Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [38]
I see the deaths of vampires, as much as can be shown; and I watch the televised burning of witches. I see the chasing of warlocks through main streets in Iowa. And then there are the Abominations of Slanterville, a town in Florida that is found to be filled with worshippers of an alligator-god named Slundge. Federal agents were lowered in on bungee cords from helicopters and they captured the townspeople, who had bred with beasts of the swamp to produce squalling children with mongrel patches of scale and horn. The people of Slanterville, down to the rat-tailed babies, were sent to prison, and their town was burned in the night.
“I don’t know why the Feds didn’t just kill those Abominations,” says my mother idly as she passes in front of the TV, feeding herself Cheetos. “It’s not like they could ever lead normal lives.”
In prison, away from the swamps, the Abominations started to weaken and get sick. A fight broke out. I guess some human inmates claimed that the Abominations of Slanterville hogged the showers. The fight turned into a riot, and within fifteen minutes all the Abominations in the male ward had been beaten to death. The riot spread. More people were killed. In a prison riot, the first to die are the inhumans. The Abominations, the trolls, the changelings, the demon-possessed.
I can’t believe I’m one of a hated race, too. It doesn’t matter that I’m a half-vampire and they’re Abominations. We are all hated. We are brethren in being hated. I watch the human inmates brandishing bloody instruments, waving them in triumph, and I can’t understand why they hate me so much. I have done nothing. It is like they are saying, “We’re coming for you next, boy. We know your zip code; we’re on our way. We’ll kill you all.”
But then I think, I am not inhuman yet.
I will not be a killer; I will not give them reason to hate me.
I feel people’s eyes on me all the time. “Why are you watching that gruesome footage?” my mother asks. “You want your brain to turn to mush?”
And when I keep watching I notice her lingering by the door, looking at me as if she’s worried about me. She’s worried about why I have to keep staring at these scenes. I can’t pay attention to the screen when she looks at me that way because I’m too busy being looked at. I just sit there, not looking back, hoping she’ll go away, and I wonder: What is the difference between the look of a parent who is concerned and the look of a parent who is suspicious?
She doesn’t look concerned or suspicious when my brother watches riot footage, because he talks constantly about the media and the splicing techniques.
She almost glares at me, though, as if she knows, maybe somewhere deep within her, that what I’m watching is myself being killed on screen. I’m staring at it because I need to know what might happen to me. I need to understand why I am hated.
I keep telling myself that it will not happen, that soon this will all be a memory.
But I do not know when Chet is coming; or why he would come; or if he is coming at all.
Peeper frogs are starting to chirp in the woods. The sunlight is bright through the leaves of the oaks. My brother is out there, in the back yard, filming slugs.
He has a big biology project to do. He decided to do a science documentary on the life cycle of the slug. That way he can work with video equipment and lots of gastropods.
I am lying upstairs on my bed, trying to get some sleep. Through my open window, I can hear my brother’s voice. “Establishing shot. The lawn,” he says. “A fearsome jungle for the average garden slug.”
Somewhere downstairs, my mother is talking on the phone, comparing her antidepressant brand with her friends’.
It has been some time since I’ve slept. I hate the sunlight, now. It makes me weary.
I am trying to fall asleep, but I can still feel the dull thirst sucking at my upper palate. Everything bothers me. The glint of light from my posters. The hiccupping, nervous chirp of the peepers. The distant rumble of a lawn mower.
Something