Annie of the Undead (18 page)

“Oh, go on. Open it. It’s not filled with
razor-sharp teeth or anything.”

I pulled the tissue paper out and peered inside
before reaching in. The contents seemed innocuous enough, so I
pulled the thing out.

It was an enlarged photograph in a stately,
utterly non-cutified frame, and it was of me from a three-quarters
rear-view, standing naked in the shower. I had just removed my
clothes and was in the act of dropping my shorts on a bench. I was
tired, covered with sweat, and from the partial view of my face I
looked somehow….gratified. It took me a moment to realize where the
picture had been taken.

“How did you get this?”

“Oh! Isn’t that the secret?” She held up her
cell phone, pointing at the little eye on it gleefully.
“Technology.”

I stared at the picture. I had no idea I looked
like that. I mean, I knew what I looked like –I didn’t run from
mirrors or anything, but I didn’t know I looked that way after a
fight. I looked almost –and this is practically profane…peaceful.
And the camera had captured that moment, and Yoki had had it –me,
presented as though I was art.

“You didn’t mention you had a tattoo,” Yoki
said.

Oh, shit, was that…No, thank God that wasn’t in
the picture.

“You’re proper peng. How on earth did you get
your back to look like that?” asked Yoki, peering down at the
picture.

“Hit a lot of people,” I said absently.

“That’s ghastly enough. Well, I may not have
your back or abs, but I can crack pecans with my tush, of which I
am very proud. Thank the ballet for that…”

I wasn’t listening. I stared at the picture.
Then I stared at Yoki.

“The proper words are: ‘Thank you’, or, ‘Thank
you most gracious and talented friend with whom I will be attending
a concert on Friday…’”

“Nobody’s…” I stopped myself. What had I been
about to say? Nobody’s ever given me a gift before. No human had
anyway –not since my brother had been killed. I couldn’t remember a
single one, not ever. No cupcakes on birthdays, no toy gumball
machines at Christmas. I suddenly remembered having wanted one long
ago –not just a toy, but
a real, working
toy gumball
machine. I had seen them in the Sears catalogue when I was very
little. I would sit and stare at the picture, at the shiny blue
machine filled with colorful gumballs. I thought I could take it to
school and sell the other kids gumballs for a quarter a piece and
make some money for all the things I needed so very much in a house
with no food in the cupboards. I had wanted one so bad I had
actually asked my mother for one. I had begged. Then Christmas
came, and there was no Christmas tree, but there were two wrapped
packages on the kitchen table, one with my name, one with Chris’s.
I couldn’t believe it. I rushed to open mine and discovered inside
a basketball. I wasn’t interested in basketball. I didn’t play
basketball. Chris did.

Then Chris had opened his present, and he had
discovered inside, complete with a big bag stuffed with candy, a
shiny blue gumball machine.

That was the only Christmas our family ever
had.

But Yoki did not give my brain time to linger on
that subject. Like the whirlwind she was, she was already on to
others.

“So, tell me all about yourself, and I’ll tell
you all about myself, and after we’ll be best of friends.”

“Pretty ambitious.”

“You too? All right, my turn. I’m studying dance
with a minor in political science. My dad works for the British
Foreign Service, and he’s divorced from my mum, who’s a dental
assistant and is married to a chap named Fred who runs an
accounting agency. My mum collects tea cozies, and Fred seems to
have no interests whatsoever.”

What the hell is a tea cozy?

“They’re boring people, really, which is why she
divorced my dad –that and I think she got tired of all his lady
friends, for which I can’t say I blame her, and it works well for
me because I get two Christmases, and I have my choice of places to
stay when I fly home on holiday. Now you.”

There was something distracting on the
television –something political. There was some guy standing at a
podium with an American flag in the background. He was gesturing
with his hands and trying to look all caring.

“Annie?”

“Uh…I like to fight. I...went to school for a
while –didn’t work out, and my parents aren’t worth talking
about.”

I made myself put the picture down. I just had
to get it out of my hands.

“Oh, and mine are? I just told you my mum and
stepdad are the two most boring people on the planet, that he does
arithmetic and she cleans molars for a living, and you think yours
are worse?”

