Uncle Vampire (11 page)

Honey was going to kill me.

Her reaction was almost comical. She stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror as if I were a monster from hell.

“I can't believe this! How could you do this?” She reacted just as I'd expected. Honey is always the star of the show. The rest of us are scenery. “You're insane. Why didn't you just cut off your head and make everybody happy? You're such a freak!”

“Oh, go hide in your piano.”

“I don't want to be seen with you! This is so embarrassing! You might as well wear a clown costume to school!”

“Fine. Can I borrow your cheerleading outfit?”

“You're out of control. You've gone over the edge. I mean, look at you!”

“Did you hear what they said at the table tonight? They're going away for two weeks!”

“So?”

“So look at your neck! He's drinking our blood! He's going to kill us!”

Honey laughed harshly. “Keep that up and they'll put you away.”

“Where did the marks come from?”

“Duhhh. Let me think. Let's see if we can figure it out.”

“Bradley did that?”

“As if you didn't know. You're jealous because he loves me. Nobody loves you. You're such a pervert. It's disgusting.”

She sounded vicious. She didn't sound like Honey.

“Who's that?”

“Who's who?”

“You're not acting like you. You're acting like someone else.”

“Oh, God.” She smirked. She shook her head. “You're as crazy as they say you are.”

“Who says I'm crazy?”

“Everybody does! Just take a good look in the mirror!”

Richie knocked at the door.

“Just a minute, Rich.”

“That's okay, I'll go downstairs.”

“Richie, wait.” I stuck my head out the door.

He came back down the hall, his eyes wide with amazement. He said, “Man, when you go, you go all the way.”

“Does it look too awful?”

“Not exactly.” He grinned. “But I want to be there when you show the folks. We better have an ambulance standing by.”

“They like my hair better than me,” I said.

“They'll probably keep your hair and kick you out.”

“I'll be downstairs in a few minutes.” I closed the door. “He doesn't think it looks bad,” I told Honey.

“He's your brother. What did you expect him to say? If you wanted to change it, you should've gone to a salon. It looks like you cut it with your teeth,” Honey said.

When I came into the living room Richie was hanging around, waiting for the show to start. My mother saw me, stood up, and put her hands to her heart, like a heroine in a horror movie.

“My God!” she cried. “What have you done to yourself?”

My father put down his newspaper. “Jesus Christ! Have you lost you mind?”

“No.”

“You look like hell. I can't believe you'd do this. Are the other kids cutting their hair? Is that it? I thought you were a leader, not a follower, Carolyn.” My father was as furious as if I'd cut off his hair. Uncle Toddy stared at me but didn't speak.

“I just felt like cutting it.”

“Oh, Carolyn,” Mama sighed. “Why would you want to make yourself look ugly?”

“I don't look ugly.” I hoped I looked hideous. I hoped they would turn away and leave me alone.

“You can't go to school like that,” Mama said. “You'll have to wear something on your head.”

“I've got a Dodgers hat she can use.”

“Be quiet, Rich. This isn't funny,” Papa said. “I'm disappointed in you, Carolyn. I didn't think you were so stupid. You've ruined yourself. You look terrible.”

My uncle said, “I think she looks beautiful.”

14

The hair on my head is long and golden. It drips down the stairs like gasoline, trickling into every room, then down into the cellar.

“Such beautiful hair,” my uncle whispers.

It's a snare, a thicket. Bats get in it. They get caught in your hair and you can't get them out.

“Cut it out, Richie.”

He's laughing at me. He says, “Why didn't you just cut off your head? What are you trying to tell me?”

Why not? I thought. I should cut off my head. Everything would be so quiet.

“What an actress! Such a prima donna!” Honey's voice is rough. She's tired of me. “Get lost,” she tells me. “Get a life.”

“No, don't go. Don't leave me,” I beg.

You know I can't live without you.

