Black Friday
I really hadn’t thought it would bother me to spend Thanksgiving alone. Having a day to myself without kids or laundry sounded like something akin to nirvana. The notion of a complete shower bordered on mythical.
I had turned down invitations with friends in favor of having time to write and the aforementioned shower, which was indeed glorious. My shower head had magnificent water pressure. My shoulders, usually hunched like Larry King’s over my battered keyboard, were much happier afterward. That is until they hunched over my plate of microwaved side dishes from Boston Market. I had admired my own savvy, buying a vegetarian Thanksgiving feast for one the night before. Now, realizing that reheated cream spinach is exactly as tasty as it sounds, I felt a bit less smart and a lot more pathetic.
It was only dining alone that made me feel this way, and only today. I am otherwise quite comfortable with solitude, which suits me well. Writing is a solitary profession. Working alone, however, can have the side effect of making a person easily forgotten. It is a tricky thing when you tell people you need time alone and then wish somebody would call you.
I glanced at the clock, surprised to find it was nearly 11:00. Having written the day away and topped off the evening with a dollop of cold creamed spinach, I decided that getting out of the house was called for. Moviefone revealed that the only movie with show times remaining was the latest vampire drama. I shrugged into my coat, planning to indulge in my favorite theater’s surprisingly delicious mozzarella sticks. They were a dirty little secret, but I hoped they would satisfy where the creamed spinach didn’t.
I pulled up to the theater with ten minutes to spare. As I approached the door, a young man rushed around the corner and slipped into the lobby ahead of me, leaving just enough of his scent hanging in the air to catch my interest. He trotted weightlessly up the stairs, wearing slim jeans and a vaguely military-inspired jacket. I tried to hide my obvious surveillance as he approached the counter, purchasing a single ticket.
When he turned with ticket in hand, his eyes met mine before he looked me over from head to toe. He was obviously admiring my choice of sweatpants. He proceeded to the theater, and I proceeded to the concession stand, only to be told that they were sold out of mozzarella sticks. Damn.
I bought candy instead, and took my disappointment into the dark theater, easily spotting my sweatpants admirer in the second row with his feet propped up on a railing. He glanced up at me with a wry half-smile, but then quickly directed his eyes back to his smartphone. It was an Android. I thought about how to decide in which faith to raise our children, unless he’s a PC. That might be the end of the beginning. I made a show of checking nothing on my iPhone 5, just to lay all my cards on the table. It wouldn’t do to start our relationship with secrets.
I couldn’t quite summon the nerve to approach him, so I quietly slurped the cherry soda about which I would not be telling my trainer on Monday, waiting for the inane advertisements to pass.
The lateness of the hour hadn’t kept the teenagers at bay. No school tomorrow meant no peace tonight. They were tittering and twittering about teams and abs and hair gel, laughing loudly and throwing popcorn. I was so preoccupied with trying to mentally shut them out that I failed to notice that He Who Was Enamored of My Sweatpants had ascended to the back row.
“Junior Mints are my favorite.”
I looked up, startled to see the lone adult male at this feature standing over me, gesturing to my open box of candy. “Oh, uh, mine too,” I stammered. “Did you want some?”
“I do, thanks,” he said, whipping the box from my hand as he dropped into the seat beside me. He poured a few Junior Mints into his palm and popped them into his mouth. He did not return the box.
“Help yourself,” I said, with only a hint of a grumble. I was, after all, only recently planning on the indoctrination of our future children into Appleism, so it seemed apropos that we would share a box of movie candy.
“Way ahead of you,” he said, shoveling one more handful down his throat before handing the nearly empty box back to me. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” I replied, looking into the box and suddenly wondering where his hands had been. “I was finished with them anyway.”
“Great, I’m starving!” He took the box again and poured them into his mouth. “These things give you the best breath. Chocolatey and minty-fresh. Irresistible!” He glanced at me. There was a slight smidge of chocolate on his bottom lip. He was a little arrogant, as it turned out, but damned if he wasn’t right about that irresistible bit.
“What are you doing here?” I blurted out before I could evaluate my sanity.
“I’m here to watch sexy vampires, same as you. Did you order popcorn?”
“No, I didn’t, and I meant what are you doing here, right next to me, when there are empty seats everywhere?” I gestured to the half-empty theater.
“Well, partially because I was sitting in front of eleven teenage girls who think not quite shouting is the same thing as whispering,” he grinned. “And also because you have Junior Mints.”
“Correction. I had Junior Mints. You’ve eaten them all,” I said, taking the empty box and turning it upside-down.
He furrowed his brow in exaggerated contrition. “So I have. My deepest apologies.”
“Can I at least have your name?” I panicked a little bit, thinking I might be misreading the situation. Maybe the guy was just really jonesing for Junior Mints. “I mean, so I know who to bill.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’re going to bill me for a box of Junior Mints?”
“Um… well, you did eat nearly all of them.”
He grinned. “I’m just kidding, I’ll buy you a new box. Be right back.” He sped away without another word.
It took only a moment for him to return, hands full of popcorn and candy. “Junior Mints, brought to you by Jack.”
“Nice to finally meet you, Jack.” I was starting to feel more comfortable around him. He bought me candy. Now that I knew his name, it was practically a date. Granted, he had eaten my candy in the first place, but I was trying to focus on the big picture. The technological future of our hypothetical babies was at stake, and possibly my non-sweatpants wardrobe. Maybe he had a fetish for sweatpants. “I’m Marilyn.”
Jack laughed. “Of course you are! Well, happy birthday, Mr. President!”
One of the teenagers turned around to glare. We hadn’t noticed the movie was starting, and the girls sat in rapt fascination as a lilting piano score poured over the misty treetops. I was acutely aware of Jack throughout the movie, sitting very close to me and laughing constantly. He laughed at everything. He either had an unmatched zest for life or a really inappropriate sense of humor. Possibly both. Every so often he looked at me for a second or two, and there was always something in his eyes that wavered between mischief and mystery. In the flickering light returned by the screen, Jack’s eyes were impossibly blue.
The lights came up and the credits rolled. Jack stood and slow-clapped, crying “Encore! Encore!” Then he pretended to wipe a tear from the corner of his eye. “Best film of the decade. A hysterical farce with fun for the whole family!”
I raised my eyebrows. “Yeah, the ripping off of heads is especially well-suited for pre-school audiences.”
Jack turned those penetrating blues on me. “I couldn’t agree more,” he stated. His tone was suddenly very serious. “Presently away, for to strange sores, strangely, they strain the cure.”
“What?” I said as I stood, collecting my trash like a conscientious theater-goer should. I collected Jack’s trash too.
“Shakespeare. Much Ado About Nothing. You should read more.”
I descended the steps and threw away the spoils of the evening. “Well, Jack, it was nice to meet you, but it’s really late and I have to pick up the kids from their aunt’s house in the morning, so - ”
“Of course, of course, time to hit the hay. Allow me to walk you to your car though. There may be nefarious types about. You know how crazy people can get when those tryptophan comas wear off.” Jack held the door for me to walk through. I felt that I should have been making a decision as to whether he was one of those nefarious types, but I was having a little trouble unraveling my senses with those ice-blue eyes trained on me. I was still trying to decide whether or not I should let him walk me to my car when I realized we were already standing beside it.
“Oh, well, here we are! Here’s my car!” I giggled uneasily. “Hey, look at that, I rhymed.” At that point I really wished I hadn’t let him walk me to my car, both because I say stupid things when I’m nervous, and because he could now tell that I was nervous. His eyes told me that he liked it.
“Look at that, you’re a poet and didn’t know it.” There was no humor in Jack’s voice, despite the cliché.
The ice blue in Jack’s eyes turned the blood in my veins to ice water. He stared me down, and I felt physically shrunken. I was certain that in my new smallness he could have slipped me into his pocket and spirited me away, and the last person who ever saw me alive would be the pimply teenager waiting outside the theater with a broom and dustpan.
“Nobody will hear you, Marilyn, so it’s best for you if you just listen. Get in the car.” Jack wasn’t blinking.
Everything in me implored me to run. I knew all of the best advice, I knew all of the statistics, and I knew that a predator will say anything to get you in the car. I knew that once he had you in the car, chances were that you would never be heard from again. I knew this, and yet I obeyed. I knew that I was facing rape or death, or possibly both, and yet I unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel without argument. I sat petrified as Jack settled himself in the passenger seat.
“First, I will tell you what I know. The outcome is for you to decide.” Jack said with his fingers knitted together, staring emptily through the windshield.
I attempted something like a nod. Jack took this as his cue to continue.
“I can’t tell you exactly how we came to be. There’s no hive mind that exists to clue my kind in on all the why, where, and how of it all. I certainly never got any history on the matter; I only know what I am and that it appears to be truly endless.” Jack paused and glanced at me, but I still sat motionless, clutching my keys so that they poked between my knuckles. That seemed to amuse him, and when he spoke again he was smiling.
