Not If You Were the Last Vampire on Earth Read online

  Alex flashed me a grin. “Thanks. I made it.”

  My surprise etched deeper on my face. “You cook?”

  “Yes, I cook. I had a mom. She was human. She worked two jobs to support us so I helped out wherever I could.”

  “But if your diet is mostly red and liquidy…”

  He shook his head but a small smile played on his lips. “I can eat food. It just doesn’t sustain me. I’m half human. I inherited taste buds. But when I eat, the food feels like it just evaporated and I’m still hungry.”

  “I’m hating you more with every word,” I said. I had abandoned my spoon and was tipping the bowl and gulping it into my mouth. Most of it got in but a small waterfall stained my gown. Hunger makes you forgo some class.

  “I’d happily pack on the pounds after tearing through a bag of Oreos if it meant shedding some of my other vices.”

  I chewed the inside of my cheek. The wetness from the soup sat warm on my chest and my words felt funny coming out, like I’d just come from the dentist. “My face feels funny.”

  “You had botulism,” Alex told me. “The toxins have a paralyzing effect. It will go away in a couple days.”

  “I ate something bad?”

  “You ate something fatal. If you hadn’t called me, you would have eventually stopped breathing.”

  I finished my bowl and held it awkwardly in my lap. A thank you was in order but I couldn’t seem to choke out the simple words. I was supposed to hate vamps. Vamps weren’t supposed to make me laugh. Or make me soup. Or save my life.

  We eyed each other, meshing the visions before us with the personalities we came to know on the phone.

  We were silent for so long, Alex finally said, “I could rustle up a couple of receivers if it makes it easier.”

  I almost smiled. “I didn’t know a lot of vamps.”

  “A lot?”

  “Okay. Any. I didn’t know any vamps.”

  My eyes studied him. Just like the woman in the mall, you couldn’t tell he fed on human blood to live. Unlike that woman, I felt no kneejerk reaction to protect myself. There was no threat here.

  “Well,” he said. “Now you know one.”

  Chapter 22

  Him

  While Tasha slept, I powered up a pair of walkie talkies and left one of the mates in her room. When I wasn’t in the lab, I could hear her on the main floor from my office or my bedroom. It was just when I had to go work that I’d be out of earshot. And it made me jumpy trying to work and not be connected to her. Funny, since that’s all we were for two months. Disconnected by space and her reservations.

  The first couple days when all she pretty much did was sleep was frustrating because I kept running back up the flight of stairs to make sure she was okay. I’d be staining microbes on a Petri dish and this uneasy feeling would creep up my neck and it would itch until I set my work in the fridge and go to check. And she’d just be laying there, sleeping, all her fingers and toes in tact.

  Now she was up and moving a little bit. We didn’t leave the hospital. Just moving around on the main floor wore her out. She took her time in each of my rooms, scrutinizing them, trying to see me in all my stuff. When she glanced at me, her eyes would be full of thought.

  I could feel her trying to shed her prejudice against vamps. It was not a new sensation for me to experience. I had spent my life in hiding.

  She ran her hand against an Aerosmith poster.

  “Favorite?” she asked and I immediately knew what she was referring to on the one word.

  “Living on the Edge.”

  Her smile was small. “Not Walk This Way? Or Dream On?”

  “Nope. Yours?”

  “Dude Looks Like a Lady.”

  I shook my head. “Not what I would’ve guessed for you.”

  “My dad loved that song. He was a very serious man. A sergeant. Always business. But I remember when he sang along to that song, his face scrunched up and his voice went high pitched like Steven Tyler’s and he shed some of the seriousness in the moment.” She sighed and her gaze left the room, settling on a memory I couldn’t see. “So, yeah. Favorite by proxy,” she said, coming out of it. “My favorite solely on the music? Sweet Emotions.”

  I felt the tidbit she shared relax me a little, like the woman I knew was coming back.

  I started singing the song softly under my breath. She dared a small smile and continued to look.

