe have people try to lock me up because they’re afraid of me.”
“For Godsake, girl, no one’s going to lock you up.”
“No? I look like a child. I might be locked up for my own safety even if they weren’t afraid of my differences. You thought I was a child.”
He grinned. “I don’t any more.” Then he hugged himself, hands rubbing his furry forearms a little.
I realized that he had gotten cold standing naked in the unheated room while he talked with me. “Come back to bed and get warm,” I said.
He got back into bed, pulling me against him as I slid in beside him. “Can you get information for me?” I asked.
“Information?”
“About memory and not being able to remember things.” “Amnesia,” he said, and just like that, the word was familiar to me.
“Amnesia, yes. And about vampires,” I said. “Most of what you told me ... I don’t think it has anything to do with me. But I do need blood. Maybe there are bits of truth mixed into the movies and folktales.”
“I’d like to know how old you are,” he said.
“When I know, I’ll tell you. But, Wright, don’t tell anyone about me. Don’t tell your friends or your family or anyone.”
“You know I wouldn’t. I’m more likely to get into trouble than you are if anyone found out about you.” “I think your trouble would be shorter-lived than mine,” I said.
“I won’t say a word.”
After a while, I thought of something else. “There was a fire, Wright. Some houses surrounded by farmland and woods. Eight houses not far from where you picked me up. Do you remember hearing about it?”
He shook his head. “Sounds big, but no, I don’t remember hearing anything about it. Do you know when
the fire happened?”
“No. I found the ruin when I was able to get up and walk around. There weren’t any bodies or bones or anything. It was just a burned-out ruin.”
“How close is it to where I picked you up?”
“I don’t know. I had been wandering away from it since just after sun-down when I met you. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular. I was feeling frustrated. I’d been hunting, eating, sleeping, and going over the ruin for three days, not even knowing what I was looking for.” I shook my head against the pillow. “I believe I could find the place because I’ve been there. It seems that I have a very good memory for the little I’ve done and sensed in the past few days.”
“Maybe this weekend you could show me the ruin.” “All right.”
“Meanwhile, it’s almost time for me to get up and get ready for work.” “It’s not dawn yet.”
“Yeah, how about that? But before I go, I’m going to show you how to use my computer. Do you remember computers?”
I frowned, then nodded. “I remember what they are. Like refrigerators. But I don’t think I know how to use one.”
“Like refrigerators?”
“I mean, sometimes when you say something or I see something—like when I saw your refrigerator—I
know what it is, what it’s for, but I don’t remember how I know or if I’ve ever had one.”
“Okay. Let’s get you online, and you can gather some information yourself.” We got up again, and he put on a white terry-cloth robe and put one of his vast plaid shirts on me. I wasn’t cold, but I didn’t mind.
His computer was a slender laptop that he took from the back of the black bookcase where I had not noticed it. He opened it on his kitchen counter where there was an electrical outlet and a phone jack. He turned it on, making sure I saw everything he did and what he typed in to get online. Then he shut everything down and made me do it. It all felt vaguely familiar to me. I was comfortable with it. When I’d gone through the process, he was happy.
“I don’t use the thing much anymore,” he said. “I thought for a moment I’d forgotten my password.”
It occurred to me just then that his memory would improve. I managed not to say it, but, yes, his memory should improve because I was with him, because now and then, I would bite him, injecting whatever I injected into people when I bit them. I didn’t say anything about it because I didn’t want him to ask me questions I couldn’t answer—like what other changes might be in store for him.
“I’m going to stop by the library on my way home,” he said. “I’ll see what I can find for you about vampires and amnesia. Maybe I can even scare up something on your fire.”
“Thank you.”
He grinned. “We aim to please.” He went off to take a shower and get dressed.
By the time he came out, clean and shaved, dressed in blue jeans and a red plaid shirt like the one I had
on, I had already looked through a huge amount of nonsense about vampires. Apparently they were in fashion with some people. There were television shows, movies, plays, and novels about them. There were groups devoted to talking about them endlessly in online chat groups. There were even people who tried to look the way they thought a vampire should look—a cloaked figure with long, sharp teeth, and long, dark hair . . .
“Anything useful?” Wright asked me. “Nothing,” I said. “Worthless stuff.”
He nodded. “Stay away from the TV stuff and movies. Go with folk-lore and mythology, maybe anthropology. And there are some medical conditions I’ve heard of. There’s one that makes people so allergic to sunlight that they only go out at night, and maybe superstitious people of the past thought they were vampires. There’s also a disease or a psychological condition that makes people think they’re vampires.”
“You mean they’re insane?”
“I don’t know. If a psychiatrist found out what you eat and drink, he might think you’re insane.” “Even if I bit him?”
He looked away. “I don’t know. I think that might convince him whether he liked it or not. Renee, are you going to go unconscious during the day?”
“I’ll probably sleep for a while.”
“But will it be normal sleep? I mean, would you be able to wake up if the house were on fire or if someone broke in—not that either of those things is likely?”
“I just sleep,” I said. “Normal sleep. The sun hurts my eyes and my skin, and I seem to prefer to sleep during the day—the way you prefer to sleep at night. I don’t catch fire or turn to ash or dust or anything like what I’ve read about so far on your computer. Anything that would wake you up would wake me up.”
“Okay, good. Lock the door when I leave. Nobody should be coming in here when I’m not home. If someone knocks, ignore them. If the phone rings, don’t answer it.” He started to leave, then turned back, frowning. “Ordinary sun exposure burns your skin even though you’re black?”
“I’m . . .” I stopped. I had been about to protest that I was brown, not black, but before I could speak, I understood what he meant. Then his question triggered another memory. I looked at him. “I think I’m an experiment. I think I can withstand the sun better than . . . others of my kind. I burn, but I don’t burn as fast as they do. It’s like an allergy we all have to the sun. I don’t know who the experimenters are, though, the ones who made me black.”
He became intensely interested. “Do you know if the experimenters were like you—sort of vampires—or were they like me?”
“Don’t know.” I looked at him. “But keep asking me things. Whenever you think of a question, ask me. Sometimes it helps.”
He nodded, then kissed me. “I’ve got to go.” “Breakfast?” I said.
“I ate it last night. I’ll pick something up on the way to work. I’ve got to go grocery shopping this evening. It’s a good thing you don’t eat.” And he went out the door and was gone.
