Cravings (11 page)

THE stood on the shore of Lake Michigan and looked out at the black water. At
her back, Chicago rocked and reeled; it was Saturday night, and all the colleges
were back in session.

It wasn't the first shore she'd stood on, nor the first body of water she'd
stared at. It certainly wasn't the first evening she'd spent pacing the beach
after a meal, nor the first big city she'd visited. Always a visitor, never a
resident.

One thing remained the same, of course: it was dark. Dawn was coming—she
could feel the sun, her enemy, slipping up over the horizon. She would have to
leave soon.

She hadn't felt anything but artificial light on her face in a long, long
time. And now, of course, if she ever did feel the sun, it would be the last
thing she felt.

Like that was a bad thing.

There were nights when it was tempting to stay on the beach, watch the sun
come up, die in fire and light and blazing agony, be done, be over, be still.

Be dead… for real.

At her feet, her supper gasped and thrashed and finally passed out. He was
big and dark and strong—
had
been strong—but she'd had no trouble taking
him. His kind went easy. They never thought the rabbit would turn into a fox;
certainly not before their very eyes. And even a fox didn't have teeth as long
and as sharp as hers.

She preferred to take men. She especially preferred men who bullied women.
Cut him from the herd, take him, and quiet that thirst inside her, that
constant, never-ending, hellish, unbeatable
thirst
.

Still, it was time to go. Her supper would recover and go home and not
remember a thing. She would find another meal tomorrow. At least she wasn't such
a mindless, insatiable newborn anymore. At least she could remember something
beyond the thirst.

Yes, time to go.

But still she lingered, and wept dry tears, and stared out at the water, and
wished she were dead. For real, this time.

ANDREA sat up and coughed out a lungful of sand. The man crouched beside her
scrambled up and away, as if she had—imagine it!—come to life.

"Holy shit!" he cried. "I thought you were a corpse!"

She coughed out more sand, cursing herself. She'd been so moody last night,
instead of finding a decent alley to skulk in or a flophouse to cower in, she'd
just burrowed into the beach sand like a big old worm, and waited for sunset.

Except this idiot found her before she could rise.

"Did—" Cough, hack. "—you call—" Hack-hack. "—anybody?"

"Well, yeah," he said, sounding weirdly apologetic. "I mean, I was running
down the beach here—I've just gotta get down to two-twenty-five, y'know, and lay
off the Cheez E Brats—anyway, I was running and tripped over something, and I
thought it was a piece of driftwood but it was your foot, so I started to unbury
you and then I couldn't find a pulse so I called the cops on my cell phone. You
didn't look, y'know, grody or anything. In fact, for a corpse, you looked pretty
good."

He's an idiot. Perfect
. She finished coughing. It was amazing—even
if you didn't have to breathe, sand got
everywhere
. Every time she
moved, more of it trickled into her underpants. "How long ago did you call?"

"Uh… coupla minutes… look, are you sure you're all right? The sun's just
about down, and it's getting kinda chilly, even for June—"

"The sun set," she said, wiping her mouth with her forearm, then grimacing at
the way the sand stuck to her lips—worse than ChapStick!—"at seven fifty-six
p.m. It's technically dark."

"Well, uh, okay, but—"

"So I have time for a snack before the authorities arrive."

"Okay. Like, um, you want an Orange Julius or something? My treat."

"I know." She leaned toward him—easy enough, he was hovering over her like
a—heh, heh—grave robber—and grabbed him. He was wearing a tan t-shirt and green
swimming trunks and beach shoes; the t-shirt shredded under her preternatural
strength, the beach shoes went flying, and then she sank her fangs into his
jugular.

"Ow! Hey!" Outraged, his big hands came up to push her away. "That's—are you
fucking
biting
me? That's so weird! And kinky! Now cut it out! Ahhhh.
No, I mean it… stop. Don't! Don't stop!" He grabbed her head, she hung on like a
leech, and they grappled in the sand for a few seconds. She could feel his
throat working beneath her lips as he babbled. "Seriously, this is so bogus! I
save a dead chick—sort of—and she
chews
on me? You just wait 'til the
cops get here, chickie, they'll, like, commit you or something. Ha!"

She broke away—something she had
never
done before; in fact, as
early as a year ago, she wouldn't have been able to break off until her thirst
had been satisfied—and said, trying not to whine, "Are you going to talk through
this whole thing?"

"What, I'm supposed to sit here and think about England?"

"They usually start screaming about now, and then they faint."

"Well, forget it." He jerked a thumb at himself. "Daniel Harris don't faint,
baby. No matter how much you chew on him!"

