HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (42 page)

She blinked. The
sensation was so strange that she thought she might cry. She was not
dead! She was no more dead than a baby just born kicking and
screaming from the womb. She might have been dead, but no more.

She lived!

Her mother grabbed
her around the shoulders and hugged her and kissed her cheeks. Her
father held tight to her hand. Eddie was all over the room, walking
up the wall like a spider, doing flips off the ceiling, whooping like
a crane.

Out of reflex, Dell
sucked in a breath. She knew she didn't need it, not really, though
it would keep her blood fresher longer. That first breath burned like
lava pouring into her Arctic lungs. She coughed and hacked, pushing
herself up on one elbow to lean over the side of the bed, feeling
sick.

If Eddie would stop
laughing and clapping long enough, she'd send him one last thought
communication. But he was celebrating too hard to pay attention to
her. Instead, after a couple of false starts, she said in a hoarse
voice she did not recognize, "Thanks, Ed . . . Eddie, could . .
. couldn't have done it . . . without you."

Dell had now moved
her limbs and gained control once again of her body. She thought she
felt different since her heart had stopped beating and she was now
officially vampire. She felt, for the most part, cold. She could not
keep her teeth from chattering.

Her mother had
wrapped her in a blanket and sat beside her on the bed.

"When will I
warm up, Mom?"

"Honey, the
blood will make you warm."

Dell's father had
gone to the kitchen to retrieve a blood bag for his daughter. The
taking of the blood was the next step in her change, they had told
her. Without it, she would eventually fall back into unconsciousness.

"I'm not sure
I can do it," she said. "I don't think I can . . . drink
blood, Mom."

"It's not
drinking," her mother said. "You'll see, be patient."

Eddie sat in the
chair Mentor had occupied earlier. He seemed happy just to see his
sister talking and moving. Dell noticed he hadn't any advice about
what she faced in the next few minutes.

Dell's father came
into the room, carefully transporting the transparent plastic bag of
human hemoglobin. Each bag cost the Cambians a dear price. They
worked hard to afford the blood and treated it with great respect.
For as long as Dell could remember they had never dropped a bag or
punctured it accidentally. Blood had never been spilled in their
home.

She had always
assumed that her parents and Eddie partook of the blood late in the
night because she rarely saw one of them taking a bag from the
fridge. She had also assumed that they drank it, so it was a mild
surprise to her to learn they did not.

"All right,"
her father said, holding the bag at the height of his chest. "Stand
up, Dell. I'll show you how."

She stood, but
averted her gaze from the blood bag. The bags had always seemed
horrible to her. How could anyone think of touching them? They sat in
a covered white cardboard box on the top shelf of the refrigerator.
The box was always there and always contained at least a few bags,
but more often it was crammed full. She had thought of the blood as
insulin for diabetics. Now it was medicine to keep her family
healthy.

"Look at me,
Dell."

She forced her eyes
to his. "I don't think I can do this, Daddy."

"Baby, you
have to. The thirst hasn't come on you yet, but after this it will,
and it'll be easier for you. But if we don't get this into you soon,
you won't be able to move around and talk to us much longer."

Dell sighed. She
again glanced away from her father and into the corners of the room
as if she could find an alternative there. She had no urge to taste
blood, could not bring herself to imagine it in her mouth or on her
tongue. The very thought made her want to gag. But her father was
waiting, they were all waiting. She looked at her father again and
found her resolve. "Okay, what should I do?"

"You see that
there's a pocket of air here at the top of the bag? That's the area
you're going to pierce. The rest will happen naturally. I'll hold
this for you and help you position it so it will drain. Next time
you'll be able to do it alone."

"But how do I
. . . ?"

"Put your
mouth here," he said, indicating a spot at the top of the blood
bag. "When you do, close your eyes. Don't think of anything.
It'll be all right, trust me."

She approached
closer and eyed the bag. He held it out to her carefully, and she
moved her lips toward it. Don't think about it, she told herself.
They say you must do this, so just screw up your courage and do it.

Her lips came into
contact with the cold plastic. She tasted condensed water drops that
warmed in her mouth. She had her teeth around the top corner of the
bag and dosed her eyes. She'd never be able to do this. She'd never
be able to rip through the thick plastic to get at the dark ruby
liquid inside.

Suddenly her body
spasmed and she felt her father's hand holding onto her shoulder to
keep her in place. She heard, as at a distance, her mother's soothing
voice, but she didn't know what she was saying. She heard Eddie
urging her on, saying what he'd said to get her to concentrate on
moving her toes. "You can do it," he was saying again.
"C'mon, Dell, you can do it."

There was a
sensation of movement behind her top lip, as if hard sticks had been
shoved against her incisors and straight into her gums. It didn't
hurt very much, but she reacted against it, trying to pull away from
contact with the bag. She heard her father's voice command her to.
"Be still, stay."

The strange
sensation grew, and she moved her tongue away from the side of the
bag to feel her top teeth. She felt her incisors, now long and
pointed, like miniature daggers. Her tongue flicked away swiftly and
fear filled her. Fangs! They had grown of their own accord, without
her intervention or thought. How had it happened?

As soon as the
sensation of growth in her mouth ceased, the fear fled, and a deep
feeling of desire overwhelmed her. Her olfactory senses sharpened,
and she could smell the scent of the blood right through the plastic.
Now it was like the scent of delicate perfume.

