Christopher Moore - Bloodsucking Fiends

VIP免费

2024-12-24 0 0 430.4KB 136 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Bloodsucking Fiends

A Love Story

by Christopher Moore

eVersion 4.0 / Notes at EOF

Back Cover Blurbs

"Goofy grotesqueries. . . wonderful. . . delicious. . . bloody funny. . . like a hip and youthful 'Abbott and

Costello Meet the Lugosis.' " - San Francisco Chronicle

Jody never asked to become a vampire. But when she wakes up under an alley dumpster with a

badly burned arm, an aching neck, superhuman strength, and a distinctly Nosferatuan thirst, she realizes the

decision has been made for her. Making the transition from the nine-to-five grind to an eternity of nocturnal

prowlings is going to take some doing, however, and that's where C. Thomas Flood fits in. A would-be

Kerouac from Incontinence, Indiana, Tommy (to his friends) is biding his time night-clerking and frozen

turkey bowling in a San Francisco Safeway. But all that changes when a beautiful, undead redhead walks

through the door. . . and proceeds to rock Tommy's life -- and afterlife -- in ways he never imagined

possible.A wildly original story of romance, lust, bloodlust, and blood loss - from the author of Coyote Blue

and Practical Demonkeeping.

"Delightful. . . highly recommended. . . filled with oddball characters, clever dialogue and hilarious

situations." - Library Journal

"Moore's storytelling style is reminiscent of Vonnegut and Douglas Adams." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"A series of bizarre misadventures that take place at breakneck speed in a variety of interesting locales.

The dialogue is sharp and from the hip, the pace

frenetic, and the situations tinged with a healthy dose of the supernatural. . . Moore is one of those rare

writers who is laugh-out-loud funny." - Santa Barbara Independent

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products

of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any

resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living

or dead, is entirely coincidental.

AVON BOOKS, INC.

1350 Avenue of the Americas

New York, New York 10019

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 95-1463

ISBN: 0-380-72813-3

www3.pikebooks.com

or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by

U.S. Copyright Law.

First Spike Printing: April 1999

First Avon Books Trade Printing: October 1999

Acknowledgements

The author gratefully acknowledges those people who helped in the research and writing of

Bloodsucking Fiends:

Mark Joseph and Mark Anderson for help with research in the Bay Area. Rachelle Stambal,

Jean Brody, Liz Ziemska, and Dee Dee Leichtfuss for their careful reads and thoughtful sugges-tions. My

editors, Michael Korda and Chuck Adams, for their clean hands and composure. And my agent, Nick

Ellison, for his patience, guidance, friendship, and hard work.

In memory of my father:

Jack Davis Moore

Part I

Fledgling

Chapter 1

Death

Sundown painted purple across the great Pyramid while the Em-peror enjoyed a steaming whiz

against a dumpster in the alley be-low. A low fog worked its way up from the bay, snaked around

columns and over concrete lions to wash against the towers where the West's money was moved. The

financial district: an hour ago it ran with rivers of men in gray wool and women in heels; now the streets,

built on sunken ships and gold-rush garbage, were deserted -- quiet except for a foghorn that lowed

across the bay like a lonesome cow.

The Emperor shook his scepter to clear the last few drops, shivered, then zipped up and turned

to the royal hounds who waited at his heels. "The foghorn sounds especially sad this evening, don't you

think?" The smaller of the dogs, a Boston terrier, dipped his head and licked his chops.

"Bummer, you are so simple. My city is decaying before your eyes. The air is thick with poison,

the children are shooting each other in the street, and now this plague, this horrible plague is killing my

people by the thousands, and all you think about is food."

The Emperor nodded to the larger dog, a golden retriever.

"Lazarus knows the weight of our responsibility. Does one have to die to find dignity? I wonder."

Lazarus lowered his ears and growled. "Have I offended you, my friend?"

Bummer began growling and backing away from the dumpster. The Emperor turned to see the lid

of the dumpster being slowly lifted by a pale hand. Bummer barked a warning. A figure stood up in the

dumpster, his hair dark and wild and speckled with trash, skin white as bone. He vaulted out of the

dumpster and hissed at the little dog, showing long white fangs. Bummer yelped and cowered behind the

Emperor's leg.