“They’re worse.”

“What are they, then? Dustmen? Bellhops?”

“Since when do our parents define us?”

“They define everything about us, until the day
we realize it and start trying to rip ourselves out of that mold…Is
that bothering you?”

She noticed the eye I had on the television. The
man had now gone down into the crowd who was watching him and had
his arm around a grim-looking old lady. His embrace of compassion
was so vigorous that he had her shaking back and forth.

“Are you voting for him?”

She grabbed the remote and turned up the
volume.

“Me, voting? I don’t even know who that is.”

The man sounded like a televangelist.

“Oh, you really haven’t been around long, have
you? That’s Ralph Goodwin, the man who’s going to save the city. He
started the Renewal Union, a philanthropic organization dedicated
to reinvigorating the Gulf Coast starting with New Orleans. He does
these sunrise speeches and talks about the city being a ‘lighthouse
on a hill’, and taking care of itself instead of relying on outside
aid. He’s really quite inspiring. My friend Dr. Rathstein who
advises the political club at the school is advocating for his
election for the senate. Most of the students here are for him.
We’re pretty sure he’s going to win.”

Do I look like I care?

She seemed to recognize the pained look on my
face for what it was.

“How about I change the channel?”

She hit a button on her remote and ended my case
of political hives. There was another man on the tube, wearing a
dark suit, standing on a street talking into the microphone that
had been thrust up to his face. In contrast to the politico, he
looked about as happy to be on camera as someone with the flu,
praying to the porcelain god at three a.m. He was easier to
ignore.

“So,” she said, sitting down and gathering Jesus
Christ into her lap. “You’re going to finish that drink and be warm
and fuzzy inside, and then I’m going to take you out and meet some
friends of mine.”

“Is that how it’s gonna be?”

“Yes indeed. You have fallen into the care of
Yoki Hayashi, incorrigible hostess and unofficial representative of
the Queen’s good will abroad –not to mention dancer
extraordinaire.”

With that, she leaped onto the bed and began
bouncing like a chigger. The groaning springs indicated that she
did this often. Jesus Christ reacted to this new situation by
leaping from her arms and running insane circuits around the room,
under the bed, over, it, round and round and round. I downed the
Hen in a single gulp to prevent its sloshing out under these
earthquake conditions.

There was something terribly amusing about all
of this. Realizing that I was realizing this made me realize that
ordinarily I would be pissed off, get the hell out, or never have
gotten the hell in in the first place. What was it about this girl
that made me tolerate her? Or was it this city? Or the vampire?
What was going on with me? I had been under a lot of stress
lately…or had I?

I was suddenly, thoroughly nonplussed. What was
this I was feeling? I’d have to think about it.

But something interrupted my thinking. A snatch
from the broadcast on the TV caught my attention.

“…We have not yet ascertained with certainty
that the Louisiana Werewolf is responsible for this killing. We are
looking into it.”

A man was being interviewed about the Werewolf
killings.

“Mr. Robicheaux,” said a reporter, “the girl’s
mother has claimed to have found her daughter’s body covered with
bite marks. If that’s true, wouldn’t that be an indication that the
Werewolf was involved?”

“As I’ve said, we do not have that information
at this time.”

“But the Werewolf is purported to use his own
teeth to at least mutilate and kill his victims. Is there anyone
else who follows that pattern?”

“We have made no statements as to whether our
information suggests that one person or more than one person is
involved in the perpetration of these crimes.”
“Are you afraid of a copycat killer?”

“We don’t have any reason to believe that this
is the work of a copycat.”

“So you think this is the Werewolf then?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That man is a tidy Cajun,” interrupted Yoki. “I
fancy his accent. So you’re interested in the Louisiana
Werewolf?”

“Yeah,” I answered. “I mean no, not really. I
just keep hearing about it, and I wonder… is there such a
thing?”

“As what? As a werewolf? Of course there are
–people who turn into wolves on the full moon, hunt the innocent by
night. Been happening for centuries. We have this thing at home
called Black Shuck. It’s like a demon dog, jumps ten-foot walls and
such. Terrorizes people.”

“You sound serious.”

“Oh,” said Yoki, jumping up indignantly, “I am.
Haven’t you noticed my room?”

She gestured around grandly. Apparently not
satisfied with my reaction, she hopped over to her DVD collection,
pulling cases off the shelf and tossing them onto the bed one by
one.

“You see,” she said, “
Wolf
,
Silver
Bullet
,
An American Werewolf in London
and
Paris
…”

Clack. Clack. Clack…

Jesus Christ leaped in the air like a piranha as
each DVD passed over his head.

“…
The Howling
,
Ladyhawke
–I think
of it as a werewolf movie…”

Clack. Clack…

I was busy listening to the man with the
steel-gray hair field, with patience and decorum, inane questions
meant to unearth sensational factoids into which the news guy could
sink his journalistic fangs.

“Do you have any new leads?” the reporter
asked.

“I cannot divulge that kind of information at
this time, but we are investigating all of the evidence to that
end,” he responded ambiguously but matter-of-factly. It was a
matter of fact that he had to respond ambiguously.

“…
Abbot and Costello and the Wolfman
,”
clack, “and my favorite,
Blood and Chocolate
–oh so cute.
I’ve done all the research, you see. I’m something of an expert.
It’s too bad the Werewolf has never killed anyone in the French
Quarter, or I could incorporate the scene into my tours. But,” she
said raising her eyebrows, “werewolves are not my real passion.
That honor belongs to our unliving, undead, eternally gorgeous,
eternally tormented,
coming-to-find-me-someday-and-sweep-me-off-my-feet-and-make-me-one-of-them
friends, the Vampires. You see: I have all the Hammer films. I have
Nosferatu
and
Shadow of the Vampire
,
The Lost
Boys
,
Underworld
,
Interview
,
Queen of the
Damned
…”

Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack…

“…Five versions of Dracula…”

Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack. Clack…

“…
Blade
and the Blade comics,
My Best
Friend is a Vampire
,
Sundown
…”

Clack. Clack. Clack… They were really starting
to stack up.

“…And that’s just the good ones.”

She hauled a cardboard box almost as big as
herself out from under the bed and, with some effort, dumped it on
the heap.

Clackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclackclack…

A flood of DVDs and VHSs came out of it.

By now I really was staring. I had bumbled into
four or five blood-and-roses flicks in my movie-watching days –more
than enough as far I was concerned, but this collection was hard
core.

“That’s the first box. I’ve got three more under
there –vampire movies in seven languages, and then of course there
are the books,” she said proudly. “My favorite of all time are the
Les Daniels books, but I must tip my hat to Her Other Majesty Queen
Anne.”

“Your country has two queens?”

Yoki stared at me, stricken.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she said, a hand on her
heart. “You don’t know about her. But I will educate you. You see,
I have three real passions in life: sex, vampires, and hopefully
one day, sex with vampires.”

“Have you actually seen a vampire?” I asked
tentatively.

Yoki plunked down on the floor beside Jesus.

“No,” she whined, then instantly brightened.
“But I will. There’s one out there right now, having clairvoyant
dreams about me because I am perfect for him, and I am his
destiny.”

“Somehow I doubt it works like that. I think if
you ever meet a vampire you’ll be lucky enough not to be killed and
eaten,” I said.

“Now what would you know? You don’t have a
romantic bone in your body.”

“I don’t think death has much to do with
romance.”

“And that’s why the vampire is going to fall in
love with me, not you.”

It really wouldn’t be nice to tell her the truth
about vampires and sex.

“I hope you get one. I really do.”

“Hey!” she exclaimed, looking at her watch. “I’m
late for practice! See what you’ve done, getting me all on about
vampires! You shouldn’t mention the v-word when I’ve got an
appointment. Come on!”

She grabbed my arm.

“Where are we going?”

“To meet my friends. You’ll love them. We’ll
have loads of fun. –Actually, you’ll probably hate them, but we’ll
still have fun, or at least I’ll have fun watching you make them
uncomfortable. Come!”