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In the morning a cold fog had settled over the area and, as I walked Arbutus, I noticed a strangely thick column of steam rising from the back of Charlie’s house, as if his furnace was working overtime.

Charlie and I spent the entire morning in his study working. I discovered that we seemed to really think alike—I’d make a suggestion for a change and he’d expand on it, improving the final result. For lunch we drove out to a deli and sat across from each other.

“I need to tell you some more about what I want for Jenny,” he said.

“Ok.”

“I’m asking a hell of a lot from you. A lot more than you know—now. Understand, Jenny isn’t at all like other—kids—her age. She’s fully, can be, fully self-sufficient. When I said I’d leave her on her own I meant it. Ever see ‘The Little Girl Who Lived Down the Lane’?”

I nodded.

“We’ve set it up like that—she’ll be able to live here on her own until she’s older but, still, she really needs to have an adult to run interference for her. That’s where you come in. I intend to keep my death a secret; you just step into my shoes.”

“But, how can that work? Sometimes, people have to see you.”

“I’ve spent the last 10 years a recluse,” he said. “No one’s seen me, it’s expected. Jenny has been signing everything for two years—my signature. I’ve got a CPA that does all my finances. Like you, he’s never met me.”

“You’re a bit of a recluse too,…and now even your company doesn’t want to see you more than once a week,” he said with a smile.

“OK, it might work for a while,” I said. “What about in a couple of years? Like, when some boy shows up on the doorstep for a date.”

“Poor motherfucker,” he said under his breath. Then he looked up at me with a smile and put his hand on mine. “There’s a shotgun in the closet under the stairs.”

He sat back and looked at me straight in the eye. “I’ll tell you that I trust you to raise her well, and deal with things like that but—it’ll never happen.”

“What about your family. Her mother’s family, aunts, uncles, they’ll come looking for her.”

He was silent for a long time, looking at his food. “She doesn’t have any family on that side—at least that we know about. You’ll understand soon enough. But, for now, you need to get to know her and decide if you can…deal with her…special…needs.”

This got my interest. “What do you mean?”

“Come over for dinner tonight, we can talk more,” he said. For now, I really am being called by my pillow.”

When we got to the parking lot he asked me to drive. We left the van in his driveway and I crossed to my house while he went into his house.

Charlie called at around five and said to come over.

The door opened before I got to the stairs and Jenny was standing there, smiling. She was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt—nothing special—but she looked absolutely radiant. Her hair caught the light from the fixture in the foyer and refracted it in iridescent colors of gold, yellow, orange and red. Her face was bright, lips a healthy deep color and, unlike before, there was a pink blush to her cheeks. Also, I had noticed that before her posture had been sunken, slightly bent, but now she was standing straight, maybe an inch and a half taller.

“Hi,” I said as I came up the stairs. I was really surprised when she reached out and grabbed my hand, pulling me in. I found myself turned around, the door closed behind her, her arms around my neck and a beautiful face smiling up at me. She hugged me, a wonderful affectionate warm hug, putting her face on my chest. Her arms were warm against the skin of my neck and I could feel the warmth of her cheek through my sweater.

“Hi Tom, I’ve…” to my astonishment she lifted up and kissed me. Then she dropped away, stepping back.

“Oh,” she giggled, “I’m sorry, you weren’t ready for that.”

I certainly wasn’t going to reject the child; I was surprised but not offended. Actually, I was really pleased.

“That was a lovely greeting honey. I see you’re feeling well.”

She stepped around me into the living room, her arms stretched out. “I feel WON-DER-FUL!”

She pirouetted twice as she moved toward the kitchen. She was met by Charlie who had on an apron and was drying his hands. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek—“Mmmwwaah!”

He held her at arms length, smiling down at her. “Feeling well this evening?”

“Yeah.”

“Good day at school?” I asked.

She looked at me. “No, not really. I’m just feeling real good right now.”

Charlie had broiled some pork chops and there were sautéed vegetables along with a pink wine. This time, I noticed that Jenny seemed to really enjoy her meal—she cleaned her plate and knocked off two glasses of wine.

“Honey,” Charlie said with a note of caution in his voice, “why don’t you take Tom down stairs and show him a few things while I clean up.”

Jenny looked at her father with some nervousness; the mood in the room had suddenly changed.

