Rebirth Read online

  He said “When you driving, the big thing to look for is a place to use the bathroom. You can’t just take the truck anywhere; you got to be careful you don’t get in where you can’t get out. You always got to take care of things before they get desperate. They never tell you about that.”

  “What do you do when you get somewhere or stop for the night? It’s got to get old sleeping in the truck.”

  “It got old quick. Read and watch TV is about all they is to do. And think, I get a lot of thinkin’ done.”

  Carl, Wanda and Magscame up to the truck carrying a load of bags, we all loaded up.

  “Y’all got some shopping done it looks like.”

  Carl said “Yeah, just a little. Sheila was in there but they close at five, that don’t give us but a little while to get over there and do what we gotta do and leave.”

  “Let’s do it tomorrow. That gives us tonight hanging loose. Earl asked me about a movie. Earl, how much time do you have before you got to leave?”

  “I got a few days, I call when I get ready and they give me a load.”

  Carl said “Rosalee, I’ll take you to a movie. I never thought you’d go and we been busy.” He kneeled down by my seat and hung on against the motion of the truck “You know I got feelings for you.”

  “I ain’t fixing to get married, Earl just wants to go to a movie and he ain’t got nobody.” I patted his hand. “You know we ain’t got anything official going on. I’m not ready to get locked down. I ain’t blowing you off, I just want to have a little fun, something different.”

  He turned to Mags“Would you like to go to a movie? It’d be different and we can get something to eat.”

  I felt a little spark of jealousy but damned if I’d let it show “You use the car, Carl, and show Mags a good time. You need some money?”

  “No, I got money. Thanks for the use of the car, though. What do you say, Mag, you up for a movie?”

  She looked at me questioningly; I gave her the smallest nod I could, Carl didn’t need to know she checked.

  She said “Yes, I go. What is ‘movie’?” Carl sat by her, telling her about movies.

  “Wanda, how ‘bout you, you want to go to a movie with us? We can load up and make a night of it.” I didn’t really want to get alone with Earl in a date setting, I just wasn’t ready. The thought made my stomach feel funny.

  Wanda said “I ain’t gonna rain on no parade but thanks for the offer.”

  I looked at Earl, hoping he would get my drift. He said “Wanda, you welcome to come with us far as I’m concerned. We can do a group thing; I ain’t got a car and the truck’s a real problem parking most places. We can all go together.”

  She thought a second “I really would like to get out of the house. Y’all sure you don’t mind?”

  “We sure, Carl, you and Magswith us, right?”

  He straightened; he’d been a little slumped. “Yeah that sounds good. Let’s do it.”

  Earl said “Rosalee – do you mind if I call you Rose?”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  “You met Sheila before you got skinny didn’t you? Before, well, all that stuff happened when we met.” He pulled up in front of the house and flipped stuff, pressed buttons, air hissed loud for a second then the engine shut down.

  He was right. “Yeah, I guess so. Why?”

  “Have she seen you since you got skinny and all?”

  “No, I just met her the one time. You’re right. She shouldn’t know me like this. I could have gone in and she’d have never known it was me unless I said something. But she might have some way of recognizing me. She knew something about me that made her attack me after all.”

  “It’s better not to take chances then.” We climbed down and carried the bags in. I was a little wounded that I didn’t get a chance to shop, I needed some new underwear, I was making do with very little that fit, but I could go shopping later.

  Carl handed me two bags, “Momma helped pick this stuff out so if it don’t fit you blame her.”

  “Wow, y’all bought me stuff! What’d you get?” I didn’t snatch the bags but it was a close thing.

  “I noticed you didn’t have a lot that fit, this is a few things you might be able to use.”

  The man had bought me panties, bras, two skirts and a couple blouses. The capper was a pair of black leather sandals, real shoes, not tennis or flip flops. I tried them on and they fit perfectly and damn they looked good. They had little platforms that lifted me up an extra inch. Thongs wrapped my ankles securely, so they shouldn’t give me trouble if I had to run.

  “Oh my god, these are perfect! And they fit! You know, I think this is the first time I ever had anything but tennis shoes or flip flops, I’m in love!”