"That will be quite enough of that," the Emperor com-manded, puffing himself up and tucking his

thumbs under the lapels of his worn overcoat.

The vampire brushed a bit of rotted lettuce from his black shirt and grinned. "I'll let you live," he

said, his voice like a file on ancient rusted metal. "That's your punishment."

The Emperor's eyes went wide with terror, but he held his ground. The vampire laughed, then

turned and walked away.

The Emperor felt a chill run up his neck as the vampire disap-peared into the fog. He hung his

head and thought, Not this. My city is dying of poison and plague and now this -- this creature -- stalks

the streets. The responsibility is suffocating. Emperor or not, I am only a man. I am weak as water: an

entire empire to save and right now I would sell my soul for a bucket of the Colonel's crispy-fried

chicken. Ah, but I must be strong for the troops. It could be worse, I suppose. I could be the Emperor of

Oakland.

"Chins up, boys," the Emperor said to his hounds. "If we are to battle this monster, we will need

our strength. There is a bak-ery in North Beach that will presently be dumping the day-old. Let's be off."

He shuffled away thinking, Nero fiddled while his empire went to ashes; I shall eat leathery pastries.

As the Emperor trudged up California Street, trying to balance the impotence of power with the

promise of a powdered-sugar doughnut, Jody was leaving the Pyramid. She was twenty-six and pretty in

a way that made men want to tuck her into flannel sheets and kiss her on the forehead before leaving the

room; cute but not beautiful.

As she passed under the Pyramid's massive concrete buttresses she caught herself limping from a

panty-hose injury. It didn't hurt, exactly, the run that striped the back of her leg from heel to knee, the

result of a surly metal file drawer (Claims, X-Y-Z) that had leaped out and snagged her ankle; but she

was limping nonetheless, from the psychological damage. She thought, My closet is starting to look like

an ostrich hatchery. I've either got to start throwing out L'eggs eggs or get a tan on my legs and quit

wearing nylons.

She'd never had a tan, couldn't get one, really. She was a milk-white, green-eyed redhead who

burned and freckled with sun.

When she was half a block from her bus stop, the wind-driven fog won and Jody experienced

total hair-spray failure. Neat waist-length waves frizzed to a wild red cape of curl and tangle. Great, she

thought, once again I'll get home looking like Death eating a cracker. Kurt will be so pleased.

She pulled her jacket closer around her shoulders against the chill, tucked her briefcase under her

breasts like a schoolgirl car-rying books, and limped on. Ahead of her on the sidewalk she saw someone

standing by the glass door of a brokerage office. Green light from the CRTs inside silhouetted him in the

fog. She thought about crossing the street to avoid him, but she'd have to cross back again in a few feet

to catch her bus.

She thought, I'm done working late. It's not worth it. No eye contact, that's the plan.

As she passed the man, she looked down at her running shoes (her heels were in her briefcase).

That's it. Just a couple more steps. . .

A hand caught in her hair and jerked her off her feet, her brief-case went skittering across the

sidewalk and she started to scream. Another hand clamped over her mouth and she was dragged off the

street into an alley. She kicked and flailed, but he was too strong, immovable. The smell of rotten meat

filled her nostrils and she gagged even while trying to scream. Her attacker spun her around and yanked

on her hair, pulling her head back until she thought her neck would snap. Then she felt a sharp pain on the

side of her throat and the strength to fight seemed to evap-orate.

Across the alley she could see a soda can and an old Wall Street Journal, a wad of bubble gum

stuck to the bricks, a "No Parking" sign: details, strangely slowed down and significant. Her vision began

to tunnel dark, like an iris closing, and she thought, These will be the last things I see. The voice in her

head was calm, re-solved.

As everything went dark, her attacker slapped her across the face and she opened her eyes and

saw the thin white face before her. He was speaking to her. "Drink," he said.

Something warm and wet was shoved into her mouth. She tasted warm iron and salt and gagged

again. It's his arm. He's shoved his arm in my mouth and my teeth have broken. I'm tast-ing blood.

"Drink!"A hand clamped over her nose. She struggled, tried to breathe, tried to pull his arm out of her

mouth to get air, sucked for air and nearly choked on blood. Suddenly she found herself sucking,

drinking hungrily. When he tried to pull his arm away she clutched at it. He tore it from her mouth, twisted

her around and bit her throat again. After a moment, she felt herself fall. The at-tacker was tearing at her

clothes, but she had nothing left to fight with. She felt a roughness against the skin of her breasts and

belly, then he was off her.

