Four, p.4
Four, page 4
Georgia reacted on instinct, popping a left hook right into her would-be attacker’s cheek. He yowled and stumbled backward, his slipper catching on the edge of the rug. Georgia didn’t wait to see the results of the crash and instead ran across the hall. This door actually yielded as she turned the knob, and she quickly found herself in a dingy little bathroom. She locked the door and shoved everything not bolted down—from the over-the-toilet shelves to the plunger—against the exit.
“What the hell are you?” she screamed through the wall.
“You can see the fangs too?” Geoffrey asked incredulously. “How can you see the fangs?”
“Because you showed them to me!” Georgia said. She once more fumbled with her phone, but to no avail. “What are you, some kind of freak?”
“Freak? Well, that’s rather rude,” he said.
“You lunged at me!” Georgia said. She managed to angle the shelves perfectly to form a wedge between the sill and the toilet. Once sure of her barricade, she turned her attention to the window over the tub, but much to her chagrin, it was purely decorative and barred from the outside too.
“You weren’t supposed to see the fangs yet. Sorry about that. Usually, you know, the miasma works. This has never happened to me before,” he said apologetically.
Georgia started rummaging through the medicine chest, but could only come up with a can of air freshener and a wash cloth that was wadded in such a way that she didn’t dare grab it. The door shuddered slightly, but the jerry-rigged étagère held firm.
“I’m terribly sorry if I frightened you,” he said. “Please come out.”
“I thought you said you didn’t bite!” Georgia snapped as she started looking for a weapon among the paltry supply of cleaning products under the sink.
“I said I don’t bite unless you want me to. You were supposed to want it!” he said. “The miasma was supposed to work!”
“Well, it didn’t, and what the hell is miasma?” she snapped.
“It’s the seductive aroma of the vampire,” Geoffrey said. “It makes women weak in the knees.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not really swooning over here. Is it some sort of cheap cologne?”
“No, it’s the aura of a natural-born predator,” Geoffrey stammered. “You do get what I am, don’t you?”
“A very strange old man who thinks he’s a vampire?” Georgia offered.
“Wait? What?” Geoffrey cried. “I am a vampire!”
“That’s ridiculous, and yet it strangely makes sense,” Georgia said. “But that doesn’t change the fact that vampires aren’t real, so we’re back to square one.”
“But you saw my fangs,” Geoffrey cried. “And I can only guess by your initial reaction that you saw my true countenance and pallor.”
Georgia hopped into the bathtub and clutched her knees to her chest. As she rocked back and forth against the cold porcelain, she slowed her breath and closed her eyes, taking in the past few minutes as best she could.
“Georgia?” Geoffrey asked. When she didn’t immediately answer, the door suddenly banged again.
“Hey!” she snapped back. “I’ve got a lighter and some hairspray in here, and I’m not afraid to use it,” she bluffed.
“You can’t stay in there forever,” Geoffrey warned.
“You just watch me, Geoff!” she snapped back.
Thus the standoff began as Georgia made herself comfortable in the bathtub while her stalker paced just outside the door. Occasionally the knob would wiggle or the wood panel would creak, but mostly the afternoon consisted of eerie stillness and quiet. As the sun started to grow longer through the window, Georgia took the time to try taking the battery out of her phone and replacing it, but it still stubbornly refused to boot up.
“Your trinket won’t work around me,” Georgia heard from outside her sanctuary.
“Really? How’d you break my phone?”
“It’s my power,” he said proudly.
“Your power? Because you’re a—”
“Vampire,” Geoffrey finished. “It’s true. I spent years and years being mocked for only being able to shift subtle currents with my mind. Now, though, everyone needs a cell phone silenced or a computer fried. I guess you could say I’m a late bloomer.”
“So you have the vampiric power of screwing up a cell phone? I guess you can’t turn into a big cloud of mist and ooze under the door to get me then?”
“Mist? Ooze? Is that really a power you think we have?” Geoff asked. “Is that in one of the movies?”
