“I love you,” Miriam said. “Love is beyond price.”
That was too much. Sarah could not restrain herself in the face of such overbearance. “You love only yourself! You’re worse than a monster. Much worse!” Her words reverberated in the small room. “You can’t love me or anybody else. You’re incapable of it!”
Miriam’s arms opened and she once again came close. Sarah slapped wildly, connected with Miriam’s cheek. As if shot, Miriam leaped away. On her face was a look of raw fear.
Then control reasserted itself. She stood near the door, nursing her cheek. “You surprised me,” she said. “You have no idea how dangerous it is to do that.”
Nor did Sarah care. All she knew was that before the hunger came over her again she would be dead. And so would Miriam. She swore it to herself and the memory of Tom.
That slap had hurt. Miriam’s cheek was burning. It had been a long time since a human being had successful struck her. Before this, none had done it and lived.
What spirit this woman had. Life with such a person would be fascinating. Sarah would become an equal in every sense of the word. She had all the needed attributes. The next feeding, Miriam would be most careful to make sure all the life was absorbed. Unless she did that Sarah could not obtain enough energy to feel the true wonder of her new life. Sarah must touch the glory.
“The hunger has to be served very carefully, Sarah. You need to learn the technique —”
“Technique! You talk about it like it was a sport or something. You’re barbaric.” She tossed her head, proud, her conviction unassailable. Miriam admired such control, but it was time Sarah broke down and vented her rage. That would make it much easier for them both.
“In some ways it is a sort of a sport.” She tried to make herself sound happy. “And it does indeed have a technique.”
“I don’t want to hear about it!”
“But you must! Don’t you understand that you’re going through the process again? You’ll Sleep and then you’ll feed. There’s no way out, Sarah. It’s going to happen.”
Sarah clapped her hands to her ears as if to deaden the sound of the truth. A low moan started in her throat and rose to a wail of anguish. She grabbed wildly at Miriam, tried to claw her. But Miriam was not to be surprised again. She took Sarah’s wrists in one hand and forced her head back by grasping her hair with the other.
Sarah’s eyes were wild, her mouth flecked with foam. Her wail broke to a hoarse growling. Lunging and twisting, she tried again and again to reach Miriam. Miriam kept her arms extended, bearing Sarah’s weight easily, letting the rage spend itself. In every silence Miriam spoke softly. “I love you,” she said each time, “I love you.”
Finally Sarah hung limp in her arms, sobs trembling through her body, her head bowed. Slowly, carefully, Miriam drew her close. “Sleep,” she said, stroking the brown curls. “Sleep and all will be well.”
She carried Sarah across the hall to a little-used bedroom. The door was stout enough to contain Sarah when she awoke, and the window was barred.
Sarah had not realized that she was losing consciousness until she felt Miriam pick her up. She tried to pull away, but experienced a wave of dizzy stupor. Dimly she was aware of Miriam’s soothing words. Although her heart rebelled, her body accepted Miriam’s embrace.
She tried to keep her eyes open, was only dimly aware of being placed in a clean bed.
She plunged into a new reality. It was worse than the worst nightmare, more realistic than the most perfect dream. Tom was sitting on the foot of the bed. His expression was rigid with anger. With a jerk of his head he turned and stared into Sarah’s face. “YOU KILLED ME! KILLED ME! KILLED ME!” His voice scratched high and desperate notes.
Then he looked at her with such sadness she wanted there and then to be dead. “I forgive,” he said.
Suddenly it was high summer. They were in Vermont together. It was last summer’s vacation again. Sarah was lying in the grass. So happy. She knew that this remembrance was a gift from Tom. So very happy.
When she opened her eyes she saw into the sparkling leaves of the tree they were sitting under. A breeze rustled the grass beside her ear. There was a sudden pop and a froth of champagne splashed her. She sat up laughing. “You did that on purpose.”
“Of course. Lunch is served.”
They ate, enjoying themselves enormously. Sarah watched the day soften and fade along the distant range of the Green Mountains. Soon they made love and lay naked in the rich air of summer.
They witnessed the westward march of the sun, the appearance of the first stars, and cuddled close in the night wind.
“YOU KILLED ME!”
She ran. The summer hill became dark and cold, the grass congealed into stones.
His voice echoed and re-echoed behind her, lost and far away.
Miriam watched Sarah Sleep, evaluating her state. She felt the pulse, then opened one eye and looked long at the pupil. As a last test she ran her fingertips carefully along the skin of Sarah’s cheek. The Sleep was true.
Sarah was transformed.
“Welcome,” Miriam said, “welcome home.”
When awareness returned everything was changed. Sarah sat up. She was in a bed in a dark room. The day had become night in the time she had been asleep. Beyond the window she could see a crescent moon gleaming over the East River.
She wasn’t alone.
Miriam stood at the foot of the bed, a shimmering being. Sarah could not take her eyes off that strange, radiant figure. Miriam was exceedingly beautiful without her disguise. The moonlight made her skin seem white, made her eyes gleam golden. For an instant they shone like an animal’s eyes, then she turned her head.
“You’ve Slept eight hours,” Miriam said. Her voice was song.
Something moved in Sarah’s stomach. She must have gasped because Miriam smiled. A tickling sensation in her throat made Sarah momentarily nauseous. Then her whole body began to tingle.
Hunger slammed into her with a force that made her cry aloud. The fiery pain of it caused her to jump from the bed. She had to have help! Unbalanced by the suddenness of it, she bellowed need, clawed air. Miriam stepped deftly away from her, was at the door in an instant.
The lock clicked with a heavy sound of steel and Sarah was alone. She rushed at the door, grabbed the knob, and shook it with all her might. It didn’t even rattle, it was so strong.
Despair washed over her.
Just when she thought she would lose her mind with the need for food the lock clicked again. Miriam entered the room, carrying a limp human form.
Sarah hardly even noticed the sex. Never before had she wanted so much to touch something, to caress moist skin, to possess.
Miriam laid the body out on the bed. “Control yourself,” she said in a clipped tone. “And listen to me. You’ve got a few things to learn before you start.”
Sarah watched a hand slip off the edge of the bed and dangle. She saw the face in the moonlight, grave and pretty, a common-enough young woman’s face. Her lips had an almost humorous cast to them.
Sarah could imagine this girl dancing.
“She’s been stunned and she’ll come to in a couple of minutes. You’ve got to be ready for her.” Miriam spoke matter-of-factly about inserting the scalpel and popping the vein, opening one’s mouth over the wound, letting one’s body absorb all the life. “All of it,” she said. “That way you’ll need to feed only once a week at most.”
Miriam’s every word was a harmony, her every gesture purest grace. What a beautiful form evil had assumed. Standing there, frantic with hunger, Sarah did not think there could be hatred greater than the hatred she felt for Miriam. It was a white fire.
The girl moaned, then gasped and coughed herself awake. Her eyes opened, looked with longing at the moon, then turned to the two figures standing over the bed. Miriam stepped back, not wanting, Sarah supposed, to frighten the girl with her undisguised presence.
‘You killed me,’ Tom had said in an
other world.
In this world Sarah was about to kill Miriam. “Give me my scalpel,” Sarah said.
“It’s on the night table.”
So clever. To reach the night table Sarah had to put the bed between herself and Miriam.
She had to get that blade into Miriam, had to feel it deep within her. She imagined herself ramming it home with the heel of her hand.
The scalpel was light between Sarah’s fingers. Such a delicate instrument. The girl made a miserable little sound in her throat, clutched the sheets.
“Don’t move,” Miriam said to her. “Don’t you dare.” Sarah felt Miriam’s eyes on herself. “Straddle her and make sure your knees pin the arms.” The girl groaned miserably when Sarah came onto the bed. Her eyes followed the knife.
Sarah thought only of Miriam. Now she was just a few feet away Sarah raised the scalpel. Miriam leaned forward. “Don’t jab, just slip it in.” The girl began shaking her head. “Hurry up, Sarah!” Miriam snapped. The girl screamed. Her eyes were bulging now, her mouth wide.
With a single motion Sarah slashed out to her right, toward Miriam. She lost her balance on the writhing girl and fell to the floor. The scalpel hadn’t connected. Miriam was now across the room. Sarah’s heart sank. It was hard to understand how she had missed. Miriam was so fast.
The girl jumped up, scrambled from the bed and made for the door. Almost indifferently Miriam slammed her against the wall so hard the whole house shuddered. The girl slid to the floor.
“You have a great deal yet to learn,” Miriam said to Sarah. “Perhaps you ought to starve for a few hours.” She picked up the girl, moving quickly to the door. Sarah was coming toward her, trying for another chance with the scalpel.
Miriam was through the door and had it locked before Sarah had taken three fast steps. Unless Miriam was completely surprised there was no hope.
Sarah hurled the scalpel at the door and snarled the rage that consumed her.
She grabbed at the door handle, yanked angrily, knowing in advance that Miriam’s doors were all of steel.
Her heart weighted with disappointment, Miriam took the victim across the hall and stuffed her into a closet in her own bedroom. The girl’s skull was crushed so there was no need for caution. The coma would last perhaps three hours. Sarah would have to feed before death occurred or the girl would be wasted.
Drawn by her concern for poor Sarah, Miriam went back to the locked door and listened. The sounds within were hideously reminiscent of those made by her own kind in the dungeons of Paris. Sarah’s will was quite extraordinary. There was howlings and screams on the other side of that door, but not a whisper of a plea. Here was one whose will was great enough to do battle with the hunger.
But not forever.
Sarah shrieked out her suffering. Miriam was unkillable! So fast and so strong. If only there was a telephone in this damnable room, even a tape recorder.
She opened drawers, searched the closet. There was nothing except ancient, rotting clothes and a stack of theater programs from the last century.
The room grew stifling. Sarah’s whole body hurt. She felt as if she had a blood infection, which in a sense she had. Her tongue was hard and dry, her eyes watering. Her guts churned and she was momentarily doubled over by the pain.
Her medical background told her that Miriam’s blood, finding no other nutrient, was beginning to feed on its host body. She was literally being eaten alive from within. Her mouth jerked open. A spasm choked her until darting black shadows filled her eyes and the room seemed far, far away.
When the spasm passed she found herself lying on the floor, the weave of the carpet crawling beneath her as if she were lying in a mass of worms.
She managed to get to her feet. Somehow she had to reach Miriam. Her mind screamed at her, ‘last chance, last chance!’
If only she had told Tom earlier. There had been time back in the apartment. Just a few words and he would have known the whole truth.
He would never have come here then, not without help. Perhaps even at that late hour Geoff’s blood wash would still have worked.
Sarah could have saved herself, she saw it clearly.
‘Why not, you fool?’
Even this morning she was still half-convinced she wanted Miriam’s “gift.” She remembered well the thought that had revealed her truth: ‘I could live forever. Actually live forever.’ And she had tried to imagine it. ‘Me. Still alive in a thousand years.’
Or two thousand.
What was death but a disease, she had asked herself. And she had told herself she would break the secret of death from within the shelter of immortality and give the secret to humanity. What a lie that had been!
That was before she killed Tom. Not until her victim was someone she really loved had she come to her sense about the evil of it all.
She longed for hot life in her throat, for the salt of deliverance to fill her belly. The scalpel gleamed in her fingers, waiting.
Astonished, she dropped it. “My God, look at my hand!”
It was a claw, withering before her eyes. “Oh my God!” She darted to the dressing table, stared into the mirror there. By moonlight she saw a sunken thing, eyes black sockets, cheekbones stark in a famished face, teeth prominent behind shrinking lips.
Malnutrition, sped up beyond the wildest nightmare. “MIRIAM! BRING HER! BRING HER!!” She clasped her hands in her hair, threw back her head and screamed. “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!”
The scalpel. The scalpel. She looked wildly across the floor, saw its gleam, pounced on it.
The door clicked.
No.
‘You’ve failed at everything else. But don’t you feed the hunger again.’
She drew the scalpel across her wrist, drew it deep to the bone. Bright red blood poured out. Instantly she was staggered by an overwhelming weakness.
As the door swung open she fell to her side. ‘Tom, I love you.’ Her heart rattled and shook her whole body, then stopped.
Silence.
Miriam was bending close to her. “You can’t die!” she said in a high, frantic voice. “Now that you’ve let out your blood you can’t live either!”
Can’t die? I must die. I am dead!
Miriam was cradling her head in her lap, crying bitter tears. “You’ve gone right to the end of my world,” she said, “and missed all the beauty that comes before.” She stroked Sarah’s head again and again, a sorrowful gesture. “My poor, dear Sarah.” She breathed sharply, as if trying not to cry. “What an evil irony.”
Sarah became aware that Miriam had picked her up. With slow steps Miriam was carrying her up a stairway, to an attic.
Miriam took her to a tiny room, one wall of which was stacked with chests of various ages. Sarah writhed when she realized that she was being put in a similar chest that lay open in the center of the room. Her mind rang with pleas but she found she could not speak. The top of the chest came down and a heavy latch was closed.
Sarah was in total darkness.
“It was futile, my darling. You were too much changed for mortal death, and now you’ve got eternal death. Sarah, you missed it all! It’s so beautiful and you missed it all. You poor woman. I’ll make you the same promise I’ve made all the others. I will keep you with me for all time. I will never abandon you, and you will always have a place in my heart.”
‘God help me.’
Even the hunger was still here, tormenting her. The least movement resulted in minutes of weakness.
Time began to pass, but in a different way than it had in life. She knew only that it was passing, not how much was gone.
Little rustlings and sighs filled the air around her, coming from the other chests. So Miriam had done this before. The thought of what must be in the other chests terrified Sarah. How many were there?
Some of them must be hundreds of years old. Some thousands.
Thousands of years like this.
No. Impossible.
She pushed as hard as she could a
t the top of the chest. She clawed at its sides. ‘I have to get out. I’m so hungry.’
The chest was unyielding.
She remembered what she had done to Tom and what she would do if she did get out. She was glad she was here. At least she could count herself a human being still. No matter what she must suffer, this was better than being Miriam’s thing.
So much had been at stake. She found she could look within herself and even in this hell find riches of peace and love she had never known were there. She was full of grand memories, and she possessed a great love as well. Tom was with her in spirit. No matter how long she must remain here, she came to realize that in the end there was going to be a place even for her, where Tom had already gone, on the far side of the river of life, where the lost of this world are found.
EPILOGUE
MIRIAM ABANDONED NEW YORK. She dared not remain in her house or in her old identity. The disappearance of the two doctors would be investigated.
She wept for Sarah. The poor woman had not known the pleasure of her new estate, only the pain. Before this experience Miriam had never imagined the heights that could be reached by a human being who was groping toward the truth of love.
She went often to Sarah. The boxes were kept in the coal cellar in her new house, and she would speak softly to her lost friend in the cool and dark.
Such a person would have been a grand companion, more than worthy. But Miriam now realized that the gift she could confer was not above one such as Sarah, but beneath her.
“I miss you,” she said into the darkness. It was the hour after evening and the shadows were deep in her new living room. A fog was rising out on the bay, and she heard the buoys sounding. She enjoyed the beauty and the safety of the fog in San Francisco.
“Did you say something, my dear?”
Miriam smiled up at her new companion, who had appeared with glasses of Madeira for the two of them. “Only that I love you. I’ve never loved anyone but you.”