“I’ve never loved another woman like I love Faye,” Bradley said dreamily, and that was when the door swung inward.
And Christian could move after all, move using all the strength given to him by Josh’s blood, a promise of death launched at the throat of their enemy, and he snarled, “Leave my nest alone!”
His survival instinct stopped him with his fangs an inch from her throat, because he caught the scent of chrysanthemum perfume and evil. It was Faye.
It was Faye, as if Bradley had conjured her like a genie by speaking her name, and as she applied her sharp wooden heel to his kneecap in an almost affectionate way, Christian collapsed onto the floor with a sense of overwhelming relief.
It wasn’t an antivampire hate group. It wasn’t a crazed fan who wanted to marry one or all of them. It was just some guy—a rumpled, ordinary-looking guy—who blinked at them as if he didn’t recognize them and managed to drawl out, “I wanted to be on TV.”
When the colonel—because somehow Faye had managed to come to their rescue with the army at her back—asked him why he had left a vampire in a room with three humans and no other sustenance, he said, “Oh,” in a dismayed voice. “I just forgot that one was a vampire. Gee, I’m real glad nothing bad happened.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “If something bad had happened . . . would there be more cameras?”
And there it was, as banal and ridiculous as that, some guy who did not care about them at all but only about the insubstantial and strange notion of fame, which had barged in on Christian like an uninvited and confusing guest, leaving glitter in the air and his eyes half blinded by the snapping glare of those cameras.
A lot of what seemed to be about them was about the fame, really.
Christian had drunk three bags full of blood—and sweeter than the cold, viscous liquid was the crackle of plastic under his fingers, the knowledge this was not a human being—and then they had put him in his coffin.
He could hear them still talking as he lay in the cool, clean silk, rescued, not having hurt a soul.
“How did you get soldiers to turn out, Faye?” asked Bradley, admiring and flirtatious at once.
“The man came from an enemy nation,” Faye told him.
Bradley hesitated. “Canada?”
“They’re a rebellious people. All that ice hockey, it fires the blood. I required soldiers to bring them down.” Faye paused. “Besides, my father is in the army. He’s a general, actually. Do you know, he taught his little girl how to kill a man in twenty-seven different ways with my bare hands?” She paused again, this time possibly in dreamy reminiscence. “But the army wasn’t cutthroat enough for me,” she concluded. “It had to be showbiz. Or being an assassin for hire, of course.”
“Of course,” said Bradley.
“I’m scared, and I want to go back to the kidnapper,” Josh announced, his voice closer to the coffin than Josh usually allowed himself to be.
“And who are you again?” Pez inquired benevolently. There was a rustling noise, and Christian hoped he’d hidden all the actually poisonous stuff where Pez couldn’t find it this time.
“That was a lovely shot of Chris leaping to defend you guys,” Faye told them all. “What did he call you? His nest?”
“I heard ‘best,’” Bradley said. “As in . . . best mates.”
“That’s what I heard too,” said Josh, who turned out to be the worst liar in the world. He giggled nervously as he said it.
“What’s that on your neck, Josh?” Faye asked.
“It was a very, very enthusiastic groupie,” Bradley said with conviction. “Don’t worry, though, Josh didn’t encourage her. She wasn’t his type.”
There was a long silence. Josh giggled again, this time sounding a little hysterical.
“Oh, all right, I’ll let it go,” Faye conceded. “But I’m hiring your next kidnapper myself so I can set the stage properly.”
The tour bus was rocking as they moved toward their next stop, so gently that it was almost like being rocked to sleep in the darkness of his coffin. Oddly enough, Christian thought of the nonsensical rote lines Bradley had spouted about a tour being a journey of discovery. He didn’t mind where the journey was going, he thought, and his eyes slid shut.
Then, directly above his head, there was a rapping of knuckles on wood.
“Knock, knock,” Bradley caroled joyfully.
“Who’s there?” Christian asked.
There was a long enough pause to let Christian know that Bradley was actually startled. Christian had never replied before.
We’ll learn things about each other, about the fans. About ourselves.
“Me,” said Bradley, on a laugh.
“Me who?”
“Meow,” Bradley responded, with great satisfaction. As he proceeded to tell an enormously stupid joke about a cat, Christian let his mind drift away again, into thoughts of vampires who were scary and not safe but who just might manage to be safe enough, enjoying his job, having humans around who he could not stop remembering were people before they were food, humans who might be something like a nest.