"You'll need that," he said, and his voice echoed in her head as if he had shouted down a canyon.

"Now you can die."

Jody felt a remote sense of gratitude. With his permission, she gave up. Her heart slowed,

lugged, and stopped.

Chapter 2

Death Warmed Over

She heard insects scurrying above her in the darkness, smelled burned flesh, and felt a heavy

weight pressing down on her back. Oh my God, he's buried me alive.

Her face was pressed against something hard and cold -- stone, she thought until she smelled the

oil in the asphalt. Panic seized her and she struggled to get her hands under her. Her left hand lit up with

pain as she pushed. There was a rattle and a deafening clang and she was standing. The dumpster that

had been on her back lay overturned, spilling trash across the alley. She looked at it in disbelief. It must

have weighed a ton. Fear and adrenaline, she thought.

Then she looked at her left hand and screamed. It was horribly burned, the top layer of skin

black and cracked. She ran out of the alley looking for help, but the street was empty. I've got to get to a

hospital, call the police.

She spotted a pay phone; a red chimney of heat rose from the lamp above it. She looked up and

down the empty street. Above each streetlight she could see heat rising in red waves. She could hear the

buzzing of the electric bus wires above her, the steady stream of the sewers running under the street. She

could smell dead fish and diesel fuel in the fog, the decay of the Oakland mudflats across the bay, old

French fries, cigarette butts, bread crusts and fetid pastrami from a nearby trash can, and the resid-ual

odor of Aramis wafting under the doors of the brokerage houses and banks. She could hear wisps of fog

brushing against the buildings like wet velvet. It was as if her senses, like her strength, had been turned up

by adrenaline.

She shook off the spectrum of sounds and smells and ran to the phone, holding her damaged

hand by the wrist. As she moved, she felt a roughness inside her blouse against her skin. With her right

hand she pulled at the silk, yanking it out of her skirt. Stacks of money fell out of her blouse to the

sidewalk. She stopped and stared at the bound blocks of hundred-dollar bills lying at her feet.

She thought, There must be a hundred thousand dollars here. A man attacked me, choked me,

bit my neck, burned my hand, then stuffed my shirt full of money and put a dumpster on me and now I

can see heat and hear fog. I've won Satan's lottery.

She ran back to the alley, leaving the money on the sidewalk. With her good hand she riffled

through the trash spilled from the dumpster until she found a paper bag. Then she returned to the

sidewalk and loaded the money into the bag.

At the pay phone she had to do some juggling to get the phone off the hook and dialed without

putting down the money and without using her injured hand. She pressed 911 and while she waited for it

to ring she looked at the burn. Really, it looked worse than it felt. She tried to flex the hand and black

skin cracked. Boy, that should hurt. It should gross me out too, she thought, but it doesn't. In fact, I don't

really feel that bad, con-sidering. I've been more sore after a game of racquetball with Kurt. Strange.

The receiver clicked and a woman's voice came on the line. "Hello, you've reached the number

for San Francisco emergency services. If you are currently in danger, press one; if the danger has passed

and you still need help, press two."

Jody pressed two.

"If you have been robbed, press one. If you've been in an accident, press two. If you've been

assaulted, press three. If you are calling to report a fire, press four. If you've --"

Jody ran the choices through her head and pressed three.

"If you've been shot, press one. Stabbed, press two. Raped, press three. All other assaults, press

four. If you'd like to hear these choices again, press five."

Jody meant to press four, but hit five instead. There was a se-ries of clicks and the recorded

voice came back on.

"Hello, you've reached the number for San Francisco emer-gency services. If you are currently in

danger --"

Jody slammed the receiver down and it shattered in her hand, nearly knocking the phone off the

pole. She jumped back and looked at the damage. Adrenaline, she thought.

I'll call Kurt. He can come get me and take me to the hospital. She looked around for another

pay phone. There was one by her bus stop. When she reached it she realized that she didn't have any

change. Her purse had been in her briefcase and her briefcase was gone. She tried to remember her

calling card number, but she and Kurt had only moved in together a month ago and she hadn't memorized

it yet. She picked up and dialed the operator. "I'd like to make a collect call from Jody." She gave the

operator the num-ber and waited while it rang. The machine picked up.

