Page 49
Yet these things hardly prepared me for what I saw. My complexion was unnaturally pale, almost cadaverous. My hair, which had miraculously grown back, triangulated at my forehead to a comically perfect widow’s peak. My eyes possessed the alien rosiness of an albino’s. But the final detail was the one that stopped me flat. At first I thought it was a joke. Behind the corners of my upper lip, amidst otherwise ordinary dentition, two white points dripped like icicles—or, more precisely, fangs.
Dracula. Nosferatu. Vampyre. I can barely utter the names without a roll of the eyes. Yet here I was, Jonas Lear’s fantasy incarnate, a legend come to life.
The crunch of tires on gravel aroused me; as I emerged from the lavatory, a pair of headlights raked the room. I ducked behind a coat tree just in time for the door to fling open with a gust of spring air. The woman, whose name was Janet Duff—I’d gotten this from the framed diploma hung above the bill-cluttered desk in her bedroom—lumbered inside, wearing the flowered smock, white polyester trousers, and sensible shoes of a nurse coming off the late-night shift. Without missing a beat she deposited her ring of keys on the table by the door, kicked off her shoes, flung her overstuffed purse onto a chair, and made her way back to the kitchen, from whence ensued the sound of an opening refrigerator and the splash and glug of a tumbler being filled. A moment in which to down a soul-soothing quantity of wine (I could smell it: cheap Chablis, from a box, probably), and Nurse Duff returned to the living room bearing a glass the approximate size of a paint can, turned on the giant TV, and plopped down on the sofa, settling into its cushions like a punctured parade float.
How she had failed to notice me behind the coat tree I couldn’t guess, except to say that my new condition had afforded me the ability to stand with a stillness that functioned as a kind of camouflage, rendering me nearly invisible to the casual, world-weary eye. I watched her flick through various programs—a cop drama, the Weather Channel, a prison documentary—until she settled on a reality show about, what else, competitive cupcake making. Her back was to me. Sip by sip, the wine went down. I guessed it wouldn’t be long before the alcohol-anesthetized Nurse Duff began to snore. But with dawn’s blade sliding toward me, and my various needs pressing down—cash, an automobile, a safe place to wait out the daylight hours—I saw no reason for delay. I emerged from my concealment and stepped behind her.
“Ahem.”
—
I did not kill her immediately. Again, I seek not pardon but patience with my tale. There was data to collect, and for that, Nurse Duff needed to be alive.
A taste and the deed was done. At once, the woman fell into a swoon—eyes rolled back, breath expelled, every inch gone flabbily slack. Like an eager groom I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, where I lay her on the comforter, then retreated to the bathroom and filled the tub. By the time I returned, the change had commenced. A white froth bubbled from her lips. Her fingers began to twitch, her hands. She began to moan, then grunt, then fell silent as a series of hard spasms shook her frame so violently I thought dear Nurse Duff would snap like a cracker.
Then it happened. The closest visual approximation I can offer is a time-accelerated video of a flower breaking into blossom. With a cartilaginous crunch, her fingers commenced their elongation. Her hair suddenly detached from her skull and fell fanlike onto the pillow. As if doused by acid, her facial features blandified until no trace of personality remained. By this time her convulsions had ceased; her eyes were closed, her face almost peaceful. I sat on the bed beside her, murmuring gentle encouragements. A green light had begun to emanate from her, bathing the room in a nursery-soft glow. Her jaw unhinged; with something like a dog’s sneeze, her teeth shot from her mouth like a handful of corn kernels, making way for the barricade of lances that ascended bloodily from her gums.
It was ghastly. It was beautiful.
She opened her eyes. For a long moment, she stared at me. What pathos in that gaze! We are, each of us, a character in our own story; that is how we make sense of our lives. But the woman who had been Nurse Duff—help maid to the sick and suffering, collector of quilts and butter churns, drinker of mai tais, margaritas, and Bahama Mamas; daughter, sister, dreamer, healer, spinster—had become unknown to herself. She was a part of me now, an extension of my will; had I desired, I could have made her hop on one foot while playing an invisible ukulele.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said, taking her hand in mine. “It’s all for the best, you’ll see.”
Once again, I lifted her into my arms. My strength was such that her considerable bulk seemed toylike. A memory came to me—I had carried a woman like this once. Though the circumstances were very different, she, too, had seemed to weigh almost nothing. The recollection aroused a feeling of tenderness so overwhelming that for a moment I doubted my actions. But there were things to learn, and the duty I was about to perform was, in its backhanded way, a kindness.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49 (Reading here)
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286