TheVampireandtheMouse (2 page)

I was going to skip work, but I thought that would—what’s
the phrase?—
arouse suspicion
. So I decided to go in and sit at my desk
and try to behave as if everything were normal and I hadn’t stabbed a man to
death last night and met a mysterious man named Benjamin who seemed obsessed
with blood and who had promised to take care of the body for me.

I took the long way to the office, avoiding the underpass,
terrified that I would see police vans and yellow tape and news reporters. In
the office, I listened for any rumors about a dead body, but no one mentioned
it. It seemed Benjamin had not been lying. He had really
taken care
of
it.

* * * * *

I stood in the office kitchen, trying my best to look normal
as I made a cup of tea. The kettle shook in my hand, the mug shook in my hand,
and the spoon and the milk shook in my hand. But when Goggles and Bin Breath
came in (the former, Jack, a wiry man whose clothes were baggy on his stick
body and whose eyes were insect-like through goggle-like glasses; the latter,
Michael, a man normal in all regards except for his nuclear-potent breath)—when
these two came in, my hands stilled. Perhaps it was survival instinct.

Goggles leaned against the counter and Bin Breath leaned
across me and got a mug from the cupboard. “Hi, Kirsty,” he said, and I was
washed in the nuclear stuff.

I smiled my best everything-is-normal-today smile. “Hi,
Michael.” I turned to Goggles. “Hi, Jack.”

Jack smiled and adjusted his glasses. “Hello,” he said.
There was a silence, and then the small-talk started. All through the
small-talk, my mind kept returning to Rat and his blood-soaked corpse. “So,”
Jack said, “did you do anything fun last night?”

I stopped, my body freezing. “I—” I coughed, wiped my hand
across my mouth. “I went to the cinema.”

“Oh, what to see?”

I said the first film I could think of that was currently
showing. It was a slasher horror film full of naïve teenagers who ended up
dead.

“Oh,” Jack said, as he wiped his glasses with the cloth he
kept in his front pocket. “I didn’t think you’d be into that sort of thing. I
went to the cinema the other day, to see…”

And then he talked for a long time about the film he had
seen, which I was glad about. It meant I didn’t have to live in the double-life
world of thinking of the dead man, whilst talking about films. I made my tea
and then went to the door, as Jack was muttering, “It was amazing, I love what
he does with violence and how he uses pop music in historical films.”

When I was at the door, I said, “I have to get back to
work.”

“Okay,” Jack said, and turned to Michael, who had just
finished making their teas.

When I sat back down at my desk, Legs, Panda Eyes, and The
Princess didn’t even notice. I was starting to wonder if they had given me a
secret nickname too: The Assassin. I had done a lot to earn it, moving through
the office with ninja-like silence. Oh, who am I kidding? They would’ve dubbed
me The Mouse, for my rodent-like silence.

Andrea had the longest legs I’d ever seen. They seemed to go
up to her bellybutton, completely surpassing her midsection. She always wore
short skirts and sat with her legs crossed, and the men in the office always
drooled at her as if she were the cover of a magazine. Simone was small, like
me, but she wore dark eye makeup that drew you into her forest-green eyes and
made her look like a panda. Fiona comported herself like a princess, always
straight-backed and
proper
, with fancy jewelry.

As I got started with my work, Legs said, “Oh, here she is,
we can ask her now.”

I looked up. “Huh?”

“We were talking about men we’re seeing,” The Princess said,
in her measured voice. “We were wondering if you’re currently seeing anyone.”

“Yeah,” Panda Eyes agreed. “I reckon you are, because you’re
a good-looking girl. But Andrea thinks you’d get too nervous around guys and
wouldn’t be able to talk to them.”

“That is
not
what I said,” Legs said, reddening.

“Yes it is—”

“Hush!” Legs went on, “All I meant was, you don’t seem like
the outgoing type. So we were just curious if you’ve got a boyfriend we don’t
know about. We really don’t know that much about you, Kirsty.”

This was exactly the kind of bonding session I could’ve done
without today. I felt my face going red, and I thought of red, and— He was
covered in red, covered in red that I did to him, and I stabbed, and I stabbed,
and he lay down and he bled and the blood went into the concrete and he died
and it’s my fault and I’m a killer, a killer, a killer.

“Kirsty,” The Princess said. “Are you okay? You look ill.”

Oh how I would have loved then to say I
was
ill and
gone home. But then that would have made everyone suspicious, and what if
Benjamin hadn’t got rid of the body properly? I could almost hear Legs, in her
excited voice, “Oh yes, she was acting strange the whole day, officer.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “And no, I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not
seeing anyone at all.”

