The Vampire's Boy, ch 1 - and chatter

so my husband goes out to walk my Thumper dog this evening, and he puts on "St. Elmo's Fire" as he leaves the room, asking me if I liked it (he knew I'd seen it a long time ago). I said I had liked it at the time, but I didn't know if I did now or not. Watching it in the background as I was trying to edit a story was surprisingly distracting, because there was a lot of nostalgia that came with viewing it. You know who I really liked this time around, watching it? Wendy (Mare Winningham), who found herself and still kept a lot of room in her heart for others during the search. Kevin (Andrew McCarthy), pining for his secret looove, Leslie (Ally Sheedy). Jules (Demi Moore) was irritating, a bit amusing and irreverent, Billy (Rob Lowe) was hopeless but charming, Alec (Judd Nelson) was an ass. I remember adoring Judd in "The Breakfast Club" - another movie I don't remember very well. When I first watched the movie years ago, I thought Wendy was meh, Kevin was irritating, Billy was ... hopeless but very romantic. Jules and Leslie, I pretty much still feel the same about.  So you remember him? And I just realized, looking over the first chapter of this vampire story, that the boy in it has a passing resemblance to him. Somehow that's so funny to me. I mean, in my head he doesn't look a lot like this, but the description of him reads pretty similar. I think the ghost of Billy was floating around in my head all these years and I never realized it.  I've been trying to edit this story, finish it and fill in some parts for a long while now, but we've had some major changes within the family and with my health, and I've been trying to cope. I know one thing. In the past I tried (admittedly not much, compared to most of the authors I know) to join in on some groups, loops and blogs, and get in on the ebook author train. It never worked for me. It probably never will. I'm not particularly outgoing and although I love reading/writing/discussion of both, I'm not very good at socializing. I think the thing I've enjoyed best is guest blogging, but as to the rest, I'm not very successful at it. If you want to see me, I'd truly love that. There's here, of course, and my website, facebook, tumblr and twitter, but aside from those places I'm pretty much out of the loops. I have no doubt I'll have new work (I have several WIPS and another rough draft completed as Theda, and other work writing as Klaudia), but until things settle, the issue of when I get them out remains open. I hate that, and am in fact very unhappy with that and hope that it changes soon.  At any rate, now I'm gonna post up the first chapter to THE VAMPIRE'S BOY because that's the thing I need to finish first. I know I said it'd be done, and I had figured it'd be done a couple of months ago, but that's how it is for now. --

THE FIRST TIME the vampire came for him, he was seventeen and afraid of nothing.

It was a Thursday night, and he’d been at Jordan’s house smoking weed. He’d told his mom they were studying, and honestly, that’s what he’d intended. It’s just that Jordan always had weed.

When he got to the point he felt like he was built of particles all floating separate and still but interconnected, he left. Jordan protested, saying it was just getting good (what it was, Jared didn’t know), but he knew if he stayed they’d end up cutting class tomorrow. And the last time he’d played hooky the school had called his house and left a message, dry and mechanical: “To the parents or guardians of Jared Mikels: Jared was absent from school today. You have three days to submit—”

Aaannd the shit had hit the fan.

It was the end of April, with only a few more weeks of school left. He was determined to stay out of trouble before summer break. He hoped. First there was the little matter of getting into the house without his parents knowing he was stoned.

Jordan lived down the block from him, so it only took a couple of minutes for Jared to walk home. It was a nice looking neighborhood, mostly upper scale Cape Cods, an occasional older bungalow thrown in. The moon was nearly full, white light bouncing off the sidewalks.  Jared shivered when a mild wind rustled through the leaves beginning to sprout on the trees.

His house was a brick two-story, the pine in the front yard throwing a long shadow over the porch. He climbed the steps and opened the front door quietly, doing his best not to act like he was trying to be quiet. He kept his head up and his eyes wide to keep the droop of his eyelids minimized just in case he had the bad luck to run into his parents first thing.

It was after eleven and the house was dark, only the light from the TV screen in the living room flickering over the furniture. His dad sat on the couch, slumped comfortably against the overstuffed end cushion. The silver in his hair shone blue in the light, and his glasses sat crookedly over his nose.

Jared watched him a minute. His dad didn’t move. He was asleep.

“Yes,” he whispered, pumping his fist, and started up the stairs outside the living room. He was almost home free, but the last stair didn’t cooperate—it tripped him. He thumped to his knees in the hall, surprised. “Oops,” he said, snickering. But quietly. If his mom heard down the hall from her bedroom, she didn’t say anything. Most likely she was asleep, too.

In the bathroom he brushed his teeth, looking at himself in the mirror. His lids were definitely at half-mast over his pale blue eyes, sleepy and well, stoned-looking. He opened them wide as he could, straining to see the whites all around, but it wasn’t happening, and he looked stupid enough doing it that he grinned through the toothpaste at his image.

It’d been drizzling as he walked home, and his dark hair was wet. He pushed it back off his face. It was long enough that his dad bitched every time they were in the same room long enough to actually talk.

Hell with that. It wasn’t really all that long. His dad was a tightass. He’d really freak if he knew about the tattoo Jared had gotten. Jared pulled his sleeve up to look at it. Peace, baby. He grinned in the mirror.

Dad didn’t like the long hair or the low-slung jeans (in fact Jared got yelled at just this week for showing his ass off, literally, when he’d looked under the couch for Malvoline the cat’s favorite stuffed mouse toy). Or the earring, the music, his friends in general, and last but not least, the black, white and red T-shirt he wore with a hooker and a zombie making out.  

He stared in the glass, absently rubbing the tat with long fingers, the grin disappearing off his face.  He was pretty sure Dad didn’t like much of anything about him.

He sighed and shuffled off to his bedroom. He didn’t turn on the light. The room was made of shadows, posters like featureless black rectangles against the walls. He expertly avoided the usual heaps of clothes wadded up on the floor and flopped into bed still clothed. He fell asleep almost instantly. He never heard the window slide open.   

Moments later he woke to a vampire in his bed, though all he knew at first was the press of a body against his and a hand lying flat against his heart.  

Jared blinked up into the dark and tried to sit up, but the hand was unyielding. He turned his head to see who held him. It was a boy with dark hair and eyes like palest gray smoke, pupils red with hunger and mouth pale with need.

“I’m sorry,” the vampire whispered. “I’m so hungry.” He gripped Jared’s head between both hands and thrust his face into Jared’s neck, fangs sliding like twin blades of ice into his throat. Jared cried out. The vampire clamped a hand over his mouth, head shaking back and forth, burrowing into flesh, grunting. A beast feeding off a carcass. Jared’s body writhed against the bed, and only the hand against his chest kept him from falling to the floor.

The world around him narrowed and floated away in foggy wisps. The vampire whispered into his neck, voice vibrating low into Jared’s skin. I didn’t mean to come for you, I didn’t want to hurt you. Tears like diamonds, cold and hard, fell from the vampire’s eyes, rolling down Jared’s face and neck to melt into the bed clothes. The hand that held him down stopped pushing against his chest and stroked instead, fingers cold. Jared’s nipples rose hard against the touch. The vampire whispered that Jared tasted like the best cherry wine, licking Jared’s neck over and over with long swipes of his cool tongue. It took away some of the hurt.

Jared felt sick and aroused, amazed that he was able to throw wood with the world like pale shadows in his vision. The vampire licked and kissed, achingly slow and soothing, murmuring in his ear how beautiful he was, how Jared’s blood was a part of him, voice and touch buzzing under his skin until Jared thrust his hips upward helplessly and came in his pants. 

Afterward he was very tired. He slept, and he didn’t awaken when his mother came to get him up for school the next morning. He didn’t know about his mother’s screams, and he didn’t realize when his father gave him CPR. He very nearly died, though he only found out after he opened his eyes the next day to see both his parents staring at him anxiously. He was in a hospital.

His father looked like he’d aged twenty years, red snaps threading his eyes, hand quivering on Jared’s arm, and Jared thought maybe he’d been wrong, that after all his dad did love him. He tried to smile, but he was still so tired. His dad covered his eyes, shoulders shaking. He squeezed Jared’s arm. His mother held Jared’s hand in both of hers and cried, too.

Embarrassed but touched, Jared opened his mouth to tell them he was okay. He fell asleep again before he’d gotten a word out. 

 

Two months later when Jared was back home, freshly graduated from high school and spending his summer getting in more trouble than ever, back to the same sure conviction in his gut that his dad couldn’t stand the sight of him, the vampire came back.