She stared at him. "Daniel Harris?"

"Yup. And I don't scream, either, except for that one time I saw a really
grody spider fall into the toilet when I was taking a whiz, talk about a
shocker! I didn't know pee could—y'know—crawl back
up
if you were
surprised, but I'm here to tell you—"

"Daniel Harris, St. Olaf college?"

"Uh… yeah." He peered at her. "Do I know you, Weird Babe?"

She sighed. "I'm Andrea Mercer."

"Andrea… Andrea…"

"From Carleton College. Right across the river from St. Olaf. I transferred
to Olaf my sophomore year. We were in Calc II, Psychology, and Sociology I
together."

"Andrea…"

"You copied off my notes most of our senior year in college."

"Ohhhh! Andrea!"

"And," she continued, "you told me if I shaved my armpits I'd be, like,
almost pretty 'n' stuff."

He snapped his fingers. "Right! Andrea! Got it!"

"Swell," she said dully. Unburied by Daniel "Big Cock" Harris, who of course
didn't remember Andrea-the-Mouse. She'd chomped on him, drank his blood, and she
was still only a minor annoyance in his life.

She was surprised she hadn't recognized him earlier—it had only been seven
years, and he still looked much the same. Same surfer-boy, tanned, blond good
looks. A little broader through the shoulders, a little longer through the legs.
His faded blue eyes—the color of old denim—were still friendly, the expression
still low-key. He looked exactly like what he was: a handsome, mild, life of the
party fella who never ever had trouble getting a date.

She'd even asked him out once, their junior year, but…

He cleared his throat. "Uh, Andrea… the reason I didn't recognize you right
away—"

"I know why," she said thinly, climbing to her feet and brushing sand off her
jeans.

"—um—aren't you supposed to be dead?"

"Of course I'm dead, you idiot. But that's not why you didn't recognize me."

She walked away, hearing faint sirens in the distance.

"ANDREA? Andrea! Hey! Wait up!"

"What?" she growled, not turning around. A chill breeze was picking up off
the lake, making her hurry. Of course, she was always cold, so what did a breeze
matter? "Go away."
I'm still hungry
.

"So, you're dead and hanging around beaches and biting guys now? I thought
you were an Economics major."

She almost laughed. Ah, the days when her biggest problem was figuring out
the effect of interest rates on capital investment flows… or was it the other
way around? "I was. Then I had an accident. Now I'm here."

He jogged up beside her. "Hey, listen. About before. I didn't mean to hurt
your feelings. Sure I remember you. You were—you were really cute."

"You're an idiot," she replied. "It's all right, I'm leaving. You don't have
to talk to me anymore."

"Hey, it's okay," he said, completely ignoring her broad hint. "I
want
to. So, like, what happened to you?"

She nearly tripped over her own feet. "Why in the world do you care?"

"Well… doesn't look to me like you're having much fun these days."

"What a tragedy," she mocked.

"Well… yeah."

To Daniel Harris, she realized, it probably
was
. The man had always
been waiting for a party to happen. At college he'd been infamous for the fact
that the lights were never out in his room.

"You wouldn't believe me anyway," she said, weakening.

"Uh… you bit me, remember? And I was a lifeguard back home. You really
didn't—don't—have a pulse. I mean, when you sat up I tried to fool myself like
maybe I'd made a mistake, but how hard is it to check a pulse? So are you—okay,
this is gonna sound really dumb—like something out of the movies—but are
you—don't laugh, now—"

"Yes. I'm a vampire."

He digested that in silence. They had reached the parking lot, and she shook
more sand out of her hair.

"Well, how come?"

"How
cornel
It's not like being a Republican, moron. I didn't
exactly have a choice."

"You want to go get a drink? Talk about it?"

"Is that supposed to be a joke?"

"Well… not like
that,"
he said uneasily, fingering his already-fading
bite mark. "Like at a bar."

"No." But that was a lie. She was sorely tempted. And never mind her
long-dead crush on Daniel Harris… the cold fact was, she was lonely. At times,
almost unbearably so. It was nice—if weird—to run into a familiar face.

And he
was
pleasant. Even when he turned girls down for dates, he'd
always been nice about it. One of those guys who honestly had no idea how
popular and sought-after they really were.

"Aw, c'mon," he was coaxing. "Look, my car's right over there. We can head
over to Joe's, grab a drink. Catch up."

"Catch up," she repeated. It was absurd and sad at the same side.

"Come on, Alison."

"Andrea."

"Right, Andrea."

"For crying out loud." But when he unlocked the passenger side of the silver
Intrepid and held the door for her, she climbed in.