"It looks like no one is home," the operator said.

"He's screening his calls," Jody insisted. "Just tell him --"

"I'm sorry, we aren't allowed to leave messages."

Hanging up, Jody destroyed the phone; this time, on purpose.

She thought, Pounds of hundred-dollar bills and I can't make a damn phone call. And Kurt's

screening his calls -- I must be very late; you'd think he could pick up. If I wasn't so pissed off, I'd cry.

Her hand had stopped aching completely now, and when she looked at it again it seemed to have

healed a bit. I'm getting loopy, she thought. Post-traumatic loopiness. And I'm hungry. I need medical

attention, I need a good meal, I need a sympathetic cop, a glass of wine, a hot bath, a hug, my auto-teller

card so I can deposit this cash. I need. . .

The 42 bus rounded the corner and Jody instinctively felt in her jacket pocket for her bus pass. It

was still there. The bus stopped and the door opened. She flashed her pass at the driver as she boarded.

He grunted. She sat in the first seat, facing three other passengers.

Jody had been riding the buses for five years, and occasionally, because of work or a late movie,

she had to ride them at night. But tonight, with her hair frizzing wild and full of dirt, her ny-lons ripped, her

suit wrinkled and stained -- disheveled, disori-ented, and desperate -- she felt that she fit in for the first

time. The psychos lit up at the sight of her.

"Parking space!" a woman in the back blurted out. Jody looked up.

"Parking space!" The woman wore a flowered housecoat and Mickey Mouse ears. She pointed

out the window and shouted, "Parking space!"

Jody looked away, embarrassed. She understood, though. She owned a car, a fast little Honda

hatchback, and since she had found a parking space outside her apartment a month ago, she had only

moved it on Tuesday nights, when the street sweeper went by -- and moved it back as soon as the

sweeper had passed. Claim-jumping was a tradition in the City; you had to guard a space with your life.

Jody had heard that there were parking spaces in Chinatown that had been in families for generations,

watched over like the graves of honored ancestors, and protected by no little palm-greasing to the

Chinese street gangs.

"Parking space!" the woman shouted.

Jody glanced across the aisle and committed eye contact with a scruffy bearded man in an

overcoat. He grinned shyly, then slowly pulled aside the flap of his overcoat to reveal an impressive

erection peeking out the port of his khakis.

Jody returned the grin and pulled her burned, blackened hand out of her jacket and held it up for

him. Bested, he closed his overcoat, slouched in his seat and sulked. Jody was amazed that she'd done it.

Next to the bearded man sat a young woman who was furi-ously unknitting a sweater into a yarn

bag, as if she would go until she got to the end of the yarn, then reknit the sweater. An old man in a

tweed suit and a wool deerstalker sat next to the knitting woman, holding a walking stick between his

knees. Every few seconds he let loose with a rattling coughing fit, then fought to get his breath back while

he wiped his eyes with a silk handkerchief. He saw Jody looking at him and smiled apologeti-cally.

"Just a cold," he said.

No, it's much worse than a cold, Jody thought. You're dying. How do I know that? I don't know

how I know, but I know. She smiled at the old man, then turned to look out the window.

The bus was passing through North Beach now and the streets were full of sailors, punks, and

tourists. Around each she could see a faint red aura and heat trails in the air as they moved. She shook

her head to clear her vision, then looked at the people in-side the bus. Yes, each of them had the aura,

some brighter than others. Around the old man in tweeds there was a dark ring as well as the red heat

aura. Jody rubbed her eyes and thought, I must have hit my head. I'm going to need a CAT scan and an

EEG. It's going to cost a fortune. The company will hate it. Maybe I can process my own claim and push

it through. Well, I'm definitely calling in sick for the rest of the week. And there's serious shopping to be

done once I get finished at the hospital and the police station. Serious shopping. Besides, I won't be able

to type for a while anyway.

She looked at her burned hand and thought again that it might have healed a bit. I'm still taking

the week off, she thought.

The bus stopped at Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square and groups of tourists in Day-Glo

nylon shorts and Alcatraz sweatshirts boarded, chattering in French and German while tracing lines on

street maps of the City. Jody could smell sweat and soap, the sea, boiled crab, chocolate and liquor,

fried fish, onions, sourdough bread, hamburgers and car exhaust coming off the tourists. As hungry as she

was, the odor of food nauseated her.