“Yeah, it was in one of them, I think,” Georgia said. “Vampires can turn into wolves, bats, mist, all that.”
“Well, we most certainly can’t!” Geoffrey said huffily. “But we don’t need to sleep or eat for days on end. Can you say the same?”
“I’m still good in here.” She sighed. “But you must be getting pretty hungry, though, since you obviously went all blood crazy and lunged for me sooooooooooo desperately.”
“I was not desperate!” Geoff cried. “You were just so scrumptious. I got ahead of myself.”
“Did you actually just call me scrumptious?” Georgia asked.
“Well, yes. I guess I did.”
Georgia stood up and carefully approached the door. She pressed her hand against the wood and took comfort in just how thick and steady the old paneling remained.
“You’re a real vampire, Mr. Lambley?” she asked. “And you were going to trap and eat my roommate?”
At first there was no response, but after a few minutes, she could hear the floor outside creak. A defeated voice mumbled, “I had the advertisements placed online.”
“Kinky sex ads? Don’t you think that draws attention?”
“No one really looks at those, do they?” he asked.
“Well, I’m sure they will once people turn up dead,” Georgia said.
“Dead?” Geoffrey gasped. “Oh heaven’s no! I wouldn’t even dream of it. All I want is a little fun and a light snack.”
“Really?” Georgia asked.
“Of course!” he said. “It’s a win-win situation. I bring in girls who want to be seduced by a vampire. We share pure pleasure, and I get what I need to survive. I only take a few sips, and then they can return unharmed and we’re both sated. What’s the harm in that?”
“You get sweet vampire sex from girls like Alice?” Georgia asked in disbelief.
There was another moment of silence. “Well, normally I have the benefit of the miasma. It just doesn’t seem to work on you for some reason. They see what they want to see.”
“And I see a man who doesn’t get lucky very often,” Georgia said flatly.
“I panicked!” Geoffrey said suddenly. “I didn’t know what to do, so the old reflexes kicked in.”
“Wait, were you going to kill me?” Georgia asked.
“I didn’t kill you,” he defended weakly. “Please understand it’s nothing personal. You’re the first one of those people I’ve ever come across.”
“Do I even want to know what those people are?” Georgia asked.
“So, are you like a vampire slayer or something?” Gail interrupted, wide-eyed as she worked on her third alcohol-infused cola. Next to her, Georgia nearly inhaled her own drink as she fought a fit of laughter.
“No, not a slayer or anything like that,” she said, eyeing the blonde across the room.
“But how are you immune to the miasma stuff?” Gail whispered. “What’s the secret?”
Georgia leaned over and gave an exaggerated look to her left and right. “The secret is . . .” she hissed in Gail’s ear. The applicant held her breath as she waited. “The secret . . . is . . .” Georgia taunted. “Hang on, I’m hungry.”
Georgia flagged down a waiter and whispered something in his ear. Meanwhile Gail flopped against her seat and kicked her legs furiously in anticipation.
“Is it like a secret technique?” Gail asked earnestly.
“Oh yes, there are monasteries in Tibet that have spent centuries learning how to battle the weapons of the vampire,” Georgia said.
“Really?” Gail gasped.
Georgia shook her head. “No,” she replied flatly. “Listen, Geoffrey . . . Well, let’s just say he wasn’t at the top of his game that day. I spent over two hours locked in his bathroom.”
“And you still ended up working for him?” Gail asked incredulously.
Georgia nodded. The waiter returned with a tray packed with various dips and a basket of multicolored corn chips. She waved over the array. “Help yourself, please. There is no way I can finish the Arriba Sampler by myself.”
Gail took a swipe at the pico de gallo. “Mmm, that’s good,” she said.
Georgia’s face fell a little. She bypassed the bright red and green bowl and instead plunged her chip in a bowl of queso. “You’d be amazed what a little bit of chips and dip can tell about a person,” Georgia noted. “Anyway, what was I saying?”
“You were in a bathroom for two hours,” Gail prompted.
“Oh yeah,” Georgia said. “Yeah, it’s funny what can happen after you’re just sort of left terrified, on a toilet, for the better part of an afternoon . . .”
“So, are you going to ever come out?” Geoffrey asked after one more shove against the beleaguered door.
“Nope!” Georgia called back. “I’m getting rather comfy in here. I just read through your two-year-old copy of Sports Illustrated. I don’t have the heart to tell them that the prediction about the World Series was totally wrong.”
“You really feel no desire at all for me?” Geoffrey asked. “Like nothing?”
“Not one iota,” Georgia confirmed. As she sat on the toilet with her head buried in her hands, however, a faint and rather disturbing sound drifted from the hall. “Wait, are you crying?” she asked.
“No!” Geoffrey sniffled. “What do you care, anyway? You’re one of those people. Did Stefano get you on purpose? Did he bring you here to taunt me?”
“I don’t know this Stefano, but you said he was the creepy guy downstairs, right? He didn’t give me the best first impression either, you know.”
“Was he pale to you too?” Geoffrey asked, still sounding stuffy.
“I didn’t really notice. He was just, you know, off to me.”
“And I disgusted you, didn’t I?” Mr. Lambley asked. “Please, I’m over two hundred years old, I can handle the truth.”
“Well, you weren’t what I’d call classically handsome,” Georgia confessed. “And your outfit was both distracting and disturbing.”
“You’re sugarcoating your words,” he sighed. “I’m a toad.”
“I didn’t see any warts or slime,” Georgia said. “But you are really pale, you know that, don’t you?”
“I’ve never had the most potent aroma, you know, but I could get by,” he said. “As long as I could get a little time before the girl actually saw me—”
“You might want to start with a little bronzer,” Georgia offered.
“Oh, some of us use makeup, but do you know how hard it is to not look ridiculous when you can’t even see yourself in the mirror?” Geoffrey lamented.
“I guess I could see where that would be difficult—”
“Oh, Georgia, I’m such a failure, an utter, utter failure,” Geoffrey sobbed. Georgia remained frozen in utter slack-jawed silence as the vampire in the hall carried on whimpering and sniffling like a soap opera diva. “It started so long ago. I just lost my mojo,” he blathered. “There just came a time when I couldn’t get the fangs to even come out.”
“Well, I saw your fangs,” Georgia offered weakly.
She heard a clatter outside the door. “These black ones? They’re fake!” he bawled, now sounding mush-mouthed. “I was hoping if I could get you good and scared that it would be like the good old days when I could chase a flapper down a dark alley and have my way with her. Oh, it was so wonderful when the hemlines started rising and the standards lowered after the Great War.”
“You’re kind of oversharing here, Mr. Lambley, but if it feels good to let it out—”
“They call me Toothless Geoff!” Mr. Lambley wailed. “Me, the Scourge of Essex . . . the Wolf of Wembley! Now I’m just this sad old sack of dust who can’t even bite the single most beautiful woman he’s seen in fifty years.”
“Oh, come on now, it can’t be that bad—”
“I’ve been eating blended rats!” he sobbed. “Do you know what a blended rat is? It’s literally a rodent shoved in a blender.”
Georgia pulled out her phone one last time and slammed it against her leg in a vain attempt to bring it to life. As it remained frustratingly black and the sky looked darker and darker, she eased off the john and crept closer to the door.
“But what about all your advertisements?” Georgia offered.
“Your friend Alice was the only one who ever responded,” Geoffrey sniffled. “Tell me truly, do you think she would have had me?”
Georgia took a deep breath. “Um, probably not.”
He responded by breaking out into another round of violent sobs. Finally, reluctantly, Georgia shoved her full body weight against the étagère and dislodged the jam. Sure enough when she opened the door, Mr. Lambley was collapsed in a puddle of pink-streaked tears and holding a pair of pointy dentures in his shaking hands.
“You’re free to go, Miss Sutherland,” he whimpered. “Just promise me you will never speak of this to anyone.”