“OK,” she said, then looked at me. “I have to show you some things so you’ll understand.” Her demeanor wasn’t what you’d expect from an eleven year old.

I looked at Charlie.

“There’s a lot more to her than you guess,” he said. “It’s best if she tells you.”

She took my hand and led me toward the back door. As I expected, opposite the door was a stairway leading down into the basement.

The stairs were lit but not bright. When we reached the bottom we were in a short hallway with three doors.

“That way,” she said, pointing straight ahead “is the furnace room and water heater—nothing special there.”

“This is my bedroom.” She opened the door to our right, it was totally dark inside. She went in and I stood in the doorway, peering into the gloom.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. The lights came on, “I usually don’t turn on the lights.”

The room was pretty average size for a bedroom but certainly wasn’t furnished that way. There were shelves where her clothes were folded in translucent plastic bins. A clothes rod built onto a rolling cart was full of hangers with dresses, pants and shirts. There was a shoe rack on the wall. There were no windows, the only light came from a bare bulb in a ceramic fixture in the ceiling. Along another wall was a large steamer trunk, the lid was open and I could see some blankets and a pillow in it. There was a doorway into a bathroom, but no door.

“This is your room? Why don’t you sleep upstairs? There must be three bedrooms up there.”

“It’s safer,” she said.

She walked over to the trunk and looked down. “I can lock this from the inside. Someone stumbling down here would have no idea I was in there. It’s also fireproof. Not quite a casket, I think its better.”

She turned and looked at me, her eyes glowed red.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered.

“He doesn’t exist, I’m proof of that,” she said, “but vampires do.”

“How long have you…”

“Lived here?” she asked. “We’ve been here for twelve years now. I’m not sure exactly but I’m around 350 years old.”

“We’re not immortal,” she continued, “but if I’m careful I’ll live as long as I want to. There aren’t many of us left.”

I stood there, my mouth open.

“Come across the hall, there’s more I need to show you.”

I followed her dumbly into the other room. It was much larger, the size of a two car garage. There were four windows, two each on opposite walls, but they were covered with wood and painted black. It did have lights; four fluorescent shop fixtures lit it well.

It was dominated by a cage—the kind of chain-link security cage that you see sometimes in warehouses to lock up especially valuable merchandise. In the cage was a bench and nothing else. At the far end of the room was a large furnace. There was gas piping going to it and the chimney vent rose almost to the ceiling before it made a 90 degree turn and went through the wall. Next to the furnace was a sanitary tub. There was a spigot on the wall with a coiled hose attached to it.

Oddly, there was stairway on the far side of the cage. It led up to what must have been a large trap door. I realized from its position that the door would open into the garage. The door into the cage was at the bottom of the stairs. There was also a smaller cage, maybe three by four feet, attached to the larger one. It had two doors, one between the two cages and the other facing the furnace.

The floor was uncovered concrete, as were the walls. The ceiling was unfinished floor beams with pipes, wire and heating vents but there was thick insulation pressed between them. The room was otherwise bare, except for a rack against the wall next to the door. On it were two strange devices. I was more amazed when I realized that they were two hand-held tazers affixed to the end of wooden poles.

“This is where I bring people before I…feed,” she said. She walked over to the furnace and pulled a lever. The stainless steel front lifted up opening the inside. It was deep, maybe seven feet but only three feet wide.

“This is a crematory, where they go after…”

I felt faint when I remembered the vapor rising from behind the house that morning.

“The homeless fellow at the store,” I said.

“He came willingly,” she said. “I recognized him—he was wanted for the murder of his wife and children in Florida last year. He was ready to die.”

“He came willingly?”

“Mostly. He wanted to die, he was just too much of a coward to do it himself. Really kind of pathetic. He put up a little struggle at the end, but not much.”

“She didn’t need any help from me,” Charlie said from the doorway. “She’s strong, but she can still be beat. A strong man could overcome her, she has to be careful.”

“That’s what you mean by ‘looking after her,’” I said. “She needs help with her victims.”

“Usually not,” she said. “If I’m careful, or haven’t waited too long between, lose my strength…”

My head was spinning. “So, how often do you…feed?”

“I really need a couple of times a month, if I go longer than two weeks I begin to fade—get sick. It’s better if I feed every week.”

“Then you’ve killed hundreds…” I mused, more under my breath than out loud.

“One thousand eight hundred and fifty-three, and I remember every one. That’s not counting the three hundred and forty that I’ve shared with others. I don’t kill nearly as much as I used to, I guess I’ve come to have a little more respect. Actually, I feel bad about a lot of it, early on. In those days I could only safely get old people, or kids.”

“That’s…” I paused.

“Horrible?” she finished my sentence. “Is it horrible that the lion kills a gazelle? Your problem is with my prey. If I don’t kill, I die. These days, for the past hundred years or so, I’ve only preyed on people who were ready to die—or needed to.”

“Like that chump last night,” she continued. “His wife came home and found him bopping the neighbor’s sixteen year old son in the ass—like a couple of dogs on the living room floor. Needless to say, she was a little upset, so he shot her, his eight year old daughter and three year old son. Then, lucky for me, the little coward didn’t have the guts to scatter his own brains on the wall with his little girls. Instead, he runs and disappears until I recognized him last night.”

“So you only feed on murderers?” I asked.

“No, not always. A lot of people are ready to die. I can see that—I just give them what they want. Some others, well, they need to. The world’s a better place without them. It hasn’t been in the news but there’s been a steady stream of gang-bangers disappearing from New York for years now. The cops are happy that they disappeared, so they don’t look too hard.”

I looked at Charlie. “How long have you been helping her?”

“About twenty years now,” he said. We got together when I was 32. She liked my books, thought we might get along.”

I looked back at her. “And what if I say no?”

Jenny smiled. “Then I trust you to keep my secret. I can take care of myself—I have for hundreds of years. But, these days, they really get upset about disappearances and finding bodies. It’s just better this way.”

“It’s kind of hard to get used to the idea…killing…”

“You know as well as I do,” Charlie interrupted, “there are plenty of people out there that we’re better off with dead. That bloke from last night; eventually he’d be caught, then people get to re-live it all over again at trial. And what if he gets off? He did it, he knew he did it, he knew he had to die for it…”

“Yes but, isn’t justice better served…?”

“Justice!” Charlie boomed. “What justice? You tell his kids about justice. Justice has been served. He’s gone, up the chimney and down the drain! He died like he knew he deserved to die.”

“I don’t know,” I continued. “What about closure, for the living.”

“With him there really wasn’t anyone who needed it…except for some frustrated policemen. Sometimes we do leave the body to be discovered. We’ve even had a couple of confessions made, then left where they’d be found.”

“You leave the body? Isn’t that a risk?”

“I’ve been at risk for centuries,” Jenny said. “But I’m also human…yes, I am human. You see, if the body is left out, say in the woods, it looks like he bled out into the soil; a few of pints of blood aren’t missed. I just have to use a knife, then feed from the wound.”

I was beginning to see how it could be done. Still, they were acting as judge, jury, and executioner. “How do you choose?”

“I have a lot of free time on my hands, and I can get around quickly. I usually hang out; just watch what’s going on in some pretty rough places during the night. It doesn’t take long to find someone.”

“And you decide, just like that?” I asked.

“Pretty much. After all these years, I’ve gotten pretty good at reading people. Also, I ask around. People trust me. Who doesn’t trust a little girl? They tell me things.”

“Then, then there are the people who I simply recognize are ready to die. Old people tired of being sick and alone. A used up hooker with AIDS. A banker whose just been caught with his hand in the till.”

“You’re not afraid of catching AIDS?” I asked with a smile.

“Part of being a vampire is you get a rock solid immune system. As I said, I am human, just different, modified. I live for ever because I don’t age. I was frozen when I was around thirteen. I’ll tell you the story sometime. We’ll have a lot of time together. I can see that you’ve already decided,” she smiled.

“Oh Jenny!” Charlie said. “Give the man a chance.”

She was right, I had decided, but I wasn’t ready to admit it yet, even to myself.

“You go home Tom,” Charlie put his hand on my shoulder. “Think about it. It’s not the sort of thing most of us expect to spend our lives doing.”

I sat up until late, thinking about what I had learned, then trying to forget it by watching mindless TV. I found myself actually hoping to see her while I walked Arbutus, but our nightly sojourn around the neighborhood started and ended with just us two. Finally, after more mindless TV and a particularly stiff nightcap, I pulled the covers over myself and tried to sleep.

Chapter 4

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