A Family of Vampires

Sit back Rocky, you're gonna burn your paws.

Smith.

[contemplative] Have I ever met a vampire?

Well, darling, I wish I could say no.

[unmoved] In fact, I met a family of them.

No, not in Transylvania. New York.

Your grandmother and I had been to the theater. I don’t remember what we saw.

Yes, I remember the vampires. That doesn’t make them better than the play.

[aside] Another dispatch from Scott Evers. Read for you by Geezer III.

Now listen, Smith. Are you old enough for the truth? Because the truth can be difficult to take. Reality is not the same for everyone.

Yes, I know how old you are. I’m asking whether it’s old enough.

We were walking back to the hotel when they came across the street.

Mother, father, son and daughter. Tall people. Long dark hair. Black clothes with a Gothic flare, though the children had modernized it some.

The sky over Manhattan was gray. Not gray exactly. That color a city sky becomes when all the light below has nowhere else to go.

They crossed beneath it in a row.

Slowly.

Their faces were pale, but not sickly. Porcelain. Almost luminous.

The daughter reached the curb and seemed to forget about gravity. Just for a moment. Your grandmother caught her by the arm.

She hadn’t eaten.

That’s what the mother said.

No, I didn’t think anything of it then.

The father introduced them. I’ve forgotten the first names, but the family was Roșu.

Yes, Winston is right. It means red in Romanian.

Very subtle people.

Mrs. Roșu thanked Lisa. They lived in the building just there. Would we come up for a drink?

Your grandmother looked at me.

I was not really in the mood for vampires.

Your grandmother was.

She liked unusual people. She believed unusual people were generally waiting for someone to ask the right question.

The apartment was dark, of course, but expensive dark. Maroon paper over the windows. Blue walls. Brown velvet. Most of the lights were attached to the walls, which I had only seen in movies.

And there were ordinary things. A radiator knocking. Chinese cartons on an antique table. One of the daughter’s shoes beneath the sofa.

That shoe reassured me.

The Roșus sat very close together. They touched one another constantly. A hand at a wrist. Fingers through someone’s hair. The children were exceedingly alert.

At the time I thought cocaine. Cocaine was popular then.

Retrospectively, I don’t think they were on cocaine.

I think they were on blood.

Yes, you may use that in your report.

The parents spoke slowly. Carefully. As though English were not their first language, although their English was better than mine.

Mrs. Roșu poured wine for Lisa and me. The family drank something else from small glasses too dark to see through.

No, I did not ask.

You would have asked because you have not yet developed a proper fear of answers.

The mother spoke quietly to your grandmother. The daughter watched them.

They seemed to need help. All four of them. There was a terrible longing in that room.

I know now they did not need help.

They needed something.

That’s different.

When we stood to leave, Mr. Roșu said we had been drinking. The streets weren’t safe. They had a room for us.

He was right about the drinking.

He was so gracious about it that refusing began to feel rude.

Then the boy appeared without his shirt. He had a tattoo covering his back.

No, I’m not describing it tonight.

Not because it was obscene. Because I would like to sleep eventually.

So we stayed.

Sometime before dawn I woke because the apartment had gone completely quiet. Even the radiator had stopped. For a moment I didn’t know where I was and opened the wrong door looking for the bathroom.

There were four long boxes with their lids standing open.

Coffins, Smith.

Black wood. Dark red lining. One for each of them.

Empty.

I imagined the Roșus lying inside with their hands folded over their chests.

Asleep, I presumed.

Until the daughter opened her eyes.

[laughs]

No, no. I injected that. The boxes were empty.

I went back for your grandmother.

She was already awake.

Already dressed.

But she felt faint. Thought she had drunk too much.

We left without saying goodbye.

No. Never saw their teeth.

No puncture wounds.

No, they did not drink our blood.

That is the strange part.

Don’t you think?

If blood was what they wanted, they had all night.

So what did they want?

Well.

What does a vampire want?