  Whoops, Carl lit up with that. I hurriedly dug into the bag and lifted out a handful of underwear. Lace, frills, little bows, boy shorts, all designed to be seen, none of it the granny panties I bought for myself. I stretched out a pair between my hands, an almost nonexistent waistband connected little frilly sides with a patch of material in the middle. I shoved the stuff back in the bag and took it all to the bedroom.

  Carl called around and made a list of movies and we picked one, a no brainer action comedy.

  I wore a skirt. I didn’t know how to put the damn thing on. I did the best I could, picked a blouse that didn’t seem to be bad with it, and put the shoes on.

  Wanda showed up, shook her head, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me to the bedroom “You can’t go out with somebody looking like that, you got to take a little care. Damn girl, ain’t you ever dressed yourself before?”

  “Not for something like this. This will be my first date. I never wore a skirt before.”

  “Come on and let’s get you ready. They’ll wait for you. You supposed to be a little late, it’s fashionable.”

  “I ain’t never been the fashionable type before, you know?”

  “Well this is a good time to start.”

  She threw me around, snatched my clothes off me, once she had me naked she put perfume on me, deodorant (I already had it on but I didn’t say a word), stockings (Really?!), then she picked up a pair of little panties I wouldn’t ever let somebody know I was wearing.

  “If somebody get lucky tonight we want to wrap that package right.” She chuckled “This is fun! I ain’t played dress up in a while.” She used a brush on my hair vigorously. She could easily work as a carpet cleaner; knots came out of my hair and I still had a little scalp left when she pronounced me done and started in on makeup.

  I looked in the bathroom mirror and didn’t recognize me. It wasn’t as much of a shock as the first time but it was close. She’d put a glow in my hair and it lay in ringlets falling softly down my back and on my shoulders.

  We loaded up in the car, I got in front with Earl driving and Carl, Wanda and Mags got in the back. Carl had his legs drawn up, he looked miserable setting between his mom and his date. I took pity on him;

  “Carl, let me get in the back and you men set up front where there‘s more room.”

  We rearranged. I sat with Mags on my left and Wanda on my right and it was cozy, Wanda put her arm behind me and squeezed my shoulder, I leaned my head on her.

  Mags sat alone so I reached over and grabbed her arm, “Come on over here girl, don’t be a stranger.” She smiled and leaned over against me, she couldn’t put her arm around my shoulders so she rested her hand in my lap.

  She noticed my thigh-highs; “Oh, I like, pretty! Leg so smooth!” she ran her free hand over my calf appreciatively.

  Wanda said “That does look good, don’t it?” She’d put them on me and smoothed them out so they wore straight.

  Carl turned and looked back “hey, yeah, that looks good, I like the skirt too. I ain’t ever seen you in a skirt before Rosalee, you got nice legs.”

  The car bumped and swerved, Earl pulled it back on the road, “Y’all gonna make me wreck, I can’t see!” He reached up and adjusted the rearview and I met his eyes. He kept ti
lting it, going for the leg view.

  “Y’all are goin’ to embarrass me if you keep this up, I ain’t used to bein’ no sex symbol.” Half kidding and totally serious, my stomach was doing little quivers.

  Mags said “What is sex symbol?” We’d talked about symbols when she saw the stuff around my windows.

  Wanda said “It’s somebody who is very sexy, when you see them you think of sex. They’re TV and movie stars. This girl could do that.” She rubbed my bare arm slowly, fingertips grazing the skin lightly in little circles, and put her face close to mine.

  Mags said “Oh, woman who like woman, I know about that.” She squeezed my knee and smiled.

  I knew they were kidding, but somehow my body hadn’t got the message. Earl watched in the rearview mirror and Carl had his head on the back of the seat. I couldn’t see any graceful way to stop them, I had to play along or be a dick.

  “Y’all make a girl feel attractive, I appreciate that.” I put my hand on Mags’ thigh and squeezed it, her little shorts fit better but they were still short. I turned my head and kissed Wanda on the side of the temple.