Feel free to shower during your visit to San Francisco, she thought.

The bus headed up Van Ness and Jody got up and pushed through the tourists to the exit door.

A few blocks later the bus stopped at Chestnut Street and she looked over her shoulder be-fore getting

off. The woman in the Mickey Mouse ears was star-ing peacefully out the window. "Wow," Jody said.

"Look at all those parking spaces."

As she stepped off the bus, Jody could hear the woman shout-ing, "Parking space! Parking

space!" Jody smiled. Now why did I do that?

Chapter 3

Oh Liquid Love

Snapshots at midnight: an obese woman with a stun gun curbing a poodle, an older gay couple

power-walking in designer sweats, a college girl pedaling a mountain bike -- trailing tresses of perm-fried

hair and a blur of red heat; televisions buzzing inside hotels and homes, sounds of water heaters and

washing machines, wind rattling sycamore leaves and whistling through fir trees, a rat leaving his nest in a

palm tree -- claws skittering down the trunk. Smells: fear sweat from the poodle woman, rose water,

ocean, tree sap, ozone, oil, exhaust, and blood-hot and sweet like sugared iron.

It was only a three-block walk from the bus stop to the four-story building where she shared an

apartment with Kurt, but to Jody it seemed like miles. It wasn't fatigue but fear that length-ened the

distance. She thought she had lost her fear of the City long ago, but here it was again: over-the-shoulder

glances be-tween spun determination to look ahead and keep walking and not break into a run.

She crossed the street onto her block and saw Kurt's Jeep parked in front of the building. She

looked for her Honda, but it was gone. Maybe Kurt had taken it, but why? She'd left him the key as a

courtesy. He wasn't really supposed to use it. She didn't know him that well.

She looked at the building. The lights were on in her apart-ment. She concentrated on the bay

window and could hear the sound of Louis Rukeyser punning his way through a week on Wall Street.

Kurt liked to watch tapes of "Wall Street Week" be-fore he went to bed at night. He said they relaxed

him, but Jody suspected that he got some latent sexual thrill out of listening to balding money managers

talking about moving millions. Oh well, if a rise in the Dow put a pup tent in his jammies, it was okay with

her. The last guy she'd lived with had wanted her to pee on him.

As she started up the steps she caught some movement out of the corner of her eye. Someone

had ducked behind a tree. She could see an elbow and the tip of a shoe behind the tree, even in the

darkness, but something else frightened her. There was no heat aura. Not seeing it now was as disturbing

as seeing it had been a few minutes ago: she'd come to expect it. Whoever was behind the tree was as

cold as the tree itself.

She ran up the steps, pushed the buzzer, and waited forever for Kurt to answer.

"Yes," the intercom crackled.

"Kurt, it's me. I don't have my key. Buzz me in."

The lock buzzed and she was in. She looked back through the glass. The street was empty. The

figure behind the tree was gone.

She ran up the four flights of steps to where Kurt was waiting at their apartment door. He was in

jeans and an Oxford cloth shirt -- an athletic, blond, thirty-year-old could-be model, who wanted, more

than anything, to be a player on Wall Street. He took orders at a discount brokerage for salary and spent

his days at a keyboard wearing a headset and suits he couldn't afford, watching other people's money

pass him by. He was holding his hands behind his back to hide the Velcro wrist wraps he wore at night to

minimize the pain from carpal tunnel syndrome. He wouldn't wear the wraps at work; carpal tunnel was

just too blue-collar. At night he hid his hands like a kid with braces who is afraid to smile.

"Where have you been?" he asked, more angry than con-cerned. Jody wanted smiles and

sympathy, not recrimination. Tears welled in her eyes.

"I was attacked tonight. Someone beat me up and stuffed me under a dumpster." She held her

arms out for a hug. "They burned my hand," she wailed.

Kurt turned his back on her and walked back into the apart-ment. "And where were you last

night? Where were you today? Your office called a dozen times today."

Jody followed him in. "Last night? What are you talking about?"

"They towed your car, you know. I couldn't find the key when the street sweeper came. You're

going to have to pay to get it out of impound."

"Kurt, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm hungry and I'm scared and I need to go to the

hospital. Someone at-tacked me, dammit!"

