Marty sat back and sighed. There was so much that he didn’t have a clue what to treat as real or not. And even if he did find something real… what good could it do him?
He looked at his bedroom window and imagined it framing the night once more, and those old stories about a vampire being unable to enter a house without an invitation seemed so foolish. He imagined the glass and frame shattering and bursting inward, that creature leaping through, all claws and teeth and wild hair. But Rose had told him he’d be safe in the daytime, so some of the legends must be true at least. Should he wear a garlic necklace? Arm himself with wooden stakes? Build a fucking stream around the house?
He almost threw his laptop at the wall. He stood instead, closing the computer gently and pacing the room. Maybe Gaz would have some ideas. But he couldn’t imagine facing his friend and saying what he’d said to his parents. With them the disbelief had led to anger; with Gaz it would be mockery. And however serious his situation, Marty didn’t want to be mocked by his friends.
Taking a piss, he realized he had a choice to make. And by the time he finished he’d made it, because there was really no choice at all. There was no way he’d just run away and abandon his parents. And if he knew Rose half as well as he hoped, he knew that she would return tonight. He didn’t have to use the word “angel” to make her his guardian.
With his mind settled, Marty lay down on his bed and fell into a deep, dream-filled sleep.
They’d obviously been talking about him all day. Marty hated the idea that he had caused his parents such concern. Since Rose’s disappearance and supposed death he’d seen them both age greatly, as if grief could remove them from time. His mother’s personality had withered, her humor diluted and reduced to an occasional wan smile where joy had once lit her face. His father’s hair had grayed, but so had his outlook, bled of color and shriveled to the stark black and white of life lived by the numbers. He woke, he ate, he worked, he slept. Marty couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen either of them truly enjoying themselves. And now that Rose had come back, that only made things worse.
“Had a nice day, son?” his mother asked. “We had a good time in town.”
“Okay, Marty?” his dad asked.
Marty nodded and responded as he thought he should, and while Rose was pressing at his mind—and that monster vampire seemed to be squeezing his eyes from memory—he did not mention them again. He knew already that his parents would never listen or believe without proof, and there was little he could do to change that. What he could do was prepare… and he had been doing so all that afternoon.
He only hoped they didn’t notice before night fell.
As his parents bustled in the kitchen, preparing a salad for tea and brewing some coffee, Marty slumped down in front of the TV. The picture danced and some Z-list celebrities embarrassed themselves for his amusement, but his mind was far away, his attention focused on the things he had done around the house. They’ll see, they’ll notice, he kept thinking. But he could hear his parents’ murmurings from the kitchen—an extension of the conversation they’d been having all day, he had no doubt—and the closer dusk drew, the more he thought he’d got away with things.
He’d made a list of what he thought he knew about vampires. Then he’d thought about that thing last night, and Rose, and crossed off the more fanciful notions. That had been a creature eager for the heat and tang of his blood, but that didn’t mean it was a monster from fiction. A crucifix would not stop a man-eating lion from biting out his throat, and a bulb of garlic would not prevent a rabid dog from tearing at his flesh. Wooden stakes, on the other hand, would pierce any flesh and cause pain. Holy water he didn’t have a clue about, but battery acid would blind anything. Around the house, hidden from sight but easily accessible to anyone who knew where they were, he’d hidden several caches of each. He’d even dug out his old catapult from the attic, spending time in the garden collecting some of the harsher, sharper stones from the graveled pathways. It was beneath the sofa right now, the stones in his pockets.
His heart had not stopped galloping all afternoon. I should call the police I should tell the law I should call the army the church Gaz… But each time he considered calling and telling someone about his fears for the coming night, he could hear their response. So he didn’t call anyone at all.
He waited for Rose. Dusk came, darkness fell. His parents joined him in the sitting room, their eyes taking on a blank watery glare as TV gave them false escape. He was glad they didn’t quiz him about what he’d said that morning, and he glanced at them surreptitiously now and then, checking to see whether they’d believed even an ounce of his story. But no: their eyes focused on the bright world beyond the TV screen, far away from their own and safe beneath the veil of shallow fantasy. Not once did he see them looking at the window or turning their heads toward the front door. They didn’t even look at him.
Around nine p.m. he stood, sneaked the catapult from beneath his armchair cushion, and walked from the room.
“Gonna go upstairs and listen to some music,” he said.
“Oh, okay, son,” his mum replied, as if surprised that he’d been with them that evening. “Not going out tonight?”
“Nah, bit tired. Got a good book to read.”
“Don’t scare yourself awake.” It was something she’d said to him from a young age, when he’d started reading horror comics and James Herbert novels, and for a moment he felt a lump in his throat. She’d said it without even turning away from the TV screen.
“Love you,” he said quietly. Perhaps neither of them heard above the TV. Or maybe they’d forgotten how to answer him back.
Climbing the stairs, he checked behind the landing curtain where he’d put the small glass bottles filled with car battery acid. They were still there. In the landing cupboard were the three cricket stumps he’d sharpened up. He slipped into Rose’s room and felt under her bed, and for a brief, horrible moment he expected a hand to close around his own. But then he found the hockey stick that she had last touched when she was truly alive, and he felt the cool kiss of the razor blades he’d taped to its curved head.
If that thing doesn’t come back tonight, I’ve got a lot of clearing up to do tomorrow, he thought. But tomorrow felt impossibly distant, like an eagerly anticipated holiday six months in the future. He craved the sunrise but knew with a sudden certainty that between then and now would lie a deeper darkness.
When he opened his bedroom door, Rose was sitting on his bed. She smiled. His window was wide open, curtains billowing in a breeze, and as he quietly closed the door behind him, the darkness beyond the window growled.
It was the first time she’d been in her old home in five years. Everything was different: the smells, the sounds, the way the walls joined and the floors flexed beneath her. Approaching the house that evening, slinking through shadows and listening and watching for the vampire, she hadn’t expected to feel any nostalgia or sense of loss at all. And she hadn’t been wrong. But the sight of the house had stirred something deep inside that she’d been trying to analyze ever since.
My old room is just next door, she thought as she sat waiting on Marty’s bed. She had no wish to visit. She suspected it might be exactly the same as when she’d last seen it, that evening when she’d showered and dressed and made herself up with subtle, gentle makeup. The best makeup shouldn’t even be noticed, her dad had told her once, and she’d never been one for plastering her face and hiding beneath a new mask every evening. She’d been proud of herself and confident of her looks. And Francesco had been so charming.