  Wanda wasn’t done. She pressed my head away from her and took a deep sniff at the juncture between my neck and my shoulder on that side, raising goose bumps all up and down my arms and sides.

  Mags giggled and, not to be outdone, ran her hand slowly up my thigh. “Where is the end, I wonder?” Earl left the road again, we bumped and swerved.

  I said “hey, that’s enough, y’all. Let’s let up before we get killed here.” grateful for the interruption; it was feeling pretty good and I wasn’t sure where it might go, but I did know I wasn’t at my best in a crowd, and Wanda and Carl made it way too weird for me.

  We all laughed it off and the rest of the trip was uneventful. We got there and took seats. I was shocked at the prices, I guess I missed out on when things got so high. Earl insisted on buying drinks and popcorn for all, Carl would have fought it but Earl was too fast.

  Wanda sat on the end, Earl and I sat next to each other, then Mags and Carl, which put me between Wanda and Earl. I watched the movie and Earl and Wanda hit it off. Mags and Carl seemed to get along well, and all was good.

  Earl walked me to the door and kissed me night in a brotherly way. Mags and Carl came in and Wanda left.

  Carl explained movies, actors, and cinema to Mags, whose experience was with actors set up in a field with canvas sides hung around. Andy came in and joined the discussion. A ‘BAM’ rattled the door and shook the porch, hell, it shook the house like someone ran into the house with a car.

  I grabbed the shotgun from the kitchen. Andy said “It’s gone, I heard it running away. It left something on the porch I think.”

  I opened the door cautiously, there was a wet, shapeless lump laying against it that fell partially into the living room.

  I couldn’t tell what I was looking at. I leaned down cautiously and touched it with a finger. It was warm and sticky, it gave to my touch, sinking in a little before it firmed up.

  There was a smell about it, something distinct, maybe I had smelled it a long time ago but I couldn’t place it.

  Andy said “It’s a deer, Rose. Somebody threw a deer on the porch, let me see.” He walked out and crouched down to examine it.

  “It’s been skinned and most of the blood sucked out, all the meat is here.” He lifted one end of it and looked into a cavity “The internal organs are gone. This is maybe a gift? It’s fresh, it’s been bled out, it’s ready to butcher.”

  “Who the hell is throwing a skinned deer on my porch? I ain’t asked for no deer, am I supposed to butcher it?”

  Carl said “Deer meat is good. It’d be a shame to waste it. Is they any chance it’s been poisoned?”

  Andy said “No, it’s clean, no poison, I think I’d smell it. That’s a really nice job of skinning too, the meat’s not torn.” He lifted what I could tell was a leg “If you want, I can take off the hindquarters and tenderloin. Those are the best cuts.”

  “Has anybody noticed how bizarre this is? Y’all gonna accept this? I ain’t got no idea who’s throwing deer at my porch. Do y’all really think the best thing to do is eat it?”

  Carl said “You want me to haul it off somewhere and dump it, or call the law, or what? I agree it’s weird, but that ain’t no reason to waste it.”

  Mags said “Fresh meat very good. Is shame to waste, I cut up?”

  Outvoted, I said “Sure, y’all go for it.” I waited inside, gun handy, for the next thing to happen.

  Andy wasn’t kidding. Mags was impressed with him; he had the deer sectioned into pieces in a couple minutes. We wrapped the parts in plastic wrap and baggies and put it in the freezer. Everbody washed up. Andy sat down on the couch and fidgeted. He finally turned to me

  “Rose, Chen Ling skinned the deer and threw it on the porch. He’s the vampire that made me. I smelled him. He’s crazy.”

  “He acts a little crazy, yeah, I thought you killed him.”

  “After I got out of the casket, I was crazy. He caught me and took me into the woods. He killed animals, made me drink blood from them. He showed me how to skin them, he skins everything. He loves to skin stuff. I wasn’t thinking much those days, he’d knock me down and force me to act like he wanted me too. Not cruel, just fast and strong and he got his point across. I was naked, and stank from blood and sleeping in holes in the dirt in the daytime. He told me stuff. He muttered all the time. After a while I understood what he said.