Inside, I added,
Except for the man I killed, but that’s
only in my dreams.

They went on, and on, but I started to answer in animal-like
grunts, and they went back to work. It is hard to maintain the illusion of
normalcy when you’re a killer.

* * * * *

When work was over, I rushed home, closed the curtains,
hugged Blinky, and turned on the TV, but I couldn’t concentrate. The colors
flickered and the sounds undulated but the meaning behind those flickers and
sounds was lost on me. My mind was still processing what had happened and what
could happen.

But also, I thought of
him
.

Him, him.

He’d come when I needed him and he’d taken care of it and he
didn’t even know me. I wanted to thank him, but somehow I knew I’d never see
him again. Something had compelled my
fellow traveler
to help me but
that was it. We were done. Well, that’s what I thought as the sun fled, and
outside the street turned quiet and dark.

Then,
knock, knock
.

I went to my door and looked through the peephole and there
he was, wearing a gray jumper and faded blue jeans. I opened the door and he
smiled. We stood like that for maybe a minute, him smiling and me staring,
until he said, “Invite me in.”

“Oh, yes,” I said, flustered. “Come in, come in.”

He walked in and I closed the door behind him and led him
into the living room and we sat down. He reclined on the sofa as if he lived
here and looked at me with those dark eyes. “It’s all done,” he said. “Oh, and
the witness, the fat one, he won’t be bothering you.”

I found I couldn’t look at him, so instead I stroked Rocky and
stared down at him as he arched his back and mewed loudly. “What did you do?” I
said quietly, afraid of the answer.

“He won’t be bothering you,” Benjamin repeated, and tried to
smile. But there was a nervousness in that smile.

We were silent for a long time. Benjamin clicked his tongue
and Rocky left me and went to him and climbed into his lap. He stroked him and
rubbed him under the chin. Rocky squeaked and licked his hand. This made me
less suspicious of Benjamin. Rocky is normally a mean cat and won’t let anybody
apart from me stroke him. He licked Benjamin’s hand again and then climbed off
him.

I looked at Benjamin and he shrugged. “Animals like me.
Anyway, I imagine you have some questions. Let me save you some time and
explain everything.”

* * * * *

When he was done, I got a drink. Red wine, filled to the
brim. I drank half of it in one gulp and then returned to the living room. Ben
(he didn’t mind
Ben
) was a vampire, he told me. He’d found me by
smelling the strand of hair he’d taken. He was six hundred and twenty-seven
years old. He’d drunk Rat’s blood and dumped his body in the ocean, which was
at least one hundred miles away, by
running
there, carrying the corpse.

“A vampire,” I repeated as I took another gulp.

“A vampire,” he said.

I finished the glass and returned to the kitchen and poured
myself another wine and came back to the living room.

“A
vampire
,” I gasped.

“A vampire.” He smiled. “I can do this all day…all night, I
should say.”

I sat there silently with the wine swimming in my stomach
and his words swimming in my head, and thought,
I am dreaming
. That was
the only explanation, I was sure. I would wake up in a cell, and all this would
be a dream I’d created to hide the stark, horrible truth: I was going to spend
the rest of my life in a cage.

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

But his words were quiet and hazy, as though echoing from
mist. I was too busy listening to the jailor’s implorations and my fellow prisoners’
screams of innocence and the
clank-click
as the cell doors slid shut and
locked. I was far away, staring up at a grotty, dank ceiling, the springy
mattress digging into my back. I was going to be here forever, forever, for—

Ben jumped to his feet and nodded at my wineglass. “A
refill, yes?”

“Yes, please,” I said, realizing it was empty.

He nodded, and then, flash, blur. Nebulous mass of moving
air. A slight breeze. Was the window open? And then, blink. The glass was full.
“How—”

“Vampire, remember?”

“It didn’t spill,” I said, which seemed important for some
reason.

“I was careful,” he said. “Now, are you insane?”

“Insane,” I said, taken aback. Though it was a reasonable
question. I’d been thinking the same thing moments ago. “No,” I went on, truly
offended now. “Of course I’m not insane. Sorry, but this isn’t normal for me,
you know. I’ve never killed anybody before. I’ve never met someone who can move
faster than light. I’ve never had to flee the scene of a
crime
!” My
voice got louder, and I bunched my fists up, and the wine spilled onto the
hardwood floor. I got to my feet. “Sorry,
Ben
, but this isn’t normal!
This is madness! This is… This is… Argh!”

“Let’s take a walk,” Ben said. “I want to show you
something.”