My uncle loves me. Even though I'm crazy. My parents hate me. They are so disappointed. I am ruining the portrait of our perfect family. They wish Richie and I would go away. They wish I would be like Honey. A good girl always obeys adults. No matter how nuts they are.

It's enough to drive a person crazy.

I'm lost in the forest, in the middle of the night, with a handful of bread crumbs to eat when I get hungry, or to mark my path, so I can find my way out.

I'm starving.

Honey says: “Don't let it smell the yeast on your breath. It feeds on living things.”

I know what she means. I've seen the beast. He tails me like a shadow. Can you see him? There, in the corner of your eye? He rushes toward you—

Grab the knife beneath your pillow, it's a butcher knife now, long and gleaming. Swing at the thing with all your might, chopping, hacking, slashing off an arm. Slash off the other arm. Blood pours out.

But the thing keeps coming. Chasing you.

Turn and slash, the knife blade flashes; no head, no legs. You can't escape. A bloody stump now, the thing keeps coming. It knows where you're hiding. It finds you.

Honey waves a white flag out the window. No, it's the banner of her moonlit hair. She leans out too far, her legs fly up. I try to grab her, she slips through my fingers. She plunges down. The ground inhales her.

“Wake up,” Maggie says. “You're having a dream.”

“How can you tell if it's a dream?” I ask her.

Maggie taps a pointer on the blackboard. “There are two ways to tell if you're dead or dreaming. I've written them on the blackboard so you can copy them down.”

I take out my journal and a pen. “I'm ready.”

“If you're dreaming, you can wake up and make toast,” Maggie says. “But if you're dead, you can't taste it.”

I try to follow what she's saying. Smoke fills my nose.

“That's because the house is burning.” My uncle's voice is like a finger in my ear. He startles me so badly I jump out of my skin and am beside myself. I pull myself together, trembling.

“Where did you come from?”

“I'm always around.” He buffs his silver claws on his cape.

My closed bedroom door is outlined in pulsing light. “Don't open that,” he says.

I fling open the door. Every room downstairs is orange, blazing. I see that my long golden hair is the fuse. It clears the top step of the stairs and crackles toward me.

“Don't be scared. You won't get hurt.” He licks his lips. He's hungry.

I say: “If you touch me, I'll kill you.”

“You can't,” he says. “We're already dead.”

I run to the window and crash through the glass. My uncle lunges for me and misses. I'm falling through darkness in a shower of slivers.

“Catch me, Grammy!”

She looks up and sees me, her face lit like the moon. She reaches out her frail arms. They're trembling. “I'll try,” she cries, “but I'm an old lady.”

Hurtling through darkness, I realize in that instant that if I land on my grandmother, I will kill her.

15

Nancy said, “You need to talk to someone.”

We were standing outside the gym after school. She had brought along Bradley Curtis for backup.

“Talk to who?” I said.

They studied the ground. If they had looked in my eyes, they would've seen me there, hiding. I have abandoned my feet, my fingers, my body. I am watching from the top floor. The house is blazing.

“A doctor or someone. Maybe Ms. Johnson. It just seems like you're not happy or something.”

“I'm okay.”

“You seem so different.”

“My hair, you mean.”

“Yeah!” Bradley said, then grimaced. He hadn't meant to shout. He's uncomfortable with me when Honey's not around.

“People like my hair.” Oddly, this was true. At first people were shocked, but later that week other girls came to school with their hair chopped off. When you're popular, people think you know what you're doing.

“It's not just your hair; it's everything,” Nancy said.

Some people went by. We all said hi, smiled and said hi hi hi hi hi.

“You don't seem like you,” she said. “Why won't you tell me what's wrong? Did I do something to you? Don't you trust me anymore?”

There were tears in her eyes. Nancy was in pain. I'd hurt her, and she was not to blame for anything.

“Of course I trust you. Don't you believe me? I'm telling you, everything's fine.”

Nancy looked as if I'd slapped her. Curtis Bradley plunged his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders around his ears as if the sound of my voice were torture.

