The Vampire Tapestry

  All that was taking Mark’s mind off what mattered now: the possibilities of Reese’s Great Sabbat on May Eve.

  His thoughts veered away in a panic. What was he supposed to do, go to the police station and bring the cops back to Roger’s? That might stop Reese, but it would get Roger into a lot of trouble, and Dr. Weyland too, once people knew what he was. Or should he stay around in case Dr. Weyland was right about a kid’s presence being a restraint? Suppose being there didn’t help? How was Mark supposed to stand it, watching Reese do . . . whatever he was going to do? Or should he let the vampire loose on the city to save him from Alan Reese?

  Mark was only a kid, how could he take it on himself to do those things? He told himself that none of this craziness was his own fault. Remember what the school psychologist had said about the divorce: “Not everything is about you; grown-up people are responsible for their own lives.” And Dr. Stimme had said, “You are not in charge of things that you have no power to change. Though sometimes you can be a good influence . . .”

  Mark turned and trudged back toward Roger’s.

  Roger was away all day and for several evenings, saying that he had to consult with some people about maybe opening a new store on the East Side, or complaining that with May Eve coming up he had to be at Reese’s beck and call all the time over the details. Mark thought Roger was just not comfortable around the apartment these days.

  So it was Mark, not Roger, who watched the vampire starve. Dr. Weyland spent his days huddled over, hugging his hunger, each breath a shaking, exhausted hiss of pain. It was Mark, not Roger, who came home Tuesday to find the water pitcher knocked over. He couldn’t tell whether Dr. Weyland had drunk first and dropped the pitcher afterward, or dropped it first and had to lap up the spilled water like a dog. After Tuesday, Mark laid out a row of filled plastic cups each morning so that the weakened vampire wouldn’t have to lift and pour from the heavy pitcher.

  It’s an act, he told himself. He fakes being so hungry just to get to me.

  But he didn’t believe it. The vampire seemed curled around his suffering, holding it private to himself—as private as anything could be, when anyone might come and look through the bars into his tiny cell.

  * * *

  On Wednesday evening Mark went to the ball game with his father. He longed for a shared pleasure that would bring him close enough to his dad to—maybe—share the nightmare that waited back at Roger’s.

  The sharing didn’t happen. He wasn’t allowed to like the game itself for the speed and grace of the players, the wonderful way they leaped up with everything they had. What his father savored was the violence.

  He shouted and sweated, and he pounded Mark’s shoulder to drive home to him every ecstatic moment of impact. Mark felt those heavy hands trying to pummel him into some kind of fellowship of force. It was Dad’s idea of closeness to a teenage son.

  Dad couldn’t help it; he had hitter’s hands, hands like Alan Reese’s.

  On the way back to Roger’s his father said, “Is there anything you need, Mark? Anything I can do for you? Just say the word.”

  Sure. “Everything’s cool, Dad.”

  Roger was out, as usual now. When Mark let himself in, he found that the vampire had worked free one of the legs of the cot. The length of pale wood lay by the gate, battered and splintered from his efforts to beat open the gate lock with it.

  Dr. Weyland himself sat cramped against the wall, gasping. One of his slippers had been kicked off across the room.

  Mark said, “Drink some water, maybe you’ll feel better.” He got no response.

  An hour later Dr. Weyland had not moved, and Roger was still not back.

  Mark dialed Wesley’s number. Since the blood deliveries had ended, Wesley hadn’t come around.

  “Wesley, please come over. You’ve got to help.” To his horror he heard a catch in his voice and stopped to gulp down a big breath and steady himself. “It’s hurting him really badly, Wesley. Please bring some blood. I’ll pay for it myself. Roger won’t ever know.”

  There was a pause. Then Wesley said, “He’d find out. And I don’t want to get mixed up with Alan Reese. The vampire’s just putting you on, anyhow, trying to soften you up so you’ll spring him. You watch out for him.”

  “I think he’s dying, Wesley.”

  “Look, he’s Roger’s baby, I told you. Go home, walk out of it. Don’t let this thing get to you, Markie. Go on back to your mother’s.”

  “Can you give me Bobbie’s phone number?” Carol Kelly had paid for the Housman paper. Mark thought maybe he could bribe Bobbie to help.

  Bobbie was home. In a sleepy voice she said Alan Reese was mad about her getting Julie into the vampire deal. He’d put a heavy curse on her so that she was sick. Julie? Julie was smart, she’d taken off for California, out of range of Alan’s bad magic. It was too bad about the vampire—if she wasn’t so sick, Bobbie said kindly, she would come over and let him do it, you know; you could really groove on that, it was like some dreamy kind of kiss . . . Had Mark tried talking to Wesley?

  He sat by the phone and gnawed at his nails. Tomorrow night was May Eve. He mixed a batch of sweet lemonade and put it in the cups for the vampire. It was all he could think of to do.

  * * *

  On the morning of the last day Mark was too nervous to eat his cereal. He stared at Roger across the kitchen table, hoping he would see some kind of good sign in Roger’s face, some promise that tonight things would go all right. Maybe Dr. Weyland was wrong about Roger.

  “You’ll be late for school,” Roger said, poking at the runny yellow of his breakfast egg with his fork.

  “I don’t want to go today.”

  Roger smiled brilliantly. “Big night tonight, right? Okay, don’t worry, I’ll see that you’re all squared away with the school for today.”

  “I think he’s dying, Roger,” Mark said. “I’m scared he’ll die if we don’t feed him something.”

  “What, feed him and ruin all his conditioning?” Roger got up, dabbing at his chin with his napkin. “Forget it, Markie. Reese said absolutely do not feed the animal, and we’re going along with his arrangements. He has the whole thing under control. The man may be an egomaniac, but he does see that things get done right, and this is a show that has to be done right.

  “Did I tell you? Alan’s invited some hotshots from out of town for tonight. He’s so pleased with himself over it that he’s picking them up himself at the airport. Then he wants to make the preparations with everybody at his place. I’ll be coming back ahead of the others to set up some things he hasn’t even told me yet. The performance isn’t really due to begin here before nine o’clock. So find yourself something to keep you busy till after dinner, and leave the vampire show to Reese.”

  Roger himself spent the morning padding about the apartment in his bathrobe neatening up, in a state of jittery cheerfulness that Mark couldn’t bear. Near noon there were phone calls from two of the shops and Roger had to go out.

  The apartment was no more tolerable with Roger gone than it had been before. It seemed to be empty of all but Dr. Weyland’s merciless appetite and the almost palpable agony of Dr. Weyland’s fear. Overhearing the breakfast conversation as he overheard everything, Dr. Weyland would know the schedule now, which must make the waiting more terrible, the hunger more keen.

  Mark couldn’t go down the hall. He felt like an intruder in the apartment. He walked slowly to the public library and sat staring into space a long time, a book uselessly open on the table in front of him. He wandered in the park. Around midafternoon he returned to Roger’s.

  Dr. Weyland did not seem to have moved at all since morning. He lay silent as death on the collapsed cot, his long body bent in sharp angles like a snapped stick, knees and forehead pressed to the wall.

  Mark sat down wearily in his own bedroom, trying not to think ahead to the night.

  A sound woke him in his chair, a horn blaring outside. Even without looking at his watch he could tell that
hours had passed. The light had changed, dusk was coming on.

  Dr. Weyland had moved at last. He sat huddled in a corner of his room, knees raised, head down and buried in his folded arms. Mark could see a tremor in his shoulders and in the taut line of his neck. His left sleeve was torn, pulled back to hang from the thin bicep, above the crook of the elbow where he had his face pressed, where his mouth was tight against the tender inside of the arm with the raised blue veins—from which he was sucking—drinking—

  “Don’t, don’t do that!” the boy shrilled. Into his mind flashed the image of a trapped coyote in the museum film, chewing off its own foot to escape the steel jaws and death by thirst. He saw the mangled limb, clotted blood and bone—

  He flew down the hallway for the key, rushed back, fumbled it into the lock with sweaty, shaking fingers. He lunged at Weyland, weeping, and with frantic strength beat his arms down.

  There was a dew of blood on Weyland’s lips, a red smear on one seamed cheek. His eyes were blank slits in dark sockets. Mark swallowed nausea and, kneeling, pressed his own arm against the bloody mouth. Warm breath flared onto his shrinking skin.

  All in one motion, like being hurled down by an ocean tide, he was seized and pinned breathless to the floor. There came a faint sting and a surging sensation in his arm, and then a growing lightness in all his limbs.

  Eyes tight shut, he cried, “Don’t kill me, please don’t kill me, oh please don’t, please!” He was borne under, his head full of the wet sound of the vampire swallowing. On a rush of terror he screamed, “Oh, Mom, help!” and beat wildly at Weyland with his free hand. Dark spots spattered his vision.

  * * *

  Silence. With great effort he opened his eyes. He lay alone on the floor of the cell. The gate was open.

  After a long, blank time he noticed sounds of locks clicking. Roger called him. He could find no strength to answer. Roger started down the hall, still calling. Then his voice ceased uncertainly, his footsteps paused, retreated, returned more softly. Turning his head, Mark could see Roger hovering outside the gate, carrying the length of lead pipe in his hand.

  “Look out,” Mark said. Only no sound came out of him.

  “Mark?” Roger whispered. “Oh, my God—”

  A shadow glided from the doorway of Mark’s bedroom and a hand reached out and closed on Roger’s throat. The lead pipe thumped to the floor. As Roger folded the vampire caught him, swayed, slid down against the wall, holding him.

  Mark struggled to sit up.

  In the hallway Weyland sat cross-legged. He had pulled Roger’s upper body into his lap and wrapped his lean arms around Roger so that Roger’s arms were caught to his sides. The striped blue shirt that Roger wore was torn open down the front. Roger’s head hung back nearly to the floor.

  Weyland leaned deeply over him, chest to chest, mouth pressed up under Roger’s jaw, lips fastened to Roger’s throat. He was drinking not in some blissful dream but fiercely, ravenously, breathing in long, grateful gasps between swallows.

  Roger’s eyelids fluttered. Roger emitted one faint cry and turned his head painfully, flinching from the vampire’s grip. The heels of Roger’s shoes scratched feebly at the floor.

  Weyland pressed closer, working his jaw to shift and improve his hold, and he drank and drank. Now Roger’s legs sagged limp as ropes. Paralyzed with weakness and horror, Mark kept thinking, This is Roger this is happening to, my Uncle Roger, this is Roger.

  At last the vampire raised his head and met Mark’s gaze. In Weyland’s haggard face the eyes glittered keen as stars. He got up abruptly, dumping Roger out of his lap like a brightly wrapped parcel from which the gift has been removed.

  “You killed him,” Mark moaned.

  “Not yet.” Weyland had the lead pipe in his hands. As Mark lurched to all fours, trying to rise, he saw Weyland cock the pipe like a golfer prepared to swing.

  “No!” he cried.

  “Why not?” The vampire paused, looking at Mark.

  Seconds seemed to spin out endlessly. Weyland had not moved. Now he straightened and said, “Very well. You’ve bought the right. It was as good as paying money.” He put aside the pipe and stepped over Roger and into the tiny room. His long hands descended and gripped Mark’s shoulders. Mark tried to twist free, panic rising. He had no strength, and the vampire was astonishingly, appallingly strong.

  “Please,” Mark wailed.

  “Get up.” The lean fingers dragged him to his feet. “Where does that bedding go? The cot? Put the pillows and the blanket away.” Mark moved sluggishly to obey, feeling dazed and drowned. Weyland set about gathering up the cot and brought it out to be stowed at the back of the hall closet. “Broom and dustpan,” he said. “Shopping bag. Paper towels.”

  They cleaned up. In the cramped bathroom every surface was wiped down. Toilet articles, used paper towels and Weyland’s dirty laundry went into the shopping bag. Weyland swept. He carried out the dustpan, stepping over Roger’s inert form as if over a log of wood.

  Stumbling in his wake, Mark stopped there, staring at Roger, who lay sprawled face-down on the floor.

  Weyland said, “No need to worry about your excitable uncle. He’ll live.” He pulled the gate shut behind him, and the lock clicked on the empty room.

  Mark trailed after Weyland up the hall and through the dark living room. In the brightness of Roger’s bedroom, the vampire flung open the wall-length closets. Mark sat slumped on the bed while Weyland chose a short-sleeved shirt of cream white polyester. The rest were clearly impossible: Roger’s clothes were sized to a smaller frame.

  Weyland glanced at the bedside clock and said, “Wait.”

  Blearily Mark saw that the hands showed eight o’clock. Weyland had time to freshen up.

  After a while he emerged from the bathroom looking very much the man of his book jacket photograph. Shaven, washed, brushed, the rumpled slacks neatened by one of Roger’s belts, he was imposing enough so that the bedroom slippers on his feet were scarcely noticeable.

  “My things,” he said. “Fetch them.”

  Mark got the paper bag and gave back the knife. Cards, pencils, even paper clips, Dr. Weyland slipped it all into his trouser pockets. “That seems to be everything I came with, minus a few coins.” Then he said, “Roger keeps money in the house.”

  Mark was only distantly sorry for Roger now. He was absorbed in getting his exhausted body to move. He went into the kitchen, opened the oven door, and pulled out the money box.

  Dr. Weyland took all the bills and change without counting. “Put the box back. If there’s anything that you want from your room, go and get it.”

  Mark thought of the plans for Skytown, the shelves of books, the comfortable messiness, all empty of comfort now. He thought of Roger lying in the hall, and he had an impulse to go and help, to do something—but what he could do for Roger was already done. Anything more would be up to somebody else.

  He shook his head.

  “Come, then. Quickly.”

  It was cool outside. Dr. Weyland was slightly unsteady in mounting the steps of the areaway. On the sidewalk he stopped. “God damn it. My eyeglasses.”

  Mark sat on the steps with the shopping bag and waited for him. Trying to run away would be stupid: he could barely walk.

  The long shadow fell across him. “Ah,” Dr. Weyland breathed, head up, tasting the breeze from the west. “The river.”

  They walked toward Riverside Drive. Dr. Weyland’s hand rested firmly on Mark’s shoulder.

  “You were only pretending,” Mark said.

  “Not at all,” snapped Dr. Weyland. “I pretended nothing: no stoicism, no defiance, nothing.” Broodingly he added, “I left the truth of my condition open to you, in hopes of saving my life—but I was sure I had lost, because of that one who died. I was sure. You would budge only so far, and I needed to push you so much further.”

  They started over the damp grass toward the promenade beside the water. River-smell enveloped them.

  “I thought
you were dying,” Mark whispered.

  “I was,” came the low reply.

  “That was real, when you drank—your own—” Mark shuddered.

  “Oh yes, that was real. The great temptation has always been just that. It tasted good; you can’t know how good it was.” The hand on Mark’s shoulder tightened for an instant. “If you hadn’t stopped me . . . I was so hungry . . .”

  They crossed the pavement and stopped at the rail. There was a rustle of rats on the wet rocks below. Dr. Weyland turned to watch a trio of evening joggers patter past.

  He said, “Your young blood restored me. Even so, I could only manage Roger because of his excellent lesson in producing unconsciousness with the pressure of a finger. There’s always something new to learn. Needless to say, I never studied lifesaving.”

  Mark looked across at Jersey, spangles of light above the black, oily water. Tears welled in his eyes, and his breath broke into sobs.

  “Stop snuffling,” Dr. Weyland said irritably. “You’ll attract attention. There’s nothing the matter with you. As Roger correctly deduced, I am not contagious. I did you no serious damage and Roger will recover, thanks to you. You saved his life even before you spoke up for him, just by dulling the edge of my need.”

  All Mark’s control was gone. His whole body shook with the force of his crying.

  The vampire added sharply, “I told you to stop that. You have work to do. You must use your fertile imagination to design a story for your mother, something to explain your sudden return from Roger’s and whatever else may come out of all this. You did Skytown; you can do this.”

  “You’re lying,” Mark blubbered. “You’re just going to throw me in the river anyway, so I can’t tell.”

  There was a brief, considering pause. “No,” said Dr. Weyland at last. “Corpses lead to questions. Besides, killing you would make no difference. Many people know about me now, although without my physical presence the authorities are unlikely to believe any gossip they may hear.