“I like to think that we exist in a disparate branch of evolution. One that selected for the bloodthirstiest traits until we came to be what we are. The history isn’t what matters, however. It’s the fascination. The constant denial that we are real, coupled with the perennial need to believe that somehow, we are. We are the dark archetypes that people like to apply to their fantasies and dark fears, romanticizing some underlying goodness or eroticism."
I managed to turn my head. I started thinking that I knew where Jack was going with this, which told me that one of us was definitely crazy. Jack glanced at me again, expectantly, waiting for my signal for him to go on. I tightened my grip on my keys and nodded once.
Jack seemed a bit more relaxed. “I won’t pretend that I am not pleasing to the eye. That much is true, in that what I believe to be our evolution brought us to the greatest possible physical perfection. I don’t, however, brood over the loss of a soul that I never had, and I wouldn’t despair over yours. The truth is, I would just as soon kill you as look at you.”
I was slowly gathering my wits, absorbing what Jack was telling me. “Are you saying that you… that you’re…” I couldn’t make myself say it. It sounded too ludicrous and too stupid to say out loud.
Jack started to shake his head. “No, no, I’m not what you think I am. Not if you think it’s anything like what we just saw in that movie. You will never see me or any of my kind walking around neutered and and golden-eyed. I do not try to embrace the better angels of my nature. There are no better angels. Not for me.”
“Not for what?” I asked incredulously. He couldn’t possibly be serious.
“Not for vampires."
I stared at Jack in a silent stupor for nearly half a minutes before I could make a sound. When I did make a sound, it was the wrong one.
I laughed. I laughed so hard that I cried. I couldn’t stop. “Vampires!” I cried when I could not get enough breath. “Vampires!” I was really going now, so sure was I that Jack was playing an elaborate trick that we would one day share with our Mac-head grandchildren.
I wanted to be that sure, and I almost was. Then Jack’s teeth tore into the flesh of my forearm.
I screamed and leaped from the car, but Jack grabbed the back of my jacket and hauled me back in. “Settle down,” he commanded. “It’s not a fatal bite. Yet.”
“Why did you do that?” I screamed. I still couldn’t fathom that he really was what he told me he was. A vampire. He had to be demented. Yes, that had to be it. A mental patient who went off his anti-psychotics. That’s all.
“Stop trying to rationalize it, Marilyn.” Jack was calmly wiping my blood from his mouth, licking it from his fingers like icing. “I’m a vampire, I kill people, blood is tasty, blah blah blah. I know that part; you know that part. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why?” I didn’t think I could form any words at all, so I focused on pushing out the one that seemed the most useful.
“I’m here,” Jack began methodically, “to engage your services.”
“My… my services? As what?” My hand clutched my throbbing forearm, my blood oozing between my fingers.
“As a journalist.” Jack said it as if were as obvious and natural as butter on toast.
“Oh hell no. Uh uh. No interview with the vampire. I’ve seen that movie too, and read the book. I know how it ends. No thank you!” I fumbled around in my seat, trying to see where I had dropped my keys.
“Shut up, Marilyn. I’m not here to tell you what I know. I want you to tell me what you know. I want you to help me find out where we come from. I’ve been following you for weeks, and I think you have talents that will be of use to me.”
My jaw dropped. “Are you insane?”
Jack chuckled. “No. Are you?”
“Probably. I’m sitting in my car on Black Friday morning, talking to a vampire and bleeding out. Not getting a lot of tally marks in the sanity column right now.”
Jack looked out the window. It was two in the morning. Shoppers had begun to line up around the mall across the street. “I kill people for food. These people will kill each other for game consoles.”
“Maybe they will, but they’ll also hear me if I scream,” I threatened.
Jack suddenly had my arms locked against my chest and his teeth grazing my throat. “The loudest sound you’ll make is a death rattle if you so much as open your mouth to yell.” After a moment’s silence, he raised his head to look me in the eye. “Is that the end of it then?”
I nodded.
“Very good. Now, as I said, I want to employ you for your experience as a journalist. My people know little about our heritage. For reasons I will not divulge now, we need to know more. You either help me, or I can finish bleeding you dry and move on to the next walking burrito with a talent for digging up the past. What will it be?” Jack forced my eyes to meet his iron gaze again, and while I wrestled with my fear and the pain in my arm, I felt my resolve crumble.
While my synapses exploded in warning, I horrified myself with my concession. Of all the things I could have said, only the most foolhardy and dangerous words came to my lips.
“I’ll do it."