Kurt pretended to be organizing his videotapes. "If you didn't want a commitment, you shouldn't

have agreed to move in with me. It's not like I don't get opportunities with women every day."

Her mother had told her: Never get involved with a man who's prettier than you are. "Kurt, look

at this." Jody held up her burned hand. "Look!"

Kurt turned slowly and looked at her; the acid in his expres-sion fizzled into horror. "How did

you do that?"

"I don't know, I was knocked out. I think I have a head injury. My vision is. . . Everything looks

weird. Now will you please help me?"

Kurt started walking in a tight circle around the coffee table, shaking his head. "I don't know

what to do. I don't know what to do." He sat on the couch and began rocking.

Jody thought, This is the man who called the fire department when the toilet backed up, and I'm

asking him for help. What was I thinking? Why am I attracted to weak men? What's wrong with me?

Why doesn't my hand hurt? Should I eat something or go to the emergency room?

Kurt said, "This is horrible, I've got to get up early. I have a meeting at five." Now that he was in

the familiar territory of self-interest, he stopped rocking and looked up. "You still haven't told me where

you were last night!"

Near the door where Jody stood there was an antique oak hall tree. On the hall tree there was a

black raku pot where lived a struggling philodendron, home for a colony of spider mites. As Jody

snatched up the pot, she could hear the spider mites shifting in their tiny webs. As she drew back to

throw, she saw Kurt blink, his eyelids moving slowly, like an electric garage door. She saw the pulse in

his neck start to rise with a heartbeat as she let fly. The pot described a beeline across the room, trailing

the plant behind it like a comet tail. Confused spider mites found them-selves airborne. The bottom of the

pot connected with Kurt's forehead, and Jody could see the pot bulge, then collapse in on it-self. Pottery

and potting soil showered the room; the plant folded against Kurt's head and Jody could hear each of the

stems snap-ping. Kurt didn't have time to change expressions. He fell back on the couch, unconscious.

The whole thing had taken a tenth of a second.

Jody moved to the couch and brushed potting soil out of Kurt's hair. There was a

half-moon-shaped dent in his forehead that was filling with blood as she watched. Her stomach lurched

and cramped so violently that she fell to her knees with the pain. She thought, My insides are caving in on

themselves.

She heard Kurt's heart beating and the slow rasp of his breath-ing. At least I haven't killed him.

The smell of blood was thick in her nostrils, suffocatingly sweet. Another cramp doubled her

over. She touched the wound on his forehead, then pulled back, her fingers dripping with blood. I'm not

going to do this. I can't.

She licked her fingers and every muscle in her body sang with the rush. There was an intense

pressure on the roof of her mouth, then a crackling noise inside her head, as if someone were rip-ping out

the roots of her eyeteeth. She ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth and felt needlelike points pushing

through the skin behind her canines: new teeth, growing.

I'm not doing this, she thought, as she climbed on top of Kurt and licked the blood from his

forehead. The new teeth length-ened. A wave of electric pleasure rocketed through her and her mind

went white with exhilaration.

In the back of her mind a small voice shouted "No!" over and over again as she bit into Kurt's

throat and drank. She heard her-self moaning with each beat of Kurt's heart. It was a machine-gun

orgasm, dark chocolate, spring water in the desert, a hallelujah chorus and the cavalry coming to the

rescue all at once. And all the while the little voice screamed no!

Finally she pulled herself away and rolled off onto the floor. She sat with her back to the couch,

arms around her legs, her face pressed against her knees, ticking and twitching with tiny convulsions of

pleasure. A dark warmth moved through her body, tingling as if she had just climbed out of a snowbank

into a hot bath.

Slowly the warmth ran away, replaced by a heart-wrenching sadness -- a feeling of loss so

permanent and profound that she felt numbed by the weight of it.

I know this feeling, she thought. I've felt this before.

She turned and looked at Kurt and felt little relief to see that he was still breathing. There were no

marks on his neck where she had bitten him. The wound on his forehead was clotting and scabbing over.

The smell of blood was still strong but now it re-pulsed her, like the odor of empty wine bottles on a

hangover morning.

