Pit Stop

The boys rent half of a duplex in an older part of town. Their apartment was dark, not unexpectedly since it was nearly midnight, but I knocked anyway. I heard the slightest movement behind the door, the squeaking of old hardwood. There was a pause in time between the squeak and the voice about the length of a heavy breath. “Patrick’s not home.”

“Dennis, are you OK? Do you know where he is?” I answered through the closed door.

“I… no. I don’t know.”

“Dennis, can I come in?” When he hadn’t opened the door at first, I figured I’d caught him at an inconvenient time and he needed to throw on a bathrobe or something, so I wasn’t surprised when a lengthy moment intervened before the bolt and chain locks disengaged and the door creaked open a small space. But that would not explain why there was no sound of motion in the meantime, nor the fact that he appeared fully clothed and groomed when he came into view.

“I don’t know where he is,” he repeated.

“I understand. I wanted to make sure you’re OK, too.”

“Me? Why? Um, I’m fine,” but his forehead and the muscles around his reddened eyes looked tense.

“If you say so. Mostly I meant alive, and you’re that, at least.” I smiled in that way you do when you’re trying to inspire someone else to reciprocate. “Uh… you are, right?” Of course, the question turned the original statement from a light joke to morbid reality. Fortunately, it went somewhat over his head.

“Huh?”

“Dennis. Did you ever meet Richard?”

His mind was apparently someplace else, since this was plainly not the direction he expected me to go. “I, uh, don’t think so. Museum guy, right?”

“Right. So consider this a public service announcement. He’s become a vampire sometime in the past couple of weeks. And he’s looking for that coral charm Patrick’s been hanging onto. He got mine.”

“Vampire? But how? I thought he was supposed to have a—whaddyacallit—transitive soul? Wouldn’t it be too sticky for that?”

Well, at least the kid could focus. Something was bothering him but apparently he can sublimate with the best of us. “Actually, it’s cuz he’s sticky that he must have transformed completely right away. No grace period. His energy wasn’t gonna deplete in small portions, so it’s probably found a new body already. Whoever he is now, he doesn’t even remember Richard’s past lives.”

“Oh. So he’s a dangerous vampire.”

“Which is why I came by. You think Patrick’s with the other, uh, non-dangerous vampires?”

Dennis looked like he’d rather talk about the dangerous one. “I don’t… I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since….”

Not too hard to follow this train now. “Saturday?”

It was easier for me to say it than to wait for him to try, but as soon as I did, the same tiny muscles that had briefly relaxed were tightening again, between his eyebrows and around his mouth, and his handsome, shy-boy visage was about to become less so. “He was home Saturday night, but then he went back again on Sunday.” As if to defend him, he added, “He’s been texting.”

“Texting what, hon?”

He shrugged and dug out his phone. I scrolled through the saved messages. “‘Miss U.’ ‘Thnkng abt U.’ ‘Out in Aplwd.’ ‘Wnt B home 2nite.’”

I handed it back to him. “You haven’t gone to Trudy’s?”

He shrugged again.

“You don’t want to be, like, stalker boy, huh?”

He lifted his eyebrows and grunted. I think it was a confirmation.

“And you figure if he wanted you there, he’d’ve said so. And you know he’s OK, so…. Hey, can I see that again?” This time I took note: no messages in the past twenty-four hours. “Dennis, sweetie, I gotta go. You wanna come with?”

A look of hopefulness appeared but then he said, “No, I, uh, have a lot of work I should do.”

“Please? I could use your company. Maybe your help, too.” It wasn’t totally untrue, but I suspected it applied to him at least as much as it did to me.