As I’ve been working on HorrorDailies, many of my friends have been incredibly helpful with inspiration and suggestions, some solicited, some not. I’ve been under the weather the past couple of days, so while I have ideas… simmering… I haven’t managed to finish anything. My good friend Fran Hutchinson made a suggestion that I felt would be better served if she wrote it. And so she did, and I’m pleased to present it here.
Vlad settled into his satin-lined coffin with a sigh of contentment. A full feed always made him sleepy, so he left them until shortly before sunrise. His wife followed right behind him, lying in her adjacent, more ornate coffin in preparation for a good day’s rest.
“Rest well, my love,” he whispered. After two hundred and fifty years, some habits would never be broken. Except this time… no reply.
“Elvira? My love, I said ‘rest well.'” The customary reply, “And you, my dearest.” was not forthcoming. The silence was so jarring, so… disruptive… he could not let it remain. He sat up in his casket, gazing at the immobile face of his wife. “Dear? What is wrong?”
She sat up to face him angrily.
“Is it too much to ask,” she hissed, “that after you drain the last captive you do not put him back in the dungeon?”
Much chastened, he rose to go and dispose of the body in question.
“I really try to remember,” he muttered.
“Well, try harder. And don’t forget to put the lights out before you repose.”
Kat knew what he was the moment he walked into her pub.
It wasn’t anything obvious. His clothes were ordinary – no sign of a cape or decades out-of-date ruffles and lace. His skin wasn’t particularly pale. His soft brown hair held no sign of a widow’s peak.
And yet, there was something about the way he carried himself, moving through the throng of peak-time drinkers without coming into contact with a single one of them that made it clear he was something special… something other.
The crowd parted as he approached the brass rail.
Jake, one of the regulars, put a protective arm around the shoulders of his young (legal – but barely – she’d been carded) blonde date. The pretty redhead on his other side glanced at the newcomer, shivered slightly, and slid off her stool. Kat saw her absently finger her neck as she disappeared, heading toward the restrooms. Please be here with a friend, she thought.
The stranger took the vacated seat at the center of the bar, and fixed his brown eyes on her face. (Points for that. Most of them – the ones that preferred women, anyway – got stuck on the jugular, if they made it past the tits.)
Kat found herself drawn into those eyes. They weren’t the deep brown of black coffee, but warmer, like bittersweet chocolate. And his lashes. Most women would kill for lashes like his – long, thick – if he was old enough to be a day-walker, those lashes would make the sunglasses that were de rigueur among his kind pretty uncomfortable.
Still, to the untrained eye, nothing about him screamed bloodsucker. Sure, there was the inevitable sense of unease about him, but lots of paranormals caused that. Kat knew that this stranger, this man, was a vampire because of his lips.
“They all do it,” she’d explained to one of her bar backs a few weeks before. “Man, woman, doesn’t matter. They do that thing with their lips – as if they have to consciously hide their fangs.”
It wasn’t all that different from the way teenagers used to try and hide their braces, Kat reflected. They made their mouths a little wider, a little tighter at the corners. They did something with the upper lip to provide more… space.
And this guy. This guy had the perfect lips for one of his kind. They were the textbook soft M-shape. They were dusky pink but not so dark that you’d think he’d just fed. The top one held a hint of felinity. The bottom one was full, luscious. Even better, he had just the right amount of dark brown facial hair – more than a five o’clock shadow, less than a full beard – to accent that mouth.
Yeah, Kat thought, licking her own lips, definitely vampire. And a completely kissable one at that.
She’d dated vamps before of course. It was inevitable in her line of work. They kept the same hours, frequented the same spots. It was only natural.
It was also dangerous, which was why she didn’t do it often, and had established her own sharps precautions: Always take them to a hotel, never their place, and never, ever, your own place. Never let them pay. Never drink anything that isn’t clear – even a drop of their blood could put you in thrall. And the one rule that some women, she knew, found difficult: under no circumstances did you allow a vampire lover to be on top, at least, not unless you were into being a pin cushion.
“… you have my vintage?”
Kat shook herself out of her reverie. “Come again?” she asked, as if the noise was what had kept her from earing his question.
His cheeks dimpled slightly and he repeated his query in a voice that wrapped around her like velvet. Chocolate velvet. Bittersweet chocolate velvet. “I asked if you were Kat, and if you have my vintage?”
She quirked a flirtatious eyebrow at him. “Freshly corked.” She reached below the bar for a deep green bottle with no label, “Water, wine or…?”
“Neat,” he said. “Please.”
She nodded and poured the slightly viscous red liquid into a stemmed glass. To the casual observer, he’d be drinking red wine.
He lingered there until last call. Kat could tell that he was not only watching her, but also watching her watch him.