She stood and walked to the bathroom, stripping her clothes off as she went. She turned on the

shower, and while it ran worked down the remnants of her panty hose, noticing, without much surprise,

that her burned hand had healed completely. She thought, I've changed. I will never be the same. The

world has shifted. And with that thought the sadness returned. I've felt this before.

She stepped into the shower and let the scalding water run over her, not noting its feel, or sound,

or the color of the heat and steam swirling in the dark bathroom. The first sob wrenched its way up from

her chest, shaking her, opening the grief trail. She slid down the shower wall, sat on the water-warmed

tiles and cried until the water ran cold. And she remembered: another shower in the dark when the world

had changed.

She had been fifteen and not in love, but in love with the ex-citement of touching tongues and the

rough feel of the boy's hand on her breast; in love with the idea of passion and too full of too-sweet wine,

shoplifted by the boy from a 7-Eleven. His name was Steve Rizzoli (which didn't matter, except that she

would always remember it) and he was two years older -- a bit of a bad boy with his hash pipe and

surfer smoothness. On a blan-ket in the Carmel dunes he coaxed her out of her jeans and did it to her.

To her, not with her: she could have been dead, for her in-volvement. It was fast and awkward and

empty except for the pain, which lingered and grew even after she walked home, cried in the shower, and

lay in her room, wet hair spread over the pil-low as she stared at the ceiling and grieved until dawn.

As she stepped out of the shower and began mechanically tow-eling off, she thought, I felt this

before when I grieved for my vir-ginity. What do I grieve for tonight? My humanity? That's it: I'm not

human anymore, and I never will be again.

With that realization, events fell into place. She'd been gone two nights, not one. Her attacker

had shoved her under the dumpster to protect her from the sun, but somehow her hand had been

exposed and burned. She had slept through the day, and when she awoke the next evening, she was no

longer human.

Vampire.

She didn't believe in vampires.

She looked at her feet on the bath mat. Her toes were straight as a baby's, as if they had never

been bent and bunched by wear-ing shoes. The scars on her knees and elbows from childhood

ac-cidents were gone. She looked in the mirror and saw that the tiny lines beside her eyes were gone, as

were her freckles. But her eyes were black, not a millimeter of iris showing. She shuddered, then realized

that she was seeing all of this in total darkness, and flipped on the bathroom light. Her pupils contracted

and her eyes were the same striking green that they had always been. She grabbed a handful of her hair

and inspected the ends. None were split, none broken. She was -- as far as she could allow herself to

believe -- perfect. A newborn at twenty-six.

I am a vampire. She allowed the thought to repeat and settle in her mind as she went to the

bedroom and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.

A vampire. A monster. But I don't feel like a monster.

As she walked back from the bedroom to the bathroom to dry her hair, she spotted Kurt lying

on the couch. He was breathing rhythmically and a healthy aura of heat rose off his body. Jody felt a

twinge of guilt, then pushed it aside.

Fuck him, I never really liked him anyway. Maybe I am a mon-ster.

She turned on the curling iron that she used every morning to straighten her hair, then turned it off

and threw it back on the vanity. Fuck that, too. Fuck curling irons and blow dryers and high heels and

mascara and control-top panty hose. Fuck those human things.

She shook out her hair, grabbed her toothbrush and went back to the bedroom, where she

packed a shoulder bag full of jeans and sweatshirts. She dug through Kurt's jewelry box until she found

the spare keys to her Honda.

The clock radio by the bed read five o'clock in the morning. I don't have much time. I've got to

find a place to stay, fast.

On her way out she paused by the couch and kissed Kurt on the forehead. "You're going to be

late for your meeting," she said to him. He didn't move.

She grabbed the bag of money from the floor and stuffed it into her shoulder bag, then walked

out. Outside, she looked up and down the street, then cursed. The Honda had been towed. She'd have

to get it out of impound. But you could only do that during the day. Shit. It would be light soon. She

thought of what the sun had done to her hand. I've got to find darkness.

She jogged down the street, feeling lighter on her feet than she ever had. At Van Ness she ran

into a motel office and pounded on the bell until a sleepy-eyed clerk appeared behind the bulletproof

window. She paid cash for two nights, then gave the clerk a hun-dred-dollar bill to ensure that she would

not, under any circumstances, be disturbed.

Once in the room she locked the door, then braced a chair against it and got into bed.

