Linger Awhile

13 Istvan Fallok

9 January 2004. When I finally climbed into bed beside Justine after that eventful night I was tired but not sleepy. I lay there for a long time looking at her lying on her back and snoring. She was wearing my pyjamas and looked touchingly vulnerable. Her colour was wonderful although her breath stank. I don’t think she moved all night although I tossed and turned a lot. There wasn’t that much of the night left to get through and eventually a new day arrived although it felt more used than new.

I went out for bagels and I made coffee when I got back. When I went upstairs Justine was sitting up in bed and rocking back and forth with her head in her hands. She looked up all wild-eyed when I came in. ‘Oh, please,’ she moaned, ‘let it all be a horrible dream! But it wasn’t a dream and I can taste the blood in my mouth. Why couldn’t you let me stay dead! What have you done? I’m a Frankenstein monster in cowboy boots.’

‘We have to get you some clothes,’ I said. ‘You can’t wear the same ones day after day and you’re kind of conspicuous in that outfit unless a rodeo comes to town.’

‘How could I do what I did!’ she went on. ‘She clung to me while I sucked the life out of her. Ugh! I’m a monster now and all I have to look forward to is more of the same, hunting night after night and coming home with blood in my mouth. Maybe I won’t do any more hunting and I’ll just die quietly. This is no kind of a life.’ She began to sob.

‘You were feeling pretty good about it last night,’ I said.

She shook herself as if she could get it off her back. ‘That was some kind of vampire binge,’ she said. ‘It was all that blood that I drank so fast, it was the blood talking, not me.’ She managed to eat a toasted bagel and drink some black coffee without throwing up, and then she calmed down and settled into a quiet depression.

I didn’t know how long she could go without a fresh supply of blood and I was dreading the next time she’d need some. Maybe I’d have to go with her to make sure she didn’t completely drain the victim. In the meantime I wasn’t returning phone calls and nothing was happening at Hermes Soundways except vampire work. Oh, to be back in my regular life where I’d get up in the morning looking forward to the day’s technical problems!