Between customers they chatted, doing the verbal dance that meant they’d likely be leaving together after last call. If Kat pegged him right – and she always pegged them right – he’d make a purposefully nonchalant invitation after the last employee disappeared out the back door.
He did, and she accepted.
The night air was damp and chilly as they left the pub. Invigorating. Walking next to him, she realized her head just crested the top of his shoulder. Perfect.
“My car’s over there,” she told him, indicating the parking lot across the street.
“I came on my own,” he said. It was the euphemism his kind always used when they’d flown or fogged from place to place.
“No problem,” she said. “I like to drive.”
She took him to a discreet boutique hotel that was halfway between the pub and her apartment. The night manager recognized her and handed over the key to her preferred suite.
In the elevator, she handed him a breath mint, which he popped into his mouth without question or pause.
There was no talking. She reached for the lapels of his leather bomber jacket at the same time he caught her by the waist.
Kissable, she thought. So very kissable.
His warm brown eyes glittered in the softly-lit room. “I know you’re called Kat,” he said, staring down at her. His dimples had come out to play again. “My name is – ”
“Shh.” She cut him off first with a finger, and then with her mouth against his. God, his mouth was exquisite. He tasted of wintergreen and danger, the faint tang of blood barely detectable. When, finally, she had to breathe, she favored him with another of her eyebrow quirks. “I’ll just call you Lips.”
“Dance me, Pop-Pop,” I beg, wrapping my whole hand around just one of his thick, calloused fingers.
“Aren’t you getting too big for this, sweetheart?” he teases, but I know he doesn’t really mean it.
I shake my head, my golden-brown braids whipping back and forth, “Never,” I answer, followed by “Please?” Being winsome has always been a special talent of mine, and as a five-year-old, I’m at my peak.
“Alright,” he says, and he envelops each of my hands in one of his, and helps me balance while I place one of my bare feet on top of each of his sturdy shoes.
I love his shoes. His work shoes, he calls them. I know he has shiny wing-tips for when we go to Sunday brunch at the officers’ club, but his every-day shoes are made of brown leather and have thick soles, and sometimes Grandmom has to remind him not to track dirt all over her clean floor.
(He always answers her with the words “Yes, dear,” half-spoken and half-sung, and she can tell he’s not really listening, and when she swipes at him with a dish towel and scowls at him, we all know she’s really saying “I love you.”)
While we dance, he hums a waltz that is as familiar to me as the way the purple striped cotton sheets feel against my sun-tanned skin when I slide into bed after my bath at night. I don’t know its name.
“You’re my super-special sweetheart,” he tells me, as we sway in circles around the dining room.
“I love you, Grandpop,” I reply.
Hours later, when I’m playing with blocks underneath the baby grand piano, and I stand up too quickly and bang my head, my grandfather is there, gathering me into his arms and drying my tears with a white cotton handkerchief.
He holds me in his lap and hums the waltz, then, too.
* * *
“Dance with me?” I ask.
My grandfather wrinkles his unruly eyebrows. “You don’t want to dance with your old Grandpop,” he protests, but he doesn’t really mean it.
It’s my sweet sixteen, and he’s rented the hall at the officers’ club for my party. My mother and grandmother are across the room, pretending not to watch us, and my father – well, he’s never been part of the equation.
“Yes, I do,” I insist, and I really do mean it.
“Alright,” he agrees and heaves himself out of the captain’s chair he’d claimed hours before. I glimpse the folded newspaper with the crossword puzzle hidden under his empty dinner plate, and I grin, but I don’t betray his secret.
The DJ pauses the endless list of pop songs to play the waltz I’d requested earlier in the night. Apparently it’s a standard tune for father-daughter dances, but I still don’t know the title of the tune.
I don’t ride on my grandfather’s feet any more. Instead, I follow his lead as we swirl in a graceful circle, and I smile when I hear him humming along with the song.
When the music ends, he strokes my hair. “Thank you, sweetheart,” he whispers.
My answer is a gentle kiss to his whiskery cheek, just after I breathe into his ear, “The answer to fifteen down is ‘zephyr.'”
* * *
“Got enough energy for one more dance, Grandpop?” I ask at the party to celebrate my grandparents’ fiftieth wedding anniversary. He’s danced with Grandmom and my mother, my aunts, and all my cousins, but I want to be last.
“I think I can manage one more,” he says.
The waltz – our waltz – is slow enough that he can manage it, but his steps falter, and I have to take the lead. To his credit, he allows it, and if there’s any sense of indignity, he never lets it show.
When the music stops, he kisses me on the forehead. “You’re my super-special sweetheart,” he says, his voice still strong inside a weakening body.
The old endearment makes me misty, and I bury my face in his lapel. He smells the way he always has: Ivory soap and Aqua Velva, and somehow it seems vitally important that I memorize his scent.
* * *
At his funeral, I watch my mother and my aunts go to the coffin and stroke my grandfather’s silvery hair, but even though the body lying there in state looks like him, his essence has long since left.
I hold my fiancé’s hand so tightly that he loses feeling in it, but he doesn’t complain. Instead, he pries my fingers loose and wraps his arm around me, holding me close and offering me a cloth handkerchief.
Sometimes I think I fell in love with him because of those cloth handkerchiefs. I’m half convinced he and my grandfather are the only men who still use them.
Used, I correct my own thoughts. Used. My fiancé uses hankies, but my grandfather used them.
Back at the house, after, while everyone is exchanging memories and trading stories, I slip away from the group and go into my grandfather’s den. I curl up in his ancient leather chair and fiddle with the photo-cube on his desk.
The invitation to my wedding is pinned to his cork board, along with the photo of my fiancé and me standing in his garden – my proposal had come as the love of my life and I were helping my grandfather pick tomatoes.
The old man had helped set it up – arranging things so I’d find the ring box tucked in against the fragrant vines.
I open the drawer where I know he stashed those tins of hard candies – lemon, usually, but sometimes coffee flavored – and find a wrapped package with my name on it. I know I should wait, but it seems like he wanted me to find it, so I tear the tissue paper apart.
It’s a CD. The track listing has one tune circled in black sharpie, and I don’t even have to put the disc in the player to know it’s our waltz. For the first time, I learn the title, and I have to smile through my tears.
It’s called The Ghost Waltz.
I play it obsessively for the next six days, until I, too, know it well enough to hum every note. Then I pack the disc away until I need it again.
Mom and Grandmom look worried, but my partner understands.
* * *
It’s the night before my wedding and there’s a full moon shining brightly over the officers’ club. The base is closed now, and the facility has been turned into a hotel and event center, but the owners are long-time friends of my family, and they’ve made sure our group is the only one in residence.
My almost-husband is asleep in a bed so tall I have to use a step-stool to climb in it (we’ve been living together for over a year, so sleeping apart seems silly and contrived) and I know I should be sleeping, too, but I can’t get my grandfather’s waltz out of my head.
I’d wanted him to be at my wedding.
I’d wanted him to dance that waltz with me.
I slip into my wedding dress and stare at my reflection in the mirror. I’m in my twenties now, but I swear I still see the echo of five-year-old me in the oval glass.
Maybe it’s the song in my head, or maybe it’s the moonlight, but I leave our suite and padd barefoot down the grand staircase to the main ballroom.
There’s a figure waiting in the center of the parquet dance floor, and my breath catches in my throat, because the perfect posture and slight paunch could only belong to one person.
As I approach, the moon shifts, and the figure solidifies. He’s wearing a tuxedo, but his work shoes are on his feet.
“Dance me, Pop-Pop?” I demand, using the words of my child-self.
His calloused hands wrap around mine, and he helps me balance one of my bare feet on each of his shoes.
We hum the waltz together as he spins me around the room, and when we get to the end, and my feet are on the ground again, he pulls me close for a hug that smells faintly of Aqua Velva and Ivory soap.
“You’re my super-special sweetheart,” he says, his voice rough and ethereal at once.
“Always,” I respond.
The clouds cover the moon and I am left alone in the darkened room, surrounded by bunting in my wedding colors.
I sink to my knees and start to cry, and suddenly I’m in bed and my fiancé is soothing me in hushed tones that turn first to soft caresses and then to kisses, until, in the first hours of our wedding day, we are making tender love on the soft white sheets.
* * *
Hours later, it’s time for our first dance as a married couple and my husband – my husband – takes the MC’s microphone, and makes an announcement.
“For most of her life,” he says, “my wife had another man in her life: her grandfather. He was her mentor and teacher and best friend. She was his sidekick and student and princess. They shared a song that they used to dance to. Last week, I found a CD on my desk with a track marked in sharpie and a post-it note instructing me to ‘dance to this when you marry her.’ Well, I’ve married her – or more accurately, she’s married me, and now we’re going to dance.”
He returns the mic to its rightful owner and returns to my side. “I love you,” he tells me.
The music starts, and I’m immediately touched and teary, resting my head against my husband’s chest (he smells like cashews and fresh apples) while we dance, and when I start to hum along, he surprised me by doing the same.
What’s the song? You ask.
Isn’t it obvious?
It’s The Ghost Waltz.
Author’s Note: This story was inspired by the song “The Ghost Waltz,” by Fats Kaplin, which I stumbled across quite by accident on Friday night. Play the video below to hear it.
I’m dealing with some severe autoimmune issues this autumn, some of which mean I have either no brain or no energy to write on any given day. That’s been the case for a good chunk of the week, but yesterday, I didn’t write because I spent half the day stitching three of the stories I’ve already written and posted into an episode of my podcast.
If you want to hear my friends and me doing audio interpretation of “The Rules,” “The Lady of La Paz,” or “Egaeus’s Protege,” please click through to:
SVM, blonde/blue seeks Type O. I’m experienced; you’re not. Rh+ OK. I never drink… wine, but I’ll open a bottle of Veuve Clicquot for the right woman. 21+ No smoking or cats.
In the old days, hookups were a lot simpler, a lot more discrete. We’d just put a few lines in the appropriate category of the Personals section of the local underground newspaper.
It was effective, to a point. At least until the early 90s. But newspapers don’t vet the people who read the Personals. (For that matter, they don’t vet the people who place them, either. If the credit card works, the ad goes in.)
Why does that matter? Because virgin blood isn’t just the sweetest thing that could ever land on an undead tongue, it’s also got this special kick that lets you enjoy a sunrise right after you’ve imbibed. Sure, some vamps claim you’ll still burn; you just won’t care, but I’ve experienced it myself.
Good evening… I’m Sergei, and I want to give you the last love bite you’ll ever remember. I enjoy moonlight walks on the beach, gazing up at the stars, and sleeping on black satin sheets. You are voluptuous, dark haired, dark eyed, and have never given up your most precious gift. I am an old-world gentleman, castle included. Let us meet and see if your blood sings to mine.
As the internet grew in popularity, we went online, in much the same way the living did. Pictures were challenging at first – conventional cameras still used silver nitrate, which meant no permanent images, but when photography went digital all bets were off.
Video dating was more difficult for us. The average bicentennarian hasn’t had a lot of on-camera experience, and you can’t really hold your vic – uh – partner in thrall over Skype. Those of us who have lived beyond two hundred soon realized we needed our own network, and Fangbook was launched in the mid 2000’s just to help.
You’d be surprised at the number of living men and women who fantasize about feeding a vampire’s bloodlust. Or maybe you wouldn’t.
Lucas (223, Musician). Don’t B♯. Don’t B♭. Just B♮. And if you happen to be B- swipe right. We’ll make beautiful music together.
Technology, of course, brings constant change, even for vampires. These days we have a smartphone app called Biter. Vampires seeking willing donors or longer term companionship can post their profiles, and so can living humans who are looking to experience a whole new level of ‘necking.’
We’re even developing an enhancement to Apple’s health app that will verify blood type with the press of a thumb on a portable dongle.
As for me? I’m still rather old-school. Underground papers may not be the fastest, shiniest method of finding a date, but the QR code I run with my ads lets potential hook-ups get to know the real me, beyond the two-line blurb.
SVM, blonde/blue ISO virgin female for a night of firsts. You don’t have to be O-neg to have a positively howling time with me. Must love wolves.
I’m cheating a little with this post, because I’m really just providing an excerpt to this month’s Sunday Brunch column over at Modern Creative Life.
Here’s the excerpt:
A bottle of Clinique make-up, left in the medicine cabinet in my guest bathroom, smells like clay, but it also smells like Halloween, 1976, when my mother costumed me as Pocahontas and used her normal color to darken my fairer skin. (Cultural appropriation wasn’t a hot topic, back then, but even if it had been, my costume was an homage, not a mockery.)
Forty years later, that scent is so closely associated with my mother that when I see her and she no longer carries that aroma (because she’s long since changed her make-up routine), I have to stop and remind myself that she’s the same woman who bore me, raised me, and whose opinion is still, always, vitally important.
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Do me a favor
Open the door and let ’em in
I am nine years old and in the fourth grade, and I am already on my way to becoming nocturnal, but it’s not because I’m afraid of the dark and try to wait for dawn before I sleep (that comes later, and only infrequently).
No, it’s because I have a vivid imagination and a mind like a steel trap (my mother says) and I remember things at the most inconvenient times.
For example, two years ago, I was on this kick where I was reading a lot of The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries, and even though none of them were particularly scary, there was this one line that made me afraid of my own bedroom. “Frank! Look! The room has no floor!”
The truth was that the house they were investigating had a room where the whole floor was an elevator, and so all the furniture was bolted to the walls. Not a problem, except that in our apartment above my mother’s store, my desk was built in, and my carpet was blood red, and at night I couldn’t see the floor.
I am only seven, so it doesn’t occur to me that my bed and nightstand are not bolted to the floor, so I make a point of leaving socks and things in a trail from the bedroom door to the bathroom door. Just in case.
Sister Suzie, brother John
Martin Luther, Phil and Don
Brother Michael, auntie Gin
Open the door and let ’em in, yeah
I am ten years old and the show PM Magazine, the one with Chef Tell, is running a show about how Paul McCartney is really dead, and if you play the Beatles’ records backwards there are all these codes and stuff recorded in the layers of the tracks, and he was barefoot on that one album cover, and the license plate on the car said 28 IF.
My mother insists that Paul McCartney isn’t really dead, or a ghost, or whatever, that he’s really just hiding in some other country (Japan? I think? Or Australia??) because of drugs, and he’s got this band called Wings.
I want to believe her, but I don’t want to believe her because the spooky story is fun.
But late at night when I can’t sleep, especially if my mother and her husband have been fighting, I turn on my white clock-radio – my first grown-up radio – and listen to the pop station, and while I kind of like it when Eddie Rabbitt sings “I Love a Rainy Night,” when Paul McCartney and Wings sing “Let ’em In,” the scratchy part of his voice makes me not want to turn out the light or go to sleep.
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
I am sixteen, and I hate going to sleep, because I can’t avoid nightmares, even though I have nothing, really, to be stressed about. I’ve given up listening to music to help me sleep, because it doesn’t, and switched to talk radio. My usual MO is to keep the volume super-low so that I have to strain to hear it, and the act of straining makes me tired and I fall asleep.
But lately I’ve become hooked on the Larry King radio show, and tonight Robert Englund, who plays Freddy Krueger, is on his show and when people call in he talks to them in Freddy’s voice. I want to sneak out of my room and call in, but the hallway is dark and my parents are sleeping, and bed is safe, right?
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
I am thirty-eight years old, and I’m home alone with my two dogs, Zorro and Miss Cleo, because Fuzzy is on a business trip in Florida. Two days before, the first stick showed a pink plus sign and the second one blinked “pregnant” at me, and I freaked out a little, but I was so happy. But earlier tonight I started cramping and spotting, and I called my friend Kathy to come hang out with me – she and Scott both came and made me laugh and distracted me.
Fuzzy will be home late in the morning, and we’ll go to the doctor, but right now, I’m alone and I’m scared I’ve miscarried and equally frightened that I didn’t, and just as I’m falling asleep, Miss Cleo growls at nothing. I’m pretty sure she’s dreaming, but she sleeps with her eyes open, so I’m never sure.
(I did miscarry.)
Do me a favor
Open the door and let ’em in
I am forty-six years old, but I’m also still seven and nine and ten and sixteen and thirty-eight, and there are nights when, even though my husband is sleeping peacefully beside me, and our dogs (different dogs now: Perry, Max, Teddy, and Piper) are also sleeping, that I can’t fall asleep because I keep falling into nightmares, so I read on my kindle and wait for dawn.
Or I wake up Fuzzy, because I’m terrified of something I dreamed, even though I don’t remember what it was, and he holds me until I’m calm, and understands that I can’t talk about it until the magic of morning takes it all away.
And in the back of my head, that creepy Paul McCartney song is always playing.
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Do me a favor
Open the…
When Joe had finally agreed to spend the first weeks of his retirement remodeling their house, he’d assumed that Molly meant redoing the kitchen, adding the island she’d always wanted, and increasing the cabinet space. He’d never expected that he’d be renting heavy equipment and hiring contractors to demolish the garage in order to expand it and add a second story with mother-in-law quarters.
He’d never expected that he’d be working with the guys he’d hired to haul away chunks of the cement that had formerly been the garage floor, or dig out a new basement.
He’d certainly never expected to find a small, sealed coffin under the layers of mud and sand and concrete.
A coffin that still held a body.
Actually, it reminded him of that fairy-tale his daughter had loved when she was younger. The one about the girl in the glass casket. The one who wakes up when the prince kisses her.
Except…
Except this coffin wasn’t made of glass. Instead, it was formed from lead and bronze, with a pair of diamond-shaped glass windows set into the top. And it was old. Decades at least. Maybe centuries.
Except this girl, the one inside the box, wasn’t an adolescent on the cusp of womanhood. Rather the pale face he saw centered in the top window, the one framed by jet-black curls adorned with a bit of lace, was cherub-cheeked and babyish, and he didn’t think she’d been a day over three when she died.
Funny, she didn’t look dead.
She looked for all the world as though she’d just been tucked in for an afternoon nap, the dark eyelashes of her closed eyes resting against the soft skin of those adorable cheeks. Those pinch-able cheeks.
“You have such fat, pink, cheeks, Gracie. I’m going to eat you up!” Joe bounced his five-year-old daughter on his knee, laughing with the child as she giggled. “I’m going to stuff an apple in your mouth, and roast you in the oven,” he teased.
Gracie howled with little-girl laughter, understanding that her father was only teasing, and demanding to know, “What else are you gonna do to me, Daddy?”
“I’m going to wrap you up so tight…” This was their bedtime routine. Molly was in charge of bath time and pajamas, but Joe handled Storytime and tucking in.
“Night-night, Daddy.”
“G’night, Gracie.”
But Gracie wasn’t a little girl anymore. She was twenty, off studying at Tulane, with father-daughter bedtime stories far behind her.
Still, Joe thought, his own daughter had once looked just like this child when she was sleeping. Peaceful. Innocent. A little girl taking her afternoon nap.
Only the white rose clutched in her tiny fist told a different story. The white rose and the nameplate on the foot of the box. He reached out with a gloved hand to rub the grime away: Edith, it read. No last name.
Poor kid.
He stared down at the girl under glass for a few more minutes, before he realized that the sun had gone down, and the men he’d found waiting outside Home Depot at six AM on Tuesday, the same men who had found their own ride out to his place for the two days since, had already jumped in their truck and gone home.
He really ought to call someone.
He really shouldn’t just leave her there, in the open. What if some kid wandered in? What would the neighbors think?
Joe left the place that used to be his garage, and went to grab a tarp from the back of his Jeep, noticing that Molly’s Prius wasn’t in the driveway. He wondered where she – oh, right – it was Thursday. She taught at the adult school on Thursdays. She’d left a lasagna out to defrost… he was supposed to start it in time for dinner. Funny how physical labor made you forget stuff like that.
He was about to swing the canvas cloth over the coffin when he caught sight of her face, found her fathomless black eyes staring at him from under the glass.
Wait a second. Hadn’t they been closed before?
Joe dropped the tarp over the casket and retreated from the remnants of his garage. The back of his neck had that cold, prickly feeling, and it was pretty dark out. Better to get inside, start dinner so it’d be ready when Molly got home, and figure out who you call to report a dead child in a coffin under your garage floor.
Was that something you dialed 9-1-1 for?
* * *
Friday morning rolled in with a violent rainstorm, which meant no work on the garage, but while Molly was upset about the delay, Joe was relieved. He hadn’t told her about the coffin. His wife was prone to having nightmares, and he didn’t want to be the cause of another sleepless night.
He’d waited until she left for work, and then he’d called the emergency line after all, because, really, who else would know what to do?
“Sir, this isn’t funny,” the operator informed him. “We have a major storm causing flooding at all the low-lying intersections, and can’t afford to waste time on pranksters.”
“I’m not a prankster,” Joe had insisted, and either she had sensed the anguish in his voice, or she had a friend she wished to twit, because she’d referred him to the county coroner instructing him to ‘ask for Charlie.’
It turned out that Charlie was actually Charlene, and she was also convinced it was some kind of a joke. Joe had gone out to the garage with his smartphone and snapped some pictures, texting them to the cell number she’d provided.
Two hours later, the coroner’s van arrived and a redheaded woman who appeared to be in her early fifties joined Joe in the torn-down garage, flanked by a ferret-faced man who said he was Jasper from the historical society, and a woman in a conservative skirt and veil, the contemporary habit of a nun, who said she was from the Sisters of Innocence and explained that her organization would handle the burial at no charge.
“Mr. Hunter,” the coroner greeted him. ” I’m Charlie. We spoke on the phone. I’m so sorry; this must have been quite upsetting for you.”
“It was definitely a surprise,” he replied, affably enough. “My wife doesn’t know.”
“I’m not surprised you found a coffin,” the historical society rep interrupted. “From the photos you sent, yours is about a hundred and fifty years old… this whole area was a cemetery then. The bodies were relocated around the turn of the century, though… ground’s too wet… coffins kept floating to the surface.”
Joe had no way to respond to that, so he ignored it, except to say, “It’s not mine.” And then, “It’s here… under the tarp.”
But Jasper continued. “She clearly came from a wealthy family. Lead. Bronze. Glass. This thing was built to last.”
Joe turned his back to Jasper.
Charlie did the honors, removing the drape, and the three adults all looked into the window at the still, small, form inside. Her eyes were closed again (or was it ‘still?’) Joe saw, but her mouth looked a little different – the lips seemed redder and plumper – or maybe he was just imagining things.
“Alright,” the coroner said. “Jasper, if you’ll give me a hand moving her, we’ll get going. I think Sister Celeste has some paperwork for you to do, sir.”
The nun had been murmuring a prayer over the casket, and she took a moment to gaze through the window before allowing Joe to direct her toward the house. “Such a beautiful child. So well preserved…”
“It’s because the coffin’s sealed” Jasper said. “No air, no deterioration.”
Joe decided he didn’t care much for Jasper.
* * *
Joe Hunter had never been a great cook, but he figured if he was going to tell his wife what had been removed from where the garage used to be, he’d better ply her with food and drink first. The morning’s rain had left a clear, crisp, night in its wake. Chilly, but not too cold for barbecue. He had a pitcher of margaritas mixed and the steaks ready to go on the grill as soon as Molly arrived home.
The cold pricklies came back at about the same time his phone rang. Charlie from the coroner’s office calling to tell him that something had happened.
“Happened?” Joe had no idea why she was calling him.
“When we got to the morgue… when we opened the casket… the child… she was gone.”
Joe had no idea what to say, but it didn’t matter, because Molly walked in just then, carrying a white rose and smiling like she had on their last anniversary when he’d given her that string of real pearls.
“Do I smell charcoal?” she asked, and lifted her face to his for a kiss.
“Yeah,” he said. “I thought… we won’t have many more nights warm enough.” He thumbed the phone to an inactive state and set it down on the counter, face down. “Margarita?”
“Perfect.”
They ate and laughed, and he finally told her about the coffin and showed her the pictures. “It almost looks like her eyes are open in this one,” Molly observed.
Joe agreed that it really did.
They went to bed early, but they didn’t go to sleep because Molly was reading a chapter of some novel on her Kindle and he was using his iPad to send an email to Gracie. “Come home for Thanksgiving break,” he requested. “Your mother and I both miss you.”
Around midnight, after Molly had turned off her light and rolled on her side to sleep, Joe got up to check the house. It was his ritual, one his father had performed long ago. Make sure all the doors are locked, prep the coffee-maker for the morning. Hit the bathroom one more time.
He was passing Gracie’s room on his way back to bed when he heard it. Soft, so soft it was quieter than a dream, a lick of childish laughter.
The kind of laughter a three-year-old might produce.
Notes: I’ve had the concept of “Under Glass” in my head for years. When I went looking for art to accompany this story, however, I stumbled upon a true story about a coffin that was found under the floor of a garage in San Francisco, in the Lone Mountain neighborhood. I know the area because I had classes in the Lone Mountain campus of University of San Francisco, once upon a time. Here’s the link to the actual story: Little Girl Found in Coffin
“Hey, who brought the brownies?” Yvette leaned over the picnic table and breathed in the heady scent of chocolate and… something else. “Can I have one?”
Thea passed her a spatula, “Get one for me, too? I’m desperate for a sugar fix.”
“Sure thing.” The small brunette scooped out a brownie for each of them, served casually on folded-in-quarters paper towels. They had plates, but the towels would double as napkins, and they broke down faster. Biodegradeable, and all that.
“Dude, brownies!” the boys – Claude and Jason – reached for the confections but Yvette yelped and raced away clutching her napkin-wrapped treasure close to her chest.
“Get your own!” she shouted. “They’re on the picnic table!”
The afternoon wore on, and the five friends splashed in the cold waters of the creek and hiked in the nearby woods. At dusk, they gathered around the campfire for hamburgers and baked beans, and more brownies.
“Seriously,” Yvette asked, having her third one. “Where did these come from. The more I eat, the hungrier I get.”
Claude and Jason shared a look and some awkward laughter. “Actually…” the former began, pausing only to push his floppy black hair away from his face, “Greta brought them over this morning. Said she was sorry she wouldn’t be able to make it before moonrise.”
“Greta? Greta who mixes weed into green smoothies Greta?” Yvette had never really gotten along with her, and things had been worse since she and Jason had begun dating. Greta had wanted Jason badly. “I had no idea she could bake. Maybe she’s useful after all. Pass me another?”
“Should you be eating so many?” Claude asked. “I thought you were allergic to chocolate.”
Jason slung his arm around Yvette’s shoulder and nuzzled her neck. Addressing Claude he said, “Dude, she’s a big girl. Let her be.” Into his girlfriend’s ear, he whispered. “Yvie, baby, Greta’s not so bad, really. She can’t compete with you, anyway. Loosen up.”
In the light of the rising moon, Yvette’s eyes glittered. “You want loose? I saw hoof-prints, the other side of the creek. Burgers are great and all, but… nothing beats fresh venison.”
“Careful, Yvie. You know we shouldn’t shift when we’re high.” Claude warned. Across the fire, the expression on Thea’s face implied silent agreement.
“I’m not high,” Yvette protested, giggling. “Just a little buzzed. Who’s with me? A quick swim in the creek to clear our heads, and then we hunt.” She was already kicking off her shoes and peeling off her shirt, reveling in the sensation of the crisp night air on her bare skin. She rolled her neck, and let her body morph into its natural form – thick fur, pointed ears, a bushy tail, and razor-sharp claws.
As one, the others followed suit, stripping and shifting, just like Yvette had.
The four werewolves dashed down the hill to the creek, where they splashed like puppies in a play pool. When they were wet enough, cold enough, and clear-headed enough, they rumbled up the bank on the far side, and took off into the woods.
Claude scented the first deer, and he, Jason, and Thea joined forces to take it down. As pack-leader, it was his job to know where everyone was, but the combination of marijuana, sugar, and fresh, hot, blood distracted him, and when Yvie changed directions, he lost her scent.
Alone, Yvie caught a different scent. The generic tang of Shifter resolved into the more familiar Wolf and she went to investigate.
Greta – at least it smelled like Greta – Yvette had never seen her true form, so she wasn’t entirely sure – stood on the edge of the creek, waiting, but there was another scent mingled with hers. Jason’s. Unmistakably, undeniably, Jason’s scent. Yvette could tell that the male note was from an article of clothing, and not the other’s fur, but it didn’t matter. Her shifted brain identified Greta as a threat.
Still poised on the edge of the bank, Greta turned her head, having caught Yvie’s scent, in turn. She fixed her gaze on Yvette and growled, “Hey, puppy. Come to play?”
Yvette was many things, but a puppy wasn’t one of them. Fury and bloodlust coursed through her. Jealousy mixed with pot and chocolate and rage removed her inhibitions and fueled her attack with sugar-shocked strength. She leaped at the other female in a killing frenzy.
Claws ripped through fur and flesh. Yelps and screams filled moonlit night.
When the boys and Thea returned, bellies full of fresh game, they found little of Greta. A few stray bits of fur and flannel.
Yvie, on the other hand, had reverted to human form and was huddled in the brush, puking and shivering.
“Come on,” Claude urged. “We have to get her to a doctor.”
“Night doc at the clinic treats our kind,” Thea said. “I’ll get the car. You two help Yvie cover up and get moving.”
Thea drove while Claude called the clinic. The doc they knew would be waiting at the emergency room door.
Yvette rode the whole way with her head in Jason’s lap, his hand stroking her hair. Upon their arrival, the doctor whisked her away on a stretcher, while Jason, Thea and Claude were left to wait for their friend.
Hours later, the trio were allowed to join their friend in her room. She’d be staying overnight, the doc told them. For observation.
“Doc, I don’t get it,” Claude said. “We all had the brownies too. I know it’s bad to shift when you’re high but…”
“It wasn’t the pot… ” Yvie’s voice was weak, but they all turned toward her. “It was the chocolate. I should have stopped, Claude.” She hung her head so her friends couldn’t see her embarrassment. “My mother… she wasn’t pure Wolf. She was… she was half Husky.”
“So?” Jason asked the question.
“So when a hybrid shifter eats chocolate they go crazy and then they get crazy sick,” Claude explained.
Squeezing himself into his girlfriend’s hospital bed and wrapping himself around her protectively, Jason asked, “You’re a hybrid?” After Yvette nodded her confirmation, he continued. “I didn’t realize. You smell just like Wolf.”
“But I react like Dog, sometimes,” Yvie said quietly. “I ate Greta because I couldn’t stop myself, and then I got sick because of the guilt – she was a pack-mate even if she was a bitch.” Yvette used the word in the human way.
“So your chocolate allergy… it’s because… ?”
“Yep,” Yvette admitted ruefully. “It’s… it’s toxic to dogs.”
(This story was inspired by Thomas Jancis and Selena Taylor)
“You teach literature don’t you?” The question was casual, conversational.
Her answer was a terrified bobbing of her head, up and down. In her defense, the metal bracket holding her mouth open and her tongue out of the way prevented actual speech.
“You know the Poe story ‘Berenice?'”
Another uncontrolled nod. Spittle formed at the corners of her mouth and he used a clean, white handkerchief to dab it away, then grimaced when he noticed that the bubbles of saliva held traces of blood from the metal cutting into the corners of her mouth. Untidy, that.
“He did it wrong, the man in that story.” He kept the conversation going as he reached for his favorite pliers. Needle-nose, with a cushioned grip. “He waited until she was buried before he went after his prizes. Miraculous that she still had all of them intact, especially considering the general lack of medical care or balanced diets in that era.”
The brunette with the wide brown eyes twisted frantically in her chair, but the zip-ties didn’t have a millimeter of give in them. She was there to stay.
“Grave-digging is such filthy work. Mud and bugs and gore… much easier to choose a live subject.” He leaned over her, pushed stray hair away from her sweat-soaked brow with almost tender care. “This is going to be… extremely painful.”
The pliers closed around his selected target. Smiling as he worked he twisted, tugged… pulled… until his quarry came free, root and all.
“Your dentist must be very good, my dear,” he said to the woman whose screams couldn’t quite make it past her throat. He lowered his voice to a reverent whisper: “You have lovely bicuspids.”
He let the small, white object fall into a metal bowl.
He expected that she’d react to the sound, but his expectation was met with great silence.
She had fainted.
No matter, she would wake soon enough, and they’d begin again. Wash, rinse, repeat, until he had all thirty-two.