Weariness came on her suddenly as first light broke pink over the City. She thought, I've got to

get my car back. I've got to find a safe place to stay. Then I need to find out who did this to me. I have

to know why. Why me? Why the money? Why? And I'm go-ing to need help. I'm going to need

someone who can move around in the day.

When the sun peeked over the horizon in the east, she fell into the sleep of the dead.

Chapter 4

Blooms and the City of Burned Clutches

C. Thomas Flood (Tommy to his friends) was just reaching red-line in a wet dream, when he was

awakened by the scurry and chatter of the five Wongs. Geishas in garters scampered off to dreamland,

unsatisfied, leaving him staring at the slats of the bunk above.

The room was little bigger than a walk-in closet. Bunks were stacked three high on either side of

a narrow aisle where the five Wongs were competing for enough space to pull on their pants. Wong Two

bent over Tommy's bunk, grinned apologetically, and said something in Cantonese.

"No problem," Tommy said. He rolled over on his side, care-ful not to scuff his morning erection

on the wall, and pulled the blankets over his head.

He thought, Privacy is a wonderful thing. Like love, privacy is most manifest in its absence. I

should write a story about that -- and work in lots of geisha girls in garters and red pumps. The

Crowded Tea House of Almond-Eyed Tramps, by C. Thomas Flood. I'll write that today, after I rent

a post-office box and look for a job. Or maybe I should just stay here today and see who's leaving the

flowers. . .

Tommy had found fresh flowers on his bed for four days run-ning and they were beginning to

bother him. It wasn't the flowers themselves that bothered him: gladiolas, red roses, and two mixed

bouquets with big pink ribbons. He sort of liked flowers, in a masculine and totally non-sissy way, of

course. And it didn't bother him that he didn't own a vase, or a table to set it on. He'd just trotted down

the hall to the communal bathroom, removed the lid of the toilet tank, and plopped the flowers in. The

added color provided a pleasant counterpoint to the bathroom's filth -- until rats ate the blossoms. But

that didn't bother him either. What bothered him was that he had been in the City for less than a week

and didn't know anyone. So who had sent the flowers?

The five Wongs let loose with a barrage of bye-byes as they left the room. Wong Five pulled the

door shut behind him.

Tommy thought, I've got to speak to Wong One about the ac-commodations.

Wong One wasn't one of the five Wongs with whom Tommy shared the room. Wong One was

the landlord: older, wiser, and more sophisticated than Wongs Two through Six. Wong One spoke

English, wore a threadbare suit thirty years out of style, and carried a cane with a brass dragon head.

Tommy had met him on Columbus Avenue just after midnight, over the burning corpse of Rosinante,

Tommy's '74 Volvo sedan.

"I killed her," Tommy said, watching black smoke roll out from under the hood.

"Too bad," Wong One said sympathetically, before continuing on his way.

"Excuse me," Tommy called after Wong. Tommy had just ar-rived from Indiana and had never

been to a large city, so he did not recognize that Wong One had already stepped over the ac-cepted

metropolitan limit of involvement with a stranger.

Wong turned and leaned on his dragon-headed cane.

"Excuse me," Tommy repeated, "but I'm new in town -- would you know where I can find a

place to stay around here?"

Wong raised an eyebrow. "You have money?"

"A little."

Wong looked at Tommy, standing there next to his burning car with a suitcase and a typewriter

case. He looked at Tommy's open, hopeful smile, his thin face and mop of dark hair, and the English

word "victim" rose in his mind in twenty-point type -- part of an item on page 3 of The Chronicle:

"Victim Found in Tenderloin, Beaten to Death With Typewriter." Wong sighed heavily. He liked reading

The Chronicle each day, and he didn't want to skip page 3 until the tragedy had passed.

"You come with me," he said.

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

BloodsuckingFiendsALoveStorybyChristopherMooreeVersion4.0/NotesatEOFBackCoverBlurbs"Goofygrotesqueries...wonderful...delicious...bloodyfunny...likeahipandyouthful'AbbottandCostelloMeettheLugosis.'"-SanFranciscoChronicleJodyneveraskedtobecomeavampire.Butwhenshewakesupunderanalleydumpsterwithabadlybur...

展开>> 收起<<

Christopher Moore - Bloodsucking Fiends.pdf

共136页,预览28页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Christopher Moore - Bloodsucking Fiends

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: