Dead to Them

            The front door banged shut and Justin started awake on the couch he’d moved to in the living room. He looked over the open book folded across his chest to see Elliot glide in. He wasn’t exactly walking, more just going through the motions as his body took him places. He heard the boy set his grocery bags down in the kitchen, and then he came back out. Justin rubbed the sleep from his eyes and sat up. Elliot stood for a time in the doorway before deciding to move into the room.

            ‘I came back.’ He said eventually.

            ‘Uh, yeah.’ Justin coughed and then said again, ‘Yeah.’

            Neither spoke for a time, and Elliot didn’t venture forward, but Justin could see him struggling with something inside. Finally, Elliot spoke again, though he didn’t look at him.

            ‘That night at the club… That was where it all started, wasn’t it?’

            Justin nodded slowly, not sure where this was leading.

            ‘But you…’ Elliot started, but trailed off, his eyes looking blankly past him. His forehead creased and he started over. ‘But you didn’t—’

            ‘I’m sorry. I tried to stop him. I did. But I got there too late…’

            Elliot’s eyes drifted across to him for the first time. ‘So you weren’t the one who… who infected me?’

            Justin look slightly surprised as his choice of words. ‘No! I heard him coming after you and I tried to stop him, but when I got there he’d already—’

            Elliot was beside him in a flash, sliding across the sofa. His hands found Justin’s cheeks and pulled him into a kiss that seemed to take them both by surprise. Their lips broke apart and they stared at each other for a long while.

            ‘Thank you for trying to save me.’ Elliot finally said. His stomach chose that moment to remember its hunger and rumble noisily. ‘Excuse me.’

            Justin followed him into the kitchen where Elliot set about preparing himself a meal while he leaned on the counter top, out of the way. ‘So you’re really hungry?’ he asked after a while.

            ‘Well I haven’t eaten since those beans and toast the other day—’ he looked at the other occupant of the kitchen while he filled a pan with water. ‘Shouldn’t I be?’

            Justin shrugged. ‘It’s just… well. Usually once you’re bitten you don’t need to eat. Just drink…’ he trailed off, not needing to finish. They both knew what he was talking about.

            ‘Is there something wrong with me then?’

            ‘I don’t know. I’ve… You’re… It’s just… weird. We’ll see if you can hold it down. When we eat or drink, we end up having to get it out of our bodies. Duat doesn’t need it, so it rejects it.’

            Elliot found himself wishing he hadn’t kissed him. Things felt awkward now. Neither of them had really acknowledged it, or said anything about what it meant, or where it was going. He wasn’t sure. Maybe Justin wasn’t either. But now, how to act? If it were any other guy in a club, he’d flirt with him constantly, dance provocatively et cetera. But that felt too crass outside of a club setting. Too false and absurd. He felt Justin’s eyes on his back, but every time he turned to look, the other man had glanced away and their eyes never met.

            ‘So how long have you been a… uh... a Vampire?’

            ‘Twenty years.’

            Elliot almost dropped the pan and Justin laughed.

            ‘You seem surprised.’

            ‘I am. I guess. You look…’

            ‘Young?’ Justin finished for him. ‘Byron’s at least two or three hundred. Pre-Civil War anyway.’

            ‘Oh.’ He didn’t really know what else to say as he threw handfuls of pasta into the water that had already begun to boil. He moved to where he could keep an eye on the water, but not be too close to the stove and settled back against the counter, facing Justin. He folded his arms across his chest. ‘So. What’s with all the tattoos?’

            ‘What these?’ He cast out his arms, turning them this way and that. They rippled and shifted like streams of water. ‘They’re my beruf.’ At the blank look on Elliot’s face, he tried to explain further. ‘My ability, my power. Every vampire has one. It’s linked to your DNA.’

            ‘So what’s mine?’

            ‘Dunno. They don’t usually display themselves until it really takes hold.’ He pursed his lips. ‘Which seems to be taking unusually long in your case.’

            ‘What do you mean?’

            ‘Well you were bitten almost a month ago. Usually it’s taken hold by the next day, and then you see traits start to develop within a week.’

            Great. ‘So I’m a freak?’

            ‘Kind of.’

            Ouch.

            ‘At the club, there was a girl with you. She had tattoos as well.’

            Justin nodded. ‘That’s Alyssa. My sister. Well, twin really.’

            ‘So that’s why she has them too.’

            ‘Yeah. The virus found the same thing in our DNA and latched on.’ He nodded at the stove. ‘Your pasta’s done.’

            They sat for a while in silence, looking at each other, and then glancing away, as Elliot wolfed his dinner. When he’d finished, they moved to the living room. They sat side by side on the sofa, but not touching, hands on their laps, staring around the room. Finally, Elliot could bear it no longer and grabbed for the TV remote, switching it on. The wide-screen blazed to brilliant life, throwing shadows around the room and displaying the latest news.

            A woman was reporting from London, where apparently the British National History Museum had been broken into. ‘…Police and curators are working together to determine whether anything was stolen. It’s as yet unclear as to how the thief got inside the building, and how they were able to move around for so long with out being detected. Security was only alerted when the weight sensors on this Sarcophagus,’ she gestured to the massive stone coffin behind her, ‘were set off. You can see here,’ she said again, moving this time around the side as the camera followed her, to the foot of the sarcophagi, ‘part of the artifact has been broken cleanly away. Though the damage looks serious, I’m told that curators should be able to restore the piece relatively easily. However, the entire museum will need to be catalogued before they can be sure nothing has been taken.’