  “Oh, yeah. Stephen King,” she said, coming to my books. My reading preference which once was a lively phone conversation was now a reflection on my vampiric status.

  “I like horror. He’s the king of it, true to his name,” I said, trying not to be defensive.

  “Mmmm hmmm.” The smile was gone from her face and I could hear her mind screaming Typical!!!

  I usually had no patience for ignorance and I hated cowering from the truth before The Sweep when admitting to it meant death for me and everyone I loved. Now that the threat was gone, I could wave my vamp flag without fear. I was anxious for her to get over it. I already knew what she was like underneath all this judgment so I needed to exercise patience if I wanted her back.

  “So do you like being a vamp?”

  Tasha finally stopped touching my things and settled rigidly into a chair in the corner of the room.

  “I don’t mind it like I used to. I would like to give up blood and I hope to eventually find a substitute altogether but otherwise, it’s what I am. I can’t change it and I wouldn’t at this point if I could. If I did, I wouldn’t be me.”

  “Substitute?”

  Oh, yeah, the research. Time for more truths.

  “Yes. I’m researching blood alternatives.”

  “I thought you were researching a way to cure the virus infection.”

  “I am. I’m running more than one project. The virus infection and a serum.”

  “Serum?”

  “It’s how I’m still here. Without humans. Before, I always fed from donated blood. But I realized early on in high school that I’d need an alternative. A back up if you will. One of the downsides of a vamp’s diet is how restrictive it is. We aren’t as adaptable as humans.”

  I approached her and pulled the ottoman away from the chair to sit. She shifted a little but to her credit, she didn’t move away.

  “It’s like, weaning myself off human blood,” I continued. “I figured out how to make a lot of sustenance from a little blood. So if I were to take a vial of human blood, I mix it with a serum that allows me to make ten liters of nourishment. Which is great, but what’s even greater is if I can make more with even less. That’s what I’m working on. If I can do it without blood at all, that would be ideal but I’m a long way off from that.”

  “So…where do you get the blood?”

  “It’s frozen here. I have stores of it I’m working with.”

  “Ah.”

  She looked uncomfortable. She was fidgeting with the arm of my chair, pulling at a loose string in the stitching. I was about to offer to leave the room, give her more space when she asked, “Did your sister like being a vamp?”

  “What? No. My sister was human.” I was taken aback by the question momentarily before I realized that of course Tasha assumed that my sister was a vamp. I was a vamp and we were twins. The surprise in her eyes confirmed my realization. “Vamp offspring works like genetics,” I explained. “It’s like eye color or height. We were fraternal twins so we had different genes. Not every vampire sires a vamp. But two humans could still have a vamp if both their fathers are vampires.”

  “Oh.” She took a deep breath. “So you can cook well and you eat food for fun. But, you have to drink this serum everyday?”

  “I call it juice because serum doesn’t sound appetizing, but yeah. That’s what keeps me alive. And it tastes bland, like bitter watered down tea but it’s not the worst thing.”

  She looked me dead in the eye. “Does blood taste good?”

  “Not really. And I mean the blood I used to drink at the bloo
d banks.”

  “Does fresh human blood taste good?”

  She wasn’t going to let me wiggle around this one. I gave it to her straight.

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever-” she swallowed forcefully and diverted her eyes trying to get out the question. “Have you ever turned anyone?”

  “No. I can’t. Vamps don’t inherit that trait. My fangs aren’t poisonous and they don’t have the ecstasy effect a full vampire’s does. If I bite someone, they feel it. It’s not pleasant.”

  “Have you…”

  I waited a beat but it was clear she didn’t have the balls to finish it. I gave her a pass.

  “Yes. I’ve bitten someone. And when you don’t hate my kind, maybe I’ll elaborate on the circumstances. But right now, I’m not in the mood to share anymore.”

  I stood up and headed for the door. Her voice stopped me.

  “Alex?”

  I turned. “What?”