  He originally came from San Francisco where his parents ran a laundry. He was about thirty when he was bitten; over the course of a few nights he was seduced by a female vampire and drained repeatedly until he died.

  Except, you know, he woke up. In Chinatown, they took his body home. That night he rose. He ate his brother and two sisters, his mother and father. The following night he saw what he had done, he only remembered bits and pieces for years after that. It seems he lived in the woods in Canada killing and drinking the blood from animals. He skinned everything he killed, in his mind he would sell all the hides and make lots of money, buy his way back into friends, life, and daylight.

  The hides rotted. He didn’t feel the cold, but he wore the hides. When he tried to sell them, most of the time he killed any prospective buyers, they smelled too good to resist. The people in the region actively hunted him for years, they shot him several times. He recovered, but it hurt.

  He eventually migrated back to the states, where he discovered his first homeless person, a hobo. That began his living on a diet of those who wouldn’t be missed, and eventually he wound up here. The best I can tell, he’s about a hundred fifty to two hundred years old. When he wanted me to eat people, I balked, he held a girl for me and I shoved him away. He fell in front of a car and it smashed him, this was downtown and the police were there in seconds. They pronounced him dead and hauled him off. I believed he was dead. Obviously he is not.”

  “Damn. So what’s with the deer?”

  “I would guess he’s negotiating, this is like a card. He’s not much for small talk. If he gets a good smell of you, he won’t stop till he eats you up.”

  “I think I fought him at the creek. That nasty bastard wore rotted hides, when I bit him the blood shocked my tongue like electricity. He moved so fast he blurred, almost invisible while he was attacking us.”

  “There can’t be a lot of things like that in the area. That’s him.”

  “He got a good smell of my blood there, I got shot in the hand and he rubbed his tongue all over my face.

  “I can’t believe you aren’t dead. The vampire I remember was unbelievably fast and stronger than four or five normal men. I’ve seen him run a deer down, catch it by the rear legs and rip a leg completely off.”

  “That sounds about right. He was slapping people to crush their hips and shoulders. Carl shot him through the chest, and I got pretty fast, I cut three fingers and part of his hand off, then down his back and through some ribs, and then he ran away.” />
  “I never heard anything about anyone who hurt him and lived. I don’t know how he’d take something like that. The deer on the porch means something, but I have no idea what.”

  “I appreciate the information. I ain’t sure just what I need to do with it, if there’s some way to contact him I’d be willing to talk.”

  “We could try to track him again but I imagine he’ll be watching for it.”

  “No, I got things I got to do tomorrow, after tomorrow I might be in a better place to deal with him.” I didn’t want to share that I was weakened without Dirt. “What should we do with you and Armando and Megan?”

  “I’d like to leave but I’m not going to do that. I’ll send Megan and Armando out of the area tonight. If you let me stay in your basement in the daytime, I’ll help.”

  “Ok, done deal.”

  I’d learned by this time if I got the chance to sleep I better take it. The necklace made me feel better, Mags gave me some hard looks but she’d have to get over it.

  I felt like I had just lay down and Mags had me by the foot shaking me.

  “I’m awake, don’t pull my foot off. What’s up now?” I drew my foot out of her hand and scooted up a little so I could see her.

  “People here, Earl, Wanda, Carl.”

  I wondered what time it was as I got up, and why all these people were here. At least I smelled coffee. Mags rose early. She’d learned to love coffee.

  We sat in the kitchen. It was already seven. They wanted to get started with Sheila. They were here for me. Yeah, I felt like a dog.

  I said “Are y’all sure you’re ok with helping me? This might get ugly, the woman is a witch, she has powers, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”

  Wanda said “Yeah, we in. Carl’s taking you and Mags to the house. Earl’s taking me to the mall to make sure she’s at work. We’ll keep an eye out and let you know if she leaves. You go in with Mags, she’ll find what you need. Y’all get it and get out of there, tell us and we all meet here. That work?”

  “Yeah, it’s a plan.” Everybody was upbeat, happy, busy, and we headed out.