            She sent the audience back to the news centre where a man with a too-big mouth took over. ‘In local news, police are investigating the disappearance of a student from his apartment in down-town L.A.’ A picture moved onto the screen from the lower left, showing Elliot’s house from the front.

            Justin flew out of his seat in seconds and ran up the hall. He took the stairs four at a time and crashed into Byron’s door. He didn’t wait for him to answer it, just burst inside. Byron say bolt up from his bed and looked at him expectantly. ‘You should come see this.’ Was all he could manage to gasp out, before they were both running back down to the living room.

            When they entered, the report was just concluding.

‘Today Police released a name, Elliot Harper, as they asked for anyone with information concerning his whereabouts to come forwards. Though there were no signs of breaking and entering, the young man, recently turned twenty-one, has been missing for several days, and officials do suspect foul play.’

             Elliot didn’t look at them. His eyes were fixed on the screen as the news-reporter moved on, but he wasn’t absorbing it anymore. Justin finally took the remote and switched it off.

            ‘What do we do?’ He asked.

            Byron rubbed his face. ‘Nothing for now. It’s sunset soon. I’ll go to Cassandra as soon as it’s dark enough. She’ll know what to do.’

            ‘That’s it? We just wait and do nothing?’ Justin was incredulous. ‘He’s been walking around outside all day. Someone will have seen him. And people will recognize him at night now too.’

            ‘They think I’m dead.’ Elliot said softly.

            They both looked at him.

            He looked up at them. ‘My friends. My family. They think I’m dead.’

            ‘You are dead.’ Bryon said, and then realized how cold it sounded. ‘I mean… you have to be dead to them.’

            ‘But he said I could go back.’ This wasn’t right. They were his friends, his family; they needed to know he was ok! ‘He said I could live a normal life there…’

            ‘Who? Who said that?’ Byron was taking this far more seriously than he’d expected. ‘Everyone knows once you’re turned, you can never go back. They’d figure it out sooner or later, what you are. And people cannot know.’ He looked down at the stricken boy on the couch. ‘I’m sorry Elliot, but you can’t go back to them. They have to lose you.’

            ‘But I didn’t even get to say goodbye! You just took me from them—’

            ‘And what would you have said Elliot? ‘Goodbye, I’m going to live a secret life where I can never speak to any of you again, but I’ll live forever as an immortal vampire.’’’ Byron snapped, and then tried to be more soothing. ‘It’s better this way. They’ll grieve for a time, but then they’ll move on. They’ll forget you in time if they think you’re dead. But if they have even a hope that you’re alive, they’ll keep hoping, keep looking. And that can’t happen. And I don’t just mean for your sake or ours. For theirs as well. The government is very clear about this. The General public can never know we exist. They’re willing to kill to keep us a secret. I’ve seen it before.’

            Elliot held his silence, but stood testily and moved to leave the room.

            ‘Where are you going?’ Justin asked, more pleadingly than sternly.

            But Elliot couldn’t help but snap back, ‘To my room. I’m going to go be dead on my own.’

            The other two remained facing one another, listening as Elliot stalked down the hall. Justin winced as they heard a door slam loudly. ‘Should I go try to talk to him?’

            Byron shook his head and sighed. ‘No, Justin. You can’t understand how he’s feeling right now. You and Alyssa never had to deal with it. Just leave him be for a while.’

            Elliot sat on the floor, leaning back against the bed frame with his head on the mattress. Tears were coursing down his face, despite his best efforts to stop them. He hadn’t thought about them since his abduction, but now that he had, he couldn’t stop. He missed them. He wanted to let them know he was safe somehow—but if he did… if they were put in danger because of it… He couldn’t bear the thought. He missed Tanya and his parents. He kicked out at the wardrobe, and part of the door splintered off under the blow. It wasn’t as strong as it looked but…

            His eyes fell on the shard of broken wood that lay on the carpet now. He reached for it, running the splintered edge over his fingertips, feeling the splinters. Maybe there was another way… Maybe he could be dead to them.

            He slashed the sharp wood across his wrist, gasping at how easily his skin parted, and how quickly the blood started to spill out. He held it out in front of him, letting the crimson tide trickle down and pool on the Persian rug. But his skin was already mending, and before he even became light-headed, his wrist had healed perfectly. He slashed again, grimacing and then crying anew, only to see the wound seal over faster this time. His sight blurred with tears and he stopped slashing, instead just stabbing, over and over into his arm. The wood bit viciously, slicing through muscle and veins, but each time it healed over again. The carpet was spattered with blood, but it had hardly been a sufficient amount. He screamed. Everything was out of his hands now. He couldn’t even take his own life. He threw the wood away and curled himself into a ball, rocking back and forth, his teeth digging into his kneecaps to try to stop himself crying. But it was no use. The tears poured on and on until he was hiccupping instead of sobbing. His breathing grew more even with each passing minute, until he sat silently, head lolled back against the bed frame. The house was coming awake now. He could hear people passing in the hall outside. But no one knocked. No one stopped. He’d removed himself from them, and for the time being, they were content to leave him be.