  “Thank you for saving my life.”

  “You’re welcome!” My response was angry because that’s what I was feeling but at least I had her gratitude.

  She nodded. “I deserved that.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “I’m trying, okay?”

  “Okay. Try. But I don’t need to sit here while you poke through my stuff and look at me with that frown on your face. You can judge me just fine while I work in my lab.”

  Chapter 23

  Her

  I took Mowgli and Bagheera with me the first time I explored Houston on my own. Baloo was feeling under the weather and sleeping it off in his cage. Weirdly enough, my dogs liked the enclosures Alex found in Tucson to get them here. He had thrown in extra blankets and tied chew toys to the mesh to make them more homey when he was too scared for his life to let them out while I slept.

  “It nearly cost me a few fingers,” he’d told me. “But I didn’t know how long I’d have to leave them in there.”

  Alex started a new round of tests and had to babysit the initial set ups. I was feeling much stronger and the hospital walls were pushing in on me so he encouraged me to go. We hadn’t spoken much in the past few days. He kept his distance, preferring his work to being around me.

  But I could still see him in the little thoughtful gestures that kept popping up. Girl scented soap appeared in the washroom down the hallway. A handful of iPods with depleted charges were left on a table in my room early one morning while I still slept. And slowly, art supplies grew around me. Paintbrushes hooked up with charcoal and made babies. Everyday there’d be a little more to work with. Clearly, Alex had me in the back of his mind when he scavenged on his errands.

  “Just stick to the main roads in the daylight and you’ll be okay,” he said, shoving a map of Houston and a bottle of water he raided from a broken vending machine into my sack as I got ready to leave. “There are endless signs pointing you back to M.D. Anderson. Benefit of living in a hospital.”

  I let him hoist it onto my back. The need for him to be helpful was also a little stifling but lined with sweetness at the same time. He tossed in a peanut butter granola bar that was sitting on his nightstand as an afterthought. I wasn’t used to someone having so many thoughts about me, after and otherwise. Not since I had my father.

  “I’ll need to leave the medical center if I’m going to find any pieces to add to my project,” I said. He dangled car keys in front of me.

  “My Camaro. It’s parked in the garage on the first floor. Fully gassed.”

  “Thanks,” I told him. I took the keys, whistled at my dogs, gave Alex one last conflicted look, then turned and made my way through the maze of hospital hallways.

  I found the stairwell we used to get down the parking garage and a few minutes later I was speeding down Highway 288 with the windows down and my dogs’ tails in my face. Both of them had their heads stuffed together out of the passenger window, basking in the wind.

  I headed south on the highway away from the city. I needed air. I wanted to start in a home that sat away from the hustle and bustle. I wanted a slower soul to paint.

  I found such a soul in the Stone residence.

  The buildings shrank in height as I drove further away from the city until they were replaced all together by trees and then even those were scarce. Large fields encompassed the land around me. I made a left turn onto a wide road through a wooden gate with a large set of horns and the words Stone & Company branded into a thick wooden beam.

  Almost immediately, my wheels caught on something slick and the car slid wildly to the left. I turned sharply to the right to avoid hitting a massive oak on my driver’s side and managed to pick up traction in the dirt and straighten us out. I pulled forward and stopped, gripping the steering wheel and breathing deeply to slow my pounding heart.

  “We almost put a nick in Alex’s baby,” I told my dogs, pulling a sarcastic face. But absently, my hand petted the steering wheel as we drove on as if to tell the Camaro: it’s ok, you’re all right.

  The house came into view about ten minutes down the gated road, sitting behind a sea of wheat. It was a sprawled one story ranch house with a wrap around yellow porch and wooden rocking chairs. I knew pulling up to it that this was the home I was looking for. I could almost feel their peaceful life from the driver’s seat of the Camaro.

  I let Mowgli and Bagheera out to explore the yard while I pushed into the front door. Not locked. The garage door was wide open and empty of cars. They didn’t die here. They had left before the end.

  I walked through the house, breathing in the staleness that empty time lends to the air. Dust coated the surfaces of the home. The kitchen was huge. Details were attended to such as a double oven in the side wall, a pull out facet in an oversized sink, and extra burners in the island. Bar stools circled the part of the island not dedicated to stove burners or butcher blocks and even more lined the counter on the far left side. Cookbooks sat in a row on a wooden shelf by the pantry and upon closer inspection I could see old purple stains, white streaks of flour, even some hardened dough on a spine or two. These were not for show. Someone here loved to cook and the family made the kitchen space their hub.

  Further exploration revealed that an older couple lived here with at least three kids who had grown and left. When I discovered their names, it fit their pictures perfectly.

  Anthony and Marjorie Stone.

  He was tall and rugged and gray haired. She was a few feet shorter, the top of her head just reaching his shoulders in a fishing picture on the mantle where they were both proudly displaying their catches. She had dark hair, soft eyes that crinkled at the corners, and a warm smile. Upstairs in their bedroom, I found a trunk. When I opened it, I discovered Anthony had been in the military.

  The familiar sight of fatigues folded at the bottom hit me with emotion and my eyes flooded. Anthony was a sergeant in rank, just like my father had been. I ran my fingers over his medals and read the letters he’d saved from Marjorie while on tour. Underneath his uniform was an army knife. The handle was the size of my palm and it was a dark green color. The side had the initials T.K. scratched into it. I tucked the blades away and stowed it in my knapsack. I rarely took anything from the houses I painted but once in a while I’d come across a piece that was either extremely useful or had an intangible pull on me. This knife had both.

  As I settled in to paint, it became clear that Anthony was going to be the focus. Hard, gray strokes softened by lighter greens and yellows took shape on the canvas. He reminded me of my father. Rigid in life and soft in the heart.

  By the time I finished the piece and hung it in their kitchen, I was starving. The granola bar was long gone and I didn’t think I’d have traveled so far to work on a project so I didn’t bring anything else. The Stones’ cupboards were bare so there’d be no scavenging for food here.

  I called out to my dogs to hop in the car and threw my sack in the backseat.

  Nothing happened when I cranked the key in the ignition. I frowned and tried again b
ut the car shuddered and died.

  Great.

  I opened the door to let out Mowgli and Bagheera. “Stay close,” I told them sternly. “When I find a car that will get us out of here, I don’t want to waste an hour looking for you.”

  I used my hand to shield the sun and looked up and down the dirt road. Anthony and Marjorie Stone may have had a fascinating story but their fascinating story took place miles away from civilization. I didn’t notice how far out of town I was until I glumly realized just then that I may have to walk back in.

  I went back into the farmhouse to search for a phone. I remembered seeing one that would work and it’d be faster to call Alex than trek through this sticky heat for hours.

  As I suspected, he was none too pleased when I called.

  “I’ve had that car for nine years,” he complained into the phone. “I give her to you for one day and you manage to put her out of commission.”

  “Or perhaps the nine years of service played into it,” I couldn’t help saying. I knew I needed to behave to avoid a walking journey through Houston’s flatlands but I couldn’t keep that retort off my tongue.

  He sighed audibly into my ear. “Can you sit tight for an hour? I’m shutting down my labs for the day and then I’m coming to pick you up.”

  I gave him the address then took another stroll through the house with a second pair of eyes. Now that I had more time on my hands I turned a keener focus onto the Stones’ life together. They’d seemed happy. Married for almost forty years according to the date on the back of their wedding picture. I pulled out more albums and a couple of yearbooks and kept myself content journeying through their courtship, marriage, first house, kids, this farm (a change in career. It looks like Anthony tried on several hats after the military before settling down here), and the death of a daughter. The mementos told me the death was from The Before, not The Sweep. That’s where some of the sharp grays in my painting came from. He carried that pain. It showed in the photographs after it happened.