She was about to
open her eyes and pull back when something inside her forced her
teeth down around the top of the bag, her fangs easily piercing the
plastic. She knew her father was lifting the bag now, tipping the
contents up so that her fangs could get at it.

She had to do
nothing of her own will but obey the strong call spiraling through
her to partake. At this point she knew she could not pull back from
the thing her body yearned for most in all the world. The blood
spilled over her incisors, chilling them, and she could feel the
coldness sweep through tiny openings in her fangs. The blood swept
through hollows and into small veins in the roof of her mouth, moved
rapidly into larger veins at the back of her head, and coursed down
through her neck into her blood system. It moved like cold snakes
entering her body.

She knew it as
life. She sensed how alive the blood was, how new, fresh, and
sustaining. She thought she could feel it mingling with her own
pooled, coagulating dead blood, reviving it. Her brain exploded with
ecstasy, and her body quivered with electric currents of pleasure.
She lost herself in the rush of feeling that came on the heels of the
commingling going on from her head to her feet.

Without warning,
someone placed a hand to her forehead and forced her back. Her mouth
released the bag with a sucking noise that sounded as loud as timber
falling and her eyelids flew open. She felt droplets of blood slide
down from her upper lip and felt her incisors retract of their own
volition, pushing back up into the recesses of her gums with a shriek
of pain that caused her to bring her hands to her face.

She wanted more!
Why were they depriving her?

She wasn't
finished, though she could see the bag was emptied. She needed
another one, and another.

"There,
there," her father said, lowering the empty blood bag to his
side. "Sit down, Dell. Let it work the magic."

Her mother led her
back to the bed and she sat, stunned and mindless except for the
desire for more. It was not blood, but life. She felt no revulsion
toward it now. In fact, she wanted it as much as she'd ever wanted
food or drink since the day she was born.

It was as if tiny
sparks had ignited in her brain and her neurons were firing off
cannons. She felt invincible, able to conquer anyone and anything;
she felt as if she might fly.

"Stay calm,"
her mother said, brushing back the hair at her temple. "This
will pass soon and you'll feel like yourself again."

Oh, God, why hadn't
they told her that becoming one of them would give her this much
strength and vitality? Why hadn't they been happier for her when she
had called to her mother to show her the sores that indicated she was
going to become one of them? How had they kept this gift from her for
so long, kept it all to themselves, leaving her weak and prone to
death or accident in her frail human form?

"It's pretty
cool, huh, Dell?" Eddie asked. He jiggled around on the chair
like a younger child unable to keep still.

"Hush, Eddie,"
her mother said.

"But Mom, it's
immortality. It's a great event. She'll have those feelings over and
over again forever, and we ought to tell her."

She blinked and
gave herself over to the renewal taking place in her body. She'd
never felt so alive, so healthy, so fine and wonderful as this ever
in her life. And all it took was blood, sweet blood, blood with
living cells that brought her to life with such force she knew if she
were ever denied the sensation, she would roar like a lion and take
down armies with her bare hands.

"Oh, Jesus,"
she said softly. "I have to move about. Mom, let me go."

She shook off her
mother's touch and rose from the bed in one swift motion that a
mortal wouldn't have been able to see. She sped to the door of her
room, down the hall and into the kitchen. She felt her parents and
grandparents gathering at her back. She saw Celia bending over at the
sink, washing a cup and saucer, and her scent was strongly human and
female. At the kitchen table sat Carolyn, looking up from a sandwich
in her hands, startled to see her cousin out of bed.

Dell could sense
everything, every movement around her, every thought. There was a fly
behind the curtain at the window, buzzing, seeking exit. The tiled
floor protested mightily as her feet stepped across it. The
compressor on the refrigerator hummed like an aircraft readying for
takeoff. Outside the walls she could hear a dog snuffling along the
sidewalk, birds taking wing or landing a flutter on tree limbs. In
the house next door she sensed their neighbor as she searched for
keys to the car, muttering below her breath at how memory always
failed her.

The world was open
and furious with sound and sensation. Dust motes filled the sunny
windows, twirling like universes. Water sang in the pipes below the
sink. She could even hear the whine of electricity that whipped down
the wire in the walls to the outlets, feeding the appliances. Life!
Life everywhere, in every atom, all of it weaker and without a tenth
of the power she knew she possessed.

She turned around
and stood immobile, eyes wide in surprise at the world she'd been
allowed to enter. "It's marvelous," she whispered. "It's
heaven. Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me fear it so long?"

"You should
come back to bed," Grandma said.

Her mother spoke to
her silently, by thought waves. It's not all heavenly, Dell. We have
to be careful.

Dell could not
believe her, chose not to believe her. She was in love with all
things, living and inanimate. She understood instinctively their
compositions and the life they had once lived, as in the case of wood
and plastic and vinyl, or were living at the moment, such as the
blood and the food in the refrigerator, the animals outside, the
neighbors in the houses surrounding her own. This intimate knowledge
and understanding of the world was like a tremendous power surge and
it made her giddy.

She could fly, she
knew she could. She could walk up the wall to the ceiling, as Eddie
had done. She could crush iron and bend steel and make things move
with just the power of her will. She could … she could do
more, she knew, but wasn't sure yet exactly what. But something
stupendous, something she'd never even imagined yet.