Christopher Golden: The Monster’s Corner: Stories Through Inhuman Eyes

Secondly, I went after him. Maybe. That is what happened, isn’t it? At times he was so sure, but other times — well, it was complicated, wasn’t it? As the more mature of the two of us, he ought to have found it within himself to be wise and dignified and refuse to enter into some kind of fucked-up relationship because the girl wanted to or seemed to want to or whatever it was that was going on. All of that is surely true, and yet I went after him, almost certainly, and he enjoyed it too much to find the will to resist.

Pete certainly had no way of preparing himself for what was coming. It began as nothing more than an awkward social situation that would someday turn into the kind of funny story you tell after a little too much to drink. I disappeared with Neil into his bedroom, where we did whatever it was we did — Pete certainly had no idea what was going on in there, and he didn’t want to humiliate his son by having a peek — until dinner, when we emerged looking neither entirely guilty or innocent. We sat at the table, where we were presented with Roberta’s chicken enchiladas, and Pete tried not to avoid looking at me, because that would be rude, but to avoid looking at me too much, because that would be rude, too. Mainly he kept sneaking glances, trying to remember if I was quite as striking, quite as interesting and pretty and magnetic as he recalled me being when he was looking elsewhere. And I was. You’d better believe it.

Over dinner Pete kept staring longingly at a distant wine rack, but he and Roberta — mostly Roberta — had decided not to model drinking in front of the children. Behind the decision was an unspoken need to set clear, strict, puritanical boundaries. Uncorking a wine might just be the first step to an untamed, drunken bacchanal. Mason’s mere presence in their home that night was an assault upon the fortress of propriety, so cracks in the walls could not be tolerated. Consequently, Pete made do. Roberta, meanwhile, made a valiant and highly laudable effort to make conversation about normal things — which classes Neil and I shared, what subjects I liked best, what kind of after-school activities I enjoyed. I grant her points for her careful navigation away from questions that might have embarrassed Neil, such as which friends we had in common, what it was we liked to do together, or what, precisely, my interest might have been in a boy whose parents had come — really through no fault of their own — to regard him as something of a ghost.

Questions directed at Neil lost momentum and died. There was no inquiry that could not be satisfied with a shrug or nod or shake of the head. Both parents tried, and both failed. When I talked, I found ways to include him that did not involve any actual response from him, and I knew he would be grateful.

Roberta gave up on directing questions at Neil and focused on me. “So tell us, Mason, what kinds of after-school activities do you do?”

I did not give her the kind of withering glance that any self-respecting goth girl would launch at a parent floundering this badly. Instead, I smiled broadly, waving my fork around for emphasis as I told her about my hours logged on the school literary journal. “I,” I assured her, “am a poetess.”

Pete liked the way I talked. He liked the youthful exuberance and brazen self-confidence, all laced with the most subtle hint of self-effacing irony. As dinner went on, Pete regarded me less as a child and more as a person, less as a curious invader and more as an interesting, even welcome, intervention into his musty routine. That was what led Pete to ask more interesting questions, because he believed I could handle it, because he believed the answers would be illuminating. He wasn’t a parent passing judgment on the peculiarities of the younger generation. He wanted to know. “I’m interested in your, I guess, style, Mason.”

“Pete!” Roberta objected.

“I don’t think I’m being rude,” said Pete. “Mason knows that she dresses in a particular way, and she knows it is going to attract attention. It’s not offensive to ask you about it, is it?”

“Of course not.” I smiled at both of them. “If you dress in a way that makes people stare, you should be prepared to discuss it.”

“Is it some sort of a music thing?” Pete asked. “Are you dressing like a singer? Like, I don’t know, Marilyn Manson?”

“Who?” I asked. “Oh, yeah. My mom used to listen to him, I think. I don’t mean that in a bad way. I like oldies, but my look isn’t about music.”

“Is it about Twilight?” asked Pete. “Are you into vampires?”

“I’m not a vampire, Pete,” I said.

“I’d never suggest you were,” he said, feeling a little chastised, and feeling it was deserved. He realized he had veered into the condescending, and wished to correct course. “Of course not.”

“Some people are,” I told him as I picked at a piece of chicken. “Some people like to pretend they are, and some people actually are. But I’m not.”

“We know you’re not, honey,” said Roberta.

“I’m a ghoul,” I said.

This kind of pronouncement can bring a conversation to a halt, but I had confidence I could get things moving again. Neil chewed on obliviously. Roberta looked at Pete, as though begging for some kind of lifeline. Pete grabbed for the goblet of wine he wished were by his placemat.

“Oh,” said Roberta at last. “That’s so interesting.”

Pete sucked in his breath, came to terms with the lack of wine, and chose to valiantly march into the battle. “Is there a difference?” He met my gaze for the first time, holding on to it, and he smiled. I smiled in return, and he knew he was having fun now. He wasn’t teasing me. He wasn’t interested in humiliating me or showing me up. He told himself he was treating me like any guest. In fact, he was flirting with me. “Isn’t ghoul just a kind of generic term, and maybe vampire is, I don’t know, a subset of ghoul? All vampires are ghouls but only some ghouls are vampires. Like squares and rectangles.”

“It’s a common mistake,” I told him, careful to sound amused as well. I was also flirting. “Really, there’s no reason to be embarrassed. But no vampires are ghouls. Different things. Vampires suck the blood of the living. Ghouls survive off the flesh of the dead. And, to a lesser extent, disillusionment.”

“Is this appropriate dinner conversation?” Roberta asked.

“Don’t we all eat the flesh of the dead?’ asked Pete, holding up a piece of chicken on his fork.

Across the table, Neil sawed a piece of enchilada in half with his knife and fork.

I met Pete’s gaze, firm and steady, and showed him my best, full-toothed, red-lipped smile. “Indeed we do. But,” I added, “a ghoul prefers to eat uncooked human flesh.”

“I really don’t think we should be talking about this,” said Roberta, “but what a wonderful imagination you have.”

They made up the guest room for me. “We’re not comfortable with the two of you sharing a room together,” Roberta said. “You understand, don’t you, Neil?”

He shrugged. “I guess. Whatever.”

Pete stared at his son in undisguised disappointment. A charming, sexy, unconventional girl was sleeping over at his house. Surely this was the time to rouse himself from his torpor. Surely this was something worth fighting for, but Neil glanced at his cuticles and jabbed at the carpet with the tip of his sneaker.

They let us stay up playing video games until eleven, and then it was lights out. The guest room had its own bathroom, so I disappeared inside but did not get undressed. I turned out my light, and by midnight the rest of the house was dark. I waited, not certain what Pete would do, but I knew a thing or two about desire and longing, and I’d placed my bets. A little after one in the morning, I saw a light go on in the kitchen. I heard the shuffle of feet, the low murmur of the TV, and the distinctive popping of a cork. Pete decided he would have that wine after all. I waited until I thought he’d have had time for a glass and then went out, still fully dressed, still fully made up, looking fresh, rested, impossibly unrumpled. He was sitting at the kitchen table, wearing a white T-shirt and cotton shorts, watching a black-and-white movie on the TV, with a bottle of wine and a glass in front of him. And he was glad to see me. Maybe even relieved. He didn’t know himself.