Ben led me through the streets to a council estate. We walked
through a few rough streets filled with kids drinking from cans. Ben took my
arm as we walked past the groups. Usually they would shout things at me, like
ooh
yeah, wouldn’t mind fucking her ha, ha
. One look from Ben, however, with
his night-black eyes and his bodybuilder-like muscles, and they were
grave-silent. One guy, a little older than the others, maybe eighteen, stared a
challenge at Ben. Ben let go of my arm and walked up to him, staring him
straight in the eye. His friends rose and Ben smiled and said, “Better make it
a good shot, ’cuz if I get up you’re all dead.” He said it with such calm, such
self-confidence, as if any other outcome was unthinkable. The eighteen-year-old
backed away and the others turned with him. Ben smiled and said, “Yep, thought
so,” and then returned to me.

“People like that rely on fear,” he said as we moved through
the estate. “Take it away from them and they’re powerless.”

“What if they had attacked you?” I said, trying to keep fear
from my voice. For some reason I was embarrassed by it in Ben’s presence,
though usually I would’ve freely admitted that they scared me senseless.

Ben laughed a low, throaty laugh. “Then they would’ve
attacked me.”

My hand was on his arm. It was big and hard with muscle, and
as he curled it so we could interlock arms, the muscle tightened. Finally, he
stopped.

“See that woman?” he said.

He pointed to a lit window where a woman with a nasty bruise
on her eye was washing dishes. She wore a small smile that looked unnatural on
her face, as if she was either forcing it or she wasn’t used to wearing it. She
was beautiful, but she had that look of vulnerability that told me she’d been
told she was ugly or had been demeaned and bullied, or she had been through
something horrible. It was the look girls in school get if they’re bullied. It
was a look I’d had many, many times throughout my life.

“Yes,” I said.

“That’s the girlfriend of the man you killed. He repeatedly
raped and beat her and stole her money to buy drugs. She left him twice, but he
threatened her family so she returned to him. He’d beat her for anything, for
coughing too loudly, for wearing the wrong kind of makeup, anything.”

I looked again at her smile, at the insecurity in it. She
wasn’t
used to smiling then.

“How do you know all that?”

“I asked her,” he said. “Well, Detective Chief Inspector
Bretel asked her.”

“Why?”

“To show you. Don’t you see? Killing that man, it wasn’t a
bad thing. He’d killed people, too, when he was younger. He killed a girl with
a baseball bat and another by strangling her. He was released from prison not
too long ago.”

“But killing is wrong,” I said quietly, the blood, the
slack-jawed gaze, filling my mind.

“Yes, yes, killing is wrong,” he said, with a dismissive
wave. “But you don’t need to dwell on that. Think instead of this woman’s
happiness. Because of you she’ll never have to spend hours cleaning the flat,
terrified that he’ll return and beat her until his hand aches because one dish
was out of place.”

I tried to think of that as I stared at the woman, but all I
could see was Rat’s reproachful, lifeless eyes, asking me,
Why did you do this,
darlin’? We just wan’ed to ’ave some fun!
My breath came quickly and I fell
down. Ben knelt down next to me, but he wasn’t there, he wasn’t Ben. He was
Rat, gazing, gazing.

“Go
away
,” I spat. “Go away, go away, go away.”

Rat stared on, unflinching. He wouldn’t go. He would stay
there and he would torment me and he would never leave me. His dead lips filled
with life and turned upwards into a twisted caricature of a smile. “Darlin’,”
he said. “You can’t leave me. We’re made fur each other. Don’t you get it?”

“Go away,” I screamed, batting the air.

Somebody far away was talking in Ben’s voice, saying words
that held no meaning apart from their soothing sounds. I tried to hear them but
I couldn’t. All I could hear was Rat, taunting, taunting. “You stupid
slut
,”
he giggled. “I think we’re going to do this for a long, long time,
darrrrrrrrrrrrlaaaaan
.
We’re gonna dance this dance until the white-suits come an’ take yur pretty
little arse away. I hope I’m here when they do. ’Tis gonna be somethin’.”

Suddenly, a hand was on my shoulder, but Rat hadn’t moved. I
looked down at the hand. It was black and big and strong and soft. I put my
hand on it and held it tightly. “It’s okay,” the voice said, and now I could
hear the words. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

It’s okay
. I held on to those words and tried to
believe them, tried with every little bit of effort I could find, and slowly,
Rat’s words and his face and the pooling blood dissipated, and from one mad
place I was pushed into another, from a dead man to a dead man. Ben smiled, and
for the first time I saw how sharp his canines were, much sharper than a normal
person’s.

He saw me looking at them and shrugged. “Vampire, remember?”

I was on my back, though I didn’t remember falling down. I
sat up and took a blade of grass from my hair. “I remember.”

“Are you okay?”

“Not really.”

He lifted me to my feet and wrapped his arms around me. He
whispered in my ear, from behind, his breath warm: “I need to tell you the
whole truth. I need to tell you who I am. You might not want to see me again
after, but you have to know.”

“What truth?” I said, and found myself nuzzling into his
arm.

“I need to tell you the truth of how I came to be in the
underpass that night.”

“Tell me then.”

He cleared his throat, and then turned me around so we were
facing each other. He led me to a nearby bench and we sat, side by side.

“I’ve lived for a long time…”

* * * * *

Benjamin Bretel had lived for more than six hundred years.
He was a farmer when the Black Death (though they didn’t call it that then)
surged and wiped out his entire family. “It was a dark time,” he told me
solemnly. He caught the Death too. He’d heard rumors of a cure on the shores of
England, a cure that made people whisper about the devil. But Benjamin was
desperate. His daughter was still alive. So, almost collapsing from the Death,
he carried her there. She died on the way. But he didn’t.

The cure was vampirism. The vampires didn’t ask him if he
wanted to turn. They just turned him. They said it was for the best. They said
it was the only way he could live.

Then came the centuries. “How to explain six hundred years
of wandering?” he mused. “How can I make a human understand? I was lost,
Kirsty. I was lost and I have not been found since—”

“Since what?” I asked.

He waved a hand. “Nothing,” he said, and carried on with his
story.

He kept out of human affairs. He wandered like a vagrant,
watching people live their lives but never getting involved. He saw whole
families live and die in what—for him—was a blink of the eye. He saw wars start
and finish, innumerable men die. He watched history happen before him. And he
stayed apart. He stayed away. He was a lost man—a lost dead man—and he felt he
wasn’t worthy of participating in the affairs of humankind.

And then, as the years rolled on, he saw me. He first saw me
when I was walking home from work, through the very same underpass in which
we’d met. This had been three years ago, and he had followed me ever since. I
tried to interrupt here, but he held up his hand and said, “Just let me
finish.” So I was quiet while he told his tale.

He did not know what he found so attractive about me. He’d
watched humans before, but never had he watched one for so long, so
attentively. When he woke he would go to that underpass and watch me pass
beneath it. And sometimes he would follow me home and stand outside my house. I
asked him if he’d been planning to kill me. He looked hurt. “Never,” he said.
“I would never hurt you.”

He said there was some
innocence
about me that
captivated him, something that reminded him of what life had been like before
he became a vampire. “I remember once, before I became a vampire, after a long
day of work, I watched a bird cross the setting sun, and I smiled to myself. It
was so simple and yet so beautiful. This lone bird, a passing shadow across the
sun. I never thought I’d recapture that feeling. But with you I got it every
night.”

He watched and he watched. And then, one night, when he was
watching, as he always did, he saw Rat and Fat, and he heard my screams. He’d
been infuriated. But he had never gotten involved in human affairs. He had
never intervened, no matter how much damage we caused each other. So he
watched.

But then something happened, something he hadn’t expected.

This innocent, beautiful, small woman had killed one of the
attackers.

“It was the most unexpected thing I’ve seen in all my
years,” he said. “I knew then that I couldn’t just let you go to prison,
especially when this man deserved it.”

* * * * *

A range of emotions passed through me then. I was angry
because he’d been willing to let these men attack me. I was moved because he’d
basically told me I was the first human in six hundred years who’d had an
effect on him (quite the compliment!). I was slightly freaked out as I thought
back over the past three years and wondered where he’d been lurking. But what I
felt most of all was pity. I pitied this man who had been alone for so long.

But it was too much. It was all too much.

Ben must’ve seen something in my face, something that told
him I was overwhelmed. “Let me take you home,” he said.

“Okay,” I mumbled, feeling surreal.

We returned to my house. Ben stood at the door and put his
hand on my shoulder, a bit awkwardly. I could see that comforting people wasn’t
his forte, and I was thankful he was trying. Knowing it was hard for him too
made it easier for me.

“I’ll let you get some sleep,” he said, and turned toward
the night.

“Wait,” I called after him. He stopped and half turned
toward me. I tried to form words that would make him understand how I felt. But
all I could manage was, “I want to see you again.”

“Tomorrow,” he said, and disappeared.

I closed the door behind him and lay on my bed. A feeling
came over me that I didn’t fully understand or expect. I reached out my arms
and wished that Ben were beside me, holding me.

I turned over and lay on my front, my breasts pressed into
the mattress, and fell asleep thinking the pressure was from Ben’s hands and
not a hard, worn-out bed.

The next day at work, The Princess, Panda Eyes, and Legs
went at me again.

This time I smiled shyly. “I might be seeing someone,” I
said and left it at that.