Vamp

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2When I came to, I was on the cement floor, the letter atop my chest. I stared at the paper, frowning as I rubbed my neck. “My dearly departed cousin had a sick sense of humor.”

“Nope,” came the voice that caused my body to quiver, eyes to glance up and then blink.

“What do you mean nope, Igor?”

He was staring down at me. “Nope, no sense of humor at all.” He paused and scratched his chin. “Though on occasion he did grin at the Snapple caps.” Then he shrugged. “In any case, I assume that he told you his little secret, judging from your now-prone position and the look of disbelief on your face.”

I groaned. “That he’s a…that I’m a…”

“Vampire,” he calmly stated, finishing the sentence, ridiculous as it sounded. “Yes, sir, he was, as are you.”

I pushed myself up on my elbows. “There’s no such thing, Igor, and besides, I don’t drink blood, and I can see my reflection in the mirror, and I love a good garlic pizza.”

He snickered, the familiar chill running down my spine at the sound of it, like nails across a chalkboard, only much less enjoyable. “And you are not some movie version of a vampire, either. You are human, you have a reflection, and, of course, you love garlic pizza. Who doesn’t?”

“And the blood?” I asked.

He nodded, as much as he could. “Oh, yes, that you drink. Some of the movie stuff is true, I suppose.”

“Except that I don’t,” I needlessly reminded him.

“Yet,” he replied, “but you will. You must, or you will die, as they all have.”

“Who?” I asked, trembling yet again. “My cousin? Was he killed?”

But Igor merely grunted. “You must drink the vial, as I am sure he’s told you to do. Beyond that, your world is yours to discover. I do not know much more than what I have seen, what I have heard. It was not his way to offer more than he had to, not the way of your kind, in fact.”

“What’s in the vial?” I thought to ask, my heart now pounding in my ears.

He turned and headed back up the stairs, only answering with, “Drink it and find out, sir, drink it and find out.”

The basement door shut loudly behind him, and I was left alone again, in silence, the coffin to my right. All in all, I quickly realized, my life as a wealthy bachelor wasn’t off to such a great start. “Where are all the scantily-clad men cavorting around the pool?” I asked with a heavy sigh. Then I pushed myself up and dusted myself off before also heading up the stairs. “Please don’t let Igor be the lone cavorter around this place,” I added, “scantily-clad or otherwise.”

Then I had myself a look around. From room to richly-appointed room I went, shocked at all the obscene wealth, at all the art—much of it, too, obscene—and at all the dust, obscene amounts of it. I mean, with all his money, my money, couldn’t Cousin Boris afford a housekeeper, or at least a snazzy Dyson? I sneezed as I headed up the winding wooden staircase, then sneezed again as I stared up at the crystal chandelier, which was dripping with prismatic gems, and sneezed yet again as I gazed down the long corridor, rooms on either side, doors shut, with Lord only knew what behind them.

Best guess, obscene things.

Though, of course, I knew what was behind one of them, at any rate.

“The vial,” I whispered, the words sending a jolt up my back that caused the hairs on my neck to stand on end.

I knew which room it was, too, felt it. It was like the door was pulsing, a beacon through the fog. Down the hall and to the right, just as Igor had said, and so that’s where I headed, my hand on the knob seconds later, the door giving way as I inhaled and entered, as my heart nearly burst from my chest.

The bedroom, like the rest of the house, was extravagant, the bed massive, furniture old, wooden, intricately carved, but it wasn’t at any of this I was staring. It was at the portrait hanging above the bed, to the man’s likeness captured within.

“Boris,” I rasped, at last exhaling, my eyes laser-locked onto his, his onto me, as if he were staring down. “Nice to meet you, cousin,” I added, with a nod of my head. “Too bad the circumstances couldn’t have been better.” Then I squinted as my eyes went up and down, left and right, across the expanse of canvas. “You don’t look much like a vampire, cousin.” In fact, he looked quite similar to me: same blue eyes, same aquiline nose, similar jet-black hair slicked back, cheekbones that any model would kill for, and an identical dimpled chin. “Okay, maybe a little vampirish, now that I think about it.” I quickly lifted my fingers to my mouth and rubbed them across my rather dull incisors. “Just checking.” Then I laughed, nervously, then laughed again when I spotted the nightstand, the top drawer just slightly ajar.

Slowly, I inched my way toward it, my neck bent down, eyes landing on the prize as my breath again got sucked in, like I’d been sucker-punched in the gut all of a sudden. The vial, as the letter had said, was there, medium-sized, slender, made of glass, and filled, I discovered, with some sort of liquid.

I lifted it up and held it to the light, the liquid thick, viscous, a deep, dark red. Suddenly, I felt like Alice. “Drink me?” I said to it. “No f*****g way.” Then I again gazed up at the portrait. “No f*****g way, cousin. No. f*****g. Way.”

I gulped as I again stared at the vial, and again as I lifted off the stopper. A third time as I took a whiff, goose bumps instantly forming up my arms as a soft moan escaped from between my parted lips. Whatever it was that was inside smelled like heaven, like s*x and youth and power, like nothing I’d ever smelled before. Intoxicating would’ve been one of those obese understatements again.

In other words, just like Alice, I drank it.

Go figure.

It went down smoothly, perhaps a bit acrid, but still, down it went, every last drop, before I set the empty vial on the nightstand. In silence I stood there, staring from it to the portrait and back again, watching, waiting, listening for something, anything out of the ordinary. Only, everything felt the same. I felt the same.

Until, that is, of course, I didn’t.

See, the room was stuffy, airless, still, and so I opened up the window for a breath of fresh air. Except it wasn’t air that I suddenly smelled, or even eucalyptus. Or the ocean far down below, churning against the craggy rocks that abutted the nearby coastline. No, it was all that and so much more. I could, in fact, smell, well, everything—wait, EVERYTHING! Yep, that’s more like it.

I could, all of a sudden, smell every animal, vegetable, and mineral, could discern what each one was, too. Could pinpoint where the nearest bunny rabbit was, the closest coyote, sea lion, dog, human, besides Igor, whose scent, suffice it to say, was unmistakably his own. Each new molecule of it that wafted up my nostrils sent my mind reeling until I was fairly panting as I stared out the window at it all. Everything, like the mansion, seemed suddenly mine for the taking.

Instantly, I turned and stared at the portrait, frowning as it, in turn, smiled down at me. “What have I done, cousin?” I groaned. “What have I done?”

* * * *

I found myself outside a scant few minutes later. I needed to get out of there, out of the room, the mansion, away from it and him. But the world was foreign to me now, different somehow than it was before. Still, I walked down the gravel path, the gate sensing me, opening to allow my exit. So I ran through it, back the way I’d come, suddenly taking a sharp right toward the ocean, trying to clear my head of the million sounds and smells that now filled it: each one distinct, each one familiar.

All, that is, save for one, one that stood out from the rest. Unique, strange, intoxicating, pulling me toward it, positive pole to my negative, my pole instantly rigid and thick as a tree limb inside my jeans.

I stopped dead in my tracks, my nose tilted up. “What is that?” I fairly moaned. “It’s like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.” I moved more quickly, running again, headed toward the scent, eager to see what this new thing was.

Minutes later, I was on a deserted stretch of beach, boulders blocking it in, the descent down impossibly steep, though strangely not too steep for me, at least not anymore. There the aroma grew, blossoming inside my head, practically overpowering me, in fact. I ran toward it, the sun beating down on me, and that’s when I discovered what I’d been smelling.

Or, that is to say, whom.

It was a man, naked, alone, tanning himself. And oh, what a stunner he was, which was the most obese understatement out of all of them thus far. I inched in closer, closer still, but he didn’t move. His impossibly handsome face pointed skyward, hands by his sides, fingers digging into the warm sand. Again, I sniffed the air. The scent was indeed coming from him, and it was like nothing I’d ever smelled before. But how was that possible? How were all the other millions of scents familiar to me, but not his?

Closer I went, until I was standing directly over him, staring down at a body etched with muscle, very nearly perfect in every regard, almost unnatural in its beauty. This was Mother Nature at her finest hour. This was Adonis on a really good f*****g day.

And then he realized I was standing there, his eyes blinking open, so much blue that you just about wanted to take a swim in them, bluer than the sky up above or the ocean that stretched forever out in front of us. Again, he blinked before hopping up, faster than I’d ever seen any man hop before. One minute he was lying there; the next he was two feet away, legs apart, arms wide at his sides, eyeing me as he bared his teeth.

“How did you do that?” he panted. “How did you sneak up on me?”

I shrugged and panted right along with him. “I don’t know. Just did. I guess you were asleep and didn’t hear me.”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, how? Because that’s not possible.”

I smiled and nodded, taking him in, and man, was there a lot to take. “And yet I’m here, and you look quite surprised.”

He paused and sniffed the air, his eyes suddenly in a slit, almost feral-looking. “What…what are you?”

I froze at the words. What did he mean, what am I, and what was he sniffing? “I’m Jack,” I said, in way of a reply. “Jack Jackowski. I live in the house above the cliffs.” Or at least soon would, I supposed.

Again, he shook his head. “No, not who. What?”

And then I felt it, felt his mind inside my head as he sought the answer on his own. Only somehow, I was able to block him out, causing him to jump an inch in reverse, to blink again in shock. “What’s wrong?” I asked, feeling his fear now, the strange, heady scent that rose off him growing in intensity.

And still his head kept shaking, eyes growing wider, until they looked like they could pop right on out of their sockets. “I know how you snuck up on me,” he whispered, though the words reached my ears just the same, loud and clear.

“You…you were asleep,” I told him. “It happens.”

“No,” he replied, “not to me, not ever.” He wiped the sweat off his face and moved to within a foot of me, sniffing again. “I couldn’t smell you because you have no scent.” And still he kept moving forward, his hand outstretched, reaching for me before placing it on my chest. “And I couldn’t hear your heart…” the palm was flush with me now, “…because you have no heartbeat.” He looked up and locked eyes with me, nearly taking my breath away—that is to say, had it not been taken away, I quickly realized, when I drank from the vial. “You have no scent, no heartbeat, because you aren’t alive. So again, what exactly are you?”

I brushed his hand away. “You don’t smell right to me either,” I said, “not…not human. Not like anything or anyone I’ve ever smelled before.”

Again, his eyes grew wide, shock blanketing his face. “How is that possible? How can you smell that?”