Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [6]
6. Refuse blood all you want. The hunger drives you insane after the third day.
That morning I couldn’t go to school because I was shaking and sweating and my mouth was so dry I couldn’t even speak to tell my mom I’d be fine.
“Grandmother will take care of you until I get home,” Mom said, unconvinced. But I nodded. Grandmother knew the score.
My parents went, and I listened to the quiet house for a while, sucking in air I didn’t even need, trying not to let my brain boil. I heard, Hang on, hang on, but I didn’t know who could be talking; I was alone. I thrashed out—I wasn’t going to let Death get me twice.
Grandmother brought with her a little bowl in each hand. She was wearing a yellow housedress, and her skin smelled like tea and lotion and fish scales and the vitamin pills Mom made her take.
I turned away, gripping my knees with my fingernails until the blood ran, so I wouldn’t grab for her arm and bite down. My head was going to burst.
Then I felt something cool on my shoulder, something thick and earthy. Mud.
I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry; I lay quietly as she smoothed her fingers over my shoulders, my neck, the backs of my arms.
At last, somehow, I was calm enough to look at her without being afraid of myself.
She smiled. “Come here. I have something for you.”
I didn’t want to get closer, but somehow I was sitting up anyway, moving to rest my back against the headboard. The mud was soothing—it smelled nice, like sleep—and Grandmother’s yellow dress filled the room.
“Here,” Grandmother said, upturning the second bowl.
It was dry rice—the little white grains stood out sharply against my purple bedspread—and my mind went blank, suddenly. I started to count.
Dimly I was aware that she left and came back, but I wasn’t finished, and the counting was all that mattered.
“How many?” my grandmother asked at some point, and handed me a warm mug. I counted through to the end.
“Four hundred thirty-six,” I said. My throat wasn’t dry anymore; I was surprised, until I looked down in the mug and realized I’d already drunk from it. There was some blood left, forming a pudding skin on top. When I looked up, I saw myself in the desk mirror, my mouth ringed with red.
“I’m disgusting,” I said, on the verge of tears.
She held my hand. “Don’t worry. You’re mine.”
After a moment, she sat back, folded her hands over her stomach.
“If you’re ready for the rest, I can tell you,” she said, and I scratched at the mud on my arm and listened.
7. Jiang-shi must drink blood to keep their bodies from turning into tombs; otherwise they go from strong to granite, and you’re trapped inside. (“You should learn to hunt deer,” she says. I ignore that.)
8. The yellow dress keeps me at bay. (“Tell your friends to wear yellow,” she says, like I have any friends I’d want to save.)
9. She can get blood from the butcher, “for sausage,” she says, winking broadly, so long as I give her a ride. She’s not allowed to have the car anymore.
10. Blood tastes disgusting.
11. At first.
At school, I went in the back way and made it through the morning trying not to fall asleep. (Good news about the new compulsions: I took monster notes.)
The cafeteria was an orgy of social anxiety, and my useless heart still pounded in my chest as I walked in. Old habits die hard, I guess.
Amber, Madison, Jason, and the rest were sitting at the lunch table with their McDonald’s bags, evidence that they were cool enough to leave campus. Jason was feeding Amber fries, one at a time.
I heard, Ignore them.
It was a boy’s voice. I looked around; I was alone.
You can’t see me, it said. You can stop looking.
“You can shut up,” I muttered, but I headed through the cafeteria, trying to shake it.
We should talk, now that you can hear me, it said.
“Now, as in you were around before?”
Outside, I found an empty bench and sank onto it, checking that I hadn’t been followed.
Still here.
I got nervous before I remembered I was dead, too. I probably had more in common with this thing than with any of the people in the cafeteria.