“We care about you a lot.” He sounded stiff and formal.

“Gee, thanks!” I said. Bradley Curtis winced.

They're doing this for Honey's sake. I've become an embarrassment to her. A disgrace. Everybody loves Honey. Even I love Honey. The Princess of Perfection. The Queen of Pretend.

We stood there, not speaking. Curtis Bradley looked sick.

“I really do appreciate your concern,” I said. “But there's nothing wrong. Really, I'm fine.”

They backed off, Nancy hugging her books as if shielding her heart from my face.

I watched them cross the campus to Nancy's car. They turned and looked back at me. I waved as they drove away.

I appreciate their concern, I really do, but everything is under control. Yesterday I decided to talk to the school counselor. There is no place else left for me to go.

I don't know why I didn't tell them that. The habit of secrecy is hard to break, even when the season for secrets is over.

I have an appointment to talk to Ms. Johnson today.

I began to cross the campus to her office.

Yesterday afternoon she'd stopped me in the halls and said, “Carolyn, we've got to talk about your grades. This is serious.”

I was too tired to resist. “All right,” I said, knowing the fight would come later, with my sister.

Ms. Johnson looked relieved. “After school today?”

“Tomorrow afternoon would be better.”

I needed to tell Honey what I was going to do. I asked her to go with me.

Honey was enraged. “Have you lost your mind? You can't talk to Ms. Johnson! What's the matter with you?”

“I can't stand it anymore.”

“There's nothing to stand! You've made up the whole damn thing in your head!”

“What whole thing?”

“The thing you imagined! I'm not going to talk about it! And neither are you!”

“You're not the boss of me.”

Honey looked disgusted. “You're acting like such a baby!”

“I can't take it,” I said, sitting down on the bed. “I can't live with a vampire anymore.”

“Will you stop that shit?” She threw her hairbrush on the floor. “Do you want to get locked up, like Mama did?”

“He's killing us. When are you going to wake up? Have you taken a look at your neck lately?”

“I told you. Bradley did it.”

“Bradley didn't do that.”

“How do you know? You weren't there.” Honey's fury was exhausted. She began to cry. “The counselor won't believe you. They'll send you away.”

“We can't stay here anymore,” I said. “Uncle Toddy has to go or we go. That's it.”

“You know they won't kick him out,” she said, sobbing.

“Why not? Don't they care about their own children?”

“Nobody's going to believe you! You can't prove he's a vampire. It's just going to be your word against his.”

“You can tell them too. They'll listen to you.”

“Oh, great,” Honey groaned. “I can see it now: ‘Insurance Man's Family Goes Completely Insane.' Papa would die, he'd be so embarrassed.”

“He'd rather we shut up and keep living with a vampire?”

“I don't know,” she moaned. “Leave me alone.”

“I've got proof. I've written it down in this book.”

“What book?”

“My journal.”

“Where is it? Let me see it.”

“No,” I said. “You wouldn't like it.”

Honey tore at her hair. “Now they'll know you're crazy! They'll have proof in writing!”

“This whole family is nuts, haven't you noticed? Everybody goes around with bags over their heads. And if you pull off the bags, they say: ‘Put that back!' Nobody wants to see what's happening!”

“Nothing's happening! It's all in your imagination.”

“It's in your imagination too.”

Honey's tears had dried up, and her eyes were cold. “If you go to the counselor, I'll never talk to you again. Do you hear what I'm saying? I mean it.”

“We have to do this together! I'm trying to help you!”

But Honey wouldn't talk anymore.

After watching Nancy and Curtis Bradley drive away, I had started toward the administration building, which houses the counselor's office. But somehow I had arrived beside the pool. There was no one in it. A boy walked by and said, “Looking for the coach?”

“No,” I said. I didn't know why I was there. The pool was the color of the sky. When I squinted my eyes, the two came together, no dividing line, no horizon.

I headed back the other way, toward the administration building. I looked at my watch. I was an hour late. Ms. Johnson had probably gone home.