Ellen Datlow: Teeth: Vampire Tales

When I came down, Grandmother was making tea.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Better. You?”

She was looking a little drawn, a little pale, but she waved one hand and said, “Better,” and we smiled.

She was wearing a yellow shirt.

My stomach dropped.

“Grandmother, are you scared of me?”

She looked up and blinked. “Oh, no. You always wear yellow when you’re near jiang-shi. The priests used to ring bells to let us know they were carrying souls with them.” She smiled. “You remind me of home, now. Of those days.”

I thought about her home in some little town in Anhui province I had never seen; how Dad had brought her here. And her dead granddaughter was the best thing that had happened to her, somehow.

“Tell me,” I said.

She beamed. Then she told me about going to the opera there; she told me how to steam stone frog.

Then she kicked my ass at rummy. Twice.

After she had gone to bed, I went upstairs, worrying with every step.

You all right? Jake was sitting on the edge of my bed, not quite looking at me.

“No,” I said.

After a long time, I covered his translucent fingers with mine. He looked down, smiled.

You really suck at rummy, he said.

I pulled a face. “Quit spying!”

I was in the kitchen, he said. You could have seen me. You just didn’t look .

“I was concentrating on not sucking at rummy,” I said.

Yeah, he said, that worked out great.

19. Jiang-shi must seek the earth when the sun is bright. (“It’s just the pain,” said Grandmother. “You won’t burn.” Like that was comforting.)

I went back to school; it was cloudy enough that I could bear the pain, if I tried. No one mentioned that I had the shakes.

My acceptance letter came from Seattle. I sat on the empty benches at lunch and read it twice. Then I stuffed it into my backpack, grinding it into the bottom.

You should go, Jake said from beside me. He sounded more excited than I’d ever heard him. I’ve always wanted to see the West Coast .

“Sure,” I said. “Crawl out of the mud in time for night class and learn things that don’t matter for a life I’m never going to lead. Brilliant plan.”

You just need a couple of fake IDs and some shade, he said. He was the freaking pep squad, suddenly. He grinned at me. You’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. It’ll be an adventure. You can totally handle it .

I turned to face him. “You think I can get through college hoping they don’t notice I only take night classes and wildlife goes missing? What sort of life is that? How can I do that?” I shook my head. “I can’t even live at home for long. But where else can I go? I’m trapped.”

His glasses gleamed in front of the blank sockets. He snorted, his mouth twisting. Wow. I didn’t realize you were such a coward, Suyin. You’re just going to run?

Blood filled my vision.

“Coward?” I turned to face him. “And you knew so much more about how to handle life than I do, before you killed yourself?”

Shut up, he said, so raspy I could hardly hear him.

I couldn’t shut up, though, couldn’t stop. “You couldn’t even take being dead ! You caught a ride with the first person who could come back on her own because you couldn’t hack it in the afterlife, and you’re telling me when I’m being a coward?”

There was a horrible silence. The words settled in between us, and still nothing happened. I was frozen. Behind his almost-there glasses, his eye sockets filled with tears, like a crack in a rock weeps.

Then he was gone, plumes of smoke that disappeared into the afternoon sky.

And that’s how you take care of a lingering spirit, I thought. Annoy it until it goes back to the afterlife just to avoid you. Then you get to be alone, just like you wanted.

Go, me.

20. The school has no outside broadcast system. If you’re not in the building, you don’t know that you’re being paged to the main office, and you’re an hour late getting the news that your grandmother has died.

My parents had left a note with the address of the funeral home.

I went into Grandmother’s room like I didn’t believe it; like she would be there if I just opened the door fast enough.

The room was thick with smells: the bamboo in a vase on the windowsill, the detergent smell of her dresser. The bed smelled like her skin, as much as if she were still in it, sleeping, and I could reach out and wake her up.

The little nightstand next to her bed was a pile of vitamin bottles and eye drops and insulin. It seemed wrong in the room, like weapons, and I opened the top drawer to sweep them in, to leave the room the way she’d meant it.

Inside the top drawer was a needle and a plastic tube and a small glass jar with a narrow neck, like an ink bottle. Everything was clean, but the smell of blood was so powerful, I sank onto the bed.

After the animal blood stopped working, she had found something that would save me. She hadn’t told me I needed human blood; I would have found some other way if I had known. Why hadn’t she told me?

(“Don’t worry,” she’d said. “You’re mine.”)

I wondered, if I tried, if I could bring her back. I could reach into the afterlife, I was sure — if I just brought her out, she could keep me company, she wouldn’t mind, we could get out of here and go anywhere she wanted —

I bent over, sobbed into my hands.

21. You cry blood.

When I had cried myself out, I licked my hands clean and then drank what was left of the blood in the fridge. Now that I knew it was hers, it tasted strange, but it was a gift of love, and I would need strength for what I planned to do.

The glass bottle and stopper went into my backpack, along with necessities and cash from my dad’s desk drawer.

I put on a yellow shirt, left a note for my parents, and hit the road.

22. You can carry a person’s soul in an object of great meaning to them. No matter how far away they died, you can bring them home again, so they aren’t angry or lonely; so they can sleep quietly in the ground.

I shake all the way down the highway, my hands trembling on the wheel, but I don’t turn around. I owe my grandmother a favor. I know how she missed home.

Jake appears just as I’m walking into the airport.

You gonna do that to me, too ?

He’s solid now; if people weren’t walking right through him, I’d think he was real.

His eyes are green.

I tilt my head. “You want me to?”

He shrugs. I’d go back if you sent me, but I thought maybe you want a friend .

“I can do it alone,” I say. It’s important, now, to be able to be lonely and still survive.

He slides his hand through mine.

I know, he says. But I’m with you, if you want .

I wait him out for three seconds before I smile.

23. It’s just as weird as being alive. You figure it out as you go.

Drowning felt like a real possibility. The cold rain came down hard, soaking Saul through each layer of clothing: the faded peacoat he’d stolen from Cotre Ranch, the Red Caps T-shirt he’d bought at their Philly concert, the waffle-weave long sleeve, and the boxers and jeans he’d been wearing for too many days and nights. His socks and sneakers were saturated sponges; every step down the shoulder of the highway made him shiver.

Every time Saul heard a car approach, he would turn back into the force of the wind, letting the rain sting his face. He would squint and, if he didn’t recognize the car from the ranch, he’d raise an arm, thumb out for a ride. And the cars swooshed past, and he’d walk on.