Bradley had said the tour meant they would be bonding closer than ever as a band.
It was possible, even though it was a genuinely terrifying thought, that Bradley was a genius.
Bridge
by Jeri Smith-Ready
veryone knows
Elvis died in the bathroom.
Thanks to the internet,
everyone knows
that I did too.
But at least I was wearing pants.
My favorite Quiksilver cargo shorts,
which I’ll wear every moment
that I stay in this world.
No laundry needed,
because ghosts never sweat
or piss or anything.
I’m as dry as the bones
crumbling in my casket.
“Must be nice,”
Aura mumbles into her pillow
when I tell her
I’m going to meet George Clooney.
That’s our code
for “the beach,”
because when lifelong Baltimoreans
say “down to the ocean,”
it sounds like
“Danny Ocean.”
When we were kids,
our gang of friends
pretended we were in Ocean’s Eleven.
My big brother, Mickey, was Clooney
and I was Brad Pitt.
We’d stroll down the Ocean City boardwalk,
not nearly as slick as we imagined.
Our illusion of cool would crumble
whenever Aura or anyone younger
had to dodge the dead.
“Post-Shifters,” they call themselves,
the generation who sees ghosts.
I’d be one
if I’d been born two months later.
I’m glad I wasn’t,
since ghosts can’t see each other,
not even the ghosts of post-Shifters.
It was bad enough to lose the living
without losing the dead too.
“Senior Week trip,”
I remind Aura.
She opens her
espresso-drop eyes.
And though the morning light
washes out my violet glow,
making me invisible,
those eyes find mine.
Aura never looks through me.
She whispers, “Good luck,”
and reaches out her hand.
I cover it with my own,
wishing I could hold it.
I’d pull it to my lips,
against my cheek,
around my waist,
down my back.
Both hands,
squeezing,
sliding,
stroking.
It never ends,
this desire.
Not for me.
But Aura dreams of other hands.
In he
r sleep,
she whispers his name.
I wonder how much is hope
and how much is memory.
I don’t want to know.
Because whether she sighs for the past
or sighs for the future,
she sighs for him.
“It’s sooooo hot.”
My sister, Siobhan, winds her hair
into a purple-streaked black knot,
then cranks up the car’s air-conditioning.
I can’t feel the breeze,
but the rattle and hum of the compressor
sound comfortingly normal
to this paranormal dude.
We’re stuck bumper to bumper on the
Chesapeake Bay Bridge,
just like old times.
In the driver’s seat,
Mickey turns the AC knob back down.
“It spits out hot air
when you put it on max.”
Siobhan scuffs her Skechers
against the Corolla’s frayed blue floor mat.
“When are you getting rid of
this old piece of shit?”
“When I can afford
a new piece of shit.”
She stretches her neck—
a fiddler’s habit,
but she does it when she’s stressed.
Her mouth opens, ready to shout,
“You can afford it!”
But Mickey won’t spend a penny
of what he calls my “blood money.”
The millions our folks won
from the record company,
who sold me a dream
and gave me the bullet
that took my life.
In the backseat beside me,
Siobhan’s boyfriend, Connor,
sleeps,
lips pale and slack.
“We deserved that money,” she tells Mickey,
“for what they put us through.”
“We deserve nothing.”
Mickey’s voice is as flat as the farmland
beyond the bridge.
“We were supposed to take care of him.”
(They won’t say my name.)
“Stop punishing yourself.”
Siobhan sounds too scared
to be mad,
which is saying a lot.
“Please.”
“Spend the money,” Mickey says,
“if it makes you feel better.”
Our sister’s eyes fill with tears,
and I want to kill him.
“I hate you,” she whispers to her twin.
“I hate you too,” her twin whispers back.
I want to wake Connor,
tell him to make peace.
That’s what bass players are for, right?
But he hasn’t been
our bass player
since the night I died
and killed the Keeley Brothers
forever.
As the car creeps,
and Connor sleeps,
and Siobhan weeps,
Mickey . . .
Mickey exists.
Siobhan has to pee.
But the truck stop is new,
so I can’t follow them.
Ghosts can only go in death
to the places they went in life,
like a hamster in a Habitrail.
Mickey puts on his blinker.
“Don’t leave me.”
I lunge forward,
grab for the steering wheel,
hoping
this time I’ll touch something,
this time they’ll hear me.
This time is like all the rest.
The car turns,
and I’m left standing in the highway.
A red Jeep,
the top down,
full of blondes
already sunburned,
drives through me.
I’ll never get used to that.
Screw this traffic.
I can go anywhere in an instant.
I can be Danny Ocean in three . . . two . . .
A seagull shits right through me.
I wander the beach,
the sun blaring my form
into nothingness.
Invisible, I can stare all I want.
A girl with Aura’s dark wavy hair
and bronze skin
sips an iced tea,
then sets the open cup on her belly.
As she swallows,
her throat bobs,
then her tongue peeks through her lips,
gathering the moisture she missed.
Water beads on the cup,
plummets fearlessly,
like a skater on a half-pipe.
When it reaches her skin,
it joins her sweat
and travels on,
over her waist
and under the string of her
candy-striped bikini.
I could write an entire song
about the journey
of that one drop of sweat.
But I turn away.
It feels wrong to watch.
These girls are here to be seen,
but not by someone they can’t see.
So guilt keeps me from lingering.
I may be dead,
but I’m still Catholic.
I head for the boardwalk
to find someone
who can speak my words to Mickey.
I can’t use Aura
or my little brother, Dylan,
or anyone else I care about.
Only a stranger
won’t judge
me
or Mickey
for letting this keep us apart.
Only a stranger
can hold up the wall
we need between us.
Until we’re ready to tear it down.
Occasionally,
sometimes
—okay, usually—
people ignore me.
Post-Shifters pretend they can’t see
the ghosts around them.
It’s cool, I get it.
They have lives that can’t stop
every time a ghost needs help.
(And we all need help.)
They have lives.
But after 233 days of death,
I can tell the difference
between being ignored
and being invisible.
The arcade is full of shadows.
I’m standing in one now,
next to the Skee-Ball court.
But no one sees me.
I step in front of a scrawny guy
who looks fifteen or sixteen
in his oversize D.C. United jersey.
“Dude, help me out. I just need—”
He walks through me,
counting his tickets
out loud to himself.
A girl with blond pigtails
sucking a green lollipop
bends over to slip tokens into a driving game.
Her jean shorts ride up,
giving a glimpse of pink underwear.
I step up next to the game.
“Sorry to interrupt,
but I need a huge favor.”
She plops her teeny ass
into the driver’s seat
without so much as a twitch
at my voice
or my semifamous face.
As she starts to play,
I wave my hand between her and the screen.
She holds the wheel steady,
pressing the accelerator,
sucking the lollipop,
which twists her muttered curses
into drunk-sounding slurs.
I step back.
Survey the crowd.
Try not to panic.
Above us,
a banner stretches the length of the arcade,
The best week ever logo
frames the words
Congratulations, Class of—
“Damn it.”
Senior Week.
No one here is young enough to see me.
I fly through the arcade,
turning somersaults,
flailing my arms like a clown,
hoping someone brought
their little brother
or sister
or niece or nephew
or cousin.
But who would bring a kid to Senior Week?
Parents know better.
They hear the stories.
I am so screwed.
The boardwalk never seemed so loud,
so bright,
so complete
as it does tonight.
I’m here
but not.
They stagger through me,
drunk,
half naked,
high school behind them,
the future ahead.
Do they know how lucky they are?
Some do,
those who’ve lost a friend,
a brother,
a sister,
a boyfriend,
a girlfriend,
or even a secret fuck buddy.
But tonight they want to forget.
Those who aren’t drinking,
and some who are,
take part in Ocean City’s
“Play It Safe” activities—
free fun in the form of
midnight bowling,
rock climbing,
volleyball,
karaoke,
laser tag,
etc.,
etc.,
etc.
Things that won’t get you arrested
or pregnant
or killed.
Three girls walk straight toward me,
platform flip-flops thunking the boardwalk.
The one on the right,
with a dark ponytail and glasses,
suddenly lags behind,
pretends to focus on her
giant tub of Thrasher’s fries.
I pretend too,
stepping aside,
then,
at the last second,
I enter her path.
She swerves.
I point at her. “Ha!
I knew you could see me.”
“Go away.”
The girl keeps walking.
I zoom up to her.
“I know this is weird,
but I need your help.”
She shakes her head,
munches another fry.
“I need you to talk to my brother Mickey.
If it helps, he’s really cute—
like me, only with dark hair and a pulse—
and his girlfriend isn’t with him this week.”
She rolls her eyes, like I’m a total asshole.
(Which I am.)
“I’m scared he might kill himself.”