“Someone told me that vampires lurked in the woods up here. It was a friend of mine down south. I know that he was just messing with me, but a part of my brain kept telling me that rumors usually germinate from a seed of truth. I’ve never been to Romania. I’ve never been in any part of Eastern Europe. But I always imagined that Maine is the closest thing we have to that kind of terrain. I’m probably wrong. Anyway, I would always picture a swarm of mindless vampires that had descended on a big moose as it crossed the tracks. The train engineer couldn’t tell exactly what was going on, but he could see the people on the tracks. He would blow his whistle, warning them away and he would try to slam on his brakes. Why am I telling you this?”
I know why, though. I’m filling the silence with this story because it means that I won’t have to listen to his breathing. Also, his good eye is focused right on me. I don’t know if he even knows what I’m saying, but the story is keeping him present. I just need him to stay conscious until help arrives.
“After the first night, I should have realized that there was no way that my story could be true. There would have been something in the paper about how the train was stopped, right? The vampires would have swarmed the train and drained the guy’s blood.”
Mr. Engel’s eyebrows twitched.
“I know, it’s a silly story. I was a kid. That first week that I spent alone with my uncle, I was so scared every night that I probably only slept three hours total. I would nap in the truck when we went to the lake. I curled up in the bow of the boat with all the life preservers and spiders. We went fishing and hiking. What a great time.”
I sighed.
“Uncle Walt didn’t have a job. He didn’t seem to have much money either but it didn’t bother him any. I always got the impression that he was just living alongside the rest of society, you know? He had opted out of jobs, taxes, income, budgets, and all that. He had his garden and he didn’t buy much. He never took vacations or anything—why would he? As he always said, ‘My favorite place is here.’ It would have been silly for him to leave that behind. He was wrong about that though. Because he never left, except to go to the store or the lake or whatever, he never knew the profound excitement and anticipation of returning. When we would turn off Prescott and onto this road, my heart would soar and I would feel it all the way down to my groin. Pure contentment was ahead and the only way to really appreciate it was to leave and then experience the joy of coming back. I’m almost sad for him that he never got to have that feeling.”
I am sitting on my right leg with my left leg out to the side. With one hand I’m caressing Mr. Engel’s lips with the ice cube. He lifts his hand and finds my free hand, giving it a squeeze.
“Are you feeling a little better?” I ask.
He nods. It’s a good, energetic nod this time. His tongue sweeps over his lips, pulling in some of the moisture from the ice cube and he gears up his mouth while his Adam’s apple bobs.
I lean in closer, convinced that he is going to say something.
I’m right.
His breath wheezes at first while he tries to get his vocal cords going.
“Yes?” I ask.
His voice is so quiet that it’s almost subsumed by the hum from the refrigerator.
“The vampires,” he manages to say.
There’s such a long pause that I’m convinced that he’s finished.
“The ones I used to imagine at night when I was a kid?”
He nods and I figure that he wants to hear more about that story. I open my mouth and I’m silent for a moment, trying to think of what more I can say. Like I said, I never told anyone about it. The fear was just a misplaced manifestation of separation anxiety, I’m sure. I never felt all that close to my mother, but until that point in my life I had never really been apart from her. She was my only parent so of course I was attached to her. Until I was ten, I would sometimes wake up in her bed, completely unaware of whatever nightmare had driven me to seek that comfort. So when she sent me away to stay with my uncle for the summer, I had invented something to be afraid of at night. I latched onto the stupid story that Matt had told me and my imagination ran wild.
I’m about to tell him a version of that when he speaks again.
“They’re in the cellar,” he whispers.
PART TWO:
Denial
Vampires
(It takes me a second.)
It takes me a second.
I have to admit, for a moment it feels like the temperature of the room has dropped about fifteen degrees. My sweaty shirt feels cold against my skin. My fingers and toes are almost numb. I take a deep breath and force myself to hold it for a second.
Some people are blessed with strong parents and they get to learn from that example. I was blessed with a mother who was meek and victimized because of it. I didn’t see it that way when I was a little kid. I didn’t see how she was complicit in letting the world roll over her. In my mind, she was never at fault. There were mean people everywhere. They should have left my poor mother alone.
By the time I was in school, when I learned that one had to stand up for oneself, my perspective