Georgia eased down next to him and gingerly wrapped an arm around his surprisingly narrow shoulders. “Honestly, who is going to believe that I spent my afternoon in a bathroom hiding from a sobbing vampire? I’m looking for a job, not a one-way ticket into an asylum.”
The old vampire collapsed against her chest, sobbing anew. She cringed as she patted his back and muttered, “There, there.”
“You should go,” he choked out.
She eased away from him. “Do you really think that I’m the prettiest girl you’ve seen in fifty years?” she asked as she headed for the stairs.
“Sixty,” he said softly. He pulled out a brass house key and offered it to her.
“I can really go?” she asked.
“First, I will invite you to stay,” Mr. Lambley said, sniffling once more.
Georgia pulled back and eyed him suspiciously. “Let’s not get into that crap again—” she started.
“Oh no!” he said quickly. “It’s just that my kind have certain unquestionable rules. The law of hospitality dictates that no vampire may cause harm to any person welcomed into his home, nor may vampires enter a home where they are not welcomed.”
“So there is truth to that whole vampires-have-to-be-invited-to-come-in thing?” Georgia asked incredulously.
“Hollywood did get a few things almost right,” Geoffrey confessed. “So I am offering you this key to my home. So long as you accept it, you are safe from me.”
Georgia grabbed the key from him. “It’s that simple?” she asked.
“Well, technically you would have to stay here for me to grant full protection, to accept my hospitality,” Geoffrey said. “I assume that you’ll throw it away as soon as you are out of sight, but at least for these few moments, I can keep you safe.”
“Keep me safe?”
“Stefano may still be near,” Geoffrey warned. “He’s from a very traditional family, very German, if you know what I mean. If he were to figure out that you know . . . that we didn’t . . . well, let’s just say he might get a little bitey.”
“So, I accept your invitation to live here and receive your hospitality,” Georgia said slowly while checking the vampire’s face for any more clues as to exactly what she needed to do. “But I can still leave right now, as long as I do my best to forget this ever happened?”
“I admit it’s playing with the rules a little, but it’s probably for the best,” Geoffrey said sadly. “Now you should go.”
“I should.”
The two of them stared at each other in the hall. She finally noticed the frayed and stained edges of his cuffs and a little rusty stain on his lapel that very clearly had gray fur still matted in it.
“Yeah, I’m gonna go,” Georgia said quickly as she hustled for the door. The key slipped right into the lock, and for the first time in the afternoon, she was free. She eyed her reflection in the glass of the outer door and quickly smoothed her top and tried her best to look presentable. As she stared at her now-disheveled do, it became obvious that there was no corresponding image of Geoffrey in the glass. She looked over her shoulder, and sure enough, the hunched little mess of a man was indeed right behind her.
“You are a vampire,” she whispered.
He waved his hand in a flourish worthy of a Vegas illusionist. A moment later her phone screen flickered with new life. She looked down once to see the welcome message, and by the time she looked back up, the squirrely little bloodsucker had vanished into the shadows of his hollow brownstone.
She hustled out the door and into the crowded streets of Brookline. It occurred to her as she stumbled onto the concrete that her heels were still somewhere in the vampire’s den. Still, she continued a few more feet until a very bright neon palm tree sign caught her eye. Not a half block from the vampire’s abode was a Caribbean restaurant that was bypassed by most of the post-work crowd, who were hunting swankier take-out options. Just beneath said palm tree sign was a little handwritten note offering up the house specials. Georgia broke out into hysterical laughter.
She walked straight to the counter and plopped her wallet down. “I’ll take a number two and the blood-sausage special to go. Actually, make that two sausage specials.”
4
“It started with takeout?” Gail asked incredulously. “And they can actually eat blood sausage?”
“It’s basically the vampire equivalent of popcorn or rice cakes, but yes, they can eat cooked blood or meat,” Georgia said as she paused to pick at more chips and cheese dip. “You just have to liquefy it first.”
Gail set her chip back in the basket. Georgia continued to blissfully scoop up some guacamole. “Half the job is meal planning,” she said. “You aren’t grossed out by raw meat or a little blood?”
