"Yeah…but he didn’t do it to be mean or anything. He’s not a big dumb monster like some of the guys at my school."
Stephin smiled — a joyless sort of half smile, like a smudge on an otherwise unused sheet of paper. He rose and faced a dusty sideboard topped with glasses, plus an old clock that never changed and a small telescope. "All teenagers are monsters. Misunderstood, hated, blamed for the evils of the world. Also, reckless, selfish. With huge appetites as they slowly change from innocent things into something new. Did you know there’s a part of the brain, the part that makes plans, considers consequences? It’s sort of the part that makes us responsible and less destructive. Teenagers don’t have that part of the brain."
The eyepiece came off the telescope and, aha, there was liquid inside. Stephin poured himself a very full tumbler of something brown.
"That is, they do, of course, but it hasn’t finished growing yet. It hasn’t developed. It’s not entirely human. Would you like a drink?"
Doug nearly answered that he wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol, but stammered out a "sure" instead. He wasn’t allowed to drink blood, either, but here he was.
"Mescal," said Stephin, and handed Doug a glass of it.
Doug sipped cautiously and was immediately glad he did. It was like drinking a campfire.
"So, teenagers," said Stephin, "they careen through life, self-centered, driving too fast, cursing those who care for them, gorging themselves on the world…how is it not monstrous, how they live?"
Doug nodded. He knew kids like that.
Stephin settled again in his warm, leathery chair with his warm, leathery drink.
"Second," he said, consulting his list, "is for me to discover if you’re aware of a basic…cable…television vampire hunting show that’s been airing a sort of docudrama about you."
Doug stiffened. "Oh. You know about that?"
"Not a bit of it. That’s just what it says in Miss Polidori’s note. I don’t own a television. ‘Basic cable television vampire hunting show?’ That’s at least three words I didn’t realize you could use together in a sentence."
"It’s a pretty good show," said Doug. "You should watch it."
"Is it a hunting show for vampires or a show about hunting vampires?"
"The second thing."
"Hmm."
"It’s on tonight," said Doug. "I’m going to watch it, of course. Find out what they know. But…they picked up my trail in San Diego, and all the commercials for this week’s episode make it look like they’re still out there."
"I’ve admitted this is not my area," said Stephin, "but it’s my understanding that most television programs are filmed in advance. Could they not be here right now? Could they not be right outside my door?" Doug didn’t answer, and Stephin continued. "I believe I’ll do a little research into this show of yours. In the meantime, take care, lie low, caution, and so forth. If these hunters come for you, you can expect no help whatsoever from the rest of the Delaware Valley Society Vampires."
Doug nodded.
"And," Stephin said while frowning at his list, "and for number three I seem to have drawn a picture of a tiny goat with a party hat. Give me a moment while I try to remember if this was significant."
Doug fidgeted. He wondered if he needed blood again, so soon. This drink was really going to his head.
"No. I believe it’s just a goat," said Stephin.
"There isn’t just, like, a manual I can read, is there?" asked Doug, enunciating hard to keep from slurring. "It’s been really confusing. Getting changed, I mean. Like, after the shock and everything wore off, I noticed I wasn’t branded by Fun-Time anymore."
Stephin sipped his drink. "‘Branded by Fun-Time’."
"Yeah. Sorry — like, I worked at this movie theater all last year and part of the summer. And they have the most crappily designed Fun-Time popcorn maker, like it was from before we invented safety. I think Ford’s Theatre made Lincoln some popcorn with this thing."
Stephin cracked a faint smile.
"It has a big metal kettle where you put the corn and oil," Doug continued, "and when the corn’s done popping, you pull a handle and the whole thing swings violently out at you and dumps the popcorn below. Every person the theater’s ever employed has caught that kettle on the same spot on their left arms, and they all have a burn there that reads ‘Fun-Tim’ backward. Except me. My burn went away. Becoming a vampire did that for me, at least. But what being a vampire apparently doesn’t do is fix your eyes. I would have expected some Spider-Man moment where I discover I don’t need glasses anymore, but I still do."
"Bats are not renowned for their eyesight," said Stephin to his drink.
"I just…want to know how it all works. I thought there would be rules. Some Official Handbook of the Vampire Universe."
"There are rules," said Stephin, "and I would swear that they change all the time. I haven’t told you my ‘origin story.’ Are you interested? You may find it useful, and I am just now drunk enough to tell it."
"Sure."
Stephin rose slightly and resettled in his chair, then spoke. "I was in the Union Army. During the Civil War. Or do you call it the War Between the States? What have your schools taught you?"
"Civil War."
Stephin nodded. "There was a man in my brigade, Tom North, who was like the Virgil to my Dante. He attended me in that hell and became very dear to me. You’ll think that he has very little to do with my turning, but this story always begins with Tom North."
Doug nodded, because it seemed like the thing to do. Stephin wasn’t looking at him anyway.
"Tom had his belly opened for him by cannon fire. It could have hit me, but he was standing in front. Do you know what I thought?"
Doug shook his head. When Stephin didn’t continue, Doug said, "You probably…wanted revenge. On the Southern soldiers?"
Stephin said, "I thought, Thank the Lord it wasn’t me. Think about that."
He emptied the glass.
"Anyway, it was moot. I fell not two minutes later.
"The United States Army didn’t know quite what to do with all the dead bodies back then. They thought I’d died. Or perhaps they didn’t, but they knew I wasn’t long for this world and wished to cover me like an old sofa should company come. I don’t know. I was dragged to the center of camp with some of the dead men and covered as the sun set. My head fell to one side. Unable to lift it, I stared around a fold of canvas at the blue body of Tom North beside me, his face open to the sky, frozen as if sickened by what he saw there. Or didn’t see. The length of him was painted with a bright orange stripe of sharp sunlight, and then that color did rise, and fade, until nothing but the tip of his nose still glowed with warm life. And as that little flame went out and night came on I imagined I’d watched Tom give up the ghost that very moment. A minute later they covered him, too.
"Soon the sounds of the camp dimmed and died away. I was forgotten, perhaps, but I could still see Tom’s stiff shroud in the moonlight, could still smell campfire and copper, and I knew I still lived. Then there came into my sideways world a horrible figure. He appeared at the edge of my sight, very tall, I think, unsteady at the knees as though they’d been savaged and dislocated. But what struck me most was his wide, bloated torso, which I believe was quite red, covered here and there with tatters. Atop this, his head seemed tiny and keen, and with his long, thin limbs he looked like a monstrous tick just emerged from the woods."
At this Stephin focused on Doug’s face for perhaps the first time that day, and asked if he might fix Stephin another drink. Doug rose, thinking that the story sounded just a little rehearsed. Like a monologue. He filled the glass again, expecting as he did so that Stephin would continue, but he didn’t. In fact he didn’t speak again until Doug had retaken his seat and the glass was half empty.
"He hobbled like a grotesque marionette toward me. But not directly toward me, no — he paused, bobbing for a moment, at what must have been a body some feet away. Then he lingered longer over Tom, leaning close, maybe taking his scent. His eyes were dry slits, his black lips were drawn back over long teeth like a Jabberwock. He…worried the air over Tom’s shroud with long, white nails. Then he swiftly fell upon me."
Stephin finished his drink.
"He must have been looking for soldiers like me, dead but not yet departed. The war must have given him fields of fallen apples."
He looked for a while at the empty glass, then balanced it on the top story of a book stack like a water tower.
"This is not a story I enjoy telling. Do you understand why I thought you might find it instructive?"