Vampires: The Recent Undead (19 page)

Diagnosed in her fifties with Alzheimer’s disease, Pella lives out her final years in a luxurious private clinic somewhere south of the northern U.S.A. It is a clinic for the rich and the damned, a salutary lesson for any visitor of what fate may bring. But in the case of Pella Blai, there is one extraordinary factor.

For the strangest thing has happened. Another blow of fate—but whether savage or benign, who dare say? For Pella Blai’s disintegrating brain has by now wholly convinced her that she is not herself at all, but the heroine she played all those years back on TV, on screen, and about whom she wrote her own novel: the one true vampire left alive on Earth.

Her only memories, then, and perhaps continually reinvented, concern the rôle she acted and has now come to live, Chaikassia, the eternal vampire. (And please note, that is pronounced Ch´-high-kazya.)

Bizarrely, inside this framework, she is pretty damn near perfectly coherent. It is only, they tell you, when she comes out of it, and just now and then she does, that she grows confused, distressed, forgetful, and enraged. When she is Chaikassia—and that takes up around ninety per cent of her time—she is word perfect. No one seems to know why that is. But having spoken some while to her, I can confirm the fact.

Chaikassia’s wants and wishes too, are all those of a vampire—let me add, a graceful and well-bred vampire. And to this end, the amenable if expensive clinic permits her to sleep in some sort of box through the day. While at mealtimes she is served “blood”—which is actually a concoction of fruit juice, bouillon, and vitamins—the only nourishment she will knowingly take. They can even leave a decanter of malt whisky in her room. She never touches it—what decent vampire would? “For guests” she tells you, with her Russian aristocrat’s grace, learnt in her earliest youth in a winter palace of the mind—
her
mind. Which is all so unlike the real Pella Blai, the hard-drinking daughter of an immigrant family dragged up somewhere in lower London, England.

Frankly, having met her only last month, I venture to say there is nothing left of that real Pella at all. Instead, I talked with a being who can make herself
appear
in mirrors to deceive us all, and who passes at will out through the bars of her nocturnal windows. A being too who never takes your blood if she has promised not to, but who once, with one of the fake books from her gallery, broke the nose of a reporter who offended her.

And this being lives in a high white tower in the middle of a moon-leached desert, as far away from the rest of us as it is possible to get. And, until the last of her mind sets in oblivion and night, and finally lets her free forever, I swear to you she is—without any doubt—La Vampiresse.

Dead Man Stalking: A Morganville Vampires Story

Rachel Caine

Rachel Caine is the author of more than thirty novels, including the internationally best-selling Morganville Vampires series, the Weather Warden series, and the Outcast Season series. She’s been fascinated by the undead since she first got a glimpse of Barnabas Collins on
Dark Shadows,
and has never lost her interest in the subject. She was writing vampire fiction when vampire fiction was cool, when it wasn’t, and when it was cool again, and probably will keep on writing it as long as they’ll let her. She lives in Fort Worth, Texas. Outcast Season’s
Unseen
was recently released in February 2011, and Morganville Vampire’s
Bite Club (
the tenth in the series) will be released in May 2011. She starts a new series, The Revivalist, with the release of
Working Stiff
in August 2011.

Caine’s Weather Warden series (beginning with
Ill Wind in 2003)
brought her a considerable following, but The Morganville Vampires, a young adult series (initial book:
Glass Houses, 2006
) brought even greater fame and
New York Times
best-selling status. Claire Danvers is the central character of the series. The precocious sixteen-year-old attends Texas Prairie University in Morganville, Texas. Although most of its human inhabitants are unaware, Morganville was founded and is secretly controlled by vampires. Claire lives off campus in an unusual house with three other young adults: gothy Eve, the not entirely human Michael, and Shane, who becomes her boyfriend early in the series. Shane takes the lead role in “Dead Man Stalking,” a story that shows Caine’s flair for creating a convincing setting, exciting adventure, and indelible characters who young people—and anyone who was ever young—can identify with.

Living in West Texas is sort of like living in Hell, but without the favorable climate and charming people. Living in Morganville, Texas, is all that and a takeout bag of worse. I should know. My name is Shane Collins, and I was born here, left here, came back here—none of which I had much choice about.

So, for you fortunate ones who’ve never set foot in this place, here’s the walking tour of Morganville: It’s home to a couple of thousand folks who breathe, and some crazy-ass number of people who don’t. Vampires. Can’t live with ’em, and in Morganville, you definitely can’t live without ’em, because they run the town. Other than that, Morganville’s a normal, dusty collection of buildings—the kind the oil boom of the ’60s and ’70s rolled by without dropping a dime in the banks. The university in the center of town acts like its own little city, complete with walls and gates.

Oh, and there’s a secluded, tightly guarded vampire section of town too. I’ve been there, in chains. It’s nice, if you’re not looking forward to a horrible public execution.

I used to want to see this town burned to the ground, and then I had one of those things, what are they called, epiphanies? My epiphany was that one day I woke up and realized that if I lost Morganville and everybody in it I’d have nothing at all. Everything I still cared about was here. Love it or hate it.

Epiphanies suck.

I was having another one of them on this particular day. I was sitting at a table inside Marjo’s Diner, watching a dead man walk by the windows outside. Seeing dead men wasn’t exactly unusual in Morganville; hell, one of my best friends is dead now, and he still gripes at me about doing the dishes. But there’s vampire-dead, which Michael is, and then there’s dead-dead, which was Jerome Fielder.

Except Jerome, dead or not, was walking by the window outside Marjo’s.

“Order up,” Marjo snapped, and slung my plate at me like a ground ball to third base; I stopped it from slamming into the wall by putting up my hand as a backstop. The bun of my hamburger slid over and onto the table-mustard side up, for a change.

“There goes your tip,” I said. Marjo, already heading off to the next victim, flipped me off.

“Like you’d ever leave one, you cheap-ass punk.”

I returned the gesture. “Don’t you need to get to your second job?”

That made her pause, just for a second. “What second job?”

“I don’t know, grief counselor? You being so sensitive and all.”

That earned me another bird, ruder than the first one. Marjo had known me since I was a baby puking up formula. She didn’t like me any better now than she had then, but that wasn’t personal. Marjo didn’t like anybody. Yeah, go figure on her entering the service industry.

“Hey,” I said, and leaned over to look at her retreating bubble butt. “Did you just see who walked by outside?”

She turned to glare at me, round tray clutched in sharp red talons. “Screw you, Collins, I’m running a business here, I don’t have time to stare out windows. You want something else or not?”

“Yeah. Ketchup.”

“Go squeeze a tomato.” She hustled off to wait another table—or not, as the mood took her.

I put veggies on my burger, still watching the parking lot outside the window. There were exactly six cars out there; one of them was my housemate Eve’s, which I’d borrowed. The gigantic thing was really less a car than an ocean liner, and some days I called it the Queen Mary, and some days I called it Titanic, depending on how it was running. It stood out. Most of the other vehicles in the lot were crappy, sun-faded pickups and decrepit, half-wrecked sedans.

There was no sign of Jerome, or any other definitely dead guy, walking around out there now. I had one of those moments,
those did I really see that?
moments, but I’m not the delusional type. I had zero reason to imagine the guy. I didn’t even
like
him, and he’d been dead for at least a year, maybe longer. Killed in a car wreck at the edge of town, which was code for
shot while trying to escape
, or the nearest Morganville equivalent. Maybe he’d pissed off his vampire Protector. Who knew?

Also, who cared? Zombies, vampires, whatever. When you live in Morganville, you learn to roll with the supernatural punches.

I bit into the burger and chewed. This was why I came to Marjo’s . . . not the spectacular service, but the best hamburgers I’d ever eaten. Tender, juicy, spicy. Fresh, crisp lettuce and tomato, a little red onion. The only thing missing was.

“Here’s your damn ketchup,” Marjo said, and slid the bottle at me like a bartender in an old western saloon. I fielded it and saluted with it, but she was already moving on.

As I drizzled red on my burger, I continued to stare out the window. Jerome. That was a puzzle. Not enough to make me stop eating lunch, though.

Which shows you just how weird life in Morganville is, generally.

I was prepared to forget all about Jerome, post-lunch, because not even Marjo’s sour attitude could undo the endorphin high of her burger and besides, I had to get home. It was five o’clock. The bottling plant was letting out, and pretty soon the diner would be crowded with adults tired from a hard day’s labor, and not many of them liked me any better than Marjo did. Most of them were older than me; at eighteen, I was starting to get the get-a-job-you-punk stares.

I like a good ass-kicking, but the Good Book is right: It’s better to give than to receive.

I was unlocking the door to Eve’s car when I saw somebody behind me on the window glass, blocking the blazing westerly sun. The reflection was smeared and indistinct, but in the ripples I made out some of the features.

Jerome Fielder. What do you know, I really
had
seen him.

I had exactly enough time to think,
Dude, say some thing witty
, before Jerome grabbed a handful of my hair and rammed me forehead-first into hot metal and glass. My knees went rubbery, and there was a weird high-pitched whine in my ears. The world went white, then pulsed red, then faded into darkness when he slammed me down again.

Why me? I had time to wonder, as it all went away.

I woke up some time later, riding in the backseat of Eve’s car and dripping blood all over the upholstery.
Oh, crap, she’s gonna kill me for that
, I thought, which was maybe not the biggest problem I had. My wrists were tied behind my back, and Jerome had done some work on my ankles too. The bonds were so tight I’d lost feeling in both hands and feet, except for a slow, cold throb. I had a gash in my forehead, somewhere near the hairline I thought, and probably some kind of concussion thing, because I felt sick and dizzy.

Jerome was driving Eve’s car, and I saw him watching me in the rearview mirror as we rattled along. Wherever we were, it was a rough road, and I bounced like a rag doll as the big tank of a car charged over bumps.

“Hey,” I said. “So. Dead much, Jerome?”

He didn’t say anything. That might have been because he liked me about as much as Marjo, but I didn’t think so; he didn’t look exactly
right
. Jerome had been a big guy, back in high school-big in the broad-shouldered sense. He’d been a gym worshipper, a football player, and winner of the biggest neck contest hands down.

Even though he still had all the muscles, it was like the air had been let out of them and now they were ropy and strangely stringy. His face had hollows, and his skin looked old and grainy.

Yep: dead guy. Zombified, which would have been a real mindfreak anywhere but Morganville; even in Morganville, though, it was weird. Vampires? Sure. Zombies? Not so you’d notice.

Jerome decided it was time to prove he still had a working voice box. “Not dead,” he said. Just two words, and it didn’t exactly prove his case because it sounded hollow and rusty. If I’d had to imagine a dead guy’s voice, that would have been it.

“Great,” I said. “Good for you. So, this car theft thing is new as a career move, right? And the kidnapping? How’s that going for you?”

“Shut up.”

He was absolutely right, I needed to do that. I was talking because hey, dead guy driving. It made me just a bit uncomfortable. “Eve’s going to hunt you down and dismember you if you ding the car. Remember Eve?”

“Bitch,” Jerome said, which meant he did remember. Of course he did. Jerome had been the president of the Jock Club and Eve had been the founder and nearly the only member of the Order of the Goth, Morganville Edition. Those two groups never got along, especially in the hothouse world of high school.

“Remind me to wash your mouth with soap later,” I said, and shut my eyes as a particularly brutal bump bounced my head around. Red flashed through my brain, and I thought about things like aneurysms, and death. “Not nice to talk about people behind their backs.”

“Go screw yourself.”

“Hey,
three
words! You go, boy. Next thing you know, you’ll be up to real sentences. . . . Where are we going?”

Jerome’s eyes glared at me in the mirror some more. The car smelled like dirt, and something else. Something rotten. Skanky homeless unwashed clothes brewed in a vat of old meat.

I tried not to think about it, because between the smell and the lurching of the car and my aching head, well, you know. Luckily, I didn’t have to not-think-about-it for long, because Jerome made a few turns and then hit the brakes with a little too much force.

I rolled off the bench seat and into the spacious legroom, and
ow.
“Ow,” I made it official. “You learn that in Dead